California’s campaign finance watchdog will be investigating former Windsor Mayor Dominic Foppoli’s campaign spending.
The Fair Political Practices Commission wrote Foppoli this week saying its enforcement division “has commenced a commission-initiated investigation regarding your committee’s potential violations.” No conclusions have been reached but investigators informed the former Mayor that they may be contacting him to “discuss the matter.” It stems from an anonymous complaint filed in late April highlighting 10 instances of campaign spending and donations. They include a liquor bill for a 2019 Foppoli event, air travel, and payments to a former girlfriend and a campaign treasurer who works as an executive at his family’s Christopher Creek Winery.
Meanwhile, newly elected Windsor councilwoman Rosa Reynoza is claiming that during the 2020 mayoral election, Foppoli allegedly offered to buy her exit from the campaign with donations to charities of her choice and offered her aid getting an appointment on a government board or commission. Reynoza tells the Press Democrat that the offer from Foppoli came in June 2020 when she met with Foppoli at a coffee shop. He said she wouldn’t win the election because of his campaign’s spending power. Reynoza turned down his offer. Foppoli would go on to win last November’s mayoral election and Reynoza won his vacant council seat in a special election in May.