Adopt Climate Adaptation Assessment - YES

This exciting vote was the culmination of more than two years of hard work addressing the only existential threat our town faces: climate change.

With virtually all of Corte Madera in either a flood or fire hazard zone, we are uniquely and severely vulnerable to wildfires and sea level rise. This important document, developed through an extensive public process, begins to lay out our 50+ year strategy for confronting those challenges. It is the first time Corte Madera's government has explicitly engaged in such long-range, proactive planning, and this momentous step forward positions us as a leader in the County and even the state—which, critically, makes us far more competitive for grant funding that will defray for taxpayers the cost of protecting our town.

However, the work is not yet finished: the bayside neighborhoods of Mariner Cove and Marina Village face the highest flood risk in our entire community, yet the section of the Assessment pertaining to protecting the homes and infrastructure in these neighborhoods had to be pulled following pushback from some residents. My priority now is for us to re-engage the neighbors on collaboratively developing a new plan to protect the area that all of us can support, and incorporating that plan into the greater document.