I HAVE KNOWN MEMBERS of the Marin County Board of Supervisors from the days of the legendary Vera Schultz to the present. Since the 1970s, Marin has been a center of reform and good government due to top-notch elected officials guiding its county government.
Marin has come to expect that county representatives would always exhibit that same high quality. That makes developments in the past few years perplexing.
 
The current five members of the county's governing board seem out of touch. Their relationship with their constituents is polite but distant. The supervisors' primary allegiance appears to be with the bureaucracy and their institutional relationships.

All five are honest, intelligent and true to their own principles. These are good people who too often do their own thing while exhibiting a disconnect from average Marinites.

Fanning my disappointment was a recent conversation with Supervisor Steve Kinsey, who some consider the board's effective leader. In measured terms he opined that many opposed to high-density housing in single-family neighborhoods are racist.

I appreciated his on-the-record candor, but he and the radicals who make such inflammatory and self-righteous charges are very wrong.

If this was an isolated instance of Kinsey's frustrations it would simply be a sign that the four-term supervisor had been in public office for too long. Unfortunately, it's symptomatic of
the divide between county supervisors and those they represent.
Why have Marin supervisors taken no meaningful steps to curb the dictates of Bay Area regional agencies pushing arbitrary housing mandates? Why haven't they sought to build alliances with similarly situated communities around the Bay Area?

It's becoming clear from their collective inaction that the supervisors quietly support MTC, ABAG, HUD and other alphabet agencies in their effort to destroy local control of land-use planning. Despite uttering sympathetic platitudes, it's more about their personal ideology than constituent representation.

The $143 million Highway 101-Greenbrae-Corte Madera freeway project is widely lampooned as an unnecessary boondoggle that will adversely impact Corte Madera. Do the supervisors challenge the project's sponsors MTC and Caltrans? Instead, they stonewall ever-increasing calls for the funds to be shifted to a multi-modal approach to mobility.

Marin was once a beacon of governmental reform. When urged to emulate Cook County, Ill., of all places, the supervisors cry, "impossible."

The suggestion was that Marin's property tax bills be changed to provide comprehensible information regarding local government's outstanding liabilities and pension obligations. Perhaps revising the tax bill's format might make what's designed to be complex, understandable.

The board's consistent use of expensive consultants, including spending $140,000 to redesign Marin County's Parks' signs, is a running joke.

Pension reform? Only small and mostly symbolic steps.

There is no political logic here. Few of these board actions have popular backing. Some might argue it's principle over popularity. Others reply it's arrogance.

This isn't a Democrat versus Republican issue. Even many progressives are critical while Republicans feel disenfranchised.

It could be that supervisors are convinced they can't be defeated. They appear unaware that their popular support is skin-deep outside the Civic Center's confines, the Marin Community Foundation, public employee unions and activists who benefit from the county's largesse.

Marin does enjoy "good" county government. The fact that it's only occasionally "very good" and rarely "excellent" isn't the fault of staff. County Administrator Matthew Hymel is first-rate. Highlights like the county's fine bond rating have mostly been accomplished by the professionals, not by elected district supervisors.

Ultimately, the reality is that the only way current supervisors will get the message and the status quo will change is when one of them is defeated at the polls after an issue-based campaign.

Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley now shares his views on local politics twice weekly in the IJ. His email address is spotswood@comcast.net.