Mari Tamburo of Homestead Valley thinks the county Board of Supervisors needs to do a better job of getting people involved in local government — and then listen carefully to what they have to say.
The 55-year-old Tamburo, a singer with a blues-and-soul CD called “Can’t Go Back,” performs with her husband, Arne, in Living Like Kings, and said she would be willing to sing the national anthem to kick off county board meetings “although I won’t press it.”
Tamburo is a candidate in the wide-open scramble for the 4th District seat that Supervisor Steve Kinsey will vacate at the end of the year. She is among eight candidates on the June 7 ballot seeking the post that represents West Marin, Corte Madera, and parts of Novato, San Rafael, Larkspur and Southern Marin. “We’re all on the same team,’ she said of the eight candidates. “We all want to make a contribution.”
She wants to ensure people have the power to maintain the character of the communities in which they live. “I am serious,” she said. “This isn’t a publicity stunt.”
Tamburo added she entered the race thinking she was an underdog, but “people I talk to think I’m a shoo-in” and say “they wish they lived in the district so they could vote.”
The Civic Center’s development process raised Tamburo’s ire several years ago when she locked horns with bureaucrats and helped lead neighborhood protests about a “Safe Routes to School” sidewalk project on Evergreen Avenue. “It wasn’t in our community plan and no one asked us if we wanted it,” she said. “I wasn’t happy with the process,” she added, saying officials skipped environmental review despite potential harm to a protected fishery. “The issue divided the community,” she said. “It was a perfect storm of bureaucracy and it didn’t have to be that way.”
And “since 2012, we’ve had five accidents on a street that had a near perfect safety record before the so called ‘safer route’ was built,” Tamburo said. Tamburo uses a walking stick to get around after being hit by a car while in a crosswalk at Evergreen and Miller avenues last week. The area was not part of the sidewalk project.
“I’m running because I care about people and the planet and I want to give voice to the creative and lower-income residents of Marin,” she said. “There is a widening income disparity and we need someone who understands the needs of this sector.”
Key issues in the race include “truth” and “public engagement,” Tamburo said. “The problem right now is that we don’t bring the people into the process until decisions have already been made,” she asserted. “I would bring the people into the process earlier in the game,” she added, saying she would maintain newsletters and office hours, spend time “in the field” and get staff to figure out how to enable residents who don’t attend meetings to “Skype in” to talk to officials in real time over the Internet.
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She sees the job of county supervisor as a “customer service position on steroids” but says officials “view the public as objectives to be overcome as opposed to looking at the public as a brain trust.” There’s an “incredible level of intelligence and viewpoints” to draw from in Marin, she said.
Tamburo declined, however, to grade the county board in the level of service provided, saying some members are doing a good job while others are not. “Some of them get an A grade and some of them get an F,” she said. “I’m not going to say who gets what,” but said Supervisor Kate Sears does a good job of staying in touch with constituents. “I do believe in term limits,” she added.
Tamburo is a supporter of small-scale development that’s in line with community planning policies and proposed forming “community housing trusts” to shepherd small affordable housing projects.
“We don’t want WinCups,” she said, referring to the controversial project in Corte Madera. “We don’t want that eyesore.” Corte Madera officials, she added, must “pay attention to what’s going on in the planning department.” One “silver lining” emerging from the controversy is an increased level of public participation in civic affairs. “It was a wake-up call for better community engagement,” she said of the project.
On other issues, Tamburo cited “flaws” in the county’s trails plan, saying bikers and hikers don’t mix well. “Hiking is a quiet, reflective activity,” she noted. “Mountain biking is an extreme athletic sport,” she added. “They are on opposite sides of the coin… I don’t think we should be sharing trails.”
Tamburo said she “stands with the ranchers” as far as cattle grazing in Point Reyes National Seashore, thinks national recreation area dog leash rules are a bit too strict, and believes in “a pesticide free Marin.” The benefits of using herbicides and pesticides, she said, do not outweigh public health issues.
She is critical of the county’s reliance on consultants, saying hiring outsiders allows officials to skirt responsibility. “People have a job and they should do it,” she said. “We have plenty of talented staff who can do the work.”
If faced with a $1 million budget cut or addition, she would cut consulting contracts by that much, shifting the money to the county’s storm water pollution prevention program, and invest in “more permeable pathways” as well as wetlands preservation which is “ground zero for sea level rise.”
Tamburo was born in New Jersey, the daughter of a singer who impersonated Frank Sinatra. Her mom was a bookkeeper. The family lived in a public housing project “and I don’t think any supervisor can say that,” she said. “It was rough when my parents split and dad left $50 in the bank account,” she added. Family heartbreak got worse when an older brother took his own life at 22.
She moved to California in 1987 and earned an associate degree in communications at Foothill College. She met her husband at the old Plant recording studio in Sausalito, where he was a producer. “For the past 15 years I’ve just been a housewife” while performing in bands including Greg’s Eggs, she said. “I’m a chronically unemployed musician just like most of my musician friends.”
In that regard, Tamburo proposed formation of a “Marin County All Star Band” to raise money for charities and nonprofit agencies. “Music is a vehicle for change,” she said.
