Sonoma Valley Unified trustee resigns after incendiary comments about Trump supporters
An outspoken Sonoma Valley Unified School District trustee resigned Thursday following incendiary comments she made about supporters of President Donald Trump on her personal Facebook page.
Area 2 trustee Celeste Winders posted on her campaign for trustee Facebook page about her resignation.
"It is with sadness that I resign but I do so on my terms and no one else's," she wrote Thursday. "I believe in democracy and I took an oath to uphold the Constitution, an oath I take very seriously -- especially right now when it hangs in great peril. I believe that democracy is worth fighting for, worth hanging on to tightly and I refuse to have my First Amendment rights lessened or weakened. I resign upholding that oath to the Constitution."
At issue is a post she made on Feb. 26 on her private Facebook page in response to proposed federal cuts to Medicaid. Winders said such cuts would affect her disabled child.
"[Expletive] every single person who voted for this administration all the way to hell," she wrote. "May you burn the most fiery eternity and May everything you touch crumble and rot. This is why I will literally NEVER speak to some of my family members ever again. They are actually dead to me."
On Feb. 28, Winders said someone saw her post and sent screenshots of it to "Sonoma County MAGA trolls" who had used it to target her position as trustee.
As of Friday morning, Winders was still listed with a photo as a trustee on the district's website. The district also had not released a public statement about her resignation.
In her Feb. 28 post, Winders said that now is the time to "stop being so damn polite."
"That polite approach is going to land you in a dictatorship and it could land me hurt or worse," she wrote. "Because that is absolutely reality of where we are right now. This is not hyperbole people."
Reactions to Winders' original post were both supportive and opposed.
On March 3, a community group posted a link to a Zoom call about Winders, saying "Parents can share their two cents with SVUSD Trustee Winders... She wished eternal hell on Trump supporters."
In the comments under the post, user Susan Hansen Chauncy said she was "NOT a Trump or MAGAt supporter," but that Winders' statement was not professional.
"I believe strongly that we should all have the right to have our voices heard. But every teacher, principal and School Board member has a responsibility to act as a role model for our children. Social media is visible to everyone and as a parent, or grandparent, I believe that Ms. Winders must be held accountable for her words, no matter where they were posted," wrote Chauncy.
Many commenters supported Winders, including those with disabled children.
Some users kept their comments brief.
"If there is a hell, Trump has a special place in it," wrote Charlie Estudillo.
An Instagram post from Feb. 26 by the account civil_rights707 denounced Winders' comments.
"I thought Democrats were supposed to be loving, and as elected officials, they're supposed to be open minded on differing viewpoints," said the poster in a stream. But apparently, if you have any kind of conservative values, or if you voted for Trump, Miss Winders wishes for your entire life to crumble and essentially death upon you and eternal hell. If you're a Christian like myself, that's extremely insulting."
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