At a final debate for District 4 supervisor in the San Geronimo Valley, candidates Dennis Rodoni and Dominic Grossi faced questions about marijuana, housing, streamside development and other issues. 

The debate, sponsored by the San Geronimo Valley Healthy Community Collaborative, provided some time for general topics, but the bulk of the evening was devoted to audience questions, on varying topics, such as a valley medical marijuana dispensary, on which the two largely agreed, as well as other issues, like wood stoves, on which they diverged.

One of the hot button issues to come up centered around a proposed dispensary in the valley. Over the summer, a collective called Forest Knolls Wellness applied for a county license to operate a storefront at 6700 Sir Francis Drake, in the building where a farm stand, a vintage store and an espresso bar operate. A meet and greet last weekend at the property, with collective directors and a prospective new owner for the building, spurred dozens of letters of opposition to the county and a swell in signatures for an online petition against a dispensary.

During the question session, one woman wanted to know whether the candidates would support the application. She said she used medical marijuana after receiving a breast cancer diagnosis while living in Vallejo, where she said 13 dispensaries operated. But she and her family left after she said they saw a car “riddled with gun shots” speeding away from one of them and a police confrontation in the city. (Matthew Shotwell, a reality TV star who would like to buy the Forest Knolls property, once operated a medical marijuana storefront in the city of Vallejo). “A dispensary right on Sir Francis Drake would be a direct….connection to our children on this road,” she said.

Both candidates, who said they support medical marijuana generally, said they wanted to support the community’s wishes. “If the community comes out overwhelmingly against it, then it’s my job to support the community,” said Mr. Grossi, who said he had significant concerns about it. “I don’t think, right now, it’s the right place for it,” he said. He later declined to say that he would “never” support a dispensary in the valley.

Mr. Rodoni said that the farm stand was an “inappropriate location” for a dispensary because of the school nearby. (Lagunitas School is about a half-mile away.)

“I will support this community in their decision-making,” he said. “I come from a village, and I think the village has the first say and the last say.” But he added that it is the county administrator who decides which applicants nab licenses, and that only the applicant can appeal that decision. 

Mr. Rodoni suggested it would be wise for the community to formally evaluate whether there might be an appropriate location for a dispensary before he would be comfortable saying that he would “never” support an area dispensary.

Yet the candidates differed on Proposition 64, which would legalize recreational marijuana. Mr. Rodoni supports it, arguing that the drug would be easier to control were it legalized, and cited the environmental impacts of grow operations. Mr. Grossi opposes it for fear it would make it easier for kids to obtain. (He admitted, though, that “it’s probably going to pass, and that’s fine.”)

A number of questions revolved around the difficulty of navigating county red tape for residential development, including the streamside conservation ordinance and septic rules. 

One homeowner said she spent five years and over $100,000 in county fees and reports to get permission to rebuild a house that was a century old and “subsiding into the landscape.” Yet she and her husband had still been unable to do any work because of streamside rules, despite their application getting through the California Environmental Quality Act. “Effectively we have no personal property rights,” she said, adding that that most people work on their homes illegally because the permitting process is too onerous. 

Others asked about how to make it easier for those facing difficulties with septic rules. Both candidates were hopeful that a community wastewater plan known as the Woodacre Flats project might provide a useful model for addressing septic problems, and that life might get easier for homeowners once the stream ordinance issues are resolved.

Mr. Grossi suggested that CEQA should be revamped to make it easier for homeowners to do projects that don’t have significant impacts. He also suggested that the red tape culture was born in part from the county’s fear of getting sued. “We are a scared county,” he said.

Mr. Rodoni suggested that department heads should spend at least four hours a month at their departments’ counters, to better acquaint themselves with the difficulties that property owners face.

He also argued that it was the job of the new supervisor to work with all groups—the San Geronimo Valley Stewards, the San Geronimo Valley Planning Group and SPAWN—and was hopeful that a forthcoming cumulative impact analysis on streamside development would not significantly affect the ordinance. “Hopefully once that takes place, we can move forward,” he said, noting that “in particular the homeowners take the brunt of this right now.”

Mr. Grossi was critical of SPAWN, saying that its lawsuit over the ordinance had been counterproductive. The fact that the county had to pay the group $600,000 in compensation for legal fees “kind of repulses me,” he said, though he also noted that it was important to balance homeowners’ concernes with cumulative impacts on streams.

Another attendee asked about air quality issues in the valley, where particulate pollution can become more concentrated and exceed standards by a factor of 30. “It affects our youth and our old people,” he said. Mr. Grossi praised no-burn days and new rules from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District banning wood stoves in new homes. But preventing burning on other days is tougher, and he said a silver bullet answer was tricky. “We could probably work with air board and try to say, ‘Look, this is a specific area where we shouldn’t be burning as often.’ But…it’s a source of heat that people have the right to use,” he said.

Mr. Rodoni thought there could be a better solution for the valley. “As supervisor, I need to lead the discussion about why that program is not working, why it’s failing and what are other people doing…I’m convinced we can come up with better solutions,” he said. 

“But I think ultimately,” he added, “we probably have to stop burning wood. I mean, that’s the reality.”