Given the current climate around immigration rights in the United States, we thought it would be helpful to provide our members with the information below, which the civil rights and immigration team of Mill Valley Community Action Network (MVCAN) repurposed via the Golden Gate Restaurant Association.

​Email us with questions/thoughts. 

Know your rights as an employer.  

1. Have a plan for who on staff handles government officials. Establish who that point of contact is — whether a specific manager or owner and instruct employees of the appropriate contact. Your plan should also include contacting legal counsel.
2. Know your rights. Anyone showing up at your workplace is only allowed to enter public areas without your permission — primarily the dining area. California law AB 450, which just went into effect requires that employers may not voluntarily consent to an immigration enforcement agent to enter any nonpublic areas of “a place of labor” without a subpoena or judicial warrant. Therefore, any areas that are off-limits to the general public can be off limits to federal officials as well. This includes your kitchen, office, break room, etc.
3. Ask to see a warrant. A valid warrant should be signed and have accurate legal information, including the name and address of your business, listed names of specific employees, etc. You don’t have to provide them more information than what’s requested on the warrant. In fact, the new state law indicates that except as otherwise required by federal law, employers cannot re-verify the employment eligibility of a current employee at a time or in a manner not required by federal law. Basically, don’t offer up or penalize employees who you think may not have the proper documentation just because ICE has arrived.
4. I-9 forms. ICE will likely request to see your Employment Eligibility Verification forms, known as the I-9. You should have these forms separate from other employee records, which federal officials don’t have a right to review. You have the right to request that officials come back another time to review these forms, and in fact under California law AB 450, employers must give notice of 72 hours to employees of any immigration review of employment records, and there are specific measures for notifying “affected employees." The notice must be posted in the language the employer normally uses to communicate employment-related information to the employee.  In addition, the notice must include the following information:

• The name of the immigration agency conducting the inspections of I-9 Employment             
• Eligibility Verification forms or other employment records.
• The date that the employer received notice of the inspection.
• The nature of the inspection to the extent known,
• A copy of the Notice of Inspection of I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification forms for                      the inspection to be conducted.

Additionally for an “affected employee,” “an employee who may lack work authorization, or an employee whose work authorization documents have been identified by the immigration agency inspection to have deficiencies,” a copy of the Notice of Inspection of I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification forms must be hand delivered at the workplace (if possible) within 72 hours. Complete guidance surrounding federal employment verification forms can be found here. Please see a more in-depth list of guidance and a sample warrant here.

Call the Marin County Rapid Response Hotline 415-991-4545 to report the raid. Marin RR does raid verification for all calls of alleged ICE Enforcement activity within Marin. Raid verification is an important component to dispel myths and lessen fear. They will physically go and verify or announce false alarms to rumors about ICE activity. Your employees have rights too. Employees don’t have to speak to immigration officials. They can request an attorney and a translator.  ​

With the Miller Avenue Streetscape Project largely in the rearview mirror and in the interests of supporting and providing stimulus to Miller Avenue area businesses, the City of Mill Valley is issuing an exemption of up to $500 on the annual business license tax.

First approved by the City Council in September 2017, the exemption goes into effect on the business license tax bills that go out in May and June and are due July 1, City officials said. The exemption covers 264 licensed businesses on Miller Ave. and its immediate side streets of La Goma, Montford, Willow and Locust Avenue.

For the 200 businesses whose business license tax is $500 or below, no tax is due for the 2018-19 fiscal year business license tax cycle. The other 64 businesses whose tax bill is above $500 will pay the difference. City officials say the exemption will result in a nearly $70,000 reduction in business license tax revenue for the 2018-19 fiscal year.

The City will send out instructions on how to calculate your business license tax with their annual Business License application. 

The exemption builds on the City's business license deferment program for the 2017-18 fiscal year that allowed business owners a six-month payment extension to Jan. 31, 2018, with no penalty.

MORE ON THE MILLER AVENUE STREETSCAPE PROJECT.

The perfect way to welcome a client, friend or family to the 94941, the Enjoy Mill Valley Welcome Kit includes:

• A felt tote bag, a hat, an embossed journal and a stainless steel water bottle, all bearing the Michael Schwab-designed Mill Valley logo.
• Gift cards from Grilly’s, Piazza D’Angelo and La Ginestra
• Copies of MV Community Map, EMV Guide, MV Recreation Guide, Marin Magazine, Marin Visitor Bureau Guide, One Tam Map, My Mapbook, Where SF & MV Herald
• Vital Emergency Preparedness Info
• “Tam Near Perfect” license plate holder
• A One-Year Mill Valley Chamber Community Membership
• Chamber Saver Card w/ access to 60+ discounts around town

In all, it's a $300+ value for just $200. Interested in purchasing a EMV Welcome Kit? Email us!

That was one merry Mixer! The gorgeously decorated The Outdoor Art Club was the place to be for the Mill Valley Chamber's annual Holiday Party on Dec. 12. With delicious food from Pizza Antica, Prabh Indian Kitchen and the Plant Organic Cafe, amazing wine from Anne Minkin's Boisset Collection, champagne, beer and soft drinks, live music from the Mill Valley Middle School Bluegrass Club and an array of incredible raffle prizes, this was a can't miss party.
Thanks to the OAC and all of our food and drink providers, our amazing staff, volunteers and ambassadors for helping to organize the event, to the fantastic Susan Royce (get well Gary Ferber!) for stepping in to take photos and, most of all, to all of you who came out to celebrate a fantastic 2017 with us! 
CHECK OUT ALL THE GREAT PHOTOS HERE.

As we near the end of a year-plus that has been largely dominated by the nearly complete Miller Avenue Streetscape Project, the Mill Valley Chamber invited Mayor Jessica Sloan and City Manager Jim McCann to deliver the annual State of the City to Chamber members and friends on Tuesday, Oct. 24 at Piazza D’Angelo restaurant. 

Over the course of a wide-ranging, substantive and interactive hour, Sloan dove into an array of subjects, starting with the 18-month, $18 million elephant in the room: the Miller Avenue project, which is now in its 16th month, with most of the most critical – and most disruptive for Miller businesses – components finished.

“Overall it’s really been a great partnership with the businesses,” Sloan said.

Sloan touted Meet Me on Miller, the post-construction campaign from the Chamber and the City to re-engage the community with Miller Avenue shops, restaurants, businesses and organizations.  

And in the immediate future, there’s MillerFest, a four-hour celebration of the new Miller Avenue, on Saturday, Nov. 4 (12-4pm) in the public parking lot near Marin Theatre Company and Extreme Pizza. The action-packed event features food from Antone's East Coast Subs, Extreme Pizza, Swirl and Whole Foods Mill Valley, along with live music from Loose With the Truth, a beer garden from the Chamber and Fort Point Beer Co., a bounce house, a bike decorating content and parade, a bike maintenance station from Tam Bikes, pedicabs from Vanguard Properties and 4Leaf, children's play from the Marin Theatre Company, nature walks, history walks and much more.

Sloan says she hopes the new Miller incites even more families to get out of their cars. 

“I grew up in this town biking all over the place,” she said. “My mom loved it because she didn’t have to drive me everywhere. You knew where to go because your friends’ bikes were parked outside that store.”
​
“Now I have seen an explosion of kids and parents biking and walking and using other modes to get to school along Miller,” she added, mentioning the dedicated bike lanes throughout the road and flashing beacons at many crosswalks. “And we hope that grows even more when people see how much more multi-modal the street is now.”

Sloan noted that some of the biggest improvements to Miller happened under the road surface.

“This is a huge project,” Sloan said. “There hasn’t been one of this size in the county in a very long time. The biggest piece, perhaps, was underground in terms of sewer pipes, storm drains, utility upgrades – we had some serious problems underground and it warranted a job of this size being done.”

That impact has already made gains, she said, as evidenced by the fact that last winter’s record rains caused considerably less flooding around Miller and its side streets than lower levels of rain in years past.

“To all of the businesses, I say thank you so much for your patience on Miller,” Sloan added.

Traffic
With the Miller project almost in the rear-view mirror, Sloan spent the bulk of the discussion on some of the macro-level issues that face Mill Valley face. The most obvious of those continues to be traffic. Sloan rattled off a series of changes that have been made, from traffic light timing adjustments to the pilot yellow school bus program, which has allowed dozens of families to avoid cross-town car trips to school, that have been made in the past year and that have reduced overall travel time in and around Mill Valley by 13 percent.
​
Workforce Housing
The imbalance between the percentage of people who work in Mill Valley but cannot afford to live here “is the most important issue we have here in town,” Sloan said, recalling that when she was a kid, her neighbors were the local mechanic at Masters auto repair and that as many as 10 Mill Valley Police officers lived in Mill Valley in the 1990s, a number that has shrunk to just one officer in all of Marin County.

“We have moved away from being a community where the people who worked in and served this community lived here,” Sloan said. “And it’s changed the town on a cultural level as well.”
McCann said the City itself has faced tremendous difficult fill its own staff vacancies because of the dearth of affordable housing.

To address that issue, the City Council approved a change to the City’s affordable housing requirements, requiring any development of four or more units to make 25 percent of those units affordable. 

“I can’t tell you guys what a big win that is, especially looking at other jurisdictions,” Sloan said. 

The Council also this year approved an affordable housing impact fee on all new housing projects and remodels costing $100,000 or more. The fee 1 percent of the project’s construction cost. The fee take effect in November 2018.

City officials estimate that the fee could generate approximately $350,000 a year, and that the City is hosting a workforce housing summit in late November to discuss how the use of that revenue should be prioritized, with the options ranging from building new housing or buying and remodeling existing apartment complexes that “could use some TLC” to offering payment assistance for local workers, Sloan said.

Sloan and McCann also touched on a number of other subjects, from the ongoing overhaul of the network of Steps, Lanes and Paths and recent parking meter upgrades to the need for businesses to stay on top of their own emergency preparedness, a subject that has been on everyone’s minds of late, for obvious reasons,” Sloan said.

Lisa Safran was in Thailand over the holidays in 2004, and in the days before the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami arrived there, she found herself annoyed by groups of people that were older and younger than her, for different reasons.

When the tsunami hit, she observed those people react in ways that had her recoiling from those initial judgments.

“It made me realize that I have that capacity to think us and them and you versus me,” she says, noting that the frenetic younger guys took charge of a rescue, while some older Thai women has collected fish from the sea so people had food to eat that night. “In that moment, what I saw was a collective group of people working to get through something very traumatic.”

One of the driving forces of that shift, according to Safran, was the need to improvise. Improvisation has been Safran’s calling ever since. Her Improv Consultants firm uses play to ignite teams, strengthen leaders, and spark lasting collaboration, communication & creativity. On Sept. 6, Safran led an inspired, engaging interactive workshop on using the tenets of improvisation to bridge the generational divide. The event, part of "The Essentials" series hosted by the Mill Valley, San Rafael, Corte Madera  and Tiburon Chambers of Commerce, was held at the Town Center Corte Madera.
 
In doing so, she relied on the tenets of improvisation. With younger people constantly entering the workforce and older people working well into their 60s and 70s, Safran says, finding ways to help those disparate demographics work well with one another is a critical component to a successful workplace.

But rather than a lecture and feverish note-taking from attendees, Safran led the group in a series of improv exercises that pushed all the right buttons. They included having partners rapidly count off back and forth, swapping in claps and snaps as they did so; brainstorming commonalities with partners; and using creative word association to pass childhood memories around a group.

Those exercises sought to drive home the power of some of the tenets of improvisation, including:

• Say yes and add positively to the situation – Fully accept ideas, even if you don’t like them, and seek to add positively to them.
• Stay present and evaluate later – Refraining from planning allows for even more options and choices to make themselves known.
• Make your partner look brilliant – Eliminate defensiveness.
• Look for connection – Finding commonalities with others supports the building of healthy relationships.
• Find the joy in failure – Be willing to make mistakes and see those mistakes not so much as a failure as a willingness to be courageous. “Mistakes are considered a gift in improv,” Safran says.

The biggest takeaway from the exercises was to step back from your judgments about a person or a demographic and to approach each person with a sense of empathy and as a teammate. Safran emphasized the importance of “making your partner look brilliant,” a strategy in which you don’t focus on or get caught up in what you don’t like about an idea but what you do like, and using that distinction to build on that idea and not immediately rejecting it.

Attendees walked away with ideas and strategies to bridge the generational divide in creative, effective ways that they could put into practice with ease.

The 411: MORE INFO on Lisa Safran and Improv Consultants. Do you have a topic you’d like the Chambers to cover in an upcoming The Essentials event? Let us know.

Bloom Marin, a volunteer-based nonprofit that provides complimentary wardrobes and life skills training to men, women, and children transitioning to a life of self-reliance, is seeking an assistant retail store manager for its San Rafael shop.

Bloom serves clients referred from more than 45 nonprofit and government agencies including job training programs, educational institutions, family service agencies, treatment centers, domestic violence and homeless shelters.  Founded in 1999, staff and volunteers provide an experience of acknowledgement and dignity when selecting a wardrobe.  Bloom employs seven part-time staff and has over 100 volunteers. 

Qualifications:
Bloom is looking for an upbeat personality who can help the organization as they grow. Our staff works hard to serve the people of Marin County. An understanding of our organization and compassion for the population we serve is a must. A college education and writing skills are preferred. Good communication skills are necessary for this position. Bloom is located at 1557 4th street in San Rafael.
1. Working knowledge of Microsoft Office and excel. 
2. Spanish language skills a plus.
3. Positive can do attitude and a team player.
4. Social media skills a plus.
5. Customer service skills and ability to represent Bloom positively.
6. Previous retail experience a plus.
7. Ability to work some Saturdays, hours are approximately 20-30 per week depending on retail schedules. 

Contact Bloom for more details at sherene@bloommarin.org

We worked with the creative folks at Blu Sky Films on a video that captures our value proposition to our members, with the help of the amazing Helen Russell at Equator Coffees and Grace Kraaijvanger of The Hivery. We're forever grateful to both of them and hope you enjoy the fantastic work by Blue Sky. And feel free to share with friends, colleagues and neighbors who might benefit by joining our ever-growing community organization! MORE INFO ON MEMBERSHIP.

Thoughts? Questions? Email us anytime!

Though most of their events are of the funereal variety, Heather Ferguson and her team at  Fernwood Cemetery in Tam Valley showed last week that they are far from a traditional cemetery, capable of putting on one heck of a networking mixer.

​Fernwood hosted our June 21st Mixer, and dozens gathered in the gorgeous space designed by the firm that created the new One World Trade Center and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai amidst a gorgeous, sprawling, 32-acre property. Attendees enjoyed beautiful music from Teja Gerken, delicious food from Robin Scott Catering and the chance to rub elbows with their fellow Members and friends. Thanks to all who made it out and to all of those who helped make it happen!!

MORE ON FERNWOOD.