What do District 4 candidates think about the county’s approach to housing? What about the lack of health and mental health services in the San Geronimo Valley?
Those were some of the questions that seven supervisor hopefuls—Dominic Grossi, Wendi Kallins, Dennis Rodoni, Tomas Kaselionis, Mari Tamburo, Alex Easton-Brown and Brian Staley—fielded last Wednesday at a candidates night hosted by the San Geronimo Valley Healthy Community Collaborative. (One candidate, Al Dugan, was not present.)
The set-up was tough—candidates had 60 to 90 seconds to answer questions—but the event still managed to reveal a few more positions and differences between hopefuls, as well as some gaps in knowledge about issues.
A question about balancing interests between the environment and everything from cows to homeowners’ rights to trail access—a whopper of a query—had Mr. Grossi and Mr. Kaselionis defending bike access to trails in county open space and seeming to call for expanding it, while Alex Easton-Brown disparaged bikers as “disruptive.” Mr. Grossi and Ms. Kallins also expressed support for residents in Woodacre who want to create a community wastewater system, a project that Mr. Staley, a Woodacre resident who heads the San Geronimo Valley Planning Group, has critiqued.
When it comes to health resources in the Valley, Mr. Staley said there is little commercial space for a clinic, which he added would need to be financially subsidized. Ms. Kallins, who has held community round-table discussions with community leaders in recent months, said she thought the biggest issue was funding, but that rural towns should not be “short-changed.” Dennis Rodoni, long a board member of the Coastal Health Alliance, said the alliance has talked about the health gap in the Valley. He floated the idea of curbing the expansion of the Health and Human Services building in Point Reyes Station, which many neighbors have protested, in favor of “spreading” services to places like the Valley. (Supervisors approved a conceptual design for the downtown expansion last September.)
Candidates staked positions they have taken in Light interviews on housing policy, with Mr. Grossi, a rancher, advocating for second units on ranches; Ms. Kallins calling for land trusts, short-term vacation rental regulations and other solutions; Mr. Staley lamenting that supervisors took rent control off the table; Mari Tamburo expressing support for an artists-focused housing project; and Mr. Rodoni, who runs a construction company, saying second units need to cost less to build so that units can be rented affordably.
One attendee asked (via a card, as questions had to be submitted in writing) what positions the candidates had on Laura’s Law. That state law, which counties can opt into, allows a court to order outpatient treatment for certain people with mental illnesses who fall through the cracks of other laws that only force treatment in the most severe circumstances. Mr. Rodoni and Mr. Easton-Brown—the latter whose son has struggled with mental health issues—both support the law, which the county declined to adopt this year, while Ms. Tamburo and Mr. Grossi said they would consider it. Mr. Staley emphasized that there was no “one solution” to mental illness, and Ms. Kallins, who said that her friend attempted to get a loved one treatment through the law, emphasized that the law has no teeth because it includes no enforcement mechanism. (Unfortunately, a couple of candidates seemed to think Laura’s Law allows a court to mandate medication, which it does not. Other laws govern mandatory medication.)
Another Valley resident wondered what candidates thought about medical marijuana; last year, supervisors approved an ordinance to license up to four storefront dispensaries in unincorporated Marin. Mr. Grossi said he supported legalized medical marijuana, though he worried about delivery services and the possibility that they could make it easier for kids to get access to the substance. (Though not yet licensed, delivery services exist in Marin.) Mr. Staley, who also supports medical marijuana, said that it was already regulated fairly strictly—for instance, it cannot be used at or near a dispensary—and that the storefront in Fairfax operated without incident until it was shut down by the federal government. (The owner of that storefront, however, has prevailed against the feds in court.)
Ms. Kallins also expressed support for the Fairfax dispensary, believing that town is a better location for a storefront than the Valley, given the sparser population on this side of White’s Hill. Ms. Tamburo said she had long been an advocate for medical marijuana and Mr. Rodoni supported medical marijuana with strict regulations, citing the impact that illegal grows have had on public lands and waterways.
Overall, none of the positions espoused that night were particularly surprising, save perhaps for Mr. Easton-Brown, a devout writer of letters to the editor who lambasts county spending and inefficiency. His comments on Wednesday night seemed to have many in the audience wondering, “Did he just say that?” They probably veered between shock, disagreement and, perhaps at moments, secret endorsement as he critiqued “bike lanes that no one uses,” “unnecessary trail improvements,” the Sheriff’s military equipment purchases, tourism that “brings no benefit,” overbearing mountain bikers and the county’s push to hire “the best and the brightest,” which he believes is wasteful and counterproductive. “Eighty percent is okay with me,” he said.