I’m afraid the treatment of this subject as a zero-sum question is becoming a bit of a pet peeve of mine. But that’s a subject for a different forum, so I’ll just leave it at that.

“Through the gatherings, they identified common concerns that translated into community issues: building an emergency shelter for the homeless, addressing environmental issues around a landfill, and improving county mental health services. With the goal of tackling those matters, the budding Marin Organizing Committee gathered more than 500 members and presented the issues last week to a host of county and state political leaders at San Rafael’s Church of St. Raphael, which is Catholic.”

I lived in Novato in Marin County from 1991 to 1994. My kids went to public schools in Novato and San Anselmo and our son who was out of high school worked in Corte Madera.

The homeless shelter issue was alive back then, and I see it has still not been resolved, since nobody wants to have the homeless shelter anywhere near their homes or businesses. One of the ironies of this is that a past wealthy resident of Marin County endowed hundreds of millions to a trust to “care for the poor of Marin County.” Rather than use this large fund to provide a shelter and other services, the people in Marin County went to court to break the trust and divert the funds into a research center for diseases of the aging, which is a big part of the richer population of Marin County, where houses range from $500,000 to $1,000,000 for a 3 bedroom home on 1/5 acre of land, depending on location.

I am pretty sure the landfill issue relates to a landfill on the former Hamilton Air Force Base in Novato. The base opened in 1932 and was closed around 1975. The housing was taken over by the Navy, and now the best of the old Spanish style homes is operated by the Coast Guard for its personnel who work on ships based in the Bay Area. The landfill, having operated before the Federal hazardous waste laws went into effect in 1980, contains all sorts of chemical and even radioactive materials mixed with the ordinary waste from homes and offices. However, the soils under the landfill are tight clay soils that are largely impermeable, so once the site was capped, none of the waste was escaping to harm anyone. The work was done by the Army Corps of Engineers and approved by the Bay Area Water Quality Control Board.

Some developers who were large donors to Barbara Boxer’s election campaigns obtained the right to develop parts of Hamilton into housing, a plan that was blocked for twenty years by Marin County. But when the County finally approved the development plan, they allowed houses to be built right up against the edge of the old landfill. If there is any hazard coming from the landfill, it is because the developers were too greedy to leave open space as a buffer around the landfill.

The number of Mormons in Marin County has been dropping as home prices became unaffordable for families with children. Most of the people we knew there sold their homes, bought bigger but cheaper homes in Utah, and retired on the rest of the proceeds.

I wish the churches in Marin County good luck in having their issues addressed. In my personal experience, Marin County government is driven primarily in the interest of limiting inflow of the non-rich and the maintenance of some of the highest property values in the nation.

A majority of Mormons believes that a good person can earn their way into heaven.

Without the grace of Christ? Doesn’t sound like the Mormons I worship alongside. I suspect the survey question was worded poorly.