In the race to fill departing county supervisor Steve Kinsey’s District 4 seat at the end of the year, two groups in West Marin are mobilizing to host public forums at which supervisorial hopefuls will both field questions and sharpen their understanding of what matters locally.

The first forum, on Wednesday, April 20, will be held at the San Geronimo Valley Community Center at 6:30 p.m. and will focus on issues specific to the valley. The second, on Wednesday, May 4, will be held at the Dance Palace at 5 p.m. and will be moderated by Light reporter Samantha Kimmey and KWMR radio host Katie Eberle.

“Our intention is to develop information for the candidates as well as the community, so that the candidates are better informed about what their campaigns should be about,” said Mark Switzer, a member of the Point Reyes Village Association who is organizing the Dance Palace forum.

West Marin residents represent only a fifth of the 50,000 people in District 4, which spans all of West Marin and parts of Novato, Corte Madera, Larkspur and Central Marin. 

Mr. Kinsey has held the seat for 20 years and his predecessor, Gary Giacomini, held it for 24 years. 

Eight candidates filed paperwork with the county by yesterday’s deadline: Al Dugan, a risk management consultant in Novato; Alex Easton-Brown, a self-employed social scientist in Lagunitas; Dominic Grossi, a fourth-generation Novato dairy farmer; Wendi Kallins, the Forest Knolls founder of Marin Safe Routes to Schools; Tomas Kaselionis, a disaster operations supervisor in Novato; Dennis Rodoni, an Olema contractor; Sean Scullion, a San Rafael realtor; Brian Staley, a construction manager in Woodacre; Mari Tamburo, a musician from Mill Valley; and Scott Wilmore, of Mill Valley.

If no candidate receives a majority of votes in the June 7 primary, the top two will have a run-off in November. 

 The Point Reyes Village Association has invited several other village councils to co-sponsor the May 4 forum, which marks the second in a series of multi-organization meetings it has spearheaded to gather West Marin stakeholders together for the first time to discuss current issues affecting the entire region.

“The village association is intentionally trying to develop collaborative forums this year around pressing issues that are impacting all of West Marin,” Mr. Switzer said. “I would say this is definitely a type of effort that hasn’t occurred recently.”

Among the groups invited to co-sponsor are the Light, KWMR, the Inverness Association, the East Shore Planning Group, the Bolinas Community Public Utility District, the Stinson Beach County Water District, the Muir Beach Community Services District, the Tomales Village Community Services District, Mainstreet Moms and the West Marin Chamber of Commerce.

The April 20 forum, sponsored by the San Geronimo Valley Healthy Community Collaborative, will include questions from the collaborative as well as questions submitted by local community members. A final format run has not been hashed out yet.

“We are really interested in what these candidates know about the valley because it’s such a broad district that covers much more urbanized places,” said Suzanne Sadowsky, the associate director of the community center who is organizing the forum. “And we have some different issues that are not the same as in the coastal communities.”

Mr. Switzer said the village association plans to watch the valley forum closely in order to see how to tailor its own forum. He noted that it would incorporate questions posed by the village association, co-sponsor groups and community members that pose broad West Marin-wide queries. A method for how to solicit those questions has not yet been devised.

Last week, the village association held the first Coastal Communities Forum in collaboration with the Point Reyes Area Disaster Council. Lauren Armstrong, a planner with the Marin County Community Development Agency, presented updates to the county’s plan to prepare for rising sea levels. Lynn Axelrod, the coordinator of the disaster council, also gave an overview of how neighborhoods could plan for unpredictable events like wildfires and floods.

 

Future Coastal Communities Forums include the May 4 candidates forum, a May 22 affordable housing forum, a June 9 tourism forum and a second candidates forum on Sept. 8.