By Holli P. Thier

With the devastation caused by the wildfires in Los Angeles, I am reminded of the catastrophic effects of climate change. I would like to thank our firefighters and first responders for risking their lives every day to protect all of us.

As a member of the Tiburon Town Council since 2017, I know that sometimes elected officials try to solve an entire issue swiftly with one piece of legislation. Climate change is not that type of issue. One resolution will not stem the tide.

Multiple solutions are needed. Everyone needs to collaborate if we are going to guard our Earth for future generations. We need to change the way we view climate change. We need to create multiple solutions to save our planet.

I am proud that the Town Council has responded to climate change with multiple pieces of legislation, an engaged community and a variety of solutions. When I first joined the council, I initiated Tiburon’s purchase of cleaner, greener power and going “deep green” through MCE (formerly known as Marin Clean Energy).

It is well-documented that herbicide use and production contributes to greenhouse-gas emissions. In 2018, as a new council member, a resident informed me that Tiburon was spraying an herbicide with glyphosate, which research shows can cause cancer.

It was being sprayed in our parks around the picnic tables and playgrounds. Some members of our town staff wanted to continue spraying it to kill weeds.

After much back and forth, I started a five-year effort to ensure Tiburon could never spray toxic herbicides again. Our Town Council unanimously created a new integrated pest-management policy.

Working with my colleagues and with the Tiburon Climate Action Committee, we not only helped the town to declare a climate emergency, we created a “sustainability element” for Tiburon, hired a part-time sustainability coordinator and created a town climate action plan. I mandated that our Town look at the environmental impact of policy decisions, much like we look at the fiscal impact.

I hope Tiburon residents will forever look at policy decisions through a lens of their impact on the environment.

In prior years, I organized the votes to support more electric-vehicle charging stations.

As part of our “climate-change plan,” Tiburon officials are committed to acquiring and protecting our open space. Recently, I led a seven-year effort to add to Tiburon’s beautiful open space by purchasing part of the Richardson Bay Sanitation District property.

Working with my colleagues on the Town Council, I helped acquire the ponds adjacent to McKegney Green that will forever be open space or used by parkgoers, as outlined in our final “parks master plan,” which is being developed with the community right now.

I am proud that Tiburon has received three Beacon Awards from the Institute for Local Government for community greenhouse-gas reductions, agency energy savings and sustainability best practices.

I am also very proud to support the Angel Island Tiburon Ferry, a family-run company since 1959, in electrifying its fleet. The transition will make Tiburon the first zero-emission fleet in California.

These are only a few of the many accomplishments we have achieved together on behalf of the environment, but there is more work to do. Sea-level rise affects Tiburon and neighboring Belvedere, and we are working on solutions.

When I learned that water intrusion caused power outages for our downtown businesses, I worked with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to immediately make a temporary fix and a long-term plan ensuring our business community had reliable power.

Some might say Tiburon is small, but I’m proud of the big goals we have set and accomplished with respect to climate change, as well as all of the work yet to come. Tiburon officials changed the way we view climate change by looking at all the methods we can use to stem the tide.

As mayor, I welcome you to join us in preserving our planet for future generations.

Holli Thier is mayor of Tiburon. Email hollithiertiburontowncouncil@gmail.com or call (415) 407-4843. Tiburon residents can learn more about reducing their carbon footprint at bit.ly/3Qj1m8M.