News Roundup from April 25 to 29

Here are the major stories in San Rafael this week:

Friday

• After an investigation, reports of a kidnapping near the San Rafael Transit Terminal on Tamalpais Avenue Thursday night are unfounded, according to Lt. Raffaello Pata. A man told San Rafael police officers that he and a friend were in a car when three suspects appeared and forced him to exit the vehicle at knifepoint. The suspects then drove off with his friend in still in the car, according to Pata. The man later told the officers that he was involved in a drug deal, where he was robbed of his cash and car by a person he knew, and no one was kidnapped.

Thursday

• The board of directors of the Marin Municipal Water District (MMWD) got an earful from the public on a proposed 4 percent rate hike but put off making a decision on the increase until May 23. The board also pushed back until June 1 its proposed effective date for the increase.
• An unidentified man robbed a motorist at the 1000 Fourth Street Bank of America drive-up ATM at 7:20 p.m.  April 27, according to San Rafael police officers. The suspect, armed with a knife, approached the motorist while at the ATM and demanded money. After receiving an undisclosed amount of cash, the suspect fled on foot toward Court Street and City Plaza. The victim was not harmed.

Wednesday

• Accused serial killer Joseph Naso appeared in Marin County Superior Court and requested to represent himself in his . "I have given this case a lot of consideration and thought," Naso told Judge Andrew Sweet. "I've been in my cell alone for the past few weeks." Naso, 77, is charged with four counts of murder for the deaths of four Northern California women, two of whom were killed in the Bay Area. He has not yet entered a plea.

Tuesday

• At the Marin County Board of Supervisors meeting this morning, San Rafael residents opposed moving a local dog park on Civic Center Drive to McInnis Park as the county continues planning for a new Emergency Operations Facility building. Supervisors unanimously approved an agreement option for the new building that included moving the interim dog park known as Field of Dogs to McInnis Park after the site is updated to facilitate the pet owners. Once McInnis Park is updated, Field of Dogs will be given a 90-day notice until the park is closed.

Monday

• When he lived in the East Bay three decades ago, Joe Naso was a photographer and sports fan who would organize family trips to beaches to add to his family’s collection of antique bottles. Naso is now accused of the murders of four Northern California women from the 1970s through the 1990s, including that of Roxene Roggasch, whose body was found on Jan. 11 1977 on the east side of White's Hill off of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. But, one can get a sense of a different Naso family that lived in Piedmont back in the last 1970s and early 1980s — Judy and Joe Naso and their sons, David and Charlie — in an interview with a childhood friend of David’s. That friend asked for anonymity in granting interviews with Patch.