Mark Bennett: Terre Haute native, fellow California mayors gather amid fire concerns

Pat Ravasio doesn’t tiptoe around the topic of climate change.

Its realities matter too much for her.

Ravasio’s approach — “Don’t ask people if they believe in climate change. Ask if they understand climate change.”

The 67-year-old mother of three adult daughters, who grew up in Terre Haute, serves as mayor of Corte Madera, California. That city of 9,947 residents sits just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. “We’re the closest bedroom community of San Francisco,” Ravasio said Monday.

She spoke by phone from Los Angeles. Ravasio arrived there on Monday, Jan. 6 to share time with her daughter and newborn grandchild. On Tuesday, Jan. 7, wildfire devastated the Pacific Palisades sector of L.A. — one of three deadly, destructive fires that stormed through the Los Angeles metro area this month.

Fortunately for Ravasio, her daughter’s neighborhood was under a possible evacuation alert for only one hour, because of the Altadena fire, and wasn’t affected.

The fires and related issues weigh heavily on the minds of Ravasio and many fellow California mayors and city council members as they gather this week in Garden Grove, south of Los Angeles. They’re attending the annual League of California Cities Mayors and Council Members Academy, which began Wednesday and concludes Friday.

“I’m sure the fire protection and insurance sessions are going to be well attended,” Ravasio said, just before the conference began.

Mayor Pat Ravasio (second from right) participates in a ribbon cutting for the City of Corte Madera, California’s new town hall in 2024. Ravasio grew up in Terre Haute.

Relative to other parts of California, the San Francisco Bay Area is often considered less susceptible to wildfires. But in a University of California Berkeley report this month, UCB Civil Engineering Department project scientist Louise Comfort stated the Bay Area is “absolutely” at risk.

California cities “are vulnerable,” Ravasio said. “So there’s a lot of people preparing.”

More than 40,000 acres have burned from 241 wildfires since Jan. 1 across California, according to Cal Fire and U.S. Forest Service statistics cited by the New York Times. The recent L.A. area fires have claimed 29 lives, thus far. Human-caused climate change increased the likelihood of high-fire weather conditions in L.A. by 35% and fire intensity by 6%, according to a preliminary World Weather Attribution study (worldweatherattribution.org) reported by The Associated Press.

“It’s been a siren call, an alarm that’s set off a new wave” of climate change awareness, Ravasio said of the wildfires. “I think people are really starting to get it.”

The availability and cost of insurance is another problem, illuminated by the fires, mayors and city leaders must confront. “The big issue that relates to [the fires] is the insurance,” Ravasio noted.

This month’s fires could become the costliest natural disaster in California history, according to insurance industry estimates reported in the San Francisco Chronicle. The total expense for insured losses, just for the Eaton and Palisades fires, could climb as high as $28 billion to $35 billion, according to an estimate by the insurance data analysis firm Verisk, mentioned in the Chronicle story.

Ravasio hopes other issues also get attention at the mayors conference, including homelessness and protections for immigrants.

Voters elected her in 2022 to Corte Madera’s five-member town council, of which her husband, Bob, used to be a member. She became mayor in November, a role council members traditionally fill in rotation for a year. “Normally, we take turns,” she said. “Californians are good people. I know we take a bad rap.”

Corte Madera elections are nonpartisan, and Ravasio said town council members are a political mix. She’s a progressive Democrat.

Bridge project

This architectural rendering shows a planned pedestrian connector to link two shopping mall areas in Corte Madera, California, where former Terre Haute resident Pat Ravasio serves as mayor.

Ravasio has been active in the Corte Madera community since she and her husband moved there from Chicago in 1990. She’s worked in radio, advertising and real estate. In 2017, Ravasio released her book “The Girl from Spaceship Earth: A True Story,” inspired by her lifelong study of architect-inventor-futurist Buckminster Fuller (available online at amazon.com/Girl-Spaceship-Earth-True-Story/dp/0999046306).

She grew up in the Lakewood subdivision in Riley, southeast of Terre Haute, attended Riley Elementary School, Glenn and Honey Creek junior highs, and then Terre Haute South High School. Though she graduated elsewhere after her family moved to South Bend, Ravasio still attends Terre Haute South Class of 1975 gatherings, and intends to be at this year’s 50th reunion.

She’s fond of those years and longtime friendships. “That made me cling to Terre Haute with all my might,” Ravasio said.

The architectural skills of her late father, David J. Field, brought the family to Terre Haute, where they lived from 1956-73. An Englishman, Field met architect Ewing Miller in a London bar after Field did a presentation during an architecture event. That led to a job with Miller’s architectural firm in Terre Haute, and Field wound up designing elements of the Indiana State University campus, including the then-world’s largest single-span, folded-plate roof atop the ISU Arena.

Field also introduced his daughter to Buckminster Fuller’s work at an event in 1969 at Carbondale, Illinois, sparking an interest that resulted in her book nearly five decades later.

In Corte Madera, Ravasio and her husband have made a home in a scenic town positioned between the Point Reyes National Seashore park, Mount Tamalpais, Muir Woods National Monument and San Francisco Bay. “It’s just this magical, beautiful place,” she said.

And expensive. “We’ve got some of the most sought-after real estate on, maybe, the planet,” Ravasio explained. Median home prices are around $1.5 million.

Still, she thought Corte Madera looked a bit “scruffy” a few years ago, and decided to run for town council. Projects she’s supported include converting an old barn into a music venue, enhancing parks, and the creation of a Community Cafe through a private-public partnership. Ravasio has also worked to get a pedestrian connector — a new cantilever bridge alongside an existing vehicular bridge — to link two mall areas.

“We’re redesigning the thing that used to disconnect us, and helping it to connect us,” Ravasio said. Longevity and quality-of-life issues top her list.

“I love my town, and I love Terre Haute,” she said. Ravasio is enjoying public service and the mayor’s role.

“Even though I’m in my 60s, I look at [84-year-old former U.S. House Speaker and California congresswoman] Nancy Pelosi and think, ‘I could have a 20-year career in this,’” Ravasio said.

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