I have lived in this county for 16 years and for the first seven years I moved from town to town unsatisfied with each one until I came to Fairfax. I have lived here very happily for 9 years. I came as a renter and then five years ago I bought a house. From the start it was just right for my children and for me. We can walk to everything we need. The people are genuine, it has stayed at a scale that helps to reduce the stresses of ordinary urban life. It has a strong commitment to preserving nature and its ridgelines. It's not cluttered with signs or giant stores or materialistic nonsense that so often takes over small towns. It's a friendly downtown with small, lively businesses. It has good, organic produce, and lots of places to sit and chat no matter what age you are. I like being around babies and old people, teenagers and middle agers. It feels good. It just feels right.

I have loved my work with the Planning Commission and I think I have brought a lot to it. I have re-instituted the practice of visiting every site we are about to consider. I enjoy meeting people and talking to them about the properties. I am very much an advocate of helping people with modest means remain in our town even as financial pressures become more intense. I realized soon after I started as a Planning Commissioner that sustainability, especially green building, would be essential for protecting our Town's future. So I initiated the steps for us to integrate this concept into all aspects of the Town's General Plan. I am also a liaison to the General Plan Advisory Committee and am helping them clarify their marvelous Town Center Vision for inclusion in the Town General Plan.

I am hugely proud of my amazing children. Gina, 28, won just about every award Scripps College for Women offered in both art and community service. She is now married, a sculptor and photographer and the head of the Photography Department at Morningside High School in South Central Los Angeles. Gina and I began a non-profit called Five 4 Five and we have been featured in papers all over the state including the Marin IJ and the Los Angeles Times. Max, 19, won both his high school acting and technical direction prizes. He co-wrote "Patterns of Interference", a play about John Walker Lindh and his interaction with our community and with the Taliban. Max played Lindh at the Marin Theater Company's sold-out performances. He has been interviewed about his work on KPFA and NPR. He now runs his own freelance business as a stage electrician in NYC. Both Gina and Max have been named California State Art Scholars.

I have long believed that work is essential to our sense of well-being in this society. In my six years of teaching Politics and History at Dominican University, I found that students welcomed the chance to study great scholars if they could see how their ideas and ideals worked in the present world. I conceived the Service Learning program at Dominican and introduced students not only to the diverse writings of Plato, Dante, Emma Goldman and Fannie Lou Hamer, but also to people in our community who could help them see how those great thinkers still influenced the lives of our community.

In 2002, when my daughter Gina, made me aware of the tremendous drop-out rate of young people in under-served neighborhoods, we developed Five 4 Five to help kids in the North Bay and LA make it through college and into rightlivelihood jobs. We call it Five 4 Five because we accept students in teams of five for five years. Today we have 25 young people we are guiding.