Candidate for
Supervisor; County of Mendocino; Supervisorial District 5

I've been working in county politics since 1980 when I served as co-chair of a Citizen's Advisory Committee (CAC) writing the county's first legal General Plan.

In 1981, I was elected to the Board of Supervisors representing the second supervisorial district on a platform of planned growth, environmental stewardship, and a locally-based economy. Over the next four years, the county adopted both a General Plan and a Local Coastal Plan, passed a Class K alternative building code ordinance, adopted the Clean Slate mechanism to legalize owner-built homes, and passed the first alternative waste water treatment ordinance in the state.

After developing an educational tourism business in southern China, I returned to Mendocino County in 1987 and was hired as executive director of North Coast Opportunities (NCO), the community action agency serving Lake and Mendocino Counties. Our programs included Head Start, the WEST (Women's Economic Self-Sufficiency Training) Company, senior transportation and nutrition, RSVP (Retired Senior Volunteer Program), and Foster Grandparents.

In 1992, I was elected to the US House of Representatives from the district that includes Mendocino County. While in Congress, I authored the Headwaters Forest Act, a bill that passed the House overwhelmingly. I worked for single-payer health care, cuts in military spending, equal rights for the GBLT community, rail transportation, and salmon restoration.

After a year consulting for the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in South Africa, I returned to Mendocino County and was hired as executive director of Voice of the Environment, a non-profit foundation. In this position, I have worked for old-growth forest preservation and protecting constitutional liberties, and against nuclear power, GMOs, and toxics in the environment. In 1998, my wife Carrie and I participated in a successful 113-day occupation of a Bureau of Land Management tract near Needles, California in order to halt the proposed Ward Valley Nuclear Waste facility.

I was elected 5th district supervisor for Mendocino County in November of 2010 and am running for re-election without opposition this year.