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Kevin Haroff
We need a New Voice to represent us on the Marin Board of Supervisors
Hal Brown was appointed to represent us on the Board in 1982 by his cousin, Governor Jerry Brown, who then was serving his first term as Governor.
29 years later in 2011, Hal Brown retired. The very same Governor, Jerry Brown appointed Hal’s aide, Katie Rice, as our Supervisor. Katie Rice did run for office and was elected in 2012, only about a year after her appointment. Since she was still an unknown and untested, and since she had the strong blessing of Hale Brown and his followers, voters gave her a "wait and see" free pass.
For 34 years the Marin County Board of Supervisors has been under the control of the establishment, the political insiders. It is time for the voters of District 2 to pick its Supervisor and not leave it up to the establishment.
Hal Brown was elected to the position a number of times after that, but never on any basis other than as a solidly entrenched incumbent. Then, after 29 years of serving on the Board, Supervisor Brown made sure that he would be succeeded by his long-time administrative aid, Katie Rice.
This pattern of perpetual incumbency raises some fundamental concerns.
It creates incentives for special interests to pursue their own private agendas in return for promises of future political support. And it reinforces complacency within an electorate so focused on the demands of daily life that it may not always notice how its own interests are compromised by the so-called establishment.
That is why we need a new voice on the Board of Supervisors, a voice of someone whose experience extends beyond the framework of long-standing local politics.
We need a new voice to tackle the challenge of congested traffic conditions that choke our roads and make it nearly impossible to get our kids to school on time and ourselves to work at a reasonable time.
We need a new voice to encourage alternatives to high-density development (illustrated by Win Cup in Corte Madera) that promotes regional economic interests at the expense of denigrating our community’s local character.
We need a new voice to ensure adoption of realistic strategies to manage the risks of flooding in our local creeks and streams, instead of diverting funds to promote parochial, recreational interests, as illustrated by the ill-conceived Memorial Park detention basin plan that was resoundingly defeated at the polls by San Anselmo’s voters despite the support of Katie Rice and her moneyed establishment forces.
We need a new voice to protect the environmental character of Marin without reliance on shortcuts like the use of glyphosate-based herbicides on County open space lands. Continuously, Rice refuses to support an outright ban on the use of glyphosate, despite her constituents’ overwhelming opposition to its continued use.
Finally, and more important than anything else, we need a new voice to ensure that decisions made by our elected County officials are reached in a way that is open and transparent to everyone, and that genuinely respect the views of our community in every way.
The election in June this year will give us a chance to ensure that we have the new voice we need on the Board of Supervisors. It is the chance we need to wipe away the influence of special interests that seek to undermine what makes Marin County such a unique place.
The voters in District 2 have an unprecedented opportunity to make sure that promise is fulfilled. Please join me, Tuesday, June 7, for real change and for return to transparency in our County Government.
My candidacy can make good on the promise of genuine change in the dynamics of our County politics.
Now is Time to Take Back Marin.