In Your Town for June 19, 2024
WEST MARIN
Contracts approved
for school leaders
The trustees of the Lagunitas School District have approved contracts to hire Kathleen Graham as superintendent and Jenelle Ferhart as the school principal.
The board voted 3-0 on Monday in favor of the one-year contracts, both effective July 1. Trustees Richard Sloan and Steve Rebscher were absent.
Graham’s annual salary will be $74,733 for the part-time job. Ferhart, whose job will be full time, will have a salary of $160,109.
The administrators will replace Laura Shain, the school principal who also filled in for former superintendent John Carroll after he took office as Marin superintendent of schools. Shain is retiring after 13 years as head of the K-8 Lagunitas School.
TIBURON
Permit extension
sought for project
The owners of the property at 2215 Vistazo East St. are seeking a sixth deadline extension on a home construction permit.
The original 18-month building permit was granted in June 2019, according to a staff report by the Community Development Department. The project has received four six-month extensions plus an 18-month extension under a state law related to pandemic relief.
The staff report said the project delays can be attributed partly to supply chain and staffing problems during the pandemic.
“However, significant construction delays were also caused by numerous permit violations resulting in multiple stop work orders, including a 6 month stoppage for failure to install a required fire hydrant prior to beginning construction of the approved structure,” the report said. “In addition, staff has spent considerable time responding to numerous complaints from neighboring property owners regarding the project.”
“A swift completion of the project appears to be a largely universal desire and will help restore the surrounding neighborhood to a level of normalcy that it has not enjoyed for the past five years,” the report said.
The Town Council will consider a request for another six-month extension during its meeting on Wednesday, June 19. The meeting is scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall. Project details and teleconference access instructions for the council meeting are online at shorturl.at/TSPXl.
LARKSPUR
Appeal denied over
plan for new home
The City Council has rejected an appeal filed against a home construction plan at 300 Alexander Ave.
The application requested permits to demolish the residence there and build a two-story, 4,272-square-foot residence and an accessory dwelling unit. The Planning Commission approved the project in May.
The owners of a home on Pepper Avenue appealed, saying the new residence would be so tall and so close to the property line that it would cast their pool in shadow.
The council held a hearing at its meeting on Monday and upheld the Planning Commission approval, said Elise Semonian, the city community development director.
MILL VALLEY
Glitch activates
emergency alerts
An emergency siren system malfunction in Mill Valley caused the equipment to blast out a series of alerts on Tuesday, according to the Southern Marin Fire District.
The system improperly switched into “test mode” for reasons that are under investigation, the district said. Normally the system is tested at noon on the first Saturday of the month.
The sirens — known as a long-range acoustic devices — are at City Hall, Cascade Canyon, Blithedale Canyon and Warner Canyon, police Lt. Shaun McCracken said.