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Alan Dep
Kate Sears attacks Strawberry residents for using legal means to stop unwanted development
The Marin IJ reported today that Bently Holdings has sold the office complex in Strawberry that was proposed to be the site of an annex to Marin General Hospital. As usual, Kate Sears shamelessly tells a half truth version about what happened, why it happened, and what the impacts really are. Predictably and astonishingly, she ends up faulting Marin residents themselves and the use of legal processes we all have a right to employ to protect our communities.
She fails to mention that Bently knew full well when they purchased the building that the property came with a specific deed restriction that forbid its use as a medial facility, precisely because that use would be overly impactful. Sears, however, attempt to cast the greedy developer who asked for too much, as the victim in this failed project. Poor Bently, they had to settle for only $46.8 million, considerably more than they paid for the property.
Meanwhile, the $280,000 for roadway "improvements" that Sears laments as being lost, would not have even paid for half the costs of the consultants, studies and engineering required to do them. Those impact fees, or what might have been left of them, would have gone into the County's general fund, a black hole increasingly being drained by our growing unfunded pension liabilities, or worse, the money would be given away to purchase political loyalty by the Supervisors themselves, through their annual slush fund. Kinsey's seconding Sears's distaste for Marin residents and the need to honor our legal process is predictable. His illegal behavior on the Coastal Commission have shown he has no use for anything but backroom deals.