Marin IJ Readers’ Forum for July 8, 2023

Support our Marin City, a true cultural gemstone

Marin City is the most diverse community in Marin County. It is an historic Black community. Marin City is home to a resilient population who, on a daily basis, face discriminatory experiences. On June 19, Marin City had a large and authentically African American Juneteenth celebration — the largest in the county.

It is time for Marin to wake up to the brilliant cultural gemstone that Marin City offers to our overwhelmingly White population. Let it show the county what much of the world looks like. Let Marin City lead Marin County into a sustainable culture that welcomes the changing world. The cultural wealth of the community can open the eyes, hearts and minds of all people to a better, richer life experience.

As sea levels rise, let Marin rise to see that diversity, integration, respect, transparency and justice can make this special county righteously beautiful. May Marin County leadership let it be so.

In 1968, Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress. Her words are memorable.

“We Americans have a chance to become someday a nation in which all racial stocks and classes can exist in their own ‘selfhoods,’ but meet on a basis of respect and equality and live together, socially, economically, and politically,” Chisholm said in 1973. “We can become a dynamic equilibrium, a harmony of many different elements, in which the whole will be greater than all its parts and greater than any society the world has seen before. It can still happen.”

The quote appears at the beginning of the Marin City community plan, which was originally drafted in 1980, amended in October of 1989 and last amended in March of 1992.

— Debra Turner, Marin City

Cattle are the problem in seashore, not the elk

The IJ’s recent editorial about the tule elk fence and cattle ranching inside Point Reyes National Seashore (“All must be part of discussion to remove Point Reyes elk fence,” June 26) omits two critical facts.

First, Point Reyes ranchers were paid millions of dollars for their ranch land, presumably to eventually leave the park, but then didn’t. In effect, they were paid for their cake, but still get to have it too. Second, each year, thousands of Point Reyes cattle dump millions of pounds of untreated manure onto park soils, some of which washes into its streams and beaches.

Putting elk aside, this perfectly illustrates why ranching is incompatible with national parks. Point Reyes ranches appear to repeatedly violate all water pollution regulations with excessive amounts of fecal indicator bacteria including E. coli, enterococci and fecal coliform. Care for a swim or kayak, anyone?

Of course ranchers want the public to keep subsidizing them by extending their leases, which is less than half the market value compared to other Marin ranch lands. So they also want their cow manure, but the public has to eat it too.

Wild elk are not the problem at Point Reyes; cattle ranches contaminating groundwater are. And ranches even fence off access to 28,000 acres — one-third the entire park — to its actual owner, the public.

This is not what the seashore’s founders envisioned, nor what the public paid millions of their tax dollars for.

Fencing is no solution to all the dirty dealings at Point Reyes. Removing all fences and private, polluting beef and dairy operations is.

— Jack Gescheidt, San Rafael

Novato needs innovative budget plan right now

Several months ago, the IJ published my Marin Voice commentary about the Novato budget deficit (“Tackling Novato budget challenge means setting goals, taking actions,” May 6). I proposed some possible short- and long-term recommendations. Apparently, I did not achieve the call to action I had hoped for.

The Marin County Civil Grand Jury recently released a very critical report on how business is conducted in Novato and offered several concrete recommendations as well (“Marin grand jury calls on Novato to raise sales tax to slash deficit,” June 14). Despite everyone knowing about the deficit, there has been no significant traction to address the ongoing issue. Recently, the council adopted a budget for the new year projecting a $2.6 million deficit (“Novato adopts budget with $2.6M deficit following staff wage hikes,” June 29).

We continue to hear people say that Novato just needs more revenue. Clearly the city does, but that alone will not solve the budget problems. There are systemic issues around efficiency and other measures that need to be explored and vetted to solve the problem.

The council needs to start listening to those with different perspectives and knowledge bases to address the financial challenges. They include the public and the recommendations of the grand jury, as well as their own budget and finance committee.

The time to develop an innovative, creative, and constructive action plan is now.

— James Petray, Novato

Improve college education for the majority of society

The Supreme Court decision to reject affirmative action for elite universities is not a definitive rejection of access to a college education by minority and disadvantaged students. Eighty percent of college students attend community colleges or state universities.

I have taught at San Francisco State University since 1995. The 24 campuses in the Cal State University system have brought more first-generation college students into the workforce than all the Ivy League schools and top 20 universities by ranking combined. The focus on prestigious schools misses the priority that the greatest benefit in bringing more of the economically disadvantaged and minorities into the middle-class working adult population is to focus on improving the quality and training of these students for existing jobs.

Plumbers, electricians, roofers and tradespeople often make six-figure salaries within five years of employment. So do we need more affirmative action for elite schools or do we need to improve the education for the vast majority who can more easily qualify to be accepted into community and state schools? Doing the latter would certainly enable more people to have success.

— Jeff Saperstein, Mill Valley

Legislators are not likely to help marijuana industry

In her recently published California Voice commentary, Tiffany Devitt’s case for how the state has grossly mismanaged the legalization of marijuana is compelling (“State’s legal cannabis market could soon implode,” June 29).

The question at this point is whether the Legislature will be able to cure itself of its myopia and “head in the sand” posture to correct the current situation regarding cannabis regulation. With the state government at the helm, we can’t remain confident this issue will be quickly or effectively resolved.

I’d love the Legislature to shock us and do something timely, intelligent and informed. Please surprise us.

— Bill Ramsey, San Rafael

Drop in state population is very good for California

I am writing in response to James Quigley’s letter which asserts that Democrats mismanaged California, leading to people choosing to leave. If that’s true, then I thank the Democrats.

It’s obvious that California is far past its carrying capacity (just look at issues around shelter, water, roads and land). Even 50 years ago, in my youth, it was clear that California was overpopulated and getting more so every year.

I used to envy my father for having experienced Marin County 100 years ago, when he was a child — now I should envy myself for having known uncrowded open spaces. I remember hiking from Kentfield to the Mount Tamalpais fire lookout station without seeing a soul and being able to walk down to Tennessee Cove without first searching for a parking spot.

Growing up, I could have never imagined that Marin would look like Los Angeles. Why anyone would think losing population is a bad thing is baffling to me.

— Jean Arnold, Mendocino