Betsy Marchand, first woman elected to Yolo Board of Supervisors, dies at 89
Betsy Marchand, the first woman elected as Yolo County Supervisor, and a foundational figure for leaders across the capital region, died Oct. 22, 2025, at 89, according to Yolo County Coroner’s officials.
State Sen. Angelique Ashby, D-Sacramento, one of the many women in the region’s political orbit who grew under Marchand’s influence and mentorship, remarked on Marchand’s entry into public life more than 50 years ago, in 1972.
“Betsy Marchand was the first woman ever elected to the Yolo County Board of Supervisors. When she ran, a local newspaper pundit said it would be ‘a cold day in hell before a woman wins a seat in Yolo County,’” Ashby wrote in a remembrance on her Facebook page. “It snowed in Woodland the day Betsy was declared the winner. And such has defined her extraordinary life.”
“She had that newspaper framed and hanging on her wall. It was so emblematic of her life,” said Ashby in an interview with The Sacramento Bee on Monday.
“She was my hero,” said Ashby, who first met Marchand as a young, single mother, in the late 1990s, and went on to work in her office. “She was how I patterned myself. She was a force to be reckoned with.”
Betsy Ann Marchand was born May 19, 1934, on her family’s ranch in the San Gabriel Valley.
Marchand, elected in 1972, went on to serve six terms on the Yolo County Board of Supervisors. Valued for her deep knowledge of water issues, critical in agriculture-rich Yolo, she worked closely with another Yolo icon, Democratic Rep. Vic Fazio. Fazio, who died in 2022, served the region in Congress for 20 years.
In 1978, Marchand ran for the Democratic nomination to represent the 4th Assembly District but lost to then-Assemblyman Tom Hannigan.
After leaving the Board of Supervisors, Marchand served from 2001-06 as chair of the state Board of Reclamation. She also worked closely with the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation.
For years, Marchand served on the tribal gaming commission at Cache Creek Casino Resort, the first non-Native person to sit on the panel; and later was an adviser and consultant to the tribe on government and community issues.
Marchand advocated for Yolo’s rural, agricultural communities, balanced that with Davis’ progressivism and acknowledged and worked for then-neglected West Sacramento and east Yolo County, said state Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, D-Napa, who was mayor of West Sacramento for 22 years.
Marchand, an educator by training, taught in California high schools and was married to UC Davis professor and historian Roland Marchand. Roland was chair of the university’s history department and taught until his death in 1997.
Betsy Marchand also ushered in a new Yolo politics, a progressive pragmatism, Cabaldon said, that remains the standard more than 50 years after she first took office.
Cabaldon called it the “Yolo way.”
Cabaldon had just won election to the West Sacramento City Council when he first met Marchand in 1996.
“She lectured me on how serious this was, how much work I’d have to do and why it was important. She was really into the details — the law, the politics — at a level that was remarkable,” Cabaldon said. “She was someone who was unstoppable.”
“She was the first woman on the board, but also, she was part of a whole new generation of political values, out of the peace movement, the environmental movement, the civil rights movement,” Cabaldon said.
“Her style was assertive, visionary, practical — what people expect of a Yolo leader,” he said. “She set a culture. She set a standard. That standard was set by example. She created a space for that.”
Funeral services are pending.
This story was originally published October 28, 2025 at 12:58 PM.
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