Expansionary Institute

Michael Zey
futurist3000@aol.com

December 31, 2000

By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
 
SEBASTOPOL, Calif., Dec. 26   In mainstream political circles, the
Green Party is remembered as having cost Vice President Al Gore the
election by pulling in enough votes for Ralph Nader to assure
victory for George W. Bush.

But here amid the vineyards and apple orchards of Northern
California, as well as in dozens of other pockets around the
country, the Greens have become, at the municipal level at least,
messengers of change and elected alternatives to Democrats and
Republicans.

Though Mr. Nader won only 3 percent of the popular vote
nationally, 32 of 240 Green candidates won elections in a dozen
states, giving the party a total of 79 elected officials in 21
states, gains that make the Greens the biggest political presence
of any third party.

By comparison, members of the Reform Party, the Ross Perot
creation that bombed in the presidential election this year with
the candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan, now hold about half as many
elected positions as Greens in fewer than 10 states   a level not
much greater than they held before the elections.

Reflecting a strategy to build power from the local level, the
Greens in office all serve in municipal government, from mayor in
five California towns, to the drain commissioner of Charlevoix
County, Mich. Nowhere do their recent gains promise a greater
impact than in Sebastopol, a quiet town of 8,000 in western Sonoma
County, about 50 miles north of San Francisco Bay.

Not only did Mr. Nader gain 7 percent of the county's presidential
vote, but by winning the two City Council seats contested this year
in Sebastopol, Greens now hold three of the five elected positions
of leadership. That concentration of Green power is unmatched
anywhere in the country, and it almost makes Mayor Larry Robinson,
the third Green elected official, laugh.

"Now we have to reassure people that we aren't going to do
anything really terrifying to them," Mr. Robinson said. "Our job is
to demonstrate, not through rhetoric but through actions, that
we're not bogymen, that our focus will be on day-to- day issues
that affect people's lives, like maintaining safe streets and
filling potholes."

Mr. Robinson, a Green who describes himself as an eco-psychologist  
"a psychotherapist who brings people back to their roots"   was
elected to the council in 1998, when three seats were contested,
and was voted mayor by the council members. In elections last month
for the other two seats, two Greens   Craig Litwin, a teacher's
aide, and Sam Spooner, a television studio designer   defeated an
incumbent Democrat and a write-in candidate.

That leaves Sebastopol in the hands of three Greens, one Democrat
and one Republican, a division that the Greens say promises a wider
debate on the town's most pressing issues, like traffic flow and
affordable housing. Mr. Robinson, 53, said he and the other Greens
offer a perspective to problem-solving that emphasizes the
environment.

Skeptics wonder if, for all their lofty idealism, the Greens can
make any more of a difference on local issues than conventional
politicians, because so few costly initiatives can be addressed
without support from the state.

"As far as the Green Party doing anything, I'm sure they're like
everybody else," said Bo Bryant, whose shop, People's Music, has
been open for 27 years. "It's something to stand for, but they
could go way over the edge. Anyway, you can't change overnight and
make everything Green, and not everything Green is good."

For all the uncertainty over how much difference a Green majority
could make in a small town, liberal politics could not have found a
more hospitable place to blossom than Sebastopol, once the
applesauce center of the West. As Mr. Bryant noted, the place "is
totally weird, with a strange combination of liberals, the
liberated, left-over hippies and a lot of gays   it's just
wonderful."

Solving traffic problems, high on Mr. Robinson's priority list,
may provide the town its first major glimpse of Green Party ideas.

To help relieve congestion, Mr. Robinson said he would support a
plan that would narrow a stretch of State Road 116 to two lanes
from three and widen the sidewalks to slow drivers and encourage
town residents to walk or ride bicycles.

Robert E. Anderson, the Democrat on the Council and a architect,
expressed skepticism over the plan, saying it was not only
grandiose and inefficient, but also typical of the Greens'
unrealistic approach to policy.

Mr. Anderson said he was not as concerned about how the traffic
problem would be solved as he was about how the Greens' ideas might
be thrust onto residents because of the party's new majority.

As Mr. Anderson and others in the town noted, when Mr. Litwin, 24,
and Mr. Spooner, 44, campaigned, they did not emphasize their Green
Party affiliation.

"I thought we were electing individuals, not a party," Mr.
Anderson said, predicting that by mid-May, when the town budget is
developed, "we'll see their priorities for funding."

Angst was also reflected in a nasty anonymous letter Mayor
Robinson said he received in which someone expressed fear about
what a Green majority might foist on the town. "Green becomes Red
in some people's minds," Mr. Robinson said. "This guy wanted to
know if we were going to sit around in circles, holding hands."