As a member of the Marin County Board of Supervisors I will strive to Make Marin Magnificent. I identify the top issues facing Marin County and how I will address them to the benefit of all residents.
Election Integrity
The desire for secure, transparent and reliable elections that instill confidence in all voters is a non-partisan issue. As Chair of the Marin Election Integrity Committee, I work to ensure fair and honest elections. With the “Voter’s Choice Act” (VCA) election system now used in Marin County, we give up too much election security for voting convenience. The VCA removes the election process too far from citizens, has fewer people counting the votes, takes too long to obtain results and is far more costly than single-day precinct level voting on paper ballots tabulated at the precinct level. Our committee found several anomalies that have yet to be answered adequately by our Registrar of Voters and the Marin County Elections Department. As supervisor I will demand answers and accountability.
Although the vast majority of those conducting our elections are honest and hardworking, it only takes one or two bad apples to corrupt our election results with mass mail-in ballots and an electronic voting system. It is my goal to implement changes that will restore confidence in our elections. They are essential for a representative republic such as ours.
Public Safety
As Chair of the City of Novato Police Advisory and Review Board, I see dedicated peace officers that are stifled by policy makers to the detriment of our police force as well as our communities. The most glaring example of such policies affecting our towns, cities and unincorporated areas in Marin County is the approach used to fight homelessness. It’s all carrot and no stick. That needs to change for the benefit of taxpaying Marin County residents as well as the homeless. Enabling them to continue living in filth and squalor is neither compassionate or a solution.
A substantial majority of homeless are drug addicts that eventually develop physical and mental health problems. These homeless must agree to drug treatment to continue receiving services. Drug dealers and public drug users must be arrested and charged. Those with severe mental illness should be removed from the streets and institutionalized to receive forced treatment for their safety as well as the general public.
A significant portion of homeless are simply grifters that consume resources needed to help those that want to get off the streets. Many of these homeless will move along once drug laws are enforced and they are required to get treatment before receiving services. Removing grifters will make more of our scarce resources available to the truly down and out that find themselves homeless and desperately want off the street.
Finding homes for the homeless is critical. The County recently received $2.1 million in state and federal grants to help the homeless along Binford Road adjacent to a protected wetland preserve in Novato, then promptly spent over half the money on expanding their bureaucracy. To date, they have found no homes for the homeless living in RVs along Binford Road.
Traffic
Our roads and bridges show an alarming lack of maintenance. We need County government that fights to get its share of state and federal transportation funds. It’s time we get The SMART train is wonderful, but not enough people use it. Every study done to justify the train over the 3 previous decades found as much. At best it’s being used for Sonomans to travel through Marin County. It doesn’t serve that many Marin residents, who would have been better served by a more robust county bus system, which can adjust needs and population changes. Train tracks and stations can’t do the same – they stay.
Most Marin residents would prefer a north-south route alternative to Highway 101. It’s time to study such an alternative that would better serve the needs of County residents.
Housing Costs
Through decades of poor planning, Marin County finds itself in a severe cost of housing crisis. From poor planning to meet the demands of residential water needs in the 70’s and 80’s, and the lack of sound planning to accommodate the desire for single family residences, we’re now faced with excessive use of Alternative Dwelling Units and high density housing projects without parking, setbacks or green space. Those massive and ugly building projects forced upon us by Communist style central planners in Sacramento will ruin Marin County’s unique small towns and cities.
Marin County is has the highest average age of any county in California. Our children and grandchildren can’t afford to buy homes here and are forced to leave. Numerous retirees find it too costly to continue living here. We must change that by arresting rising costs then, through sound planning, begin to create affordable housing in Marin County.
The high density housing projects thrust upon us via the Regional Housing Needs Allocation by Sacramento central planners to suit the needs of lobbyists for large developers are no substitute local planning. Well-considered housing projects that rely on local input to meet housing needs is the right solution to maintain the bucolic nature of Marin County while making it more affordable.
Water
To accomplish our housing goals we’ll need to increase our capacity to provide potable water to our citizens. Plans exist to raise Soulajule Reservoir in north Marin. We should look seriously at raising other Marin County reservoirs as well.
Piping water from the East Bay and desalinization are also proposed. I oppose the later because it is energy intensive and presents serious problems with disposing the brine. And I much prefer buying additional water from the Sonoma County Water Agency than piping it from the East Bay because the infrastructure to do so is already in place. That said I am largely in agreement with the Marin Coalition for Water Solutions.
Drouillard for Supervisor 2024, FPPC ID #1463980
Drouillard 4 Supervisor 2024 