Mayor’s Brother Joins Calls for His Resignation, Recall Gains Momentum

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The brother of Windsor Mayor Dominic Foppoli, accused by half a dozen women of sexual assault, has joined the growing chorus of those calling for him to step down from his elected position.

Joe Foppoli told a small crowd of protestors gathered outside the family’s Christopher Creek Winery near Healdsburg that the charges against his brother “disappointed and disgusted” him. The elder Foppoli also said elected officials must be held to a higher standard, which his brother, he said, had failed to meet.

He added that he had asked his brother on Friday to resign from his job as CEO of the winery, and said he had agreed to do so.

At the same time, a burgeoning recall campaign to remove Foppoli from his post as Windsor mayor was heating up. Only announced over the weekend, a spokesman for the Recall Foppoli Campaign said the fledgling organization planned to file paperwork on Monday. With the mayor vowing to fight to retain his job amid the allegations, some elected officials including Board of Supervisors Chair Lynda Hopkins have come out in support of the recall effort.

Windsor Mayor Dominic Foppoli has been under fire since early last week when the San Francisco Chronicle published a story in which 4 women accused him of sexual assaults in incidents spanning a period from 2003 to 2019. Most recently, Windsor town council member Esther Lemus accused Foppoli of assaulting her in incidents during which she claims she may have been drugged.

The bombshell accusations against Foppoli have brought condemnation and calls for his resignation from almost every elected official representing Sonoma County. This includes every one of its 8 other mayors, U.S. Congressmen Mike Thompson and Jared Huffman, State Senator Mike McGuire, and several county supervisors.

Several days after the allegations surfaced, Foppoli issued a fiery rebuttal in which he vowed to fight the charges, and claimed one of his accusers, Windsor Town Council member and deputy district attorney Esther Lemus, had actually sexually assaulted him. Lemus has strongly denied those claims, and numerous elected officials have stepped forward on social media to offer her their support.