Chessboard for plaza incites life-size battle

When John Cutler came up with the idea of putting a big chessboard with 2-foot-tall pieces in the Mill Valley plaza, he thought of children and grandparents bonding over the game as the locals milled happily about, sipping cappuccinos or licking ice cream cones. It would, he thought, be an ideal addition to one of the Bay Area's most admired town squares, bringing it even closer in form and function to the great public plazas of Europe. He didn't expect the town to turn against him. The idea -- warmly received when it was approved by the Mill Valley Parks and Recreation Commission two years ago -- has thrust him into the middle of one of the biggest controversies in years to hit this wealthy suburb at the base of Mount Tamalpais. With the City Council to consider on Monday whether to approve the proposal, residents and merchants, schoolchildren and even chess players have come out against what they call the "giant chessboard." They have denounced it as a boondoggle that would ruin Mill Valley's cozy plaza by disrupting pedestrians and interfering with frolicking children. Cutler, whose project would be privately funded but maintained at city expense, has been pilloried by opponents as a City Hall insider who is bullying city officials into approving an idiotic whim. "If Shakespeare was alive, he'd have a good time writing what a farce this is," said Suzy Cumming, co-chair of the recently formed "Save Our Plaza" campaign, which purports to have collected more than 1,000 signatures, including 42 local merchants, opposing the chessboard. "It's that preposterous." The city recently built a cardboard mock-up of the chess set on the plaza, but within 24 hours it had been ripped up and covered with graffiti.

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