Voters in Marin County Board of Supervisors District 3, which covers most of Southern Marin, have three candidates to consider in picking a successor to three-term incumbent Kate Sears on the March 3 ballot.
The job hasn’t drawn a number of experienced political leaders from towns across District 3, given some of the controversial issues facing the district.
Mill Valley City Councilwoman Stephanie Moulton-Peters is by far the best qualified and most experienced of the trio.
Sears is not seeking a third term. She has some unfinished business, important local issues including proposed renovation and development in Marin City, resolving the Richardson Bay “anchor out” controversy and charting the future of the Seminary property in Strawberry.
Hands-on leadership and constant attention are going to be needed to resolve them.
Of the candidates, Moulton-Peters has the experience that promises to do just that.
Moulton-Peters is best equipped on the issues and in local politics to make more progress. She would bring to the job her experience and know-how as a three-term city councilwoman.
“I’m a very on-the-ground, nuts-and-bolts person,” said Moulton-Peters, describing her leadership style.
Her service on the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District and the Transportation Authority of Marin boards are experience in working on countywide and regional issues that will be valuable to a new supervisor.
The top priority she places on bolstering wildfire prevention and protection is also impressive.
Her rivals in this race are one-time Marin homebuilder Jack Kenney of Tiburon and Bill Bailey, an information systems administrator from Sausalito.
Kenney, who once headed a large home-building company that built many of the homes in Terra Linda, is running because he said the county needs to do a lot more to control the taxpayer cost of its employee pension system and because he opposed to the Board of Supervisors’ costly attempt to buy and close the San Geronimo Golf Course. He said supervisors were “way over the line.”
Bailey was unable to attend the editorial board’s meeting with candidates. Among the issues on his platform that he outlined to the editorial board are “accountability of public funds” and creating a self-sustaining local power grid in Marin.
Kenney’s concern about the hefty taxpayer cost needed to cover the growing expense of pensions is justified. He said under the current system it is mathematically “impossible,” without extensive reforms, to catch up with the ongoing debt.
“My priority is to protect the taxpayers,” he told the IJ editorial board.
Moulton-Peters said she supports the county’s ongoing initiative to pay more upfront to reduce the pension debt. She said that due to that approach, the county is in better fiscal shape than other counties.
She also said that building trust and a transparent decision-making process are needed to settle the Marin City debate, where community consensus over plans to renovate aging public housing and possibly add new development has been difficult to attain.
She said she’s up to the task, offering as an example her leadership in building consensus on the much-debated and long-delayed plans to improve Mill Valley’s Miller Avenue.
On Richardson Bay, she said the new strategy of stepped-up enforcement of mooring time limits and working with boat dwellers to find them housing is “headed in the right direction.”
When it comes to current experience and knowledge of the issues and what’s needed to resolve them, Moulton-Peters is the clear choice. The IJ editorial board recommends voting for Stephanie Moulton-Peters for Third District supervisor.
