It has now been just over twenty years since a historically reclusive Marin County coastal burg — so reclusive that its name has been deleted here wherever possible, per local and long-futile custom - adopted by popular vote the landmark “advisory” measure known simply as “Measure G.” The policy statement was authored by longtime local resident Jane, aka Dakar, her chosen “shamanic” moniker. On the official ballot, it read as follows:
Measure G:
“Shall the following language constitute a policy of the Community Public Utility District?:
“Vote for ——— to be a socially acknowledged nature-loving town because to like to drink the water out of the lakes to like to eat the blueberries to like the bears is not hatred to hotels and motor boats. Dakar. Temporary and way to save life, skunks and foxes (airplanes to go over the ocean) and to make it beautiful.”
Jane/Dakar had secured the proper official forms to propose this for the November 2003 election, filled them out, gathered 263 signatures - about three times the number needed to qualify it - largely from in front of the library or Post Office (when there used to be one), and submitted them on deadline. So there it was. When Election Day ended, the official results were as follows, with 548 votes cast, or 59.9% of the town’s then-915 voters:
YES: 336 (67.9%); NO: 159 (32.1%).
In American electoral terms, this would be termed a “landslide.”
Why might that be the case here though? In the first media reports, some offered their reasons for favoring it. “It seemed harmless, and I signed it because I didn’t want to hurt Jane’s feelings,” said one voter, expressing what was likely a common sentiment, since almost everyone seemed to know Jane. Sharing that perspective was another citizen who added “It’s certainly not the kind of English you’re taught at Vassar.” Some simply said it expressed some form of good karma. “Talk about a new paradigm,” observed yet another. At least one stickler asked where those blueberries might be growing, since there weren’t any known such fruit around (tons of tasty blackberries, though). “It’s well-meaning, open to interpretation, nobody will benefit from it financially, and it makes as much sense as any other ballot measure I’ve read lately,” concluded a local saloon owner.
And some conjectured that in a town full of poets, many might have just figured it might be a poem.
A few locals did worry that adopting such a unique statement might bring undue attention to town, and they were correct. The relatively new internet was still extending its tentacles into town - cell phones often barely worked here and there were still six working pay phones around - but news of Measure G spread like, well, skunks. First came the television news crews - the day after the election, all three major networks, NBC, CBS, AND ABC, had vans with camera crews trolling the local streets, looking for interviews and especially for Jane. One parked at the public utility building, fruitlessly waiting for somebody to turn up and explain things, but the staff there had wisely taken the day off. Others asked where Jane was. Nobody seemed to know, whether they actually did or not.
Downtown, one nice but slick telejournalist asked me “Do you know where Dakar is?” Yes, I replied, It’s the Capitol of Senegal in West Africa. End of interview. But one of them did eventually find Jane, and on the 10:00 TV news that night, there she was in front of the Grand Hotel (two rooms, shared bath), looking down at the ground, listening carefully while the newsperson read her the text of the new official policy. “So what does it all mean?” she was asked. Jane finally looked up at the camera and simply replied, “You just read it, didn’t you?”
That was just the start. Online, Measure G “went viral.” The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, and many other papers covered it. August publications like Harper’s magazine printed it in full. Reason, the leading libertarian publication, opined that “it makes about as much sense as anything George W. Bush has said lately”. There was of course tons of “only in California” sarcasm: “It seems that to eat the mushrooms in the cow pastures is not hatred towards ballot initiatives in Northern California.” And so on and so forth, for weeks.
But at the even more august local newspaper the Hearsay News some of us felt it should be regularly published as official advisory policy, and as a Wednesday paper staffer I put it into various formats to keep it interesting and even commissioned a skilled graphic designer to render it into visual form, making it beautiful, with the proper animal species and such. And some Hearsayers have included some version of it ever since. But I soon did have one moment of worry when asked by a skeptic if this might be seen as making fun of Jane, so I asked her what she felt about it. “It should be in every paper, not just Wednesdays,” she replied. “And you should make the print bigger too.”
As for Measure G’s impact, that’s likely subjective, largely one of perception, although subsequently there were some changes made in airline routes to lessen flight patterns over land, so who knows? And one can read it, or at least part of it, on a sign while entering town, at local stores, on various fine art pieces, and so forth. It’s been rendered into song and poetry, and recited to visitors to educate and enlighten them, with varying responses. One might say it’s now an immortal statement, like the Declaration of Independence or certain lyrics by Nobelist Bob Dylan. Maybe it’s more of a Declaration of Interdependence. One night the late great renowned poet Joanne Kyger and I once worked it into an epic spontaneous poem simply titled “Dakar” but unfortunately or otherwise that scribbled draft was lost to history.
As for Jane herself, who now lives out of town, at the time she explained “I am an artist and Measure G is from an artist’s point of view. There are too many machines and technology, and there needs to be some place for the disappearing animals. What we have is conflict between the airplanes flying over, the skunks and foxes. I’m saying each of them needs their place.”
Well said. Thank you, Jane. The bears, skunks and foxes likely thank you too. Whatever else might be said about your now-legendary statement, one thing is certain: You made it…. Beautiful.
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