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Save Fairfax
Ghiringhelli and Egger for Fairfax Town Council, Vote Against all Encumbents
Fairfax is at a critical crossroads and in need of new leadership. The current Fairfax Town Council is not in touch with the priorities of the town and needs to be voted out.
Over the last three years, spending has outpaced revenues by multiple millions of dollars; meanwhile the roads have continued to deteriorate, with much of the revenues earmarked for roads spent on non-related issues and unwisely spent. Far too much money has gone to outside paid consultants for issues that a prudent Town Council acting with common sense, problem solving and creativity could address on its own, at much less cost to the taxpayers of Fairfax.
The current Council has also wasted significant time and monetary resources on issues it should not.
Two examples:
Rent control/eviction protections and cease-fire in Gaza.
The first issue, rent control, has been handled poorly, with the Council allowing the process to be co-opted by the Democrat Socialists of America, who wrote the legislation in a way to favor the renters completely, with intentionally no input from the housing providers. It imposes a cap of 75% of CPI as the allowable rent increase, which means a property owner cannot keep rents up with cost increases and certainly can't make up the cost of a major renovation, such as a new roof, water heater, etc. The only way to contest this limit is to prepare a complete audit, pay a $1,000 fee to "prove" to a hearing officer and thereby the Town Council that a "reasonable rate of return" is not being achieved at the current rent.
This process and the evaluation methodology is undefined and highly subjective. This one-way $1,000 fee is shouldered by the landlord regardless of the outcome of the hearing. This means even if the landlord prevails and is allowed to raise the rent on a $2,000 unit an additional 1%, $20 per month, it will take over 4 years to recoup that $1,000 fee. This structure is meant to make any reasonable rent increase cost-prohibitive, such that it doesn't make sense at all. While the cost of rent has increased over time, creating such an onerous policy will only make it harder for small landlords to continue renting their properties.
The outcome will be fewer and fewer rental properties on the market and/or properties being sold to corporate landlords. Both the decrease of units and more rental units moving to corporate ownership will have the opposite effect on rents--making them higher.
The second issue, a cease-fire resolution for a war a half a world away in Gaza, is simply not the purview of the Town Council, and is even in violation if the Council's own rule not to discuss issues not germane to the Town, and very offensive to many of the Jewish citizens of Fairfax.
Both of these issues have been extremely divisive in this town and have expended much time and resources that could be better spent elsewhere.
When it comes to the Fairfax roads, which are rated the worst in Marin county, rather than fix them with existing funds earmarked for infrastructure, the Council's best solution was to put on the ballot, a $40,000,000 bond measure that will cost $22,000,000 in interest, plus bond consultant fees, bond disclosure attorney fees.
The bond will take 30 years to pay back. The Council spent $32,690 on a survey polling residents, which determined the proposed $40,000,000 tax is highly unlikely to pass the 2/3 needed vote. Despite this, Town Council continued with the likely-to-fail ballot measure, hoping that proposition 5 on the current ballot (changing the threshold needed to pass to 55%) will be approved by voters, bailing them out.
Then there is the homeless encampment, which is impacting West Marin Little League, the baseball field, and Peri Park.
This has been a problem for three years. Children have had to endure exposure to inappropriate behavior from residents of the encampment, such as drugs, profanity, lewd behavior, assault and human waste. The Council, after years of ignoring this have now created a committee on the issue. One Homeless Committee member, Chance Cutrano, claims to have spoke with all of the campers; however, a concerned parent himself did speak with all of the campers, reports that, with the exception of one camper, all others said they have not been approached by anyone on the Council.
Mike Ghiringhelli and other citizens recently went to the encampment and cleared out the garbage and hazardous waste.
I could go on! But this is a good sampling of the issues in the Town of Fairfax and how the current Council has been derelict in its duty.
It's clear that this Town Council has created new problems and is not interested in solving pre-existing problems, nor does it have the skill-set needed to do so. For this reason I am supporting the following two proven, past Town Council members:
Mike Ghiringhelli and Frank Egger
Mike Ghiringhelli, a lifelong resident of Fairfax, is a successful entrepreneur and business owner who will bring common sense solutions to these problems.
Mike puts the Fire and Police Departments and our roads as his #1 priorities. He will help restore proper fiscal management of our tax revenues. He believes in property rights, while working for better options for renters and real solutions for affordable housing. He also opposes 5+ story buildings (proposed by the current Council to meet the questionably legal state-mandated Housing Element), because retaining the charm, character and beauty of Fairfax is worth going up against the state.
Frank Egger, endorsed by the Marin IJ, a 7-term Fairfax Town Council Member and formerMayor, will always put the people of Fairfax first, protect the health of our environment, and work to keep Fairfax one of the best places to live in California.
When you vote on Tuesday, please give Mike Ghiringhelli and Frank Egger your vote!