Dear Friends of Tiburon Open Space,
Based upon the flurry of activity that has recently taken place, and as a result of our discussions and email exchanges with many of you, we thought it wise to offer some clarification about Martha and her current status.
Now that the Marin County Board of Supervisors (BOS) has certified the Environmental Impact Report (EIR), several of you have asked us if it’s now all over. Is Martha lost?
View towards Angel Island
Photo by Jocelyn Knight ©
To which we offer a resounding response: absolutely not! Our cause is alive, well, and energized. The BOS reluctantly certified the EIR, pointing to the power of the earlier federal judgment. Even the BOS have voiced their hopes that Martha will not be developed.
You should know that our mission has not changed: We want to buy the Martha Property so that it will remain open space that will remain open forever.
There are still years to go in this process: scores of approvals and regulatory steps, likely including legal action, and much negotiating to be done. We are even hopeful that there might be an opening, sometime in 2018, for us to get the property owners to sit at the bargaining table with us and other interested parties. In the meantime, there is much work to do.
Given the massive tragedy of the wine country fires, we continue to be greatly concerned about the overwhelming number of safety dangers that the proposed development creates.
There is the significant and awful possibility of fires in Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) areas as this project creates; the severe, dangerous limitations of the proposed construction road; the challenges of first responders to work their way towards danger as they attempt to navigate the narrow roads of Tiburon while citizens attempt to flee…these are all quite real dangers. Another? The lack of water pressure…the estimates of pressure we have seen are woefully low for one house, let alone for multi-house fires. There are other significant safety issues across the spectrum of this project. They are very real, and the EIR certification has not made them go away.
This is the reason why TOS has filed suit against the BOS stating that the safety mitigations that Martha has proposed, and that the Board has certified, are not only inadequate, they will place residents of Tiburon in danger. We will keep you updated on this. We need your help with this.
We respectfully and hopefully ask that you please stay engaged, speak up!, comment, log on, speak to your friends and other interested parties, and keep the dialogue going. Help us greatly expand the number of people who will hear about and understand our actions as we attempt to save Martha.
And, as the year-end approaches, we humbly ask you to donate to this collective cause as much as you possibly can. We have retained legal counsel, and will soon be retaining additional subject matter, safety and construction experts. We need you.
Our thanks. Let’s talk again soon.
Tiburon Open Space Committee