Neighboring Corte Madera Votes to Leave ABAG

Corte Madera's town leaders found the grass roots support they were looking for Tuesday night when they voted 4-1 to leave the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG).  

Residents of Corte Madera as well as Greenbrae, Mill Valley, San Anselmo and San Rafael cheered at the end of the three-hour meeting.

"These are unelected people who have a personal vision of what's good for everybody else,” Corte Madera Councilman Michael Lappert said in a fiery speech. “They have no check, no balance. They force themselves on us…

"Sometimes you just have to fight. It's not always about consensus. Sometimes you just have to draw the line."

Corte Madera is the first community in Marin County to formally decide to leave ABAG, but residents all over the county are hoping other cities will soon follow.

"I want to applaud the fact that you're having this conversation," said Mill Valley's Susan Kirsch. “There's many of us who have been wondering who's going to start talking about what's happening with ABAG for that feeling of the loss of local control."

"The upside if we do this: What if it works? What if something happens?” Corte Madera Mayor Bob Ravasio said.  “Well, we get back local control. That would be pretty great. I'd certainly be all for that. We'd get to control the way we want to build and create our communities.”

The original concept of ABAG was that local governments would be a more powerful lobbying force in one large group rather than individually. Corte Madera pays a reported $5,500 a year to ABAG in dues, with the expectation that the town would in turn receive funding for housing, transportation and other projects through ABAG.

ABAG has called on its members to increase housing in response to projected job growth. ABAG's planners have claimed that by building more housing near jobs and transportation hubs, towns can cut down on greenhouse gases.

Local leaders are skeptical of ABAG's projections, however. They've asked for an explanation of how ABAG achieved its numbers but, according to some leaders, ABAG would not reveal its formula.

Another problem: ABAG's own scenarios don't show a significant decrease in greenhouse gases with its preferred housing proposals.

"I'd like to see ABAG defend its existence," Councilman Lappert said.

Councilwoman Carla Condon said she couldn't find any evidence that Corte Madera had actually received any significant funding from ABAG. So, Corte Madera's leaders figured they really don't have much to lose by divorcing themselves of ABAG.

"This is a really emotional issue, but if we approach it rationally what's the downside to doing this and pulling out?” Ravasio asked.  “Well, we haven't gotten any grants from ABAG, so not a lot of loss there. Potentially, we do lose our seat at the table and that is a concern to me.

“The point is, frankly, I'm not sure that we have one now. That's what I keep coming back to,"

Condon brought up the idea of gathering the other local municipalities to form a Marin County Council of Governments that could act as a similar force as ABAG, but with better local representation.

The only dissenting vote came from Councilwoman Alexandra Cock, but she didn't entirely disagree with the decision. Cock had hoped to develop an exit strategy before picking a fight with ABAG.

"I've been vehemently opposed to One Bay Area ever since they came out with the concept,” she said. “I'm totally opposed to homogenization of our whole area. I see it happening in our whole country and I do not like it and I do not agree with it. At the same time I want what we do to be effective and I'm not sure whether voting in favor of withdrawing from ABAG is really an effective step.

"I think the idea of creating our own Marin Council of Governments is a great idea,” Cock elaborated. “Rather than voting to do this now as, what I consider to be sort of a reactionary move, I think we should lobby all the other cities and the county and see if we can get them all on board with forming our own COG."

City council members in Larkspur, Fairfax, Mill Valley and other areas have recently and increasingly raised their voices in showing their displeasure with ABAG.

San Anselmo resident Nancy O'Connell recalled attending a One Bay Area workshop hosted by ABAG in San Francisco: "There were people who were concerned this is going to kill the Bay Area. There's a group of grass roots citizenry that wants local control and does not want this huge overlay of ABAG to come down and smash their communities. … I'm encouraged to take this back to the San Anselmo Council and to Fairfax. The Ross Valley needs help to stay the Ross Valley."

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