This June, voters in Marin County’s District 4 will decide who they believe should replace their longtime representative, Steve Kinsey. With eight candidates vying for the seat, it’s a race almost guaranteed to end in a November run- off. Over the next couple of months, the Light will run conversations with the candidates.
This past weekend, we met up with Novato resident Tomas Kaselionis at one of his regular surf spots in Bolinas. We talked about his life experiences and stances on issues in West Marin.
Mr. Kaselionis—whose friends at his Crossfit gym have nicknamed “Kash”—has abundant energy and an analytical mindset. He has been deployed in emergencies across the country in his work for both the Federal Emergency Management Authority and the Coast Guard. That work has informed his approach to problem-solving; he is curious about what makes a community tick and seeks practical solutions. He is quick to wonder, ‘What if?’ and he openly acknowledges that he doesn’t have all the answers.
In a way, that seems to be Tomas’s strength: inspired by his work with communities in disaster, he emphasizes the importance of soliciting wide input, digging into problems with his own research and negotiating solutions under sometimes tight deadlines.
Point Reyes Light: What do you do with FEMA?
Tomas Kaselionis: In my day-to-day job I’m a regional training manager, so I oversee the readiness of all the employees in Region Nine [which covers Arizona and California] as well as our disaster employees. In a disaster, I change my role. [For example] a lot of people don’t remember [Hurricane] Irene. Alabama was struck really hard with tornadoes. I arrived and had no power. Many people were displaced, thousands of people’s homes were basically up in a tree. They have a lot of underserved populations, and some people in mobile home parks; those homes just got flicked off. They don’t commonly trust in government, especially the black community, so I had to go in and try to serve them directly. And we came up with new strategies of how to get them services.
I just came off of three-and-a-half months of deployment. I spent three weeks on the typhoon response. Then I went to Hawaii, to the Big Island, and came home for about a week and then the fires happened in September in Lake and Calaveras Counties, and I was a deputy operations section chief for the federal government.
I’m kind of a paradox in politics in Marin, in the sense that I’ve been with FEMA for the past eight years. I’ve spent more than 500 days away from home since 2008. That kind of hurts, but also helps me as a candidate. I get to talk to people for the first time and I get a fresh perspective. Meeting with those communities was chaotic, emotional. How do you navigate the conversations and prioritize the resources of the federal government? I’m used to coming in and negotiating. In a sense, an emergency manager is a skilled diplomat. I come in with no bias, with no stake. I just know that citizens need to be served.
I hear a lot of folks wonder why they would support a candidate who doesn’t live in West Marin. And I would argue that people who have that idea are closed to the thought that someone from the outside could discover what’s important to them and advocate on their behalf. I was able to go into the Hawaiian Islands, which are completely insular, and by my second or third trip they are letting me borrow their surfboard and inviting me to family meetings or birthdays or other gatherings. That’s within weeks of being in that community and proving to them that I was there for their use, that I was their advocate.
I want to come in with an open mind and look at the subject with fresh eyes and come up with creative ideas. I just got my Point Reyes Light and I read about how [federal] law allowed renewals for leases. But it doesn’t mandate them. A personal assurance is not law. The reason I say all that is: be innovative. Look down range and understand the impact that will take decades to understand. I think the commitments that were made need to be kept. But they were not put into federal law. That means that we need to campaign our federal constituents to give the property back to Marin, or let us buy it back so we can regulate it the way we see fit. Or change the law.
Point Reyes Light: What do you think about the presence of agriculture in the seashore?
Kaselionis: I understand the long traditions that have occurred. Personally I like to surf out there, and I feel it’s a little weird walking on some of those properties because I don’t know if I can, though it’s not fenced in. So I would like to see access to those lands because it really is our land. Not just mine or yours or Marin County’s.
Agriculture is a long-time practice and people have a great love affair for it in Marin. And there’s a lot of opinion that says it needs to continue. If that’s the case, then why did they let the federal government buy land without a guarantee in the law? We need to get the bias out of that decision and get people in office to look at it from a strategic standpoint and say, this is what the community supports and we need to guarantee in writing what that looks like in the future.
I would like to see a little diversity in agriculture. When I went to the San Rafael farmer’s market I saw only three producers of green goods from Marin. Some farmers are coming from hundreds of miles away. Where is the public policy that says 20 percent of the food should be from Marin? Wouldn’t that create a new market for farmers in Marin and Sonoma? Where do new ideas come from? They come from people saying, here’s a way to innovate or do business.
If climate change continues, and I think everyone believes it will, we have to change. I went on a MALT hike once. A guy was raising water buffalo. Unbelievable. I was blown away and then we had buffalo gelato. How can we bring more of that to the market? I want to create a marketplace for Marin businesses, and I don’t just mean agriculture, but where businesses in general can flourish.
Point Reyes Light: A few weeks ago we had miles of backed up traffic on on Presidents’ Day weekend. How do you deal with these kinds of issues?
Kaselionis: Why aren’t more people riding into Marin on horseback or on bicycle? It’s because we’ve continued to restrict access. They got rid of the train. That was probably one of the best ways to get people to [Mount Tamalpais]. What if we ferry people and shuttled to some of the spots? I don’t know. But if we’re not exploring those kind of ideas, we’re going to continue to have traditional solutions: build more roads or lanes. They haven’t worked. I speak as a longtime commuter; I’m now part of a vanpool. What if we make cycling more accessible? On Valentine’s Day, [my wife] Kim and I came through Samuel P. Taylor. We parked, got on our bikes and rode four and a half miles to the mountain watershed and had a picnic. That was an incredible experience. More people should be open to that experience.
Point Reyes Light: What are your thoughts on affordable housing?
Kaselionis: I think solutions are out there, and it doesn’t always have to be new development. Using existing buildings is the first place we should be looking; somehow it got highlighted that this is pioneering. You know, there’s a whole bunch of Coast Guard housing in Novato that is completely unused.
It’s the same answer I’ll give for transportation issues: there is no one panacea. If people are going to consider who to vote for, they need to consider someone who understands how to take complex issues and get a decision made. That’s why I say I’m different than everyone else. I’m about getting things done. I want to put that skill to use in my community. I want to take on all these different initiatives because that’s how my mind works.
For instance, I was approached by someone who wanted to talk to me about the Marin Carbon Project. I went to their website and read all four studies and within two hours I had a response to this person. I quickly got into the issue, read what was available to me, expanded beyond that, and did that within a two-hour period. And responded to that person with an initial opinion.
Point Reyes Light: I want to go back and touch once again on the affordable housing issue. In West Marin there’s a lot of discussion about the impact of Airbnbs on not just affordable housing but the existence of long-term housing itself. Do you think Airbnb should be regulated out here?
Kaselionis: I haven’t had enough experience to understand the issue fully. Personal property rights are very important. I think too often we expect government to take things on, and sometimes there needs to be a community effort handling it: contacting the landowner and telling them what the story is and how they’re impacting the area. Some landowners don’t care.
I’ve seen the impacts of overdevelopment, to expanding beyond the community temperament, if you will. You have people that come in and don’t care about what you’ve been spending your time building for the past 20 years. So the strategy should be, how do we approach it in a way that these people become integrated into our community, whether they are visitors or moving in for the first time? We’ve got to figure that out.
I don’t have a perfect solution because I don’t live in those communities. I live in Novato. But I can figure that out. I can very quickly figure out what the community dynamic is, because when I come into a new unit I keep my mouth shut and listen. I want to hear what it is that is specific about your community and I want you to articulate to me very quickly how you want people to respect what you’ve built.
Point Reyes Light: One big issue the county is tackling is climate change. As the seas endanger development and homes, what can be done?
Kaselionis: Today I was wondering, what if—and I haven’t studied it—what if an artificial reef off the end of Bolinas would assist with offsetting erosion? Rip rap is only a temporary solution. If you were here last summer, this was completely built up [with sand] and you could walk directly out. So the “groin” is now underwater where it used to not be. There’s been a huge movement of sand. Of course sand constantly moves, but if you can set the [impact] further out, the impact on the beach lessens. So what strategies will help mitigate effects down range?
Point Reyes Light: The county has been working on our Local Coastal Program and one issue has been development in hazardous areas and how much it should be regulated.
Kaselionis: Sometimes a decision no longer affects just one person. If whatever people want to do for themselves doesn’t impact anyone else, have at it. Once it starts impacting someone else, then I have a right to protect myself or speak for myself or my community.
Point Reyes Light: What other issues are important to you?
Kaselionis: It may sound like a catch phrase, but I really want to create a consumer-driven environmental revolution in Marin. What I mean is I want to see technologies create a better planet, or help offset our carbon footprint. [Like] personal wind generation systems, catchment systems to collect gray water. If we can come up with new and different ways to still live comfortably, then we need to make those readily available. There are new electric bikes being made in Petaluma. Why isn’t there some sort of consumer fair on environmental tools? Like an environmental world fair in Marin?
Point Reyes Light: Why did you join the Coast Guard?
Kaselionis: I’m first-generation Lithuanian-American. Lithuanians have a long tradition of sailing the Baltic Sea, so when they migrated to the U.S., they try to maintain the tradition. All through high school I thought I would join the Coast Guard, but it just never came to fruition. So it wasn’t until I was 25 that I decided to finally join. I was very fortunate: Novato was looking for reservists. Once I found out what their mission was, what they did in terms of environmental response and hazardous materials response, I was more driven to do it. They sent me away to boot camp and as soon as I graduated I moved to the Bay Area, not knowing anyone. The experience of the Coast Guard and coming to my unit—and a month later, 9/11—drastically changed my paradigm. In 14 years I’ve matured into being a borderline expert on hazardous materials response.
Point Reyes Light: What was a keystone experience for you in the Coast Guard?
Kaselionis: The one that I draw the most experience from is my deployment to Deepwater Horizon, the Gulf oil spill. I spent two months there. At first I did post-dispersant sampling. One of the strategies during an oil spill is to spray a chemical called Corexit. On my first trip into the Gulf, somehow the planes spraying Corexit were given free reign to spray wherever. As we were motoring out, the ship got sprayed several times. Our mission was to sample before and after they sprayed, so that we could quantify how effective the dispersant was.
I did that for about three weeks, until me and my crew lobbied the safety issue. So they eventually contracted that out and I moved on to air monitoring. About a month in, I was asked to join the in-situ burn team.
Point Reyes Light: A lot of people here are interested in the impacts of pesticide and herbicide use on public lands.
Kaselionis: It is the responsibility of anyone applying a chemical to develop a system that captures the impact of what they’re doing and articulate it to the public that may be impacted.
One time when I was surfing in San Luis Obispo they didn’t tell us they had dumped 1,000,000 gallons of raw sewage, and several of us got ill. They didn’t tell us that the beach should’ve been closed. When you do something that has the potential to impact other people, you have an obligation to do right by them. People say testing can be expensive, but if you have a framework, it reduces the cost.
Some people don’t want any [pesticide use]. Is that reasonable? Probably not. But there are a lot of different techniques that can be utilized.