Fire HQ would be good end to strange chapter

The county's completion of its longstanding bid to buy the old San Geronimo Golf Course means that attention can now be fully focused on turning the old clubhouse into a new, modern firehouse and headquarters.

The $4.5 million county check certainly closes a chapter of acrimonious politics over closing the golf course that at one time was a popular recreational asset, one that had even been protected in the Countywide Plan.

That was until the votes of the county Board of Supervisors changed that priority.

That alone was a stunning sign of how easily long held codified priorities can be quickly undone by one vote of the board.

Getting here hasn't been pretty, marked by county leaders' hurried handling of the initial plan to buy the 157 acres when its owner put the property on the market.

That stumbling meant the county lost its bid to get the needed state funding to close the deal.

In golf terms, it was a bogey. A big one.

Lucky for the county, The Trust for Public Land nonprofit agreed to follow through with the purchase and hold onto the property, eventually allowing it to grow wild. Today, the remnants of the course are hardly visible.

TPL didn't plan on holding the property for seven years. It typically steps in as a go-between. It buys a piece of property and holds it for a brief time as the public agency completes its funding plan.

It took that long for, as Supervisor Dennis Rodoni — a champion of the public acquisition — put it, the county “to get our ducks in a row.”

The Marin Open Space Trust stepped in during 2022 and bought a conservation easement of over 135 acres of the site.

It's a peaceful setting for what was once a local political war zone. Golfers and many homeowners wanted to save the course, while others focused on a vision of a place to hike with a less-groomed habitat. Public acquisition has been marked with a lawsuit, a 2020 referendum and distrust.

For those golfers who found the San Geronimo links as their source of recreation, its closure was a big loss, one that supervisors and local environmentalists apparently didn't value.

A temporary downturn in golf's popularity led the original seller to put the property on the market.

Not surprisingly, the county's purchase drew objections, including one from the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, who objected that the county had not done enough to evaluate possible tribal artifacts on the site.

County officials, who said they had met with tribal representatives and had commissioned two archaeologists to review the site, determined that possible resource areas are on the north side of the property.

Tribal leaders should have been advised of those findings, but apparently weren't. Another bogey.

The tribe's last-minute letter is not unexpected given the bureaucratic, political and legal procedural problems that have marred this initiative.

Wouldn't you know it, while turning the golf course has been enthusiastically hailed by many environmentalists, it would hit another possible procedural pothole with those whose ancestors were here long before golf.

The one strong constant in the county's acquisition has been that the site offers an ideal location for a new firehouse, replacing the antiquated 1940sera Woodacre firehouse, providing first-responders with more direct and safer access to Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.

That will improve response times, says Fire Chief Jason Weber.

The firehouse complex will take up 22 acres, including room for a 20,000-square-foot building and a five-story training tower.

Weber says by working with the community, the size and architecture will fit “the character of the valley.”

That's a promise the county needs to keep.

Finding a new location for the county firehouse and headquarters was the one objective with which all sides of this dispute seemed to agree.

Completing the county's acquisition paves the way toward making that goal a civic reality, one from which we will all benefit.