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Bruce Corcoran
Latest: Bently Holdings Proposal to Add Traffic to Strawberry and Highway 101
Highway 101 from Manzanita to Corte Madera has operated at Level of Service F (LOS F) for years, but traffic congestion has become even worse over the past 18 months. Today, it's not uncommon to see bumper-to-bumper traffic backed up to the top of Waldo Grade in Sausalito during PM Peak hours.
LOS F is a failing grade and the lowest grade under County standards, but the current Board of Supervisors has failed to do anything meaningful to solve our traffic congestion problems in southern Marin. Our Supervisors' perverted solution is to amend Strawberry's Master Plan to allow currently prohibited medical offices in the Bently Holdings office complex, which will generate even more traffic--1,200 additional vehicle trips per day.
It makes no sense to add additional traffic to an area of Highway 101 that already is operating at LOS F, especially when there is plenty of Class A office space available for medical offices along Highway 101 in other locations that do not have traffic congestion problems
Nevertheless, the Board of Supervisors, Bently Holdings, and Marin General Hospital are working towards the same goal of approving traffic-generating medical offices. They don't care about our laws or our quality of life. Instead, they care about imposing their own will on Strawberry in a display of power politics for their own self-interest and financial gain.
We are all alone, but we have to stand up to bullying by speaking the truth and shining a bright light on the corruption of process.
You can help by attending the Board of Supervisors hearing on April 12th and by sending letters to bos@marincounty.org marked for the Bently Holdings application.
The only way we, the people, can regain local control over our own communities and eliminate domination of our lives by a Board of 5 people is to vote for new Supervisors in the June election.
Three seats on the Board of Supervisors will be contested. Please make you votes count by voting for new Supervisors who will actually listen to us and represent us.
Enough is enough. It's time to make a stand and to replace the cabal in County government that is intent on oppressing our quality of life with ill-conceived, traffic-choking projects.
Bruce
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Here are my comments about the Bently Holdings application that I delivered during Open Time for Public Expression at the Board of Supervisors hearing on Tuesday, March 22, 2016:
Good Morning. Bruce Corcoran, Strawberry.
I’m here today to publicly challenge and protest your Board’s decision last week to continue the Bently Holdings hearing to April 12th.
Supervisor Sears made the motion to continue based on the following premise, and I quote, “The only thing we are considering today is whether we want to provide time for Caltrans and the City of Mill Valley to provide information to us,” unquote.
Supervisor Rice seconded the motion, and the rest of you voted unanimously to continue. Supervisor Kinsey was absent and did not vote.
My argument is that when your Board continues a hearing, it is a full regular hearing on the new date regardless of Staff’s recommendation about anything because your Board doesn’t have to follow Staff’s recommendation, and you often don’t.
May I remind you that Staff recommended denial of the project at last October’s hearing based on insufficient evidence in the record and prepared for you a resolution of denial, but you decided to continue the hearing rather than to deny?
The people have to prepare for each continuance as if it were the day of final decision because we don’t know what you are going to do, given that your Board just makes up its own rules. You could approve, deny, or continue at each hearing, as you will, with no factual foundation whatsoever.
Your Board, your Staff, Bently Holdings, and Marin General stifled full disclosure at last week’s hearing because it suited your aligned purposes. You all wanted the shortest hearing possible.
Staff’s statement was an intentionally brief two sentences, including the hope for a short hearing.
The applicant’s statement was brief because DPW has picked up the tab using tax-payer money for a traffic study that Bently Holdings should have paid for, so Bently Holdings and Marin General Hospital wore Cheshire grins and didn’t want to rock the boat.
And the publicized Staff Report recommending continuance, without also stating that it would be a full regular hearing, influenced stakeholders to stay home.
But Strawberry residents weren’t going to let you get away with an abbreviated hearing. We came prepared for a full regular hearing.
We argued strenuously for you to deny the application because you had no foundation to continue, but you ignored us based on the false premise of Supervisor Sear’s motion that the only thing you were considering was giving more time to Caltrans and the City of Mill Valley. We presented many other unvetted questions and concerns but you paid no attention to them.
And by voting for Supervisor Sears’s motion, all of you agreed to that false premise.
You never intended last week’s hearing to be a full hearing. Otherwise, you would have required your traffic consultant, who you paid with our tax dollars, to attend the hearing.
When the people have to prepare for a regular hearing for each continuance, we would appreciate it if you would show us some respect by compelling your hired gun traffic consultant to attend the hearing so that we can listen to his presentation and question him.
Three seats for Supervisor are up for election in June. The Bently Holdings application will be a campaign issue because it is endemic of what’s wrong with County governance today
Taking a position against the people, as you have done, is a losing proposition, because in the end we have more votes than Bently Holdings and Marin General Hospital have dollars.
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Thank you for reading my blog.
Bruce