Candidate for
Board Member; Midcoast Community Council

The purposes of the Midcoast Community Council are enumerated in the Bylaws which were approved by the first Council members in 1992, and are available here: http://mcc.sanmateo.org/bylaws.php . These are generally good bylaws, however, in approximately 2000 the Board of Supervisors changed the rules to require that bylaws of all boards, commissions, and councils be approved by the Board of Supervisors. The MCC was not notified of this until a year or two ago. I believe that we should make some small changes to the existing bylaws and submit them for approval.

I support all of the Purposes in the Bylaws. I believe the most important of those is to "Preserve the rural small-town character of the Midcoast", and if elected, I will work to have the Council do everything possible towards that Purpose.

The Midcoast Community Council is advisory because the Midcoast is unincorporated (i.e., not a city), and therefore we have no local City Council with decision-making authority. All planning decisions are made by the Board of Supervisors in Redwood City, who don't seem particularly interested in what the majority of Midcoast residents want. Therefore, another Purpose stated in the Bylaws is also very important: Investigate alternative forms of government, including annexation (to HMB) or incorporation (as a new city). I don't believe that annexation to HMB is politically viable. The status quo results in continuing to argue with County government over many if not most aspects of development and land use. Therefore, we need to carefully investigate whether it's now practical for the Midcoast to be incorporated as a new city. I believe that it is now practical.

In the meantime, the Council needs to get the community at large re-involved with the Council, and demonstrate to the BoS that the Council does in fact represent the majority of the Midcoast voters. Then the Council needs to work on getting the Supervisors to be more accommodating to the desires of the Midcoast voters instead of special interests. The Council may be able to take the lead in rallying the community at large to lobby the BoS to heed the recommendations of their advisory council.