By Emily Hoeven, Opinion Columnist
Oct 29, 2025
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/emilyhoeven/article/sausalito-measure-k-mlk-park-21123207.php
Aaron Nathan didn’t think housing politics could be more frustrating than they were in San Francisco, where he and his wife spent years trying in vain to secure permits to renovate their home in the Castro.
Then they moved to Sausalito.
About two and a half years ago, Nathan and his wife settled in a home near Martin Luther King Jr. Park in the northern part of the Marin County city. They were excited to raise a family just steps from the park, where their two young kids could play sports, make friends and even attend school.
Then Nathan caught wind of Measure K, on the ballot Tuesday in Sausalito, that would permit bulldozing a section of the park to develop as many as 50 affordable homes prioritized for seniors.
Nathan supports new housing. He told me that during his years in San Francisco, he voted for Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener, who’s authored some of the state’s most aggressive pro-housing laws. But he struggled to understand why Sausalito wanted to build on heavily used parkland when there were acres of empty land in a nearby neighborhood called the Marinship.
Then he read my Oct. 18 column — which showed that Sausalito officials targeted the beloved park for redevelopment despite several Marinship property owners begging the city to allow them to revitalize their dilapidated parcels.
“Objectively, it’s crazy,” Nathan told me. And he’s not the only resident who feels that way, based on the deluge of Nextdoor comments and emails that flooded my inbox — including one that described the city’s actions as “head-slappingly frustrating.”
Rather than confronting the unpopularity of their decisions, however, Sausalito officials are taking a different tack.
Last week, glossy city-funded mailers landed in the mailboxes of Sausalito’s 5,639 registered voters. They were allegedly “provided for public education purposes,” but specifically called out my column.