Behind closed doors, Council weighs Town Manager's future — then residents demand a say

All week, the same five-item closed-session agenda circulated and re-circulated: a performance evaluation of Town Manager Adam Wolff, paired with two items on creating and filling the title of Interim Town Manager, plus labor negotiations over compensation for both roles. Mayor Rosa Thomas and Town Attorney Richard D. Pio Roda were named as the town's negotiators, and a separate, unrelated item covered one case of anticipated litigation, details available only on request from the Town Clerk.

“CM residents are shocked that Adam Wolff is 'leaving'. We don't know what is going on but we do not approve of removing Adam Wolff as Town Manager. We want you stop your closed process and put it to residents to decide. We are going to pursue this one way or another.”— Maureen O'Rorke, Redwood Avenue resident

The Council met Thursday as scheduled, but because it's closed session under the Brown Act, no deliberation happened in public and no outcome has been announced \, if a vote occurred at all, residents will only learn of it through a report-out that has yet to materialize.

What wasn't quiet was the reaction. Resident Maureen O'Rorke of Redwood Avenue filed a late public comment ahead of the meeting, naming Wolff directly and accusing the town of trying to push him out through a closed process. Her letter was blunt about where things stand and where she intends to take it.

Nothing in the public record confirms Wolff is actually departing, an interim appointment, or any timeline. But the mere existence of dueling agenda items \ evaluate the sitting manager, discuss an interim one \, combined with a resident demanding transparency, suggests this is a story that isn't finished.

Three years on, 400 Oakdale rebuild comes back for a decision — riding on a neighbor land swap

A project that's bounced through the Planning Commission since an April 2023 study session returns Tuesday for what staff hopes is a final answer: a new 3,046-square-foot two-story house at 400 Oakdale Avenue, with an attached one-car garage, new driveway, landscaping, and a pool sited less than 10 feet from the east property line. The existing 1920s house would become an 800-square-foot detached ADU, and the applicant needs a parking variance to tuck a required second, uncovered space into the street-side setback alongside the garage.

The catch: the design only works if the applicant, the Grabhams, complete a Lot Line Adjustment picking up about 499 square feet from next door at 404 Oakdale, turning the lot into a reversed corner parcel that lets the new house sit toward the rear \ specifically to protect the neighbors' views. Staff is recommending approval via Draft Resolution 26-014, but only contingent on that land deal closing before any permit issues.

.The 404 Oakdale owners, the Gages, have fought the project for two years through attorney Dana Dean, calling the original design too massive back in October 2024 and, by September 2025, still arguing it conflicted with General Plan policy on privacy and views \ even as she confirmed the Gages were negotiating the very land sale the project now depends on, in exchange for protecting views from their living and dining rooms. Other neighbors have raised narrower gripes, including complaints about story poles lingering too long and requests to trim streetside vegetation, while six residents spoke in favor at the 2024 hearing and two more wrote in support.

Under pressure since that first 2023 study session, the applicant has already dropped an upper-level deck, an outdoor kitchen, and a carport, and shrunk the upper floor. Tuesday tests whether those concessions, plus the pending Gage land swap, finally clear the bar.

Emissions down 34% since 1990, but the committee can't crack the commute

Corte Madera's community greenhouse gas emissions are down 34% since 1990, a Marin Climate & Energy Partnership consultant told the Climate Action Committee \ real progress toward the town's 40%-by-2030 goal, but transportation remains the largest and, on paper, growing slice of the pie. Staff clarified that's not because people are driving more; the state simply recalculated emission factors upward for vehicles. Natural gas emissions dipped thanks to a warmer year and conservation, while waste emissions are unlikely to hit 2030 targets without full compliance with the state's organics law, SB1383.

“There's lots of dead trees that are in dire need of new friends.”— David Bell, Lions Club, on Bayside Trail Park

The stubborn number is vehicle miles traveled, which hasn't moved. Asked whether there's any push to get residents to consolidate trips, the MCE presenter didn't sugarcoat it: "it's been such a tough nut, the vehicle miles traveled, and as you said, it really hasn't dropped... behavior change though in that is just really difficult." One member went further, worrying aloud that "the town's declared a climate emergency but there's not really... a sense of urgency about it."

The committee spent much of the night reorganizing, forming three subcommittees for the year ahead: heat pump communications ahead of a looming state mandate, turf replacement at the Central Marin fire headquarters under state law AB1572, and expanding EV charger access for residents who can't install one at home. Lions Club vice president David Bell used public comment to push the tree-planting idea beyond Town Park and toward Bayside Trail Park, where he said dead trees are "in dire need of new friends."