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Observations from the GOP Candidates Forum
Last Thursday evening, I attended the GOP Marin Supervisor Candidates Forum that was held in the Community Room next to Jason’s Restaurant in Greenbrae. The following are my personal observations, speaking as a resident of Marin.
The event was well attended. Each candidate was given ten minutes to make a prepared statement, which was followed by a Q&A period. All but 2 of the candidates running for Marin Supervisor for Districts 2, 3 and 4 were present, with the conspicuous absence of Katie Rice, who some said has a history of avoiding potentially difficult venues in front of the public. Dennis Rondoni, the newest entry to the race for West Marin, District 4 Supervisor, was also absent, but it’s likely that since he just filed to run, he wasn’t notified of the event in time (note: some other unregistered candidates from District 4, rumored to be considering a run, were also absent, including Tomas Kaselionis, Sean Scullion, and Scott Wilmore).
Each candidate took a shot at convincing the audience that they were the right person for the job, and even though their pitches were relatively brief, one could get a sense of how they would approach the role and what they consider important about holding the office.
In general, it was informative and the candidates were straightforward about their ideas, beliefs and intentions… except for one, Kate Sears. She is the current supervisor from District 3, where I live. I found her presentation to be a remarkable performance of revisionist history.
If you didn’t know the facts, you’d probably come away thinking she was cheerful, positive and sounded like someone who’s working hard on behalf of the community, on a wide variety of issues. But when you look below the surface, her long list of accomplishments, as she described them, are inaccurate, misleading or worse.
Let me give you just a few examples.
Sears claimed that she wants to ensure that development at the Seminary property in Strawberry is compatible and appropriate to the community.
The fact she didn’t mention is that she worked behind the scenes with the developer before the over-scaled scheme became public, and connected them with a prominent architect to help the developer try to sell the community on something they clearly don’t want.
Sears claimed that she cares about traffic.
Yet, she’s consistently been the last to respond to the significant traffic issues that have been raised by the community in the past years. Yet when I was studying the battle the Mt. Tam Taskforce has been waging to stop the GGNRA and the National Parks Service from commercializing Muir Woods and building a massive bus depot and transportation hub on Panoramic Drive in our designated open space, my observation was that she was among the last to get involved. In fact, the Board of Supervisors were generally either so absent early in that debate (Sears) or so biased toward the NPS (Kinsey) that the community leaders went over their heads to Congressman Jared Huffman’s office, to be heard.
She was also the last to respond to the community outcry over the congestion causing stoplight that CalTrans installed in Tam Junction. And on Thursday evening, she took credit for working to reduce traffic at the Highway 101 and Blithedale Avenue interchange and the new Mill Valley yellow school bus program, both of which were solely the work of Tiburon and Mill Valley officials.
Sears claimed she cares about her constituents and is a leader in bringing about change.
Strawberry resident, Bruce Corcoran, had to appear 15 times at Board of Supervisors meetings and speak during Public Open Time, just to get the question of whether or not Strawberry should be a Planned Development Area (PDA) in the County Housing Element, on the BOS agenda - even though 1,000 residents had signed a petition asking for it. In all that time, Sears never stood up for the Strawberry community. Kate Sears dragged her feet and declined attending community events about the PDA, for almost a year, before meeting with community leaders in her District, then finally agreed to a community visioning process.
A similar story about her lack of interest in community participation unfolded in Tam Junction, where local groups also opposed their PDA designation, rightfully pointing out that the County Plan was promoting massive development in a flood prone marsh area, at sea level. Sears only joined the discussion after removal of the PDA was pretty much already decided.
And why is it that when the poorest residents in Marin, who live in public housing in Golden Gate Village, wrote and emailed her more than a dozen times, asking her to please help ensure their federally protected right to organize a residents council, she never responded to their requests and ignored invitations to meet with them?
She’s an attorney. Surely, she must have known they were in the right.
And when that resident’s group sued the County Housing Authority, a board on which she is a voting member, a lawsuit which the residents won in Federal Court, why didn’t Sears step in and help the County avoid the shameful episode? She had many opportunities.
Where does Kate Sears stand on the many other issues we hear raised by Marin residents in her district and elsewhere: issues including loss of local control to big agencies like the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), or the dysfunction of ABAG as an effective, representative organization? Or, how do we keep planning for more and more development when we are in serious risk of not having enough water, sewer, or school capacity, or public services for those that already live and work here? And how about pension reform?
In addition, we haven’t heard anything from her about eliminating toxic herbicides in our County parks and open space, even though it’s been at the top of the list of community concerns for a long time. And how about the dysfunction of the Highway 101 / Sir Francis Drake interchange that impacts us all, or the future of San Quentin that special interests are salivating over as a new “urban hub” for Marin? Or, how about the County Supervisor’s slush fund, which she continues to defend despite years of public outcry?
So what does Kate Sears actually believe in or stand for, other than droning on about some Kumbaya version of ‘working together with all groups to find common ground and collaborative….’ political speak. .
Kate Sears may be a nice enough person, but facts are facts. She seems to prefer to follow the lead of others on the Board and only speaks up when she’s sure it’s politically safe to do so.
I think it's time for real leadership that reflects the concerns of the community.