Kol Shofar gets a ‘no’ vote from commission

Ron Brown had sat through seven Tiburon planning commission meetings, so attending an eighth hardly seemed to be a chore.

Yet the May 31 meeting was less than thrilling for the past president of Congregation Kol Shofar and a member of the synagogue's building committee — the commission voted 4-1 against the synagogue's ambitious expansion plan.

While it's a setback, it was a setback Brown and Kol Shofar were anticipating, and they've already formulated a response.

"The planning commission is not the ultimate arbiter of this. Several years ago, St. Hilary's Catholic Church went through a long and protracted battle to build a gym for CYO basketball. And their plan was turned down 5-0 by the planning commission and approved 5-0 by the town council," he told j. in May.

"Large projects like the one at St. Hilary's and Kol Shofar tend to be more contentious and always end up before town council."

That's still how he felt in June. Kol Shofar this week filed an appeal of the planning commission's decision, and anticipates a hearing before the town council before the end of July.

"We would rather have won, but the only precedent we know of in terms of a large project was the one a couple of years ago at St. Hilary's," added Brown. "So there's ample reason to believe the town council will consider other factors than the planning commission did."

Kol Shofar's project may run to $10 million or more, depending upon inflation. Barring serious delays, Brown told j. he hoped the project would be under way by 2008. In August of last year, Kol Shofar's Rabbi Lavey Derby expressed hopes that ground would be broken sometime this year.