Op-Ed: Furst is No. 1 in My Book for District 4

Many residents in northwest Novato will have to decide on June 5 whether they want Diane Furst or Steve Kinsey for their District 4 representative on the Marin County Board of Supervisors.

When I was walking door to door in the Vistas, out of 31 households not one knew that their neighborhood had been switched from Judy Arnold's District 5 to Steve Kinsey's District 4 by redistricting last year. Many Novatoans west of Simmons and Wilson avenues have been switched.

Although not too many people in Novato are talking about the District 4 Board of Supervisors race yet, the Sierra Club and the Marin Democratic Central Committee have already endorsed Diane Furst, the vice mayor of Corte Madera. Her gutsy stand with the Corte Madera Town Council in from the Association of Bay Area Governments has fired up council members throughout Marin County. Local officials in every town in the county are being prodded to answer the questions: "Are ABAG's policies working in our town?" and "What would our towns lose if we withdrew and formed Marin's own Council of Governments?"

The possibility of Regional Housing Needs Allocations being distributed using a methodology specifically agreed on by local Marin officials rather than decided mostly by the large cities of Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco is a tantalizing idea.

Furst knows how to say no to ABAG. Novato people can potentially change the status quo in District 4 by saying ‘yes’ to Diane.