Adrian Brinton is brave, tireless, and...

Dear Neighbors—

Election time is upon us and I owe you, as part of my public service, my honest account of what I think is at stake and how I am thinking about who to endorse.

I enthusiastically endorse Adrian Brinton. Let me share with you why, and what criteria I will use to decide who else I might vote for. You can also learn more about Adrian here.

There is a lot at stake in this election: are we going to keep the recent positive progress going that brings back the vitality of our town’s golden era—a Sausalito Renaissance — or let discordant fears paralyze us?

Sausalito has made great progress recently. Longtime residents keep telling me that they haven’t seen such positive improvements in decades.

We initiated the largest investment into our roads in Sausalito history. You see the improvements at Dunphy Park. We remade our ferry landing, turned Tracy Way into a pedestrian promenade, established a volunteer art center, and created a business improvement district.  

The fruits of this investment are evident in an increase in parking revenue, and an increase in sales tax receipts!

The other fruits are watching kids play the piano placed on Tracy Way by the Sausalito Foundation, a senior crossing the street safely at a new crosswalk, a business like Cultivar opening with a beautiful lively outdoor space on an expanded sidewalk.

Adrian Brinton was a key grassroots catalyst for all of this.

Amazingly, many of the items above were not unanimous. They may not have happened and could be undone. One incumbent candidate opposed many of the achievements above. And thanks to Joan Cox, Melissa Blaustein, and Steven Woodside for being crucial supporters for progress.  

We need to add Adrian Brinton to the Council to keep positive momentum going!

When I am looking at the candidates this fall, I am measuring them not by whether they are charming, but whether they are candid about our finances, bring clarity or confusion to complex topics, are focused on problem solving or posturing, and whether they might bring fresh eyes and ideas and energy to our town.

Adrian Brinton stands out by these criteria and brings the fresh perspective of being a non-incumbent while adding professional diversity to Council by being an IT professional (rather than a lawyer).  Adrian Brinton co-founded the grass roots community group  Positive People for Sausalito and was pivotal in helping get the Ferry Landing approved and the Business Improvement District going which helped increase city revenue without higher taxes.

Adrian Brinton is candid about our finances and challenges, and has bravely touched a third rail of Sausalito politics—what to do in the Marinship—by advocating a specific way we can generate the money we need for fixing our infrastructure, without adding to the tax burden on residents while preserving the small town artistic character he demonstrably loves as a major volunteer for the Sausalito Historical Society.

But, we also have at least one huge challenge not getting its due attention.

For decades, we have not invested enough in our infrastructure, and we still are not. By city estimates, we have $100+M in infrastructure bills, not counting landslide or wildfire mitigation or sea-level rise. Our whole operating budget is just $25M.

We could end up paying for this deferral in livelihoods, or even lives, but will for sure in higher taxes, if we don’t figure out a solution. We currently have no realistic plan to fund fixing our infrastructure.

At the City Council’s “Strategic Meeting” held in January of 2026, one of the agreed upon goals was to determine how to increase annual receipts by $10M to pay for infrastructure without raising taxes. So far, the Council (and the community it represents) has identified exactly zero new dollars. We want to keep things the same but somehow increase our budget 50% without new taxes. That is not going to happen.

So we need Adrian Brinton to help tackle this big challenge! He doesn’t do the politically safe thing of kicking cans down the road; he has demonstrated the initiative to tackle them head-on with specific proposals, not vague aspirations.

I will write more about Measure X later in the campaign season. But the Marin Independent Journal praised Adrian Brinton’s efforts, saying “Maybe it’s time to focus on what can happen at Marinship instead of what can’t”.

It is easier to poke a stick in the spokes of progress than it is to build a bicycle, and I’ll be looking to see if the other candidates, who are critics of the specific ideas of others (including Measure X), can describe in detail their plan for generating any meaningful part of the $100+M that we need or if their plan just adds up to new taxes on you.

Below is a photo of our Ferry Landing three years ago; above a photo of it today. Adrian helped make this improvement happen while not on the Council; imagine what he can do when he is on it?

Adrian Brinton has earned my vote because he has accomplished things like this.

I want to keep the positive progress going. You can learn more about him here.