Marin IJ Readers’ Forum for Jan. 28, 2026

Loss of control on housing projects is bad for San Rafael

I am writing in regard to the proposed giant apartment buildings in San Rafael. What a tragedy for our city. From my perspective, the high-rises have no soul, architecturally. We are feeding the gaping maw of developers.

I have been in real estate as an appraiser and a broker for 39 years. I have appraised many proposed projects throughout the Bay Area. Never, not once in my career, has a developer considered anything other than marketability and profit. Naturally, this is because the lenders were requiring that focus, but it was frequently the local planning commissions that forced developers to include daylight setbacks, public gathering spaces, adequate parking and surrounding infrastructure improvement in the plans.

That all seems so quaint now. Strict housing mandates approved by the state Legislature have taken all that power away.

In the IJ article published Jan. 16 with the headline “San Rafael commission approves 200-apartment high-rise,” San Rafael Commissioner Jack Salvemini is quoted as saying, “It doesn’t seem like I’m making choices for the residents of San Rafael. It feels like I’m making choices for developers from out of town.”

Yes, that is exactly what is happening. It’s so sad.

— Polly Elkin, San Rafael

Calling redwood a ‘heritage’ tree seems like a big stretch

I am writing in response to the article published Jan. 20 with the headline “Novato council affirms permit to remove heritage tree.” Some aspects of this process stood out as curious to me.

Novato Councilmember Pat Eklund commented that “all the trees are gone” in that neighborhood. For me, that raises a question. Before the Lynwood neighborhood was developed, it was on an open, grassy pasture at the edge of natural wetlands. There were very few trees there, just a handful of widely spaced native oaks. Other than those six or eight oak trees, all of the trees in that neighborhood were planted by residents after the homes were built around 60 years ago.

So, does any tree that somebody plants in their backyard become a heritage tree after a certain amount of time or girth? Does that mean that if I planted our family Christmas tree in the backyard when I was 10 years old, it’s now a heritage tree?

I have loved and studied Marin’s native trees since I was a kid, and especially redwoods and oaks. There are plenty of myths about historical tree cover in Marin County that ignore the fact that most of it was open grassland and oak woodland. There were no redwood trees in that area of Novato. Perhaps we need to rethink what makes a tree deserve the distinction of “heritage.”

— Dewey Livingston, Inverness

Marin supervisors should put SCAAP funding on agenda

I attended the most recent Marin Board of Supervisors meeting, along with hundreds of others. I was happy that the meeting was held at the Marin Center Showcase Theater (seating for 280) as there were almost enough seats for everyone.

A majority of the people attending were there to ask the supervisors to add an agenda item to a future board meeting. The agenda item: to add a discussion/debate of whether to discontinue State Criminal Alien Assistance Program funding currently being provided to the Marin County Sheriff’s Office. To be eligible to receive SCAAP funds, the local law enforcement office must provide a detainee’s name, date of birth, country of birth and other personal information to the Department of Justice. In exchange for this it gets funding. In 2024 alone, Marin County received $338,136.

As I listened to the more than 40 speakers, each given a minute to state their reasons for wanting the supervisors to include the SCAAP program as an agenda item in a future meeting, I wondered why this was happening for the third time. Why were concerned residents forced to return to the supervisors and repeatedly request an agenda item? I was dumbfounded.

There is no doubt that many of us will make the same request at February’s meeting and every meeting in the future until it is on the agenda.

— Kendra Downey, San Geronimo

It is important to obey armed federal agents

I think Renee Good, the woman who was killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, was totally unaware, uninformed and naive when she attempted to drive away from the agents, who were clearly armed with weapons that she should have assumed were loaded.

Hopefully, her needless death will help inform others, who may also be unaware, uninformed or naive, that driving at or away from an armed police officer might be dangerous and even deadly.

— Mary Lock, Woodacre

Trump’s recent statements show poor decision-making

In a televised press conference that lasted almost two hours earlier this month, President Donald Trump was throwing all kinds of assertions around in an attempt to show off his accomplishments in the last year — including the mysterious eight wars he supposedly ended.

I find it interesting that Trump, who recently accepted an offer to take someone else’s Nobel Peace Prize, may want to use military force against Iran for killing protesting Iranians. And yet, Trump appears to be doing nothing to stop U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from terrorizing U.S. residents, many of whom are innocent Americans. He is seemingly granting ICE unlimited access to violence.

I think Trump’s decisions show us his mental acuity is in decline. His unhinged remarks have me concerned that he is preparing to go to war against our NATO allies in an effort to take over Greenland.

— Sandra Macleod White, San Rafael

Supreme Court should stop twisting the Constitution

In his recently published letter to the editor, John Neuenburg writes that the recent California ruling about carrying guns was informed by the U.S. Supreme Court. That may be accurate, but I think it ignores the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts’ court repeatedly appears to twist the Constitution to get the result it wants.

The idea that any justice could interpret an amendment where the second and third words are “well regulated” to mean there should be no regulations shows me that those justices are simply declaring the result they want, not what our Founding Fathers said or intended.

I think another example of this happened when the court declared that presidents have immunity for “official acts.” It’s clear to me it was not what the founders intended. The Constitution does not in any way grant the president immunity.

History shows that a key principle of the Founders was that no one was above the law. But since President Donald Trump appears to violate the law frequently, I think the court felt it had to protect him. In my opinion, no other president has ever requested such immunity, because none violated the law so often and so egregiously.

— Hank Zucker, Novato

‘Choose love’ by respecting the right to equal treatment

I’ve noticed that on the backs of many helmets in the NFL, it reads “choose love.” That’s a good message.

It reminded me of African American civil rights activist Claudette Colvin, who died earlier this month. In 1955, she was arrested in Alabama after she became the first to protest on a segregated bus. I think Colvin’s protest asked all of us to “choose love” by showing that we respected an individual’s right to equal treatment.

I was born in Washington, D.C., and lived my first 10 years in Nebraska before my family moved to Mississippi. As an Irish American lass, almost everyone looked like me in Nebraska, but not in Mississippi. As an inquisitive 10-year-old in 1960, I noticed people who didn’t look like me on the bus, so I went back there to meet them.

I recall the driver stopping the bus and yelling at me to get up front. When I said no, I recall being physically forced off by the driver. He dragged me up to the front, opened the door and threw me out.

I was lucky I didn’t get hurt badly that day. After that, I paid more attention to what was happening to the people I wanted to chat with. I was sad about racial inequity. As I grew older I continued to “choose love” toward all people.

When my son was 3 years old, I taught him to respect all people. After that, he greeted everyone by saying, “hello friend.”

— Kathleen Andrianos, San Rafael