By Jennifer Sawhney

Petaluma Voice reached out to each of the Petaluma City Council candidates for a one-on-one interview. They were all asked the same set of 17 questions, which they heard for the first time during the interview. Interviews took place between Thursday, Oct. 1, and Saturday, Oct. 3. Candidates had one, two, or three minutes to answer each question, and they could choose not to use the entire allotted time. 

For each candidate, we are publishing their answers to five key questions below. Responses have been lightly edited for readability. Readers who want to take a deeper dive and see candidates’ responses to questions about other issues facing Petaluma voters can find the full interview transcripts here.

Each candidate also answered a questionnaire. Their responses have been lightly edited for readability.

Questionnaire

First and last name: Karen Nau

Age: 66

Occupation(s)/where do you work: Retired teacher

How long have you lived in the district you intend to represent: 40+ years

How long have you lived in Petaluma? 55 years

Past committee, commission, board experience: Since I was a teenager, I served on my first City Board, Petaluma Bicentennial Committee, with Mayor Helen Putnam 1975-1977.  Served on the Park & Rec Commission 2000-2004, elected to the City Council in 2004-2008, again in 2022-2026 (current), served on the Bike Commission, Planning Commission, Public Safety Commission, Airport Commission, Parks & Rec Commission, County Homeless Coalition. Numerous Non-Profit organizations Petaluma Old Adobe Assoc., River Festival, Elks, AAUW, Heritage Homes, Salvation Army, Phoenix Theater Board, Fabulous Women's Group, Petaluma Museum, Petaluma Music Festival, Petaluma Community Access.

Would you care to describe your immediate family? Spouse, kids? My husband passed away in 2007. Our 3 adult children Sebastian (Jessica), Alison and Marshall (Melanie) all live in Petaluma and my 7 Grandchildren attend Petaluma schools. My brother and his family live on Chapman Lane. My sister and her husband just moved from Petaluma to Santa Rosa. My parents, Ray & Ettamarie Peterson, still live on our family farm on Gossage Avenue in West Petaluma.

What is the best way for constituents to reach you? Phone: 707-529-2487, text or call, email Kpetersonnau@aol.com or Knau@cityofpetaluma.org.

Links to social media pages, campaign site: Instagram, Facebook is all @karennau. My website is www.electkarennau.com.

Filings

Funds raised: Through Sept. 19, Nau has raised over $5,600 in monetary contributions toward her campaign, with more than $1,300 in expenditures. Her campaign has over $4,000 in outstanding debts and a negative cash balance of more than $2,300. (Note: the latest campaign filing period spans July 1 to Sept. 19, 2026)

Treasurer: Greg Lewis

Principal officer: None listed

Notable endorsements: The Press Democrat, Petaluma Firefighters Local 1415, Petaluma Police Officers Association of Petaluma

Financial filings: https://netfile.com/public/pet/campaign/filingsByCandidate/204432815-Nau,%20Karen 

Why do you think you're qualified to represent the residents of Petaluma on city council? (2 minutes)

Well, this is my second term on the Petaluma City Council. The first term was 2004 to 2008. And in that term, we completed the general plan. And I worked very hard with my colleagues to make that general plan last 20 years. In 2022 I was elected again and we just completed another general plan. I worked very well with my colleagues to make the general plan the future of Petaluma for the next 20 years and I've got a lot of things that we started like the public safety facility on the fairgrounds, the fairgrounds master plan, and some housing developments for all ages and all income levels in Petaluma. And so I want to get those things finished. 

What do you believe are the biggest issues here in Petaluma and how do you intend to address them? (3 minutes)

Our biggest challenge is streets. We were really far behind in fixing the streets correctly and now we have the opportunity to not only fix the streets, but the underground utilities, water, cable, sewer, those items can get fixed at the same time as the surface of the streets. And then we can also put in safety improvements for pedestrians and bike lanes and vehicles. A lot of our roads were designed to be big intersections and we've put in some roundabouts so that people are not stopping and contributing to our greenhouse gas emissions and we have the opportunity to keep traffic moving at a safe speed and allow bicyclists and pedestrians to also cross those large intersections and slow our traffic down for the safety of our community. The other thing we need is some first time home buyer opportunities. The smaller square footage homes and condominiums, we need to build those so that either first time home buyers who are young, right out of college, can purchase their first homes or we can have opportunities for people like myself who don't need their large single family 2,000 square foot home and want to downsize. And the other thing is we have our safety. Safety has got to be #1 priority in our community and our new fire and police station and emergency services center and dispatch center at the fairgrounds will provide that. But we need the economics to pay for it with our general fund. It's not just property tax but also retail tax that pays into those and our biggest chunk out of the budget is for employment for our staff and our fire and police. 

What could be done to support small businesses in town? (3 minutes)

Our small businesses in town, we want to encourage people to shop local and make sure that they understand that when they shop local, those retail tax dollars stay in Petaluma and like I said they go back to the general fund. And then we also have employment opportunities for our local residents so that they can live and work in the same town.

Well, shopping local also helps those business owners be successful. And we want our businesses to be successful. And we want to make sure that our businesses that cater to the tourists are also successful. So especially in our downtown area the economics is really important because it keeps those storefronts open and is not a blight on our community when they're closed and abandoned. So we want to make sure that people have the knowledge that shopping local really does help our community.

Jennifer: You have about a minute and 40 seconds. Did you want to add anything? Are you good? 

Well, shopping local, it helps those business owners so that they can live here in Petaluma and raise their families. And we have lots of local businesses that are longtime businesses in Petaluma. Legacy businesses are … the (corner)stones of our community. We're the foundation of our community. We're building on those legacies, whether it's for feed and livestock and agriculture, or it is for retail. We want, or plumbing supplies, we want to make sure that those businesses keep thriving and stay in our community. We have some businesses that have been around for 100 years. I think Lacehouse Linens and I compiled a list of about 30 businesses that are over 80 years old in Petaluma and some of our mom and pop, they're multi-generation businesses, Brodie's, and Jerry and Don's Pump and Well, and the list goes on. A lot of them are people I grew up with. And so being in Petaluma most of my life and in the ag community, I know all these businesses and I try to shop local and not online.

What are your main concerns on the city budget as it stands now? (2 minutes)

Well, we're going into, probably, I don't want to say recession, but a downturn in the economy, and that will eventually really affect our general fund. And like I said, salaries is the biggest burden on our general fund, but we want to make sure that we pay wages to our employees, our city employees, our safety, police and fire, and making sure that our staff is the best and if we keep the wages up high then we will get the best of humankind. The staff is wonderful and they write grants and that helps offset the general fund and helps fund some of our capital improvement projects. So there's a lot of things that we need to budget for, that provide the community with better roads and better infrastructure, but we need that economic return. 

Jennifer: You have 50 seconds. 

I have 50 seconds. Okay. So the general fund is the most important part of our budget as a whole but then we have an opportunity to also do some improvements like the trestle and the fairgrounds and hopefully the fairgrounds will eventually turn into an enterprise so that it was paying itself and like our airport and our water sewer treatment and our marina so that we have return on that investment but we also have we have to make sure that we don't dip into our reserves. 

Anything else that you want your constituents to know? (3 minutes)

Well, we're in district elections and I'm in District 3, which we're sitting in the middle of my district, Scholenberger Park, which people don't even think about, but there are apartments close by. So there's residents that live- this is their backyard. And being in District 3, park improvements are really important. So we had improvements here at Schollenberger, which is a wetlands. We had the grazing of the sheep at the Rocky Dog Park, which is in my district. We had some park facility, the park equipment upgrades at Miwok and at McDowell School Parks. And those improvements are for the health and well-being of our community through recreation. Public art – because it just makes you feel good to see public art and in the roundabouts on Baywood and McDowell and maybe not everybody agrees about roundabouts, but that is one of the first roundabouts that was put in 20 years ago. We in District 3 have a lot of illegal dumping and I've been working with the volunteers to get that illegal dumping, one, removed and, two, reported and have the police surveillance to make sure that the suspects get caught. We have a lot of Spanish-speaking neighbors in this district, Miwok and McDowell, have a lot of Spanish-speaking students and I have gone in and sat in their classrooms and read to the students and I have also helped teachers fund some books that were needed in the classrooms. We also had a lot of abandoned vehicles and recreational vehicles and boats on the streets that make the streets crowded for other parking and the street sweeper can't get in there and clean. So we have worked very closely with the police department to remove those abandoned vehicles. (We) have a plan for safer streets on St. Francis, which goes from McDowell all the way to Kresky Way, where the catwalk is, that crosses over (the freeway). And people don't think about it as a crosstown connector, but it's a wonderful trail to walk over to the Target Shopping Center from District 3. Okay. The mobile home tenants at Little Woods are my neighbors and working with them and making sure that they get all the resources because they don't all have internet or phones that they can hook up to the city services and what's available for their rights as tenants in a mobile home park. So I work closely with those tenants.

Find the full interview transcript here.

Jennifer Sawhney is a reporter and co-founder of Petaluma Voice. She can be reached at jsawhney@petalumavoice.org.

Tobias Young, Nate Seltenrich, and Crissy Pascual contributed to this report.