Some of the highlights from Frank’s long and illustrious years of volunteer community service for the people of Marin and California:

COUNTYWIDE:

• In 2004, Frank was a sponsor and the driving force to qualify and then pass Marin’s anti-Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) initiative, Measure B. As a result, Marin County will remain GMO-free and today he is working with GMO-Free Sonoma to create a North Coast GMO-Free Zone to provide our residents with safe and healthy farms, food and future.

• As a Coastal Commissioner 25 years ago, Frank single-handedly stopped the State Parks Department’s demolition of the charming and popular cabins at the stunningly beautiful Steep Ravine between Muir Beach and Stinson Beach and insisted on the state opening them up to the public and advertising their availabilty.
  
• Frank Egger is a founding board member of the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority which is directly involved in providing paramedic services to the Ross Valley and is currently working to add another Advanced Life Support Paramedic Ambulance to the upper Ross Valley, providing quicker service to the MMWD recreational lands.

• In 2004, then Fairfax Mayor Frank Egger was honored by the Marin Cancer Project and awarded the Mt. Tamalpais Award for fighting the use of pesticides in our communities. The special award was inscribed “whose advocacy and action has had a profound impact on the health and well-being of Marin County”.

• As a councilmember, Frank was Fairfax’s representative to the City-County Planning Council of Marin that prepared the county-wide plan that reinforced Fairfax’s fight to stop the freeway through Fairfax to West Marin and to protect West Marin’s farms and ranches in an agricultural zone.

• In 2005, Frank became a new board member of the Marin Pesticide Free Zone Campaign to reduce the use of cancer-causing pesticides in our county.

STATEWIDE AND NATIONAL:*

• In the early 1990s, Frank authored the resolution to save the entire Headwaters Forest complex in Humboldt County and stop logging of old growth trees. He continues to work with the Bay Area Coalition to Save Headwaters Forest.

• Frank Egger, as a coastal commissioner, stopped the use of glyphosates (Roundup) along Highway 101 between the San Mateo County line and the Mendocino County line where the pesticides could reach coastal streams or the ocean itself.

• Frank is known statewide for his efforts to stop the spraying of cancer-causing pesticides and is seeking to have their use prohibited in populated areas and on farmland where our food crops are grown and farm workers are sickened.

• In a precedent-setting 9th Circuit Federal Court decision, Egger et al. (including then Oakland Mayor Wilson Riles Jr. and 13 other Bay Area elected officials) vs. Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the MTC was required to deal with air quality issues in conjunction with the widening of I-80 in the East Bay, as well as to install a permanent HOV (commuter) lane in the Bay Bridge/ I-80 corridor.

• Frank Egger has been a leader in organizing mayors and councilmembers from Marin, Sonoma, Contra Costa and Alameda Counties to oppose the five urban casinos proposed within 20 miles of Marin County’s borders. He has authored the proposed statewide initiative titled the “California Tribal Gambling Casino Moratorium and Planning Act of 2005”, which will put a temporary five year stop to urban casinos in order to allow the state time to prepare a comprehensive statewide plan for gambling casinos, to study all aspects of Class III gambling casinos, and determine how many more, if any, will be built.

• Frank Egger, a long time labor official and former member of the North Bay Central Labor Council, recently finished out his term as an elected union president where he represented working men and women in San Mateo, San Francisco, Marin, Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino Counties.

• In 1967-8, Frank was instrumental in helping stop the dam on the Eel River at Dos Rios, and he worked with Marin Senator Peter Behr to secure passage in l972 of the landmark California legislation, “Wild and Scenic Rivers Act”.

• Frank co-founded the non-profit Friends of the Eel River and served as a board member from 1994-2004.

A 2000 photo, taken by noted nature photographer Ernie Braun, with DAVID BROWER, the legend and revered father of the American environmental movement, and the SIERRA CLUB’S FIRST EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, with then FAIRFAX MAYOR FRANK EGGER while discussing a proposal to save the Eel River.

• Continuing the fight to save the Russian River, he was a named plaintiff/appellant in a precedent-setting 2003 California Appellate Court decision to stop a massive take of Russian River water for future Marin and Sonoma Counties’ growth. This would have caused further destruction of both rivers’ endangered salmon fisheries.

• This April, Frank Egger, along with four other petitioners, including the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association, Friends of the Russian River and Dr. Martin Griffin, went to the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco to stop the Bush Administration and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from diverting 95% of the Eel River’s summer flows into the East Fork of the Russian River at the Potter Valley Project. The lawsuit is the environmental community’s last resort to save the endangered Eel River Chinook Salmon. Also on the endangered species list in the Eel River are coho salmon and steelhead trout. A three justice panel ruled against the environmental coalition in June, and the petitioners/appellants are requesting a re-hearing before an eleven justice panel of the 9th Circuit Court.

• Frank was the first of 84 California Coastal Commissioners appointed in 1972 to carry out Prop. 20, the Coastal Preservation Act, and he served on this commission for nine years, protecting our coast from over-development and fighting for public access to our beaches.

• As Coastal Commissioner and anti-nuclear activist, Frank Egger opposed the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in the l970s. He was one of the few Marin elected officials who worked in l976 for the passage of Prop. 15, which would have stopped new nuclear power plants from being built.

• As a federal agency board member of the Golden Gate Recreation Travel Study Board of Control, Frank helped develop the transportation plan for the Pt. Reyes National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreational Areas.

• Frank Egger is the only elected official in the Bay Area who in the past has been endorsed for public office by two of the most respected environmental leaders in California: Marin County’s late State Senator Peter Behr, the father of California’s Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and the late David Brower, the first executive director of the Sierra Club.

• He is a long-time ally of, and works closely with, our US Senator Barbara Boxer and our State Senator Carole Migden. Fairfax residents have been well served by our senators, and Frank’s relationship with them is a bonus for our town.

• In 1985 Frank received the Congressional Recognition Award from then Congresswoman Barbara Boxer “In recognition of outstanding achievement, proven leadership and service to the community.”

IN FAIRFAX:

• Frank led the recent successful campaign to pass Measure F which reflected the views of 72% of Fairfax’s voters. This measure will help ensure our town’s financial health and independence and bring revenues to keep Fairfax Fire, Police and 911 emergency dispatch services from being contracted out due to budget cuts. It will also keep our after school youth center open and provide matching funds for Safe Routes to School projects. Frank was also instrumental in the inclusion of the language in Measure F to “fund downtown street and sidewalk hazard repairs”.

• He authored the first ordinance in all of California’s 478 cities that bans pesticides on parks, children’s playgrounds, creeks, ballfields, picnic areas, etc. in Fairfax. It also requires a “neighbor notification” prior to the use of pesticides on private property. This ordinance has been used as a model by other municipalities.

• In the 1960s, Frank initiated the first Fairfax Underground Utilities Project, and he has pushed the entire under-grounding of wires program in Fairfax’s downtown area ever since. The telephone poles are now gone, and the utility lines are placed underground.

Fairfax Festival 1969 finish line with winner Olympian Bill Rainey. Ronita Egger is holding the finish line tape.

• As Mayor, in May of 2003, Frank salvaged the $1 million project to rebuild the East End of Fairfax’s Sir Francis Drake Blvd. (from Pacheco to Pastori), which had been stopped when bankrupt PG&E attempted to pull its $600,000 in Fairfax funding, by going to the California Public Utility Commission to prevent PG&E from withdrawing these funds. Frank’s close relationship with then State Senator John Burton, plus assistance from Burton’s staff, helped save the day. Fairfax recently completed the project which removed the telephone poles, put utility lines underground, built new sidewalks and repaved the roadway along this strip of Sir Francis Drake Blvd.

• Frank led the Fairfax Town Council’s 3/2 majority that stopped the 6,000 square foot house on the ridgeline between Fairfax and San Anselmo by enforcing the requirements of the Ridgeline Scenic Corridor Plan.

• He has promoted real affordable housing (as opposed to mega houses) by pushing to complete the amendment of the Fairfax Housing element of the General Plan which will feature an amnesty proposal to legalize many of our town’s existing second units.

• Frank has worked hard for the greening of downtown Fairfax, has been a leader in planting every public street tree in our downtown, and ran community funding events to help raise matching funds for this effort.

Downtown Fairfax 1965 prior to Frank’s first election to the town council.

• He has led grassroots efforts to stop massive housing development proposals for the Marin Town and Country Club land in 1972, 1980, 1986 and 1990. He was instrumental in defeating the 1998 developer-sponsored Measure C which would have approved 79 very expensive houses on this property. Fairfax residents voted to maintain the Commercial Recreational Zoning for the MT&CC, which requires that 90% of its land remain in open space.

Frank Egger and his grandchildren circa 1992 sitting at the entrance to the Marin Town and Country Club.

• Frank is responsible for the granting of Fairfax a one acre creek park, as of yet un-named, on the West End on Olema Drive.

• During a previous term as Mayor, Frank was able to first propose and then facilitate the purchase and donation of “Pam’s Blue Ridge” above Cascade Canyon to the Marin County Open Space District. This large parcel was purchased and donated as a memorial by the family of a young Fairfax woman whose life ended tragically.

• Frank led the council majority’s effort to prevent development in Cascade Canyon of the 7 acre Melvin Property that holds over 100 first and second growth redwoods and is habitat for three endangered species: the Northern Spotted Owl, steelhead and Coho salmon. He then led the effort to purchase the land without using Fairfax taxpayers’ money and made a substantial contribution to its purchase himself.

• He worked closely with Catholic Social Services and St. Rita’s Church to launch Bennett House, a 70 unit low income subsidized senior housing project tucked behind Bell Market. The creation of Bennett House helped Fairfax achieve the distinction as the only city in Marin to meet the state’s affordable housing goals in the 1980s. Bennett House has proven highly successful and a model for similar senior communities.

• Frank stopped development at the far end of Cascade Canyon and as Mayor led the Fairfax effort to purchase this land for the Elliott Nature Preserve.

Ronita, Frank and daughter Lauren (Lori) pictured at the Elliott Nature Preserve shortly after its purchase by the Town of Fairfax in 1974.

Frank Egger, who spearheaded the Elliott Nature Preserve purchase with his grandchildren Chase and Jenna. Three generations have now benefited from Frank’s tireless efforts for open space protection.

• He was a leader in the 1960s fight to stop the freeway from continuing from San Rafael through Fairfax to West Marin. This four lane freeway, with its three proposed routes, was intended to open up development of West Marin.

• Frank led efforts to block the Corps of Engineers from extending the concrete Kentfield Ditch to Fairfax and concreting over the Fairfax, San Anselmo and Cascade Creeks, thus preserving our endangered steelhead and coho salmon.

• Frank Egger is credited with saving the hillsides and ridgeline above Canon Village as Open Space. The developer originally wanted 25 ridgetop estates above the tennis club.

• Frank stopped the proposed Alpha Beta Shopping Center Development and the leveling of the Buon Gusto Villa Restaurant. As Mayor, he then led the charge to not only have this site selected for the Fairfax Library but was also instrumental in selecting the architectural firm to design the building.

• He is part of the Town Council’s progressive majority that continually resists pressures by chain stores, such as McDonalds, Round Table Pizza, Blockbuster Video and Starbucks, to come into our town and change its character in a way that would drive out our locally owned businesses.

• The Town Council’s wise timing on bond sales, contract bidding and oversight of funds from voter approved Measure K has resulted in the Metropolitan Transportation Commission announcing this year that Fairfax, during the past three years, has gone from having the second worst streets and roadways of any city in the nine Bay Area Counties to being the most improved.

• In 2001 Frank authored Fairfax’s Living Wage Ordinance which is considered one of the best in the nation. It requires service providers contracting with the Town of Fairfax to pay a living wage to their employees.

• He continues to uphold the “Scenic Corridor Ordinance” that he initiated as part of the Fairfax Open Space Plan in l974 to safeguard the natural beauty of our community. This plan, way ahead of its time, is still relevant today. It has preserved public access for hiking and animal migration. Preventing housing developments on our scenic ridgelines has not only preserved the beauty of our hills for all to enjoy, it has also helped prevent the kind of erosion and flooding which has afflicted our neighboring communities.

• Frank continues to stand in the way of housing developments that decrease our green belts and increase our traffic. He works closely with groups from San Geronimo Valley to Pt. Reyes to stop the growth there that fuels the congestion of our traffic corridor through Fairfax.

• Frank is the elected official from Fairfax on the Marin/Sonoma Mosquito & Vector Control District Board of Directors and is working closely with West Marin and Sonoma County environmentalists to reduce the use of poisons in our communities. He has fought efforts to spray Fairfax and other communities with chemical pesticides and is seeking effective non-toxic alternatives to meet the current West Nile Virus mosquito threat.

• Frank proposed, raised funds for, and then had built the only public tennis courts in Fairfax on School Street across from the Women’s Club.
   
• Outer Cascade Drive, Canyon Road and Spring Lane were originally dirt roads, and Frank Egger organized the neighbors, found matching funds and initiated the original paving in the l960s and 70s.

• FAIRFAX’S NEW OPEN SPACE PRESERVE pictured above features over 100 first and second growth redwoods on seven acres including San Anselmo Creek frontage all the way up to Bolinas Road, within sight of Canyon Road, with additional access from Meadow Way. It was purchased with a Marin County grant, a grant from the Potrero Fund of the Tides Foundation, and donations from Cascade residents. No Fairfax tax money was used for the purchase. It is a habitat for three endangered species including Northern Spotted Owl, steelhead trout and Coho salmon. Pictured here are Fairfax Open Space Committee members and Cascade residents: Terry Goyan, Ronita Egger, Denny Ferry, Ann Sheldon, Ruth Horn, former vice-mayor Niccolo Caldararo, Pam Meigs and Frank Egger.

Frank Egger, representing public safety officers, along with nurses and teachers, pickets a Governor Schwarzenegger fundraising event this past spring in Santa Rosa

• As Mayor, Frank strongly supported Fairfax’s anti-war resolution opposing the attack on Iraq in 2003.

• As Mayor, Frank welcomed famed Vietnam-era activist and author Daniel Ellsberg who addressed the Town Council on the importance of taking a stand against the Patriot Act. Fairfax joined numerous cities and towns in passing a resolution opposing the Patriot Act.