Susan Kirsch talks with her son AJ on election night at The Club at Harbor Point in Mill Valley on June 7, 2016. Kirsch launched an unsuccessful bid to unseat former District 3 supervisor Kate Sears. (Sherry LaVars/Special to Marin Independent Journal)
By DICK SPOTSWOOD | spotswood@comcast.net |
Marin has been blessed with multiple candidates with diverse talents for local offices. Some win and others lose. It’s good practice to reflect on some first-class ideas that some losing candidates offered.
In the recent Novato City Council election one first-time candidate who failed to prevail, Jim Petray, offered a set of suggestions aimed at remedying the city’s long-term financial difficulties. Petray, a certified public accountant, is typical of the broad range of personal and professional experience good local candidates offer.
One of Petray’s suggestions has applicability to municipalities, special purpose districts and even state government: Construct municipal budgets based on the amount of funds available.
Many agencies start their budget process with the status quo. Then they learn that due to inflation or changed circumstances their budget isn’t balanced. Too often the resulting impulse is to raise taxes.
Small businesses and households start budgeting by asking how much they have available to spend in the coming year and then allocate available funds accordingly. They live according to their means. The prudent person, business or government also sets aside a reserve for the preverbal “rainy day.”
Another candidate with first-class ideas is Gene Yoon. The Lake County attorney was the moderate Republican candidate in the state Senate’s deep blue North Bay/North Coast 2nd District. While incumbent Democrat, Sen. Mike McGuire, easily prevailed, Yoon took his challenger’s role seriously.
Yoon’s campaign comments about education were on target: “We need to develop a one-to-two-year curriculum in U.S. government and civics. The process of doing so … will cause a great public conversation about how to mend our divided politics. The current state requirement to graduate from high school is just one semester in government and civics. … This isn’t about what not to teach – I don’t believe in banning knowledge. This is about what to focus on for a united civic community.”
It’s not too late for McGuire to follow up and adopt his challenger’s suggestion. High school students need a solid grounding in civics. Too many Americans lack basic knowledge about what our governments, particularly at the local and state level, can and can’t do.
I recently co-led Mill Valley Historical Society’s “Walk into History” for Old Mill School’s third grade. The walk ended at City Hall’s council chambers. The kids took turns sitting in the chairs of the mayor and the four council members. It was the ideal setting to explain to third-graders that someday they too could be sitting in those chairs governing their hometown.
Expanding school time devoted to civics should have solid backing from legislative Democrats. If McGuire introduces legislation mandating greater civics instruction, he should ask Yoon to assist in making the idea bipartisan. That gesture makes it possible that Republican legislators will join this good government effort.
A powerful Marin example of a losing candidate using the power of ideas comes from Susan Kirsch. In 2016 she ran for county supervisor in the southern Marin-centered 3rd supervisorial district, attempting unsuccessfully to unseat the incumbent, Kate Sears.
The big issue was the future of Strawberry peninsula’s closed Baptist seminary. Kirsch made it clear that her priority was retaining local control over land use and zoning.
While losing to the personable Sears, Kirsch became a statewide leader in rational housing policy. It was based on her understanding that California’s legislature was just starting to eviscerate city and county planning at the request of well-funded real estate, technology and labor interests.
Kirsch was ahead of the tsunami. She taught the lesson that if suburban communities want to successfully resist extreme efforts to gut local planning, these jurisdictions and their constituents need to organize and ally with similarly minded towns and counties.
Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley writes on local issues Sundays and Wednesdays. Email him at spotswood@comcast.net.
Comments
Doug Gawoski
I’d like further reporting from the IJ on how real estate, tech and labor bought off our politicians to eliminate local control of housing development. Follow the money.
Blue Eyes
Reply to Doug Gawoski
Doug, yes, follow the money.
plaperriere
Sadly this should be a standard practice. Unfortunately, in today’s tribal ideology if a good idea comes from a political party member different from the majority its viewed as heresy. Marin’s majority should take this article to heart.
Blue Eyes
DS, good idea to consider ideas from losing candidates. But sadly, most media and the public feel that a loser lost because their ideas were losers. But actually, winning an election often comes down to key endorsements, like dem party boss, or campaign funding from big-money donors like government employee unions.