Candidate for
Council Member; City of Novato

PUBLIC SAFETY

My highest priority + Keeping our streets safe and fighting to raise the number of officers patrolling our streets and keeping us safe. At the present time it is nice to see the numbers of officers being raised, some of which has been through grants. We have a new NRT + Novato Response Team that works citywide with crime prevention and other creative programs + it is funded through a Dept. of Justice Grant and some Measure F funding. We saw the police department staying ahead of graffiti, crime and community engagement and safety. 2012 saw the lowest number in 20 years in terms of violent crime and we need to make sure that it continues in that way.

FINANCIAL

When I started in 2009 we had a 4.5 Million dollar deficit and I am happy to state that we currently are only seeing a little over $310,000 remaining deficit that will be balanced with some Measure F funding. This was accomplished with a lot of sacrifice for our town, a 30% reduction in staff, increased efficiencies and elimination of waste and the city voting in a temporary ½ cent sales tax. With the budget somewhat in balance we now are facing a Revenue issue in order to replace the Measure F money with a sustainable budget. We need to implement a long term strategy for fiscal sustainability so that we do not rely of sales tax measures that are just helping us plug the budget hole. We must find a way to meet the needs of today without sacrificing tomorrow. We need to find creative ways of growing our community services for everyone, especially seniors and youth.

LAND USE

We have some strategic goals in place to try and deal with our aging historic buildings that are suffering from neglect and need to prioritize how they are being addressed. We need to make sure that our General Plan and Zoning speaks to our neighborhood concerns. We need to look at Novato as an incubator for more biotech, biomed and bioscience businesses + encouraging growth off of the Buck Institute, Ultragenix, BioMarin and others. The North Redwood Corridor needs to have a clear and concise plan that reflects a cohesive look, compliments our Downtown and reflects community needs. We need to address the $169 million a year of retail leakage from our community and do intelligent, thoughtful building with the last 5% of commercial land in Novato and take into consideration all areas of Novato, including Bel Marin Keys, Hamilton, and the North, North Redwood Corridor.