David,

Let me start out by saying I am no expert on these matters, but I do consider myself able to have an opinion as a, driver, biker, dog walker and wildlife enthusiast. In a perfect world if planners were able to build a semi permeable surface street, next to bike lane, next to a walking trail and paralleled by a wildlife corridor in both directions everything would be great. If this is the dream, here are a few of the realities if we are trying to work Fairfax away from the automobile:

1) If we are trying to work Fairfax away from the automobile, we can thank they Oil Companies. –(Did I just say that?).- I heard this morning that gas prices are expected to hit $5 a gallon this Spring! That alone will outrage the public enough to get on a bike or talk car-pooling with neighbors to solve some of their tasks locally.

2) Another way to get Fairfax out of their cars is to follow up on the project that Councilman John Reed embarked on years ago. We have many trails and easements that exist in our town. Many are overgrown, not known, built over, blocked or not used. Locating & teaching these routes in to town is an excellent enticement for walkers & bikers. They act as local wildlife corridors and are good for the population to escape in the case of a fire, flood or other emergencies. Once citizens are familiar with these routes, they should be more encouraged to use them and teach others. Many that I use are faster walking than driving.

3) A final way we might get Fairfax away from the automobile is to continue to support local shops and stores. If you can walk to town to get your food from the New Good Earth, your building materials from Fairfax Lumber and a good food locally, there is no need to get in a car with the family to go to San Rafael and beyond. We need to SUPPORT OUR LOCAL ECONOMY. They in turn will support us with more services and better value.

The good news here David, is that you might be “preaching to the Choir” on this topic when comparing Fairfax to the rest of the County (and Country). I think we are the most progressive town in the Country when it comes to the desire to reduce our dependence on the automobile, and create a local sustainable community. Great Question. How did I do?

Not bad! Mill Valley did something like you describe with their stairs and alleys; I'm sure they'd have some expertise in the subject. I notice you didn't mention Golden Gate Transit or the Parkade bus terminal, although with no Fairfax representation on MTC, GGBHD, SMART or Marin Transit there might be an opening there. Thanks for the response, though - some great ideas! I'll leave you to answer others' questions.

Mimi,

I can’t speak from what IS coming, but I can speak to what I think the community would embrace and what we can all do to encourage bringing resources to the 94930. In order to benefit as a community the “ideal business” would provide substantial tax revenue and provide goods or services that we feel fit our Fairfax values. That being said, “Fairfax Values” can be different depending on who you ask.

Take the concept of the recently “almost-proposed music venue” that was a fire-cracker topic last fall for example. I liked the idea that it would provide substantial tax revenue, while only being active a few nights a week in the evenings. I loved the fact that it would be available for use of local children and community events beyond just the concerts for which it was intended. (I see very few business opportunities that would offer the community the same philanthropy for the greater good.)

However, I also became aware while walking door to door during my recent campaign that there were many legitimate impact concerns due to size, noise and traffic. I chose to use the “highly volatile” subject as an example because we as a town will most likely NEED to navigate our way through similar proposals in the future if we are to survive without further loss of services. We need to work together.

To answer your question about how to “encourage such opportunities” Mimi, I think you just said it. We need to encourage and welcome these proposals to make it all the way through the town process so all concerns from the applicant and community can be heard and digested in the proper format. It believe and hope in the future that all new projects and proposals will get a legitimate opportunity to be heard without bias to see if there is a match between what is financially viable for the applicants and what we as citizens think would become an asset to the community.

John,

As a business owner my goals and preference focus on both increasing revenues, and cutting costs any way I can without compromising products or service. In my opinion, Fairfax provides superior services for the least amount of money compared to any other town in Marin. However, a business can afford to take risks that a town probably wouldn't take when dealing with budgets that support the people in a community.

In order to avoid more of these parcel and sales taxes, we simply need to embrace the ideas that increase revenues. If we as a community choose to restrict or deny some of the funding options, we will then have to balance those choices with more taxes. The equation is simple in principle, but murky in practice. I think we need to ask ourselves: Are the extra local taxes we pay worth the services we are getting from Fairfax? I love this place, I think they are, but I would love to find a way to increase town revenues and not my tax bill.

I think the opponents of the recent Measure D took a hard look in an attempt to find waste in the budget in order support their position that our town is irresponsible in its spending. I learned a lot from listening to their arguments, and I agree that transparency in the budget is a paramount first step for us to make informed choices on what services we want to cut and which ones we want to fight for.

My preference would be to gain consensus with town services, businesses and the community before moving to cut anything out of the budget.

As I mentioned above, all options for increased town revenues need to be on the table. Parking meters is one of those options that have come up in the past. We should look at the income estimates. I have also heard ideas of local parking passes per household that would hold you exempt from the meters. This is a delicate idea because I am sure business owners would not want to anything to deter visitors from their shops yet I often witness people driving here from outside town, leaving their vehicles in the Parcade, neighborhood streets and parking lots as they leave town for a day of Open Space adventure.

Many people come to visit here from outside Fairfax. We want them to come spend their money and participate in our culture, but we don't want them to leave their cars here while they

Sierra,

I have always enjoyed your "out of the box" approach to the bigger picture. Here is something to chew on called the “Democratic Peace Theory”

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory

(or simply the "democratic peace") is the theory that democracies don't go to war with each other.

Among proponents of the theory, several explanations have been offered for it:
1- that democratic leaders must answer to the voters for war, and therefore have an incentive to seek alternatives;
2- that such statesmen have practice settling matters by discussion, not by arms, and do the same in foreign policy;
3- that democracies view non-democracies as threatening, and go to war with them over issues which would have been settled peacefully between democracies;
4- that democracies tend to be wealthier than other countries, and the wealthy tend to avoid war, having more to lose.
__________________________________________________________________

So my answer Sierra might be to encourage democracy all over the planet. This should lead to less fighting in the future, therefore creating less war, thus requiring less funding for wars, thus perhaps more money for education and infrastructure.

How you like them apples?

Perhaps a good place to begin, may be with democracy at home? Aside from that, how is what we have now O.K? We are wasting our lives and money, which are better spent on community, education, hospitals, infrastructure, etc. It is still NOT O.K. for us to be killing people around the world, many of them innocent and poor, being their only crime, democracy or not. I believe our wars are more about $ profits than democracy, or trying to find or create peace.
It is an epic failure, and we must believe in it and support it.
Why else would we allow it to continue? It is OUR money, and children's lives, after all?
Call me an uneducated barbarian idealist, or whatever you like, and what we have is lunacy, which in the end, serves nobody.

Dolores,

I have small kids and dogs, and I worry about cars even at the end of my quiet dead end street. I can only imagine the strain on you and your neighbors on such a heavily trafficked street such as Sir Francis Drake.

As far as the San Anselmo Town Council ignoring such requests, I know that if your Councilwoman Kay Coleman saw you speeding by her anywhere in town that you can bet you'd hear a whistle that could stop a train come out of her mouth correcting the incident. That’s a fact.

My idea would be to remind the commuters and folks that travel your route the most often what is at risk if they get forget about their surroundings. Personalize your street by getting your neighbors together (especially the kids and pets) to hold signs once in the morning commute and again in the evening commute asking people to slow down. I would do it every month in different locations along SFD reminding drivers that there are people and pets in these houses they are whizzing by everyday while they are drinking coffee and texting. It might put a personal spin on your dangerous location and change the mindset of the entire commute.

I know many times I get on "auto-pilot" and drive right past the post office on my way home from work and forget to mail the letters sitting under my nose on the dash-board. Granted my average commute speed is 13.2 miles per hour (I can actually check that stat on my gauge) as I don’t drive SFD often.

I think you'd be surprised at the support you'd get. Most importantly, the majority of the people that would see your group are also your neighbors. They would then know that there are people that care that live along that commute. You can't slow down all the drivers, but if the majority is driving through your neighborhood in a safe manner, the ones who don't know are will be held in check by the masses that do.

I do notice SAPD along SFD in one nook or cranny just about every day.