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Marin County, CA November 3, 2009 Election
Smart Voter Full Biography for John Coleman

Candidate for
Council Member; City of Novato

[photo]
This information is provided by the candidate

DIRECTION AND COMMON SENSE

JOHN COLEMAN FOR NOVATO CITY COUNCIL

NOVATO CITY HALL. Five million dollars ($5,000,000) of city money spent on this building. Clear coat redwood siding for the annex building which is going to be painted ?. The City could have saved the bell and tower and built a building twice the size for half the price !!!!

NOVATO THEATRE. Eighteen (18) years the building has been vacant with payments of $3,000 per month to the seller; $10,000 for appraisals; $72,720 for architectural services; $6,500 for engineering services; and $36,750 for legal services. These costs do not include staff time. At the direction of the City Council on July 28, four people explained to the Council their plan for the theatre. Not one of them provided the Council with the required financial statement; one person stated he has never seen the inside of the theatre building; another stated she has not been inside the building in four years. The City Council wasted 2 hours and 6 minutes on their proposal (and remember the city attorney gets paid by the hour to sit at these meetings !).

I ask why was this matter left on the agenda when the applicants packets were ruled incomplete by staff ? The theatre will never open if we don't change the direction of the last 18 years ! Are we going to take the same direction with the (closed) community house or allow the City to continue paying $67,500 per month rent at 200 Rowland Way ?

TRAIN STATION: This council recommended to the Smart Board locate the train stop two blocks north of the Atherton Avenue exit. Does this promote downtown Novato? If a group of citizens come to Novato from Healdsburg, how will they get downtown? I have two contractors who will work for free to clean out the old railroad site leaving its historic building and form up a mini platform for Holiday and weekend stops for the Smart train and the wine train ! Just common sense folks !

MEDIAN STRIPS. The City has cut the maintenance staff to save money!. Every time I see the City dump truck with one person driving, I ask, Why did they buy a double cab dump truck with four seats ? My answer is there are plenty of people in this county who need to do community service hours and Novato can take charge by filling all four seats in that double cab truck and weedwack, spray and clean the median strips (for starters !).

WHOLE FOODS. What a great store to bring to Novato but in my opinion the store should have been built on Redwood Boulevard close to downtown. The people who are now renting the 124 condos can enter their parking spaces from De Long Avenue. If you want to park for Whole Foods you must enter their garage on Scott Court. One entrance and one exit? This was a joke on our City Council Look at Trader Joe's and the parking lot pattern. Yes folks, two entrances and exits. I say the corner of Reichert and Grant Avenue will be the new road-rage capital of Novato.

YOUR VOTE IN THIS ELECTION. I say to you - the voter " if you have a favorite candidate that you are going to vote for, remember that you have two (2) votes in this election! Think of direction and common sense for Novato and give that second vote to JOHN COLEMAN -- the man who will fight for you and the only candidate who will not take endorsements or monies from anyone because he does not want to owe anyone any favors !!!!

Thank You

John Coleman

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: October 24, 2009 08:11
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