Thoughts On Our Environmental Challenge

By Maureen Parton

We pay homage to the generation that preserved our ridgetops, coast and Mt. Tam. These are my thoughts on the legacy we can leave our children and grandchildren.

I ask myself ~ "What will our children and grandchildren thank us for?" What's our legacy?

To fill these shoes, ironically, we must have a lesser footprint.

That is our challenge. Mill Valley can be this model.We need a new model that integrates land use with transportation so that our tradition of environmental protection evolves to meet today's urgent imperatives of climate change: carbon reduction and a smaller, sustainable ecological footprint.

What sets me apart is that I can and will connect Mill Valley up to best practices in land use and transportation to help us create small, infill design on Miller that is beautiful and serves us well. We deserve a walkable, bikable street and a neighborhood for people who want to live smaller, use transit and own fewer cars.

Saving hillsides from the bulldozer of development has now evolved to living smaller and lighter in every way on that land. Environmentalism has come home to the neighborhood. Let's put out the welcome mat and figure out how to meet that challenge and not flinch.