Williamsville Mayor Deb Rogers, who has drawn strident support and sharp criticism for her outspoken opposition to Covid-19 mandates, will not seek re-election to the village’s top job.
Rogers said in an interview she’s stepping down at the end of her term in June because she met her main campaign goal of investing in the village’s parks.
She said she has no regrets about the strong stances she took against mask mandates and other restrictions meant to stop the spread of Covid-19. She gained prominence among area Conservatives for her positions, which sparked heated debate at Village Board meetings, led one trustee to resign his board seat and drew a fine from the Erie County Health Department.
“I’m not going to stand by when I see freedoms and body autonomy and individual choice being trampled on,” Rogers said, “whether I’m a mayor of a little village or I’m in Congress. I just don’t have a stomach for that.”
People are also reading…
She did not rule out a future bid for higher office and said, at this point, she is not supporting a candidate to succeed her.
In addition to the mayor’s job, the trustee seats held by Dan DeLano and Mary Lowther are on the June ballot.
DeLano and Lowther are former Williamsville mayors who defeated allies of Rogers in a special election in 2022 that was widely seen as a referendum on the mayor’s statements and policies.
“I’m not surprised,” Lowther said of Rogers’ decision, “in light of the last election we had last year. And I felt all along that she was looking for something different, perhaps another political job or just to go back to what she did before, which is volunteer work.”
Rogers succeeded DeLano as mayor in 2019. She had served as a Williamsville trustee since 2017 and, before that, as a longtime volunteer in village and school affairs.
In an interview shortly after winning election unopposed, Rogers said her priorities were improving Williamsville’s parks and boosting walkability in a village notorious for Main Street traffic.
Nine months later, in March 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic took hold. Rogers increasingly criticized directives that required mask wearing, temporarily shuttered businesses and schools, and gave governments emergency powers.
Rogers insisted she was advocating on behalf of her constituents in the village of some 5,400 people. Critics said she was addressing issues far afield from her responsibilities as mayor in a bid for political prominence.
Williamsville Mayor Deb Rogers is shown without a mask at a January 2022 meeting of the Village Board, at a time when state and county emergency orders required mask wearing to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Rogers, who blasted such orders as violations of citizens’ rights and freedoms, will not seek a second term as mayor this year.
Trustee Matthew Etu resigned in protest in January 2022, blaming the “toxic and destructive” environment fostered by Rogers.
Later that month, the Erie County Health Department fined the village $300 for repeated violations of the masking requirement at public meetings.
Rogers and two of her allies drove a 3-2 Village Board vote to hire an attorney to fight the fine in court. Four days later, however, then-Deputy Mayor Dave Sherman reversed his decision and joined two other trustees in voting to pay the fine.
Last May, the Village Board came under intense scrutiny after Rogers and two trustees compared a state emergency infectious diseases order to, variously, Communist Chinese quarantine camps, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and the Nazis’ forced relocation of Jews during that war.
Rogers, who made the quarantine camp comparison, insisted her remarks were taken out of context but joined the other two trustees in apologizing if they offended anyone.
One month later, Sherman and another Rogers ally, business owner John Ariola, lost handily to DeLano and Lowther in special elections to fill the remaining year on two trustee seats.
This left Rogers outnumbered 4 to 1 on the Village Board. Lowther, DeLano and fellow trustees Christine Hunt and Eileen Torre repeatedly overruled her in board votes on historic preservation questions, appointments to advisory boards, the future of the Ellicott Creek dam and the elimination of the job of community development director.
Asked whether Rogers left the village in a better place, Lowther said, “I think there’s a lot of room for improvement.”
Rogers said the board’s current makeup wasn’t a prime factor in her decision not to run again.
Lowther said potential candidates for mayor have been waiting to find out what Rogers’ plans were.
In addition to the mayor’s position and the two trustee seats, the position held by Village Justice Jeffrey F. Voelkl, who has served in that job since 2003, is on the ballot.
Candidates can start collecting signatures on nominating petitions on April 4 and must file by May 16.
DeLano did not respond to a message seeking comment. Lowther said she has not made up her mind about seeking another trustee term but, at this time, isn’t interested in running for mayor.
Rogers has received considerable support for her anti-mandate positions within Republican and Conservative circles, with backers holding a “Patriots for Deb Rogers” fundraiser last year and setting up a “Love Mayor Deb” Facebook page.
She said she was approached by political party leaders about a run for the County Legislature seat that includes Williamsville, now held by Democrat Jeanne Vinal, but she opted not to run.
Rogers didn’t rule out future races, including for Amherst town supervisor in 2024, when incumbent Brian Kulpa is barred by term limits from seeking re-election.
She said she doesn’t know whether she would have won a second term but says the race would have been closely watched.
“I’m not a shrinking violet. I’m a force to be reckoned with. And you can just – maybe we’ll let the readers imagine what that race might have looked like,” she said.
She said she expects to take on a more formal advocacy role after leaving office June 30 but she wasn’t ready to go into more detail.
She said she will stay on Twitter – where she referred to Covid-19 masks as “face diapers” and postcards urging booster shots as “political propaganda” – and she will retain the name “@LoveMayorDeb.”
Rogers said people can choose to remember her how they wish, but she doesn’t believe she contributed to the political polarization that’s taken hold locally and nationally.
“I was just brave enough to state what a lot of people were thinking in elected office but were too afraid to say,” she said.
Rogers pointed to grants and capital spending on improvements at village parks as her legacy.
At Island Park, for example, crews redid the equipment, painted the shelters and completely overhauled the bathrooms. South Long Park received new exercise and playground equipment and combination pickleball and tennis courts.
“So I’ve done, I accomplished, what I set out to do,” she said, “and now I’m happily going to hand those reins over to somebody else to drive.”
