After two terms serving on Cloverdale City Council, Melanie Bagby is aiming for higher office.

Bagby, 57, has announced her plans to run for Sonoma County’s 4th District supervisor seat, becoming the third candidate to enter what is shaping up to be the first competitive race the district has seen in a decade.

Bagby, a former Cloverdale mayor, previously served seven years on the Cloverdale Planning Commission. While a councilmember, she sat on various regional boards including for Sonoma-Marin Area Transit, Sonoma County Transportation Authority/Regional Climate Protection Authority, Sonoma Clean Power and the Russian River Watershed Association.

She’s making that regional experience a central part of her bid to represent the huge 4th District, which stretches from northern Santa Rosa to the Mendocino County line

“I’m accustomed to working with our regional partners and taking into consideration how all of our economies and our educational systems and our residents move around and make their lives in Sonoma County,” Bagby said.

So far, Bagby will be up against former Santa Rosa mayor and police chief Tom Schwedhelm, 65, and Cloverdale Mayor Todd Lands, 48.

In that field, she can lay claim to being the clear progressive candidate. Schwedhelm was regarded as a centrist in his time on the Santa Rosa council and is likely to draw significant backing from the business community. Lands, a former sheriff’s deputy, is staking his campaign on key support from rural stakeholders.

The filing deadline for the June primary is until early March. Bagby’s entry increases the likelihood of a November runoff, according to David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University.

“Her entry fundamentally changes the calculus in the race, because this was a race that was likely to be over in June and with three people it is not,” McCuan said.

The 4th District spans northeastern Sonoma County, including Cloverdale, Healdsburg, Windsor and northern Santa Rosa, as well as the grape growing regions of Alexander and Dry Creek valleys. It is also home to a more politically mixed voter population compared to the rest of the county, which overwhelmingly votes Democratic.

Though elections for supervisor are non-partisan, Bagby in a recent interview, was quick to emphasize the political distinction between herself and her rivals, who are both registered “no party preference” voters.

Schwedhelm was known as a moderate voice on the Santa Rosa council and Lands, in a July interview, described himself as “moderate” but was registered Republican for a quarter-century and changed his party registration at the end of 2023.

Bagby, a registered Democrat, said the lack of a Democratic candidate running for the seat played a role in her decision to run.

“That’s more in line with the values of the voters and residents of Sonoma County,” Bagby said. “I’m a Democrat and I’ve never just declined to state what I believe in for my entire life and so I think I take a very different approach to how I see how district four should be represented.”

She was first elected to the Cloverdale council in 2016 and won reelection in 2020. She opted not to run for a third term in 2024.

Drawing perhaps a tenuous connection between her party registration and approach to elected office, Bagby described her view as a regional one — focused on enhancing access for underserved communities, like Cloverdale, to resources found in the county’s more populous core including public transit, schools and high-speed internet.

She said she wants to see key infrastructure projects completed, including SMART’s extension to Cloverdale and the construction of a permanent Asti Bridge over the Russian River. Bagby considers such projects critical to helping students access programs, like AP classes and the Santa Rosa Junior College, and helping the local workforce stay local.

Her aim, she said, is to ensure the 4th District and county remain an affordable and sustainable place to live.

“We in Sonoma County really need to focus on bringing infrastructure development here so that we can have really good local jobs that are family-sustaining jobs,” Bagby said. “Because there’s no reason that our talent should be leaving and going to jobs in Alameda, in San Francisco and even the South Bay.”

Bagby, who runs an IT consulting firm with her husband, has lived in Cloverdale for 25 years but claims Santa Rosa as her “hometown.” She grew up in the Larkfield-Wikiup area.

The 4th District race has long been expected to be a competitive race. Supervisor James Gore, who joined the board in 2015, has said he is not running for a fourth term. He suspended his run for state Senate in October. His exit means the 4th District’s new representative could shift dynamics on the left-leaning board.

The stakes are high, McCuan said, and could mean split votes become more common for a board that often votes unanimously.

“If you’re looking over the horizon, there is going to be more contention on the board,” he said.

Bagby was reluctant to offer any criticism of the current board. She has served as a SMART director Supervisors Chris Coursey and David Rabbitt.

“It’s really easy to be an armchair quarterback,” she said.

But she did call for an overhaul of the county’s system for tracking grant funding opportunities and managing contracts. It’s an issue that has plagued the county and its elected board in recent years and will likely become an even greater pressure point as the county contends with the state and federal budget cuts expected to land in 2026.

“You have to come to terms with things that just simply are not working and that’s where you can really innovate and say we need a completely new system,” Bagby said. “Sometimes that is an opportunity to make major changes.”

You can reach Staff Writer Emma Murphy at 707-521-5228 or [email protected]. On Twitter @MurphReports and Bluesky @murphreports.bsky.social