HISTORY
Sausalito Environmental Action (SEA), is the re-emergence of an organization by the same name formed over thirty years ago. SEA began as a group of Sausalito residents concerned (as usual) about proposed massive development projects in Sausalito.
In the early 1970s the big issue before the City Council was a combination of commercial/residential developments proposed simultaneously (Schoonmaker, Deak Office Park, Sam Zakassian’s Marina/Office complex, Whiskey Springs, and a few other smaller but significant projects).
The cumulative environmental impacts of these projects as originally proposed would have drastically altered the character of Sausalito by reducing historic maritime uses, caused a massive infusion of traffic, and introduced market-rate housing as a major permitted use in the Marinship. The City Council and planning commission members were at the time split, some for and some neutral (but very few against) these proposals.
A small group of residents met in 1974 to organize a way to fight back on environmental issues facing the city associated with these development schemes. This group followed a successful effort a year earlier by Citizens for Open Space, a grass-roots group of residents.
Citizens for Open Space managed to persuade the City Council to form an official Open Space Committee that eventually led to a ballot bond issue to acquire South Ridge (now included in the GGNRA) and Cypress Ridge as permanent open space. The South Ridge measure failed to get the necessary two-thirds vote, but SEA and others lobbied Congress to include the properties in the newly-formed GGNRA. The Cypress Ridge measure passed and Sausalito acquired the site as permanent open space.
Early in 1975, before the open space vote, the group evolved into Sausalito Environmental Action. Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, regular SEA meetings were held at the Sausalito Cruising Club. The public was invited to join. City Council members could join but not speak unless invited by the chair.
Eventually SEA”s membership rose to almost two hundred, including many who were very active. Several members served as council members and assorted commissioners: Wayne Bonnett, Violeta Autumn, Carol Peltz, Tom Lonner, Paul Meserve, George Hutchins, Marilyn Findley, and others.
In 1985 SEA successfully organized a petition drive to put the “Sausalito Fair Traffic Limits Initiative” on the June ballot. The Initiative, which reduced future development densities in commercial, industrial and waterfront zones, allowed the city to limit particularly high traffic uses in those areas, and protected the existing residential uses on Caledonia, passed.
During the 80’s and 90’s SEA also helped north Sausalito residents campaign against a proposal to develop the MLK School site with a large low income rental housing complex. SEA members initiated the effort to preserve MLK for community use, which culminated in the city’s lease purchase of the site from the school district.
During 1997, in response to proposals to develop both MLK and reconstruct downtown (the parking lots, Vina Del Mar and Gabrielson parks), SEA sponsored a second citizens initiative: “The Parks and Parking Lots Citizens Initiative,” to forever reserve final approval of significant changes to these areas to a majority vote by the electorate. This was adopted by the City Council after more than 15% of city voters signed the petition, and is now known as Ordinance 1128.
The passage of years and the success of measures that protect Sausalito’s essential character, such as the Fair Traffic Initiative, the Parks and Parking Lots Initiative, and the adoption of the Marinship Specific Plan, led to complacence and the notion that Sausalito was inoculated from the encroachment of over development.
Yet we are again facing development proposals on a massive scale on multiple fronts from MLK and Marinship to Downtown—proposals that would fundamentally diminish Sausalito’s character as a small seaside residential community and create a tourist-oriented commercial destination. It is time for SEA to renew itself and rise again to give voice to those who wish to protect their city from over development and environmental degradation.
