I am running for re-election! Election Day is November 5, 2024! I look forward to the campaign and hope to win your vote! 

It's been eleven years since I was first appointed, then elected a few months later to the Fairfax Town Council in 2013. I am honored and humbled to serve our community so many years. There is always more work to do, so again I am putting my hat in the ring to run for re-election this year. 

Working together with the community, we have made progress towards realizing our common vision for Fairfax: embracing diversity and equity; sustaining our economic vitality while preserving our Town’s unique qualities; providing affordable housing, preparing for disasters and providing leadership on social justice and environmental issues. As a 28+ year resident, I am devoted to preserving the look and feel of Fairfax that we all love. 

I am a scientist with a long term commitment to protection of public health and the environment. My education and years of public service have given me a deep understanding of how government works and the ability to get things done. Some of my many accomplishments on the Council include: acquiring the Wall Property (soon!) and Sky Ranch for open space; achieving key climate action objectives; bringing reasonable early (2018/2019) renter protections to our Town and trying for a fair-minded approach when Just Cause/Rent Control were brought in 2022; facilitating infill affordable housing; increasing our disaster preparedness. I also ran three highly successful voter campaigns for local taxes to support Fairfax over the last few years.  

I have focused on living within our budget to provide locally-controlled public services, maintaining/replacing our aging infrastructure, bringing social justice matters to the Council, preserving our Town's uniqueness and beauty while enhancing Fairfax's strong environmental sustainability ethics.  With your vote I can continue this important work. 

I have five major priorities for Fairfax: Living within our Budget and providing quality public services; Housing for Affordability, Social Justice and Equity; Disaster Preparedness; Maintaining and Improving our Aging Infrastructure; Protecting our Environment.  See detailed discussion of each below.

Living within our Budget – My priority is ensuring we achieve long term economic vitality and that we provide high quality, locally-controlled public services to all Fairfaxians.  I have worked hard to lead and seek passage of three reasonable local tax measures to achieve budget stability AND all funds stay in Fairfax.  I am a “hawk” on the Town’s budget, ensuring we stay lean but provide quality services.  Fairfax has taken action: trimming pension benefits for new hires and all Town employees pay their share into the pension plan; all new employees pay a share of their health benefits; The Town paid off pre-2013 pension liability which will saves more than $1M over 20 years (saves $1M over 20 years) & also refunded other pension liability in 2020 which saves the Town $4.6M over several years ($3.6M plus $1M).  The Council policy is to maintain a 25% reserve – we have done so and it has been even higher in years past. Fairfax provides locally-controlled community policing 24/7.  Because the Town has a lean staff, we also use consultants judiciously to augment staffing to provide specialized expertise which allows the Town to address broader and more technically challenging projects.  

Housing for Affordability, Social Justice and Equity – Marin County (including our cities/towns) is the least diverse county in the State of California. My view is that this is largely due to our housing policies, lack of truly affordable housing and resistance to change. Supporting new and retaining existing affordable housing is critical. We can achieve these objectives by protecting our existing cost-effective housing stock and seeking opportunities to add additional appropriately-scaled units. While recent State laws have limited local control, we must work to provide affordable housing that is right-sized and well designed, in locations that make sense for environmentally healthier growth, using infill and other strategies.

• In March/April 2024 – I served as Mayor as we adopted and HCD certified our 6th Cycle (2023/2031) Housing Element (HE) (I was also Mayor for the 5th cycle 2015 HE). I was a member of our Council subcommittee who led this effort. Along with the HE, we adopted its EIR, an inclusionary zoning ordinance and commercial linkage fee, and three rezoning ordinances (one was a workforce housing overlay for most of our commercial properties). Even with an excessively high RHNA (490 plus a buffer) we successfully “threaded the needle” to plan for affordable (and above moderate as required) units that, once developed, will be largely focused away from the hills, in the flats and downtown areas to maintain our village like quality.  The HE should provide needed housing for workers and others.
• I have been advocating for and been successful at, facilitating affordable housing and providing reasonable renter protections since I have been on the Town Council. As Mayor in 2015, 2019 and 2024, and also as Councilmember in the intervening years, I have been a champion for such – I pushed for streamlining of JADUs and ADUs and for developing an amnesty program for “illegal” ADUs to bring them in from the cold (penalties are forgiven for a ten-year period and for all, fees are 50% for the ten years). As Mayor in 2015, we updated our Housing Element, which utilized a Fairfaxian “homegrown” approach to meet our housing needs.  Also during my time as Mayor in 2015, the County and the Housing Authority purchased Piper Court Apartments, to preserve existing affordable rental housing for our Town.  I also successfully fought to retain and allocate federal funds for Victory Village (a 54 unit, all Section 8 senior housing complex in Fairfax, houses very low and low income seniors and some chronically homeless individuals) – opened July 2020.
• Renter Protections – In November 2022, the Council adopted new Rent Stabilization (RS) and Just Cause (JC) Eviction Ordinances. Due to my earlier work (below) I am supportive, yet I had concerns that most Fairfax landlords were “mom and pops” (rather than REITs, private equity firms and other corporate landlords that generally treat renters very unfairly) so I attempted to insert what I viewed as reasonable compromises (e.g., carving out smaller unit rentals, lowering relocation costs which were very high and other similar concepts – most of my suggestions were not accepted) and requesting that we do specific outreach to landlords (this was denied). Possibly as a result of the lack of landlord-specific outreach by the Council, when a real estate agent sent a mailer to most Fairfax landlords before the finalization of the ordinances, there was a significant negative outcry. Because the JC ordinance included all types of units and did not carve any smaller units out, I voted no. I did vote yes on the Rent Stabilization ordinance. The entire Council decided subsequently that we needed to make amendments to the ordinances –after several months with much deliberation, an amended ordinance was adopted unanimously (September 2023) which carved out some smaller rental units from the JC, also changed the RS “rent cap” to be 75% of the CPI (from 60%) and a few other changes.
• Earlier work – I brought three early reasonable renter protection laws to Fairfax (the 1^st city/town in Marin to do so - all were adopted and are/were in effect): in 2018, we adopted a Source of Income ordinance which prohibits discrimination solely on the basis of being a Section 8 (or other 3^rd  party) voucher holder (before it was included under the CA Fair Housing Act).  In 2019 as Mayor, I brought the other two: Just Cause Eviction and Mandatory Mediation for Rent Increases (over 5% in a one year period).  The latter two were superseded by the new 2022 RS and JC ordinances.

Using tools to increase affordable housing include junior and second units (JADUs, ADUs, generally affordable by design), approving lower scale multi-unit smaller complexes, protecting existing affordable housing, building new units, and providing reasonable renter protections that also support “mom and pop” landlords are key to my platform.   

Disaster Preparedness - Fire, floods and earthquakes are real threats to our Town. It’s not a matter of IF but WHEN a disaster will strike. To ensure Fairfax is prepared, in 2015 and 2019, as Mayor, I convened our Citizen's Disaster Council (the only Mayor since 2006 to do so) – we updated our Emergency Ops Plan (EOP) and emergency responder (ER) maps. In 2019, I also called for Community-Friendly Evacuation Maps, working with ERs and FireSafe Marin we began and completed these innovative maps (with evacuation tips) for all our mutual threat zones in summer 2020. They were printed and mailed to all Fairfaxians in fall 2020; all have QR codes and can be downloaded to smartphones so we can all get out quickly.  We were the 1^st in Marin County to develop these maps- they are being used as a standard for other Cities/Towns in the County under MWPA.  I just convened the Disaster Council again this year as Mayor – our plan this year is to update our EOP again AND also to conduct a Town-wide evacuation drill (both are important to ensure our Town and all residents are prepared for a disaster).

• Fire - In 2019 and 2020, I was part of the campaign to develop the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority – in March 2020, MWPA was enacted by 70.8% of the voters. MWPA hit the ground running and our 1^st  Board meeting was held in May 2020 (I am honored to be Fairfax’s representative on the Board). MWPA is the 1st agency of its kind in California, comprising nearly all of the County taxing jurisdictions (except Belvedere and Tiburon who opted out). Our mission is to lead the development of fire adapted communities using sound scientific, financial, programmatic, ecological practices, vegetation management, community education, evacuation and warning systems with the support of its member and partner agencies. MORE GOOD NEWS - After many years, our Ross Valley Fire Department will soon have “3 on an engine” soon for all of our fire stations, enabling our firefighters to more effectively fight fires and respond to medical calls.

Maintaining and Improving our Aging Infrastructure – My goals are to implement infrastructure projects to ensure we have adequate lighting, roads, sidewalks, and pedestrian walkways and other projects which may pose safety concerns in key areas. I led efforts to ensure the Town has funding for infrastructure projects by three highly successful political campaigns for local tax measures (all funds stay in Fairfax).  In 2018 and later as Mayor in 2019, I pushed for reconstructing the Parkade (the Town’s main parking area) using grant and Town funds for ADA compliance repairs/replacement in addition to other improvements (e.g., 2 new bus shelters, employing rainwater infiltration/catchment techniques).  Reconstruction started in late February 2019 and was completed mid-May. This was the largest infrastructure project completed in more than a decade by the Town.  Some successes funded through my tax campaign work include: street repairs impacted by mudslides; the reconstruction of the Pavilion parking lot; the creation of a sidewalk repair cost-sharing program; initiation of improvements of our pedestrian evacuation trails; repair of some downtown sidewalks and plans to repair others; and installation of traffic beacons at critical pedestrian crossings.  Many of these projects support making our Town more Age Friendly, a key focus of my work. We must continue to proactively plan for the future by identifying needed public works projects, funding and grant opportunities.  NEXT UP – Fixing our roads! This year the Town will be placing a road bond measure ($18M) on the ballot for Fairfax, we have the worst roads in Marin based on our average Pavement Condition Index (PCI), 52.  I will be actively working on this campaign as a citizen of our Town.

Protecting our Environment – We must protect our open space, ridgelines, wildlife corridors, ecology and the visual landscape and continue our fight against global warming. This is a tall order but continues decades of Fairfax’s commitment to environmental protection and sustainability ethics. We must preserve and protect our biological and cultural resources. COMPLETED - ESCROW CLOSED ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2024! My highest priority is to acquire, preserve and protect the 100-acre Wall Property for open space for our Town – I am leading this effort as part of a Council subcommittee, working with MOST, the Marin County Open Space District, FOSC and others.  There have been many challenges, e.g., conducting extensive due diligence; working with the Council – they unanimously voted to “take” the property as open space (a 1^st for our Town for such a large property); working with the Coastal Conservancy on grant terms, working with MOST on their needs for information; assisting with fundraising; entering into an MOU with MOST whereby they will deliver the property to the Town with $2.8M in escrow ($2.3M for acquisition, $500K for the Town to conduct restoration,$100K MOST costs); entering into an agreement with Marin Co. Open Space wherein they agreed to manage two major trails and a few other features; and more. The property must close by October 29, 2024, our goal is to close in September. Other actions I‘ve taken: worked hard on the campaign to raise $1.3+M for the acquisition and restoration of Sky Ranch - 16 acres of open space which connects hundreds of miles of open space stretching from the Golden Gate to Point Reyes. During my tenure on the Council, we adopted our Climate Action Plan (updated recently) and created our Fairfax Climate Action Committee (CAC).  As a member of CAC for the first 3 years, I ensured the Council took up measures within the CAP (e.g., adopting rigorous water conservation measures, changing out to LED streetlights; streamlined small solar ordinance 2015). As Mayor in 2015, I obtained a grant to fund a MCE Deep Green incentive for >100 Fairfax residents – as a result, Fairfax has the highest % Deep Green (100% renewable) sign-ups of any of the 38 MCE member jurisdictions. I also developed a CAC Scorecard which documents Fairfax’s many climate action accomplishments from the 1980s to 2022/2023 when the Town hired a Climate Action Coordinator. 

We can attain these environmental goals by preserving and acquiring open space, providing biking and adequate pedestrian trails, promoting other low carbon modes of transport and use of virtual meetings, fully implementing our climate change plan, and promoting zero waste by living by our motto “reduce, recycle & reuse.”

My priorities: Living within our budget to provide high quality, locally controlled public services to all Fairfaxians; Housing for Affordability, Inclusion, Social Justice and Equity; Disaster Preparedness; Maintaining and Improving our Aging Infrastructure; Protecting our Environment.

Also see Facebook @https://www.facebook.com/Coler4FairfaxCouncil/ 

FPPC#1472250 - Paid for by Barbara Coler for Fairfax Town Council 2024

Photo by Stephanie Mohan