Election 2026: Tiburon Town Council candidates differ on parks funding, term limits, Flock, AI
Tiburon Town Council candidates differed on private money for parks, term limits and artificial intelligence in follow-up interviews with The Ark, though all five said they were open to a public hearing on the town’s Flock license-plate cameras.
Kathleen Defever, Alice Fredericks, Chuck Hornbrook, Faris Jafar and Jack Ryan answered questions over the past two weeks that the Sept. 29 candidate forum, hosted by The Ark and moderated by the League of Women Voters of Marin County, did not have time to reach.
Defever, Hornbrook and Jafar are each seeking their first term on the council. Ryan, on the council since winning a 2020 special election, is seeking his second full term, while Fredericks is seeking a seventh term after being first elected in 2001.
Election 2026: Read complete coverage at thearknewspaper.com/election2026
The five candidates are vying for three seats in the Nov. 3 election. The winners will serve four-year terms that end November 2030.
At the candidate forum, candidates mostly agreed that residents should help oversee town finances but were split on the town’s use of Flock license-plate cameras, housing approaches and paying for parks.
The follow-up interviews also covered which park projects to build first, community resiliency, term limits, artificial intelligence and civic engagement.
Candidates differ on private money for parks
Candidates differed on seeking private contributions for the parks on top of public money and on how to decide what gets built if the town cannot afford every project at once.
Total costs for the revamped Bel Aire play area, which is under construction, are estimated at $1.02 million, and the projected construction cost of a park at the former sanitation ponds site near McKegney Green has climbed to $3.7 million. Town officials are also scaling back a redesign of Cypress Hollow Park, aiming to cut its $2.5 million price tag at least in half.
The next council will also have to decide how to proceed if the planned projects together prove too expensive. The town has not decided how to pay for the ponds park, and the earliest voters could approve a tax or bond for it is November 2028.
Ryan said it was “perfectly reasonable” to explore how to obtain funding, including community contributions, but he said he wanted to “move forward absent those.”
He also said he would prioritize the ponds site over a site like Cypress Hollow because the ponds would be an entirely new park in a central location, “whereas the Cypress Hollow site is kind of off the beaten track” and the work there involves upgrading only parts of the site.
Hornbrook, as he did during the forum, pointed to a funding model like Mill Valley’s, which used a mix of public dollars and private contributions to pay for beach volleyball courts that opened in August 2025.
“I think that’s a similar model that the town of Tiburon should do, and I’m strongly supportive of it,” Hornbrook said.
Hornbrook said he’s beginning to reach out to several people who are organizing fundraising efforts on both the private and nonprofit sides.
He also said the town had all but prioritized which amenities it wanted to build, pointing to the pause on proposed improvements at Belveron Mini Park “just so we can make a better use of our dollars” at other sites, along with the revised Cypress Hollow effort.
“It’s balancing those pieces of most benefit to the town as well as how do you make sure that you don’t expose the town to any unnecessary liabilities,” Hornbrook said.
Jafar said he believes there are other ways to generate revenue for the town without raising taxes or issuing a bond, pointing to what’s being done at the Reed Union School District.
“Utilizing our existing asset base and identifying the opportunities there and the levers that we can pull to raise those revenues is my preferred approach,” Jafar said. “And I do believe the scale of those is such that … it won’t just cover the parks. It’ll cover future investments that will meet our community’s needs going forward after we fund the parks.”
Jafar said “a lot of these revenue initiatives are within our control,” as is building out the parks.
“If they fell short, it’s because we kind of made the choice not to pursue them,” Jafar said.
Defever said she had not considered private donations to help pay for park construction, but she added that it’s important to ensure a private donor doesn’t alter a proposed park or change the nature of a project.
“If someone wants to name the park after themselves, they might want to change what’s in the park, you see what I’m saying?” Defever said. “I don’t think it’s a terrible idea as long as there are no other issues such as that.”
She said she didn’t believe the town would be able to build out the parks unless the work was spread over years or the town sought outside money, including grants.
“We do need to think outside the box, but I think we need to be careful with it,” Defever said.
Defever repeated her call from the forum to also pay for other projects, such as refurbishing the town’s corporation yard.
She said she worried that putting off that work was “going to come back and bite you,” leaving the town needing to pay for both aging infrastructure and “the shiny object.”
“I’m not saying we shouldn’t start the parks, I think we definitely should start those projects,” Defever said. “I think both can be done at the same time. It’s just going to be a little slower than maybe people wanted it to be.”
Fredericks said she expects the proposed independent finance committee would oversee how public money and private contributions are used for park improvements, adding that she has no idea “what the capacity or interest for private donations are.”
She also said the order in which projects are built, depending on funding, would be decided through a public process involving the council and the Parks, Open Space & Trails Commission.
All five open to a public hearing on Flock cameras
All five candidates said they were open to the Town Council holding a public forum on the town’s use of its Flock Safety license-plate cameras, a debate that has never reached a council agenda.
An Ark audit found 34 outside police agencies ran 8,542 searches of the town’s license-plate cameras for federally entangled investigations in the seven months after the town rewrote its plate-reader policy in December and began requiring monthly audits.
At the Sept. 29 forum, Ryan said he supported keeping the cameras running for now but was not set on Flock as the vendor. Hornbrook called for keeping the data no more than 30 days — Flock’s longtime default, which the company cut to seven days for new customers in August — and for barring any sharing with federal agencies, which state law has prohibited since 2016.
Jafar said any agreement must serve residents’ interests. Fredericks said she favored keeping the cameras “unless it turns out nothing can be controlled.”
Defever called for requiring a warrant to search the data, with a streamlined process for serious crimes. The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California has urged a warrant requirement for searches of stored plate data. Nearly every court to consider the question has found that searching license-plate reader data is not a search under the Fourth Amendment, but a federal judge in Oklahoma ruled this month that a sheriff’s deputy’s warrantless searches of Flock and other plate-reader databases violated a driver’s Fourth Amendment rights.
Hornbrook said he was surprised the council had yet to hold a public hearing on the cameras. He said it was “good to get the information out there” in a forum where residents beyond already engaged citizens can voice support or opposition.
“I think it’s best for everyone to hear it, so that way there’s no … framing it in a particular perspective,” Hornbrook said. “So that’s why I would like to have a public hearing — but of course, I’m a big fan of security, but not surveillance.”
Defever, the most critical of the five candidates on the cameras, said she wanted to know what the community thinks because the town has yet to gather residents’ views on how it uses them.
She again said she was concerned that a private company can access the data, something she called “alarming, and I think it’s inappropriate.”
“But if the constituents, we have a forum, and the constituents of Tiburon come in and say, ‘Actually, we think, weighing in on the balance, it’s a much better program and we would want to give up that privacy, we do that with open eyes,’” Defever said, “I would really consider that heavily.”
Jafar similarly said a community forum on the cameras with police officials was necessary.
Jafar said he supports giving police technology that helps them do their jobs but questioned some of Flock’s “open access features that extend to other agencies and other parts of the country that have nothing to do with keeping our residents here safe.”
That concern, Jafar said, is what he wants to address.
“By inviting the various stakeholders into a room to help develop a better understanding would be tremendously impactful and, I think, valued by the community,” he said, “especially those who are most concerned about the issue.”
Ryan said his envisioned structure would be the Police Department providing a presentation on its Flock system, “what it’s done, what they’ve tried to fix” and how it benefits the town. He said that the presentation would include a question-and-answer session from councilmembers to police and the opportunity for residents to make public comments.
“I don’t know what other way would be … all that productive in terms of having a forum for it,” Ryan said, adding that he welcomed community feedback to him.
Fredericks said she was open to a public discussion about the cameras, acknowledging the privacy and legal concerns surrounding their use.
She said the community’s decision would come down to one question.
“Are people concerned about keeping their communities safe to the extent they are willing to wait for issues to be resolved, or do they want it to be changed immediately?” she said.
Term limits divide the candidates
Fredericks, the longest-serving councilmember in Tiburon history, said she was neither for nor against term limits for the council or commissions.
She again stressed her belief in a “legacy member” on a governing agency who provides institutional knowledge whenever ideas are presented to ensure they’re “more likely to work when they’re introduced.”
Ultimately, Fredericks said, voters can impose term limits themselves by not reelecting an incumbent.
“And they’ve done it in the past,” she said.
Hornbrook said he generally supports a two-term limit for councilmembers and for appointed commissioners and board members. He said his current, second term on the parks commission will be his last, regardless of how his council campaign goes.
He said a long tenure on a small town’s commission or council “doesn’t build the capacity for other future leaders,” a challenge on top of finding people interested in serving on panels like the Design Review Board or the Planning Commission.
“Unfortunately, there’s just not enough room for them because people haven’t jumped off to find other things because, again, the Town Council, the seats have not been as available as maybe they should be — could be,” Hornbrook said.
Ryan called the question difficult. He said that when he ran unsuccessfully for the council in 2017, he believed term limits made sense.
He said Fredericks has been beneficial to the council and “has left a fantastic legacy,” but he also thinks turnover on the council is a net positive. Belvedere councilmembers, by custom, limit themselves to two terms.
“Would I legislate that or mandate it in policy? I don’t know,” Ryan said. “But I certainly like that Belvedere does that, and I think it’s healthy.”
Ryan also said he won’t serve beyond 2030, whether he is elected or not.
Jafar said that while “it would be convenient” to favor term limits, he also respects democracy and “the simple fact that people vote based on what they believe is in their best interests.”
“I do think the greater good of the community rests safely in the hands of democracy, and … I wouldn’t want to play with it,” Jafar said. “Let the people choose who they want to represent them.”
Defever, who has served on the Planning Commission since 2018 and was reappointed in March to a four-year term, said she believes all government offices, from federal down to state and municipal, should have term limits, saying they would require voters to pay attention to new candidates and do more research as incumbents are termed out.
Defever said two or three terms is a natural point to step down, adding that an extra four-year term can help an official learn how to make an impact. But the period between a second and third term, she said, is where “you hit a stagnation point where new energy is needed.”
“We need new ideas, we need new people in our representation, and it’ll force the voters to pay more attention,” Defever said.
Candidates weigh disaster-ready communications
Candidates were also asked how they would invest in communications infrastructure so it keeps working in a natural disaster or other emergency.
Jafar said his vision for strategic planning is interconnected with disaster recovery and community resiliency.
“When you’ve identified those opportunities to raise those incremental revenues, one of the most important categories is resiliency,” Jafar said.
Added revenue could also pay to explore energy resiliency, such as residential battery storage and solar power, Jafar said, because residents may need to shelter in place for a week after a disaster.
“In one of those scenarios, we can do things here that others cannot, and this is a perfect example of resiliency by having a strong fiscal house,” Jafar said.
Hornbrook said he wanted a clearer picture of what private companies such as Comcast and AT&T are doing to make communications infrastructure more resilient, adding that the town “should be able to leverage that infrastructure and assist those private entities.”
Hornbrook said Pacific Gas and Electric Co., where he once worked, should pay for undergrounding utilities, though it is up to the utility to figure out “how to do that effectively and then also make sure that the electricity is being provided safely and reliably to all customers.”
Fredericks agreed with Hornbrook on PG&E, saying it was time to “get them to recognize their responsibilities,” because doing so would save the company money in the long run.
Fredericks said she hoped the town could find a partner to improve internet access on the peninsula, a process that needs to unfold as part of the town’s basic position on how much it could reasonably contribute.
But, Fredericks said, the town’s “bigger, much bigger priority should be pushing back on PG&E and hammering on the providers who are reluctant to put their funding into low customer-base areas.”
Defever said that in her travels she has seen PG&E pay for undergrounding in some areas but not all. A priority for her, she said, is to learn how the utility decides which communities get underground lines, adding that the entire process needs to be explored.
Reliable power matters on the peninsula’s hills, Defever said. Many homes near Mount Tiburon won’t have water when the power is out, she said, because electric pumps are needed to push water uphill.
“If you have a disaster up here, like a fire, and you can’t get the water pressure to fight the fire, that’s also super concerning,” Defever said.
Ryan said the town should figure out how to add generator connections to its communications infrastructure, like those at the traffic lights along Tiburon Boulevard, but he said he was unsure what a “truly robust communication system needs or looks like.”
He said he was ready to explore that prospect with his council colleagues and include it in the town’s capital-improvement program where feasible.
“I’m not talking specifically about the broadband, but I’m just talking about resiliency and communications resiliency in general,” Ryan said.
Candidates weigh AI’s uses and risks
Candidates also discussed how Tiburon could use artificial intelligence in town operations, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
Hornbrook said he wanted to learn how the town already uses AI, as a baseline, before exploring improvements such as training a tool to produce monthly or quarterly budget summaries. Ryan and Jafar also said AI could help with finances and budgeting.
Hornbrook also pointed to San Anselmo, which has piloted AI-controlled traffic signals at the Hub, its long-congested junction of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, Red Hill Avenue and Center Boulevard.
Ryan, who called himself a “certified Luddite,” said Tiburon “has a long way to go just with technology — without AI.”
He said he believes there could be AI-enhanced tools related to the town’s building-permit process that could improve the resident experience, “but I can’t imagine us getting further.”
Ryan also said the town’s budgeting and finance systems could be modernized and made easier for staff to use, and he said there was still room to make the town’s website easier for residents to use, in what they can do and find online.
Jafar also said AI could make the building and permitting process easier for residents. He described a longer-term vision in which architects, residents and designers could submit plans to a custom AI tool “that will provide sort of real-time feedback on an anticipated project, so that … it’s not an extended-wait period or it’s not multiple iterations.”
“I do think, just from an operational perspective, there’s probably some low-hanging fruit that we should be evaluating to hopefully not just make our operations more efficient at the town level, but also to create a better experience for our residents,” Jafar said.
Fredericks said she could not predict how AI would be used in government but said “every government agency, every department in a government, needs to develop policies about the use of AI.”
She pointed to her own experience with large language models that returned incorrect information and said any policy must also address how to verify what AI provides.
“The primary activity needs to be to develop a policy and to develop it with public input,” Fredericks said.
Defever called the technology “both a dangerous tool and a powerful tool,” citing her own experience with AI providing inaccurate information.
The best avenue for using AI, she said, was to create an internal model that’s designed to get information from the correct places — an idea she acknowledged was impractical due to current costs.
“We have to continue to be careful and wary on anything that has a major impact,” Defever said.
Candidates offer ways to draw residents in
All five candidates also fielded the same final question: How do you get more residents civically engaged with local government?
Fredericks said she wanted to revive community summits among the leaders of homeowners and neighborhood associations.
Those summits, she said, would help the Town Council build a list of issues residents want to hear about.
“Because of that, I think … we had more public participation,” Fredericks said. “It wasn’t outstanding, but it was much more than we have now.”
She also called for the return of council-staff retreats, which she said would show residents the priorities the town planned to tackle in the coming year.
“That way, when you’re communicating with them, you’re communicating with them on a list of issues that they already have had input into and are more likely to show up for,” Fredericks said.
Ryan said he viewed term limits as beneficial because they would require people to throw their hat in the ring to become a candidate, but he said the challenge was difficult. He also said the town should make its services more accessible, with the focus on improving the customer-service experience for residents.
“As a municipality, we approach it with subject-matter expertise, and I’m glad our people have that expertise,” Ryan said. “But we just have to make it easier for people to access and work with too.”
Hornbrook said he wanted to use the tools the town already has, like its survey platforms, to gather community feedback more often. He also said he wanted to sign up more residents for the town’s newsletter, Tiburon Talk, and to look at how other towns communicate civic news to residents.
Hornbrook also praised Michael Moon, chair of the parks commission, for leading community feedback sessions, an approach he said the town should adopt as a whole. He said those sessions provide more valuable information and complement public meetings, where councilmembers can make sure “those three minutes that you hear from people are well used.”
“At the end of the day, the most precious commodity that we have is time, and I want to be respectful of everyone in that,” Hornbrook said.
Defever said the town could do a better job of using social media to its advantage, saying that sections from the Tiburon Talk newsletter could be posted as Instagram Stories, the vertical posts that expire after 24 hours.
“That would be an easy tool because it’s not that expensive to do and it’s not that difficult to do,” she said.
Jafar called for more issue-specific forums, such as on finances or safety. Those events, he said, would plant a seed for residents to spread by word of mouth and build engagement from there.
He said it was important for the council to extend those invitations to the community so residents feel welcome to participate.
“I think we can extend invitations around these important areas of life in Tiburon,” Jafar said, “and I think … it will go a long way to facilitating that increased engagement.”
Reach Tiburon reporter Francisco Martinez at 415-944-4634.