Marin IJ Readers’ Forum for July 3, 2024

Budget lacks enough funding for DEI plans

According to statements about the recently approved Marin County budget, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) efforts are meant to be defining priorities. However, I don’t see enough evidence of this in the proposed expenditures.

To give one example, more than $5 million will go toward the Veteran’s Memorial Auditorium, which of course hosts wonderful events like concerts. Yet only $250,000 to study a possible sound wall in Marin City, where life expectancy is eight years lower than the rest of the county.

Some Marin City residents suspect that they suffer from asthma and other diseases partly brought on by particulate matter from the freeway and mold in their homes. Residents of the Golden Gate Village public housing community alone deserve an immediate $200,000 for screens in their homes to partially remedy this situation.

It’s as if county officials have forgotten to make sure all their children have shoes before buying them symphony tickets.

In the future, I hope the Marin County Board of Supervisors show it is serious about DEI.

— Barbara Rothkrug, Mill Valley

Recent news puts focus back on the MMWD board

The IJ’s front-page articles on June 22 (“Marin Municipal Water District renews focus on desalination”) and June 23 (“Marin reservoir connection plan delayed by creek habitat concerns”) portray an MMWD Board of Directors that hasn’t gotten the message Marin voters sent when they elected three new board members.

The June 23 article reported that a modest project of pumping water from Phoenix Lake faces delay over conceivable environmental impacts, despite the fact MMWD’s report — prepared by an objective third party — determined these were “less than significant.” Environmental groups oppose pumping for the full five-month period because it may negatively impact fish.

I think board members bend over backward to accommodate conservation groups. Director Jed Smith asked “Is it negative at all, and if so, what can we do about better protecting this important watershed?”

Contrast that with the June 22 article. While it headlines the possibility of desalination, a careful reading indicates the likelihood that this MMWD board would ever approve desal is about zero. It appears to me that the board is seemingly ready to accept the cost of a small desal plant as $273 million.

Where was Smith, who campaigned as a shrewd numbers guy, when the board reviewed Jacobs Engineering’s report showing a range of estimated costs for the category of desal plant being considered? The low end of that range is nearly twice the actual cost of a similar plant under construction in another affluent California coastal locale.

From my perspective, Smith and his colleagues seem more sensitive to fanciful concerns that would reduce the availability of water than to real ones that would increase it.

— Steve Stein, Greenbrae

Fair winners should be posted on internet

Recently, when I entered my quilt in the Marin County Fair’s 2024 competition, I was disappointed to learn that winners would not be posted on the fair website like was done on a trial basis last year.

Sharing results with our community at-large is a nice way to honor the work of the entrants in all categories and meet the county’s goal of inclusivity for all.

— Sue Ream, San Anselmo

Housing mandates could be disaster for Novato

It appears that new state housing mandates are forcing the Novato City Council to approve as many as three projects between Third and Fourth streets on Grant Avenue. As a resident and business owner, I think the housing plan is far too dense.

One of the potential modular buildings will be five stories and the other two could be six stories. They are totally out of scale for our small downtown. My research shows that these kinds of developments are typically very modular. I am concerned that developers will sidestep state rules dictated by Assembly Bill 2011, which require that they pay prevailing wages and use local contractors, by bringing in the modular housing from out of state.

The total number of units is projected to be 438 with only 66 parking spaces provided. The lack of parking provided will overwhelm our already crowded downtown and surrounding residential areas.

As far as helping young families with the high cost of living in Marin, all these units are listed to be either one-bedroom apartments or studios giving the appearance of dormitories.

They will be basing their rents on one-person household equations for very-low-income residents (which comes to $63,950 at $30.74 per hour) and low-income residents ($102,450, $49.25 per hour). They should have at least included residents designated as “extremely low income” to assist our young adults and couples who struggle to live in Marin.

I worry that the parking crunch will lead to all the commercial/office buildings on Grant being forced to monitor their parking lots to ensure their tenants, clients and customers have access. They will have to review options like gates, attendants or contract with a local towing company.

The development companies will most likely walk away with a financial win, leaving the city, which is already facing a multi-million dollar deficit in this coming year’s budget, with a disaster on their hands.

— Carla Small, Novato

West Marin people are not clueless hayseeds

In two recent IJ editorial cartoons, residents of the rural community in West Marin appear to have been presented in a way I consider to be negative. As a person with friends and family in the West Marin community, I find these cartoons insulting and harmful.

I think the cartoons presented West Marin people as clueless hayseeds. I find it condescending and incorrect. The community I know is made up of a wide variety of people of all ages with many differing points of view. This community is, however, deeply committed to the stewardship of the land, preserving precious open space and sustainable agricultural practices.

In terms of the recent Marin County Civil Grand Jury report implying that public money from Measure A needs more surveillance (which was the subject of the most-recent cartoon), one need only to look at what some Silicon Valley billionaires have planned in Solano County. Those investors are planning to turn ranchland into a new “tech city.”

With that in mind, I am very grateful that Measure A funding has contributed to the Marin landscape by making sure that such large predatory development is not possible in rural Marin.

— Abe Hardin, Berkeley

‘Judgment at Nuremberg’ worth another look today

I recently rescreened the 1961 riveting cinematic masterpiece, “Judgment at Nuremberg.” The film centers on a military tribunal where prosecutors and judges stand accused of crimes against humanity due to their prominent roles in the judicial system of the Nazi German government.

It is based on questions regarding Germans’ individual and collective responsibility for the Holocaust. It seeks answers in trying to understand how the German people could have been deaf and blind to the Nazi regime’s crimes.

The film is notable for its use of courtroom drama to shed light on individual treachery and moral compromise in times of violent political upheaval. The New York Times declared it “a powerful, persuasive film with a stirring, sobering message to the world and a grim reminder of man’s responsibility to denounce grave evils of which he is aware.”

Due to the rise of White supremacy, antisemitism and neo-Nazi behavior today in America, it seems to me that this film should be required viewing.

— Dennis Kostecki, Sausalito