Hopeful that golf course can be saved
I just wanted to add my name to the list of the many long-time residents of San Geronimo Valley who feel that golf at this site is the best use of this land and hope there can be an environmental solution that includes golf and other uses.
Many of the printed opinions against golf seem pretty uniformed that pesticides have not been used there for a while.
It took us 40 years to get our gym built and if we lose golf, I think a few years into the future most of our community will look back ruefully and realize the mistake.
I am hoping that any compromise includes golf.
— Tim Blain, Lagunitas
Marin City residents’ plan deserves better
This is my feeling about the Marin Housing Authority’s decision to move forward with a plan for Marin City that will never come to fruition.
Everyone agrees that the Golden Gate Village Resident Plan is the best plan.
The first step of our plan was to get the Golden Gate Village on the national historic registry as a historic district. One purpose, of the General Services Administration’s Renewable Energy Lab, is to take historic buildings on the historic registry and renovate and retrofit them to become energy-efficient buildings.
The Aspinall Courthouse in Denver, Colorado is the precedent that we have used for the deep-green renovation and retrofitting of Golden Gate Village. This has always been part of the Resident Plan.
In fact, in the words of the senior project manager of the GSA’s Office of Design and Construction: “Overall, the content is presented very well. I’ve found documents to be clear, concise, and at a high level.”
The reason the people who designed and managed the Aspinall project want to work with us is, although they balance modernization and preservation, we added something — economic development to make sure that residents are not priced out.
If the Resident Plan was followed, CVR, the housing authority’s consultants, would have talked to these experts who we talked to and not go to websites.
This takes me to “the process.” The process was to equally vet the Resident Plan and Mixed Income Plan.
The process was not followed. There were two different standards used; the Resident Plan was critiqued while an opposing plan was created drawing the best elements of the Resident Plan.
The CVR consultant, rather than help us implement the Resident Plan, moved Resident Plan elements into a Mixed Income Plan which destroys the very historic district that we just protected.
“Guiding Principles” were written down and agreed upon, but were not followed. Primary points in these principles are to protect the legacy of the community and residents — at the front of the process — promote high quality open space and restore Golden Gate Village’s economic sustainability.
The Golden Gate Village Resident Council’s plan for deep-green restoration and renovation has been guided by these principles and holds the means to reach the ends they prescribe.
Lastly, Marin City is more diverse, both in income and ethnicities, than any community in Marin County. Marin City is two to three times denser than neighboring communities.
Marin City in the 1990s built 300-plus affordable housing apartments and townhouses. We also agree that there is a need for more affordable housing in Marin County, but affordable housing needs to be where it is absent.
There are reams of evidence of how such measures have led to gentrification nationwide. And, the housing authority’s plan certainly would.
There is also no guarantee of housing affordability. This goes against the legacy of the late Supervisor Vera Schultz and her vision, hard work and efforts to acquire the land for the development of permanent affordable housing for the people who were “left behind.”
— Royce McLemore, president, Golden Gate Village Resident Council, Marin City
Trump’s proof that
he’s a ‘stable genius’
If President Donald Trump is such a “stable genius,” how come the stables are such a mess?
I don’t think there has ever been a time when there was so much evidence of horse activity in plain view.
— Jay Conner, Novato
Real geniuses don’t brag about themselves
Now President Donald Trump says he’s “a very stable genius.” It’s interesting he feels he needs to justify his genius by telling everyone how “like really smart” he is.
Can you imagine Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton, Nikola Tesla or Thomas Edison, to name a few, ever making such statements about themselves?
It’s actually embarrassing that a self-proclaimed genius like Trump can act so stupid about how smart he says he is.
— Sandra Macleod White, Sausalito
Trump is generating the coverage he’s getting
In her Jan. 6 letter, Anna Mae Maly states that we’ve “seen near-hysterical coverage of Trump the man and almost nothing of his administration’s significant accomplishments.” I’d like to address a few of these:
1. Dismantling President Barack Obama’s regulations and accomplishments. This will have far-reaching negative implications, as President Donald Trump has overturned anything related to Obama, simply because he resents Obama. There is no apparent thought given to whether things Obama did are valuable or helpful for the country and its people; Trump just slashes.
As a result, important protections for our country and people have been overturned. Media are not hysterical in their reporting of this; they are merely reporting facts. Trump’s actions create the “hysteria.”
2. Judicial appointments. The issue at hand, and what has media reporting, is the choice of these appointments. The people he is selecting are not mainstream and do not represent anything close to the majority.
They are staunchly conservative. The country is going forward in new, better directions and these judicial appointees will set us back to the ’50s.
3. Cutting 22 regulations for each one enacted. This is an arbitrary cutting, done for the sake of cutting, and to brag. It didn’t matter whether or not the regulations were valuable or necessary; he just started slashing. Again, media reporting the facts about this sounds hysterical and chaotic, yet, it’s a case of Trump’s actions led to the hysteria and chaos.
The point is, the media are reporting the accomplishments. Unfortunately, the consequences of his “accomplishments” are arbitrary, according to his whims and negative in nature.
His “accomplishments” harm thousands.
— Carolyn CJ Jones, Novato
Sessions the right person to decide who is ‘good?’
I am concerned that a person who spends their life rising in the political arena, with a history of corruption, racism and perjury to a federal grand jury, can state what he feels is a “good person.”
If 74 percent of the voters who supported legalization of cannabis in California are all bad people, we’ve got a serious problem here.
This federal officer’s personal opinion should not be a basis for policy change. Especially change that undoes a congressional ruling.
He has no right to rescind the “Cole Memo” that so many worked on.
As a business owner in a town that sees the demise of its retail spaces, new ideas and types of businesses will be needed to keep up the revenue that allow day-to-day functioning. These should be embraced.
If you are not a brick-and-mortar merchant, you cannot possibly understand.
I, as well as all the friends, clients and acquaintances I know who are cannabis users, either medically or recreationally, are all good people. To have someone like Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions tell me I am a bad person is unconscionable.
I have never been denied a position based on racism. Or willfully lied to the entire country on live TV.
Who’s the bad person here? I ask you this.
— Patrick Fasano, Novato
