Remembering the legacy of former Petaluma Mayor Clark Thompson

Former Petaluma Mayor E. Clark Thompson, who also served on the Planning Commission and the city’s first Tree Advisory Committee, has died. He was 77.

Thompson, who served as mayor from 1999-2002, took pride in Petaluma history and was well-known for his longtime community involvement. He is also credited for his role in bringing dredging back to the Petaluma River.

But more than anything, he is remembered for the way he treated others, whether it be family, city workers or people he barely knew.

“Everyone just loved having him around,” said Thompson’s daughter, Abigail Burr, in a Tuesday interview.

Thompon died in his sleep overnight March 23, after a battle with a lung condition. In keeping with Thompson’s wishes, the family does not plan to host a funeral.

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, to father Charles Key Thompson and mother Bernadine Granys, he moved to Petaluma at a young age to run his family-owned women’s boutique Modern Eve on Kentucky Street, where he worked between 1975-85. It was the start of Thompson’s eye for fashion, which further flourished as he also spent a lot of time in London while working for CitiBank in his young career life.

“He always used to carry a handkerchief in his back pocket my whole childhood,” said Burr, who Thompson inspired to now work in the fashion industry. As she reflected, she held her father’s favorite striped handkerchief, looking at it in admiration. “If we sneezed or scraped our knee, he always had that handkerchief.”

In 1975, Thompson met his wife Sue Ellen when he was back in their hometown for his nephews’ Christening.

“I was very friendly with his oldest brother and I had just broken up with a boyfriend. And I said ‘This state is so small, there isn’t even anybody I’d want to date anymore.’” Sue Ellen said in a Tuesday interview. “And his brother said ‘Clark is going to be here next week. You’re going to fall in love with him, I guarantee it.’”

Three months after they started dating, Clark and Sue Ellen married on Oct. 21, 1975, and Sue Ellen would then close her law practice in Connecticut to move to Petaluma, where they kicked off decades of service to the community.

Throughout his time in Petaluma, Clark served on at least a dozen of the city’s committees and boards, while Sue Ellen worked for 12 years on the Petaluma Health Care District Board of Trustees. And after Sue Ellen reconsidered a desire to run for mayor, Clark took up the challenge instead and was elected in 1998. With his campaign slogan being “Bridging the Gap,” Sue Ellen said that it was Clark’s mission to bring together those from across the political spectrum to make decisions based on the community’s best interest.

Council member Mike Healy, who began his first term the same year as Thompson, described the former mayor as a “genuinely good guy.”

“He really loved this town,” Healy said in a Wednesday afternoon phone call. “And I would say his biggest legacy was he played a very big role in Petaluma achieving the (Army) Corps of Engineers flood fix.”

The $43 million flood control project, which entailed the installation of flood walls and pumping systems and was launched by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, came after two devastating floods in the 1980s in the city’s midtown neighborhoods.

Throughout his time as mayor, Thompson continuously pushed for federal funding to dredge the Petaluma River, and even traveled to the nation’s capitol as part of that effort.

What was supposed to be a meeting with national officials to secure that funding ended up being one of the most life-changing events in U.S. history.

It was Sept. 11, 2001, and Thompson had a scheduled funding meeting at the Pentagon, along with then City Council members Janice Cader Thompson, Mike O’Brien and a city engineer, but were actually turned back when they had arrived for their meeting. The room in which that meeting would have taken place ended up being disintegrated, Sue Ellen said, as a result of the large scale attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center that left thousands of people dead. The only word that came to mind when describing an early morning phone call with her husband that day was “awful.”

At the same time, Burr, who was working at the World Trade Center at the time, had been late to work after running an errand and was also spared from the wreckage. Amid the panic, Thompson and the other city workers jumped into a Hertz rental vehicle and made the trek to pick up Burr, where they then set across the country for home.

“I remember feeling like my dad was a knight in shining armor,” Burr said.

Although he was often seen as a businessman, as he also sold insurance to local farmers and dairy ranchers, Thompson always preferred for his love toward the environment to shine through. Serving on Petaluma’s first Tree Advisory Committee, Thompson had a passion for nature and could always be found in his beloved garden. He was also fond of Petaluma’s small-town culture and traditions like the annual Sonoma-Marin Fair, and was a major supporter of the 4-H agricultural association. Burr laughed as she recalled Thompson’s commitment to buying a cow at the fair every year.

“He grew such a love for this community and this landscape and I think keeping some of the town as it was, and keeping some of the history and appreciation for the town that was there, was important to him,” Burr said.

Thompson was also described as a world traveler and an avid fisherman, as Sue Ellen pointed to a kitchen cabinet that holds his collection of vintage fishing reels. Burr said her father would go out to the coast every Saturday morning during salmon season and would bring her and her sister Molly many times.

Most of all, Burr and Sue Ellen reflected on his gentleman-like tendencies and his fun-loving personality.

“Clark I think may have been the funniest man alive,” she said with a smile.

Amelia Parreira is a staff writer for the Argus-Courier. She can be reached at amelia.parreira@arguscourier.com or 707-521-5208.