[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 2 (Wednesday, January 4, 2017)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E22]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        HONORING MARY ANN NIHART

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JACKIE SPEIER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, January 4, 2017

  Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor Mary Ann Nihart for her 
eight years of service on the Pacifica City Council. Her tireless 
commitment to her community has improved this wonderful coastal town 
for residents and visitors alike. Her service even helped shine a 
national spotlight on Pacifica. I am proud to count Mary Ann as a 
constituent, colleague and friend.
  Mary Ann was first elected to the council in 2008 and served as mayor 
in 2011 and 2014. She was also the C/CAG representative to Pacifica, 
the Fog Fest Liaison, and she served on the North Coast County Fire 
JPA. Her council committee assignments included the Financing City 
Services committee, Economic Development, the Beautification Advisory 
Committee, and the Articulation Committee. Pacifica's quality of life 
was greatly improved through her representation on the San Mateo County 
Transportation Authority and at the Association of Bay Area 
Governments.
  As mayor, Mary Ann re-instituted Mayor's Walks to personally connect 
local business owners with the city government and city staff. She also 
reinstated the Economic Development Committee to develop an economic 
plan for Pacifica. She helped her town receive transportation funding 
for shuttle services and street paving. She initiated and led the 
Beautification Task Force which designated 25 sites for make-overs. To 
date, nine of them have been completed. Among her proudest 
accomplishments was a city-wide effort to have Pacifica designated as 
one of the most scenic cities in America. The town was one of six 
finalists in the country.
  Another of Mary Ann's priorities has been environmental protection. 
She initiated the process to designate Pedro Point Headlands as a 
priority conservation area and worked to complete the coastal trail 
from Pacifica to Devil's Slide, a San Mateo County Park with some of 
the country's most phenomenal ocean bluff views. She helped ban plastic 
bags and foam containers in Pacifica and supported protections for the 
Western Snowy Plover, a tiny shore bird listed as threatened under the 
Endangered Species Act.
  During her tenure, Mary Ann continually strove to bring community 
members together and to heal divides. This may be explained by the 
outstanding professional experience she brought to the council. Mary 
Ann is the Clinical Director and Chief Nurse of Mental Health Services 
at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Health Care System. She holds a 
BSN and two Masters degrees in Nursing and in Clinical Psychology. Her 
passion to help veterans is noteworthy. There are thousands of veterans 
who owe their mental health in part to her management of outstanding 
psychiatric mental health treatment at our VA. Through her efforts and 
those of her colleagues, lives are saved each year. Mary Ann is also an 
Associate Clinical Professor at the University of California, San 
Francisco, and a past president of the American Psychiatric Nurses 
Association which honored her with the Psychiatric Nurse of the Year 
Award in 2012.
  Mary Ann speaks nationally and internationally on the integration of 
biology into psychiatric nursing care, crisis intervention and de-
escalation. She brought those skills to the coast after two tragic 
police shootings of mentally ill individuals in Pacifica and 
neighboring Half Moon Bay. She worked with local law enforcement to 
provide additional education and to amend the training for officers 
encountering mentally ill individuals in violent situations.
  As you can surmise from this long yet incomplete list of 
accomplishments, Mary Ann Nihart is incredibly capable and gets things 
done. She will retire from the city council due to a flaw in federal 
law that I intend to fix. I for one will miss working with her on 
issues that connect local and federal jurisdictions, such as human 
trafficking, sea level rise and veterans' health.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask the members of the House of Representatives to 
join me in honoring an outstanding professional and public servant who 
has left her mark on the community she loves. A leader with a big heart 
and a welcoming smile, Mary Ann Nihart's work is tightly woven into the 
fabric of Pacifica, a coastal community that I am very fortunate to 
represent.

                          ____________________