Sustainable Fairfax has traditionally participated in voter education-As in years past we have asked the candidates to answer just a few questions so we can share them with you. For further information about the candidates please view the candidates night debates on www.cmcm.tv/fairfax or on Channel 27. Special thanks to the League of Women Voters for moderating the forum and Fairfax Chamber of Commerce for sponsoring. You may have noticed that one of the Candidates for Town Council is Pam Hartwell-Herrero, the Executive Director of Sustainable Fairfax. There have been some concerns that running for council means she will be leaving Sustainable Fairfax. We are happy to report that this is not so, most Council members manage to hold down day jobs while serving on the Council and Pam has no plans to leave Sustainable Fairfax. As a nonprofit organization we are not able to endorse any candidates but we are able to provide this survey.

Candidates that participted- David Weinsoff, William B. Madsen, Wendy Baker, Christopher Lang, John Reed, Pam Hartwell-Herrero

Questions Included-

What sustainability resources to you bring as a candidate for Town Council?

What do you think will be the most pressing ecological issue facing Fairfax during your term?  If elected, what are your plans to address it?

Do you support the Marin Clean Energy proposal to buy renewal power collectively directly, while PG&E would continue to be responsible for the transmission lines, billing and other duties?

Question #1:  What sustainability resources to you bring as a candidate for Town Council?

David:  On a professional level, I have practiced environmental law for more than 24 years – first as a member of the legal staff of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and after I moved to California, with the California Coastal Conservancy and as a deputy city attorney with the City of San Jose assigned to environmental issues.  I opened my environmental law office in Town 13½ years ago, representing environmental public interest groups in clean water and coastal protection litigation.  In addition to my formal legal work, I continue to teach the environmental law course at Dominican University, helping to inform the next generation of environmental activists about environmental protection under our federal, state, and local laws.

During my term on the Fairfax Town Council, I have voted with my Council colleagues on a broad range of excellent environmental projects and programs (discussed below).  I have also personally advanced important collaboration between our County Supervisor Hal Brown and Sustainable Fairfax, as well as a unique partnering of the Town with Sustainable Fairfax and the Marin Municipal Water District. The MMWD is currently collaborating with the Town and Sustainable Fairfax on a project to comprehensively retrofit house and irrigation fixtures throughout our community as part of its water conservation program.  The District anticipates significant reductions in water waste (in particular from older toilets, leaking faucets, shower-heads that are not “low-flow,” and non-drip irrigation systems and systems improperly operated) and will be using Fairfax as a model they can expand upon throughout their service area.  In the next few years I would like to see the Town collaborate with MMWD, Sustainable Fairfax, and our Chamber of Commerce to promote and fund an even greater range of innovative water saving projects, including, but certainly not limited to, the use of grey-water for irrigation (specifically irrigation of native drought tolerant plants), capturing and storing water from our rooftops during the winter rains, and the continued siting of “rain gardens” to lessen the nonpoint source flow of storm water into our creeks and streams.

William:  As a Fairfax Planning Commissioner I helped to draft the documents adopting sustainability and green building into our General Plan and building code. By making sustainability the cornerstone of the General Plan, it means that all future policies have to be written to comply with a sustainable ideology. I can’t claim credit for the idea—it was Commissioner Alec Hoffman who first suggested it, but I supported him and the idea, and have been a stalwart advocate ever since.

            On a personal level, I ride my bike for all my errands in town, hang my clothes on a line to dry, we make our own yogurt at home to reduce our consumption of plastic containers, and we garden with drought tolerant native species to reduce our use of water.

            While on the Commission, I suggested we draft an ordinance to encourage the installation of rain-water storage tanks in new hillside construction, but due to a backlog of other work with the General Plan, it was tabled for future consideration.

Wendy:  The background I bring to Fairfax includes my studies at the College of Environmental Design at U.C. Berkeley and at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design where I received degrees in Landscape Architecture.  Through the years, including at the recent Environmental Forum of Marin Sustainable Communities Seminar, I learned a respect for environmental wisdom and how we are not in charge of the earth - nature is for all creatures; resources are limited and not just for us; and we should support forms of economic growth that are sustaining.  I have often been a carpooler whenever I had to commute; even as a single parent with a child I commuted from SF (where I could be near my family for back up babysitting) to the Berkeley campus where my daughter had day care.  One of my first jobs as a landscape architect was at GGNRA and I was involved early with a recycling program there.  I also carpooled every day to the park. As a site planner working at various bay area firms, I am familiar with the fragile nature of soils, geology, vegetation, wildlife, climate, hydrology, topography, geology, etc. -- our ecosystem, and its relationships to the community issues.  I’ve worked on affordable housing in Fairfax (Glen Drive family, owner-builder homes, where several homes are lived in by local workers) – as a landscape architect putting in large shade trees to cool the houses, among other contributions.  During my previous term on the Fairfax Town Council, I launched a commuter program with the 11 cities of Marin and used RIDES’ system to create a carpool competition between cities.  With a colleague from Golden Gate Transit, I won the Metropolitan Transportation’s annual Grand Award and Fairfax got a commendation from Sacramento. While serving on the Board of Habitat for Humanity, Marin, we planned a housing project at Marin City with a church sponsor; we used innovative grey water recycling and drought tolerant planting as a feature of our scheme.  The project eventually fell through, unfortunately.  Overall, I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked in the design and planning field and can bring forth my professional experience to the town as well as my ability to collaborate on community projects that will support the three E’s – environment, economy and equity.

Chris:  The sustainability resources that I bring as a candidate for the Fairfax town council are formidable and varied: as founder of the Marin county bicycle coalition, with safe routes to school created on my watch, we started what is arguably the foremost environmental group in Marin, I have been deeply and actively working on bike projects to this day, with a huge amount of money brought to our community in state and federal grants; as an organic gardener and landscape contractor, I wrote my senior thesis in college on organic agriculture, the definition and three questions regarding yields, nutrition and sustainability (1975) and have been professionally engaged in residential maintenance in Marin for 40 years, practicing hands on tree trimming, fire hazard reduction, drip irrigation, mulching, native planting and natural soil amending; I have a been a hard-core political environmentalist since my membership in friends of the earth in 1971; I have a practical as well as intellectual understanding of composting( waste reduction), water conservation, recycling of all types, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and technical details, fire hazard reduction, taxonomy and botany, environmental city planning, and a passion for new ideas, backed by science and economics.

John:  I believe that one of our biggest resources in Fairfax is our community, for we have many people with many skills, willing to share them for the greater good.

I wholeheartedly believe in living within our means, both globally and locally. This means reducing our “carbon footprint” to something that is sustainable on a global ecological level, as well as our water use to something that is locally sustainable, taking into account the needs of the plants and animals of the earth as well as the needs of humans.

In terms of sustainability resources I can bring, they would include the goodwill of the community that I have worked long and well with during the last 15 years in Fairfax, as well as the knowledge and skills that I have regarding energy and water use, planning, transportation, gardening, herbal medicine, etc. The fact that we all live in a finite, currently unbalanced environment influences decisions I make now, and would certainly influence my decisions made on the Town Council.

Pam: I have served as the Executive Director of Sustainable Fairfax for the last five years and have found that the most pressing issues are climate change, waste, and water. I have been involved with Marin Clean Energy for the last 5 years and have been tracking and adding input to the process all along the way. I have also served on the Sustainable Marin board for the last two years bringing more form and function where I have been able and mentoring new sustainable groups in the county.

When the actions of Sustainable Fairfax and the Inconvenient Group inspired the Council to act on a Plastic Bag Ban, I worked hard to bring education to the community about the risks of plastic. When the ban failed at the council level, we took up the charge collecting signatures needed to get the ban on the ballot. I personally chased the Plastic Bag Monster(Renee Goddard) all over Fairfax on the day of the election. We ran those plastic bags right out of town with 80% of the vote. I have been an educator and advocate on water issues over the last 4 years. It began with assisting in the building of a Flood mitigation model at the Sustainability Center and has blossomed into a great working relationship with Marin Municipal Water District. Even though I do not believe it is time for desal in Marin and voice this at every board meeting on the issue, I still play host to the Director and any board members who visit our garden to learn and hope to partner on a serious effort towards water conservation in Fairfax.

Question #2:  What do you think will be the most pressing ecological issue facing Fairfax during your term?  If elected, what are your plans to address it?

David:  Protection of our hillsides from large-scale development (with its impact on flooding) is an issue of immediate concern.  The Cities/Towns/County through the collaborative BERST program (which I co-chair with San Rafael councilmember Brockbank), and Fairfax through a Town-specific ordinance, will be adopting “Green Building” standards that include direction on how to limit and delineate the construction footprint on our hillside lots facing development and/or substantial remodeling in the coming years.  Designing for minimum building and hardscape footprints will be a central part of our new regulations.

On a broader scale, our on-going mission is to ensure that every decision we make as a Council promotes the qualities of our small-town community. The Council has spearheaded a number of innovative environmental projects and programs during my term, some of which have garnered us front page press such as the banning of plastic bags from grocery stores (first by ordinance and then by citizen initiative) and being the first municipality in the County to join the Marin Clean Energy program (discussed below).  But of equal environmental importance are the decisions we make each month that reflect our strong ecological values.  These include – from a long list of achievements - our financing the placement of a solar array on the roof of our Pavilion, providing the lion's share of electricity for our municipal buildings; strongly promoting the Safe Routes to Schools Program (I am the Council liaison) which is getting our K-8 students on bikes and walking to school in significant numbers; and siting the Organic Farmers' Market in our beautiful downtown Bolinas Park.  If elected I will, in collaboration with my Council colleagues and Town staff, build on this excellent record of environmental achievement.

William:  Water.  I believe the vote to move forward with plans for a desalination plant by the Marin Municipal Water District last month should be a warning to us all—we have over-built Marin. By approving desalination without first asking the County to consider a moratorium on new construction, we’re putting Marin and all her communities at risk of large new housing developments.

            Right now, with our water supply stretched to capacity, we have the perfect opportunity to make the argument that we cannot reasonably expand any further. Understanding the environmental impacts of a plant (brine disposal, damage to local habitat, exorbitant energy consumption) and the impacts of the developments a plant would allow (increased traffic, congestion, pollution) the public and our public officials might be persuaded to reconsider their present course.

Wendy:  One of the key problems facing the town, environmentally, is erosion control in the hills.  During recent fire prevention programs where neighbors were asked to clear brush and vegetation and in some cases trees, from their property, a lot of unskilled people removed too many plants.  The roots and spreading branches of much of the vegetation had been holding the soil together for years on some steep slopes.   Now that soil is exposed.  You can see many examples along the roads in the Scenic Rd. area, where tree trunks and roots are exposed on steep bare soil slopes.  When the rain hits we’ll not only have potential slides but there will be a lot of erosion and wasted soil running down our roads and lost into the gullies.  I have proposed a jute mesh project – this might be a good fundraiser idea for neighborhoods so affected – to get ready for rainy weather.  I think when townspeople do this kind of clearing in the future, there needs to be a training component for skilled neighbors and hired helpers as part of the brush clearing program.  The next brush clearing grant for over $150 k that has been promised to the town from the federal government should include such training.

Chris:  The most pressing ecological issue facing Fairfax during my term is a double whammy: fire hazard reduction and water conservation, sudden oak death syndrome will not be a problem if our community catches fire! If elected, I have many ideas how to address these issues; some current programs need to be ramped up, public servants will need to work harder (oops, there he goes again!) and the town council will have to unite in their approach to these problems, (agreement as to priorities), flooding is actually one of our biggest problems and the current council has delegated the work to an ineffective agency.  Rather than give an extensive laundry list of technical solutions, let me state that I believe that a change in political leadership is a good thing, thanking the incumbents for their good work, but suggesting, at least for me, the status quo is basically unsustainable: the town's entire fleet runs on fossil fuel, it is extremely difficult to implement the livability projects we are trying so hard to accomplish: traffic calming, congestion relief, more trees, more crosswalks and bike parking, all town power, except a little from the pavilion comes from fossil fuel( I know, Marin clean energy will address this issue, but I think we can generate our own power), 44% of all the town's money goes to the police dept., correct me if I am wrong, is this sustainable? The town council will have to create a community consensus, as much as Fairfax can, and get direction from voters as to the best way to address these crucial ecological issues.  I would be happy to brainstorm solutions for these problems as well as elucidate more proposed solutions, and listen to new ideas, all three my 'specialties'.  

John:  This is a hard one, as both water and energy are important. Water has several important fronts that need to be encouraged, such as utilizing the new greywater rules to redirect greywater (along with rainwater) to the earth, for trees and fish in the streams. Conservation of this resource is of course also important, and is being encouraged on several levels. Council can take action that promotes both awareness and utilization of these practices.

My choice for “most pressing issue” would have to be energy usage, however, as it is interlinked with the very serious global climate situation. Through the utilization of mechanisms such as those enabled by AB 811, for instance, we can reduce our energy use by insulating, and installing solar generation where appropriate. Transportation is an area where energy use is rampant, and accounts for a huge percentage of greenhouse gases. My work as a bicycle advocate would continue. Council can also take action to encourage ridesharing through infrastructure changes, along with making us more bicycle and pedestrian friendly. Telecommuting can also be addressed by infrastructure. Participation in and support of proposals such as MCE are also crucial.

Pam: Because of what scientists are saying about Climate Change and its impact of extreme weather, I fear we will face increased flooding and increased drought that can precipitate fire. We need to be better prepared in the hills to prevent the spread of fire and dedicate funding to the work of Fairfax Volunteers to clear trails into the hillside community so that if fire trucks are blocking the road, people can escape safely. We will consider more water storage tanks so the water is available to fight from the top down instead of relying on pressure making it up. We need to better model simple flood mitigation efforts that can be implemented on town buildings. Directing rainwater from roofs and impermeable surfaces into swales or rain gardens that allow the water to slowly sink into our ground water must be done on town property. And quite obviously we need to do whatever we can to mitigate the effects of human behavior on Climate Change. I believe building a strong local economy and a community where people can live and work as well a finding resilience through more local food productionand waste reduction will help us in these efforts.

Question #3:  Do you support the Marin Clean Energy proposal to buy renewal power collectively directly, while PG&E would continue to be responsible for the transmission lines, billing and other duties?

David:  Yes.  I am very proud to have voted as a member of the first Town Council in the County to support the Marin Clean Energy project.  The Council’s unanimous vote supporting the program is not only consistent with Fairfax’s environmental values, it also reflects what I believe will in short-order be a sea-change in the paradigm of how we produce and use energy in our County. 

The Council followed up its support by speaking out against PG&E’s ballot measure (“The Taxpayers Right to Vote Act”), a short-sighted ploy to derail Marin Clean Energy and solidify the status quo.  It is clearly on the wrong side of where the majority of Marin County residents, and certainly the Fairfax community is on this issue.  The Council voted unanimously in favor of a Resolution at its August board meeting asserting that the ballot measure is “against the interests of California ratepayers, against the public interest, and a potential setback for renewable energy production.”

William:  I do support Marin Clean Energy’s proposal. Over the last decade, Ohio and Massachusetts have shown that Community Choice Aggregations are viable, offering reduced rates to their constituents and giving them choices as to how much green energy they want.

            MCE, by supporting clean energy providers, gives them a chance to be competitive and gain a foothold in the market, making the business of supplying green energy more viable. The more communities and counties that join these CCA’s means more clean energy for all of us.

Wendy:  Marin’s greenhouse gas reduction target is 15% below 1990 levels in 2020.  The Marin Clean Energy project, which I support, is a key way to address this goal and to reduce dependency on gas –fired power plants.  MCE has received far reaching support in Marin.  Most residents surveyed support having green, renewable energy from local sources and are willing to pay a little more for it.  It also creates opportunities for green business in the County, price stability, and energy independence. Local energy in the form of solar, wind, geothermal and biomass would be bought and developed by MCE and delivered by PG&E who would also handle repair lines and serve customers who would opt for the choice of locally produced energy.  Community Choice Aggregation has been embraced by Marin.  I think most residents who are following the project understand the need to avoid dependency on energy sources outside our control and particularly from foreign countries.  I think a missing component that is not coming through in the education to the community is how and where the geo thermal and biomass sources are developed, identified and utilized for Marin.  Most people are familiar with the idea of solar panels on their roofs.  In the county, there exists the dramatic and long drawn out story of one landowner trying to put in one wind generator.  Thus, the sources for energy are still confusing.

Chris:  Naturally I wholeheartedly support the Marin clean energy proposal and was one of the first people to reach out to the folks working on it through an article in the sierra club paper, I believe.  the Fairfax town council will play an important leadership role in this projected program, as we seek to go” dark green"!

John:  I certainly support this proposal, and have since its outset. I look forward to seeing the success of this program.

Pam: Yes very strongly.  I also believe that we need to take full advantage of the entire Community Choice Law, not just aggregation. Properly executed Marin Clean Energy will include aggregated buying, funding for energy efficiency programs, and bonds for local power generation.