Attorney, soccer mom, Miller wears many hats

Kathy Miller has several crucial jobs.

She’s a lawyer specializing in real estate and corporate law. She’s a Petaluma City councilwoman with nearly four years experience on the dais. She’s a member of the Sonoma County Transportation Authority tasked with finding funding to widen Highway 101 through Petaluma.

But, perhaps her most important job is soccer mom.

With her son off at college, Miller will be focused this fall on her daughter, a senior soccer star at Cardinal Newman High School. That, and running for reelection to the city council.

It was youth sports that partly drove Miller to become more politically active. She helped spearhead Petaluma’s Measure X, a 2012 ballot measure that would have raised a parcel tax for city parks. The initiative narrowly missed the two-thirds vote needed to pass, but Miller won a seat on the council that year and has since worked to open the Community Sports Fields on East Washington Street, giving Petaluma kids another place to play.

“When I came onto the council, that was a big push of mine,” she said of the park project. “I have a soccer-playing daughter, a baseball-playing son. I spend a lot of time with people who have kids, and I really do hear from people that this is a priority.”

Besides parks, Miller said she would like another term on the council to continue efforts to attract businesses and jobs to Petaluma and to work on issues like affordable housing and road repair. Also on the ballot for three open seats on the council this year are incumbents Mike Healy and Gabe Kearney and challenger Bill Wolpert, a planning commissioner.

Miller, one of the architects along with the two other incumbents of a road funding tax proposal that never made it to the Nov. 8 ballot, said the city at some point will likely have to ask voters for money to fix the crumbling streets.

“I think we’ll ultimately go out with a special tax for roads, but we have to educate the public,” she said. “If we educate the public, they will be supportive of it.”

Miller, who campaigned in 2012 with Healy and Kearney and has done so again this year, considers herself moderate on the political spectrum. Wolpert, by contrast, has positioned himself as a progressive, aligning with Councilwoman Teresa Barrett and Mayor David Glass on environmental and development issues.

She said that she agrees with progressives and values walkable developments that encourage mass transit and fewer car trips. Wolpert has accused the incumbents of being too cozy with developers, especially Basin Street, which has several projects in Petaluma.

“I don’t have anything against it,” said Miller, 52. “We all want people to be able to walk and bike to work. That’s a good thing. This council is pretty much in sync, except on Basin Street Developments.”

Miller said she remains committed to constructing the Rainier crosstown connector and finding funds to widen Highway 101. She is part of an ad hoc committee of the Sonoma County Transportation Authority that so far has been able to obtain millions of dollars in funding to widen the freeway south of Petaluma, leaving the stretch through the heart of Petaluma unfunded.

A graduate of the University of Texas and University of San Francisco law school, Miller said she likes doing the work of the city because it is interesting and she is able to learn about the inner workings of the community.

“You learn a lot about things you wouldn’t normally learn about,” she said. “I like that feeling.”

(Contact Matt Brown at matt.brown@arguscourier.com.)