Mill Valley, Tiburon councils face midterm departures

Mill Valley Councilmember Tricia Ossa just resigned her post only 16 months after her election. She’s relocating with her family to Oregon.

Ossa is noted for doing her homework, asking direct questions and not grandstanding. Like most first-class council members she has a history of community involvement which she devoted to emergency preparedness.

Early midterm departure of local elected officials isn’t unusual. These folks, even when paid a nominal meeting fee, are essentially community volunteers. Their personal and professional lives naturally come first and occasionally may require them to relocate.

Tiburon’s Town Council is dealing with the same development occasioned by Councilman David Kulik’s resignation after only six months into his term.

Their departures are a reminder that, in recent decades, it’s become difficult to recruit first-class people with pertinent personal, civic and professional experience to run for essentially unpaid local offices. It’s particularly troubling since it is city and town government that most impacts Marinites’ quality of life.

It’s not the low or no pay which is hindering recruitment.

In our age of divisiveness, few citizens with the necessary talents are willing to put up with the lack of respect and civility that, today, goes hand-in-hand with public service. We’re in an era when state legislators collectively lack the fortitude to tackle politically controversial issues. Instead they dump impossible dilemmas, including homelessness, high cost of housing and wildland fire on the laps of local officials.

Who needs to run for local office to face those thankless tasks?

Larkspur recently witnessed an election for two council spots where only two people filed. Both were newcomers little known in town and both were automatically elected. Uncontested elections are often a signal of poor civil health. Fortuitously, Larkspur’s two new council members Scot Candell and Gabe Paulson are top-flight and a breath of fresh air.

The decision that Mill Valley and Tiburon face with unexpected midterm resignations are instructive whenever Marin’s elected council members, school trustees and special purpose district directors resign.

Given that Kulik left more than three years of his four-year term to be filed, Tiburon opted for a special election.

It’s encouraging that three residents have already announced their candidacies including IJ columnist and veteran civil rights advocate Noah Griffin. Full disclosure, I’ve known Griffin as a friend for 50 years. He’s ready for the post with his history of governmental service, including years in the San Francisco mayor’s office and major league, professional communications skills.

Griffin will face-off against Lenore Nguyen, Tiburon Planning Commissioner Kathleen Defever and potentially others in the Nov. 2 election. I plan to compare all Tiburon council candidates after filing closes.

Mill Valley has to make a similar choice: council appointment or a special election to fill the more than two years remaining on Ossa’s term.

The upside of an appointment is speed and avoidance of the likely $80,000 cost of conducting a special election. There will also be potential qualified appointees willing to accept the post only if they can avoid the hassle of running in a competitive election.

The downside is whoever is designated by the council has a leg up if they run for election in 2024. It’ll be as if council members are putting their collective fingers on the electoral scale to disadvantage others aiming to compete for the post.

There’s a tried and true way to avoid the quandary. For the balance of Ossa’s current term, the Mill Valley City Council should appoint an experienced past council member or a wellrespected community volunteer who publicly pledges before appointment not to run for a full term.

That approach resolves the short term question in a prompt and no-cost manner while keeping voters in the drivers’ seat in 2024 when the next council election rolls around.

In our age of divisiveness, few citizens with the necessary talents are willing to put up with the lack of respect and civility.