As many of you know, I am a numbers guy and I have looked at this initiative carefully and have found much to like.

The tax of $0.10 per square foot helps with the progressive ability to pay based on home size and there is an exemption for senior citizens based on income level (currently $90K year or less income).

The county is divided into 5 zones and at the 5-year mark there will be a measure to ensure that each zone receives a benefit approximately consistent with what the zone contributed. This ensures that southern Marin is not financing Novato as an example or the other way around. Also the tax expires in 10 years so the voter can reassess the value obtained for the tax. 

There is a 10 percent limit on what can be spent on management and overhead. There is adequate infrastructure within the fire force to administer the effort now. What is needed is funding. We are not building another bureaucracy.

The lion's share of taxes collected will be used for inspections, and vegetation management work done by seasonal employees that will not be receiving public pensions or retiree health care. The collaborative partnership is structured to insure it will not incur any unfunded liabilities. 

The fire chiefs set priorities, with appropriate oversight and larger projects crossing municipal boundaries are easier to accomplish with a long term $20 Million revenue source. The partnership of 17 cities, towns, fire districts and the county will be governed by existing elected officials from each agency, existing Fire Chiefs, City Managers will provide executive level support and subject matter experts from each agency will guide operational priorities. The land management agencies (National Park Service, County Open Space, State Parks and Marin Municipal Water District) will participate at the Technical Advisory level ensuring coordination and strategic priorities for fuel reduction are met.

​The impact of Mount Tamalpias on neighborhoods will be fully addressed. This plan is not to supplant funds allocated for vegetation management on public lands but to enhance and accelerate what is needed to protect against the calamities seen in the North Bay, Paradise and now Australia. This helps protect us all.

Interested in supporting this campaign beyond your vote? 

The campaign has produced 18x12 inch signs promoting the initiative. Consider putting one in your business front window. Email John and he will deliver one to you. You can also make a donation to the measure and endorse at the website. 

In a direct response to the concerns of its members about the possibility of an uptick in chain/formula businesses in downtown, the Mill Valley Chamber organized an information-laden workshop on the subject on Nov. 5, leaning heavily on the views of local officials and an array of business and property owners in attendance.

“We work for you,” Chamber Co-Director Paula Reynolds told the high-octane group at the outset of the event, which was graciously hosted by WrapManager, the financial services firm at 319 Miller, within its Assembly community gathering space. “We’ve heard your concerns about the downtown retail environment, and as you know, we’re committed to sharing valuable information as much as possible.”

As a foundation for the discussion, there are no City of Mill Valley regulations explicitly intended to prohibit chain businesses, loosely defined as stores/restaurants with multiple locations – more than 10 in many instances – and standardized signage and branding.

“The question is, should Mill Valley manage or restrict formula business, and if so, how?” Reynolds added. “What are the intended and unintended impacts of restricting formula businesses, and how do you effectively balance the desire to retain Mill Valley’s small town character with its need to remain economically viable?”

As promised, the event began with information, both from handouts and a panel of knowledgeable folks on the subject, including City of Sausalito Mayor Joe Burns and Sausalito Chamber of Commerce CEO Juli Vieira, who spoke about their city’s regulations on formula businesses. City of Mill Valley Planning and Building Director Patrick Kelly was on hand to discuss the City’s existing regulations and possible tweaks to those regulations. Jonathan Plotzker-Kelly, the owner of the Heliotrope skin care product store in San Francisco and a board member of the Valencia Corridor Merchants Association.

​Sausalito's Experience
Burns noted that Sausalito passed an ordinance to regulate chain businesses in 2003, when Crazy Shirts sought to open there. “Local business owners said, ‘we have to stop this,’” he said. “We can't have companies so large that they can pay the rent that a local mom and pop can’t.”

Burns said it was important for towns like Sausalito and Mill Valley to understand their brand and act accordingly when regulating commercial applications.

“The big downside for us was that if a Crazy Shirts were to open, it wouldn’t be in sync with a small community like ours full of small businesses,” he said, noting that they’ve worked with businesses like Equator Coffees, which recently took over the former Cibo space on Bridgeway, to alter its branding a bit in keeping with Sausalito.

“I hear a lot from our small businesses that they are afraid that we are going to become another Pier 39 or Fisherman’s Wharf,” Vieira said.
​
Burns added that Mill Valley already had a deep, much-envied brand as an arts destination with venues like the Sweetwater Music Hall, Marin Theatre Company, Mill Valley Film Festival, Fall Arts Festival, Throckmorton Theatre and much more.

"The future is experiential," Burns said. "The arts culture is still very much alive here in Mill Valley. We need more of that in Sausalito."

The Community Vitality section of the City's MV2040 General Plan echoes Burns' sentiment, noting that the arts sector "draws thousands of local residents and visitors into town each year to patronize Mill Valley stores and restaurants."
​
Burns noted that the City of Sausalito is in the midst of its General Plan update, which could include amendments to the formula retail regulation.

The PG&E blackout has ended (for now – fingers crossed).

The Mill Valley Chamber remains ready to help you and your business any way we can. To that end, we created a Public Safety Power Shutoff and Disaster Preparedness Toolkit to help you plan ahead for the next incident. CHECK IT OUT HERE.
We welcome your feedback! Email us with feedback here.
We'll continue to update the Toolkit with the latest info available. As you know, there's also a ton of news news and information to digest about the impact of the fires and PG&E power outages. Here's a rundown of some of the most important info of the past week or so:

FULL IMPACT ON LOCAL BIZ NOT FULLY KNOWN – BUT IT WAS SIGNIFICANT
Robert Eyler, Sonoma State University professor and chief economist of the Marin Economic Forum, told the Marin Independent Journal that the outages of October are unlikely to leave a devastating “footprint” on the general local economy. That said, he noted that businesses that were struggling before the outages could suffer from the unexpected spoilage and loss of traffic that could push them into failure. Companies whose business was disrupted because of factors such as lost computer power could also sustain damage, and lost revenue for Marin's tourism sector could lead to reduction in hotel and sales tax revenues for local governments.

DO YOU HAVE A SENSE OF HOW THE OUTAGE IMPACTED YOUR BUSINESS FINANCIALLY? LET US KNOW HERE.

CAN YOU BE COMPENSATED BY PG&E?
Don't hold your breath. PG&E has said businesses and residents can file claims to be compensated $250 for businesses and $100 for residents for outage loss, but that only covers the blackout on Oct. 9. According to the Mercury News, there are no current plans for similar rebates for the three shutoffs that have followed since then, but the utility is “open to having a policy discussion with state regulators and others.”

CHECK WITH YOUR INSURANCE BROKERS AND UPDATE YOUR COVERAGE
An illuminating report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco suggested that there remains a significant gap between the amount of insurance coverage small businesses have and the amount and type of damage they have sustained: “Because small businesses are such important economic drivers in our country, learning more about their levels of natural disaster preparedness is critical to understanding mechanisms of nationwide economic resilience and recovery. We find that although most firms that experienced disaster-related losses did have insurance, the types of coverage appear to be mismatched to the actual damage experienced. This leaves critical gaps that need to be addressed and better understood.”

MARIN'S FOOD SUPPLY WAS SQUEEZED
With so much food needing to be thrown away after the blackout, Marin's food supply has been squeezed, according to the Marin IJ, with plenty of empty shelves in the aftermath of the outages.

CELL PHONE TOWERS FAILED
The long outages underscored the reality that cuts to electricity also translate to a blackout of emergency communications, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Here's a piece about the impact of federal climate change policy on the fires raging in California and the related PG&E blackouts. “This is the climate change that scientists have been telling us about for years and we’ve buried our heads like ostriches.”

WHAT'S NEXT?
On the larger issue of fires and outages, Cal Matters created a fantastic roundup on many of the possible ways to reduce wildfires and their impacts, including scaling back home development in high-risk areas, putting utility power lines underground, build micro-grids that limit the scale of outages, break up PG&E, and much more, along with the likelihood that regional and state leaders will look to implement some of those solutions.

The folks at Vox suggest California make massive investments in solar, micro-grids and distributed energy resources. Great read.

Bay Area interest in solar arrays and backup batteries has skyrocketed, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Marin Independent Journal reported that a group of Mill Valley residents has filed a lawsuit against the city, alleging that a new ordinance aimed at preventing wildfires was adopted without a proper analysis of its environmental impacts? 

Lastly, there was a beautiful-yet-ominous piece from Mill Valley writer Jacques Leslie in the Los Angeles Times: "We faced no war, no imminent danger, and when electricity returned on Wednesday afternoon, we cheered. But what remains is an unrelenting whisper inside our heads that says we’re on a path that ends in chaos."

Let us know if you've seen something that would be useful for your fellow business owners and we'll add it here! As always, reach out anytime at 415.388.9700 or info@millvalley.org with questions/thoughts. We'll be organizing a workshop later this year on backup energy options.

In March, the Mill Valley City Council unanimously decided to keep the section of Miller Ave. between Millwood and Willow streets, the area between the Mill Valley Lumber Yard and Mill Valley Music and Critterland Pets, striped as a one-lane roadway with a single vehicle travel lane, a bike buffer, bicycle lane and parallel parking aisle along the curb. That stretch had been the subject of a pilot project at the conclusion of the 18-month Miller Avenue Streetscape Project in 2017.

Five months later, the Council backed a recommendation from Fire Chief Tom Welch, Police Chief Alan Piombo and Public Works Director Andrew Poster to create employee parking only in the southbound (outbound) direction for approximately 37 vehicles, residential parking only in the northbound (inbound) direction for approximately 32 vehicles, and no parking on Red Flag days or other hazardous weather conditions.

Now the City is set to implement those changes, and is hosting a meeting to answer questions and hear concerns from residents and employees about those parking programs. 

The meeting is set for Monday, Oct. 28 at 6:30pm within the Council Chambers at City Hall, 26 Corte Madera Avenue. More info from the Mill Valley Police Department:

Residential Parking Area 
Curbside parking is available for residents with a Residential Parking permit on the northbound side (heading into Downtown). Residential Permit parking is available daily. The Red Flag and emergency conditions restriction will also apply. Curbside parking is prohibited on Monday and Friday from 3:00 am to 6:00 am for street sweeping.
Please note: The Residential Permit Zone will not be enforced until after the Informational Community Meeting and permits are available.

Center Median Parking
The Center Median shall remain open to all vehicles. However, drivers may not park their vehicles for more than 72 hours and must move their vehicles at least 1/10 of a mile when re-parking.

Parking Permit Types:

• Business Owners & Employees: Business owners and employees may purchase Employee Parking Permits at the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce. Learn more here.
• Residents in the Miller Avenue Residential Parking Zone: Residents may purchase permits at the Mill Valley Police Department (1 Hamilton Drive). Police Department staff will issue the Residential Parking Permits on a case-by-case basis with a limit of one vehicle per household upon review of available off-street parking at the individual residence or complex. All vehicles must be registered in California and to the eligible address.  Acceptable forms of residency include a valid California driver’s license, current utility bill or lease/mortgage statement.  All documents must show the current eligible address.  Learn more here.
• The Eligible Zones and Addresses will be updated following the informational community meeting.

Permit Requirements:
The City requires that permit applicants provide contact information to allow Public Safety staff to notify permit holders to move their vehicles in the event of safety or emergency conditions. 

Public Safety officials will prohibit parking along the curbside in the Parkway portion of Miller Avenue on Red Flag days or other extreme weather conditions. Police Department staff will require permittees to provide contact phone numbers capable of receiving alert text and voice messages through Nixle and/or Alert Marin. 

Once Public Safety staff announce a Red Flag Warning (or other hazardous weather conditions identified), the Police Department will send appropriate notifications to Residential Parking and Employee Parking permittees through Nixle and/or Alert Marin advising that drivers must remove their vehicles from the curbside area.

City Staff will install new parking signs to designate the Employee Parking and Residential Parking areas. 

For any questions or further information please contact the Mill Valley Police Department Monday through Friday 8:00 AM-4:00 PM. 

Resources:
Miller Ave Parking Restrictions Staff Report – August 5, 2019
Check the National Weather Service for Red Flag Days

As expected, PG&E shut off power in Mill Valley early Wednesday due to heightened fire safety conditions. The outage is limited to approximately 800 homes in the Tamalpais Valley-Almonte-Homestead Valley area, far fewer than the first-announced impact on 4,000 customers in Mill Valley and with minimal impact on our five commercial districts.

As you are likely aware, the company was unprepared for the glut of web traffic to its website, making it very difficult to get clear, timely information about the impacts. We want you to take this opportunity, with current electricity service and daylight, to remind you that this is an obviously fluid situation – PG&E's final update to Mill Valley about its outage came with just six hours' notice. Please be extremely mindful of updates – see below for several ways to stay up to date about current conditions – and review the recommendations below.

The City of Mill Valley has developed an PSPS Plan and Playbook and put it into motion. Click here for more information.

Mill Valley residents and business owners are encouraged to prepare for a shutoff that may exceed 48 hours. Preparations to consider include: 

• Charge all mobile devices in advance of the power shutoff
• Plan for any medical needs like medications that need to be refrigerated or medical devices that require power
• Learn how to manually open your garage door
• Sign up for emergency alerts from Alert Marin
• Sign up for Nixle alerts
• Prepare to evacuate or shelter in place in the event of a wildfire.

Other resources:

• Please visit the "PG&E Weather Awareness" webpage which provides a daily forecast for the next seven days within nine geographic zones. Mill Valley and Marin County are in geographic zone 3. On this page, PG&E shares their prediction for the potential for the shutoffs and ranks them four categories. 
• Please also visit the "Potential PSPS Outage Maps" to look up areas that may be impacted by a PSPS.
• The City Council reviewed the City's plans and preparations for the Public Safety Power Shutoff at their City Council meeting on Monday, September 16. Read the Staff Report and City of Mill Valley Draft Plan and Playbook. 

The City Council also adopted an Urgency Ordinance amending the City's Municipal Code to regulate the use of generators during prolonged power outages. Learn more.

MORE INFO.

Whether it's a state law requiring food-serving businesses to compost, the ever-growing list of municipalities banning the use of plastics as to-go food containers – or the overwhelming desire to do everything we can to mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis – food business owners and managers are increasingly interested in best practices on packaging and food waste disposal.
​
A Zero Waste Forum for food businesses at the Mill Valley Community Center this week covered a ton of ground on the subject, from continued marketplace confusion about what is/isn’t compostable and recyclable to some small but effective steps businesses can take to make a difference.

The event, organized by the Mill Valley Chamber, with support from Upstream's Miriam Gordon, Sustainable Mill Valley, City of Mill Valley and Ambatalia's Molly de Vries, centered on a panel featuring Mill Valley Refuse Service Managing Partner Jim Iavarone, Waste Management of Northern California (Redwood Landfill operator) Director of Communications Karen Stern, City of Mill Valley Senior Planner & Sustainability Coordinator Danielle Staude, ReThink Disposable's Grace Lee and Gordon, who moderated the discussion.

Any doubt about the level of interest on the subject was squashed at the outset, as the event drew representatives form a wide swath of the Mill Valley food business community, including the The Redwoods, Real Restaurants (Bungalow 44, Buckeye Roadhouse & Playa), Mill Valley Lumber Yard (Watershed, Flour Craft Bakery and BOL), CineArts @ Sequoia, Sol Food, McDonald’s, Paseo: A California Bistro, Swettwater, Equator Coffees, the Mountain Home Inn & Pelican Inn, Piazza D’angelo, the Outdoor Art Club, Mill Valley Beerworks and Patti’s Gift Baskets. Kathy Carver, manager for food donor and recipient relations for ExtraFood, which takes excess fresh food from businesses and delivers it to nonprofits serving Marin’s most vulnerable children, adults, and families, also attended.

The Q&A-driven discussion veered from the need for staff and customer education about proper disposal of the myriad food business products to frequency of garbage/compost/recycling pickup.

“These issues require clarity, and one of the goals for today is to help you clear up confusion about what it means to be a sustainable food business,” Gordon said. “How can we maintain or even boost your bottom line and go even further than the basic requirements. We all care about the planet. But your priority is to have a profitable, sustainable business first, and second, doing the best you can in terms of the environment.”

Iavarone and Stern were most equipped to answer questions around exactly what products are recyclable and compostable, and they did so with a series of slides:

Iavarone and Stern showed slides that indicated what products can be composted, and Iavarone urged customers to keep it simple, if necessary, to avoid contamination. "Start with food waste and worry about food soiled paper down the line," he said. "You can’t go wrong if there’s nothing but food waste in your green can."

He also indicated that MVRS may have to Increase the frequency of its composting collection for restaurants. "We are hearing more and more that restaurants need weekend compost service, and that is something that we are going to have to seriously look at providing."

​As Stern described it, San Francisco waste operator Recology has long marketed itself as willing to accept, and compost, products such as plant-based plastics. But a recent San Francisco Examiner piece revealed that, “to avoid contamination, sorters at Recology’s composting facility pull out unmarked, plastic-looking items to avoid contamination. 

“We share Recology’s concerns about compostable plastics and other contaminants,” Stern said. “At our Marin County facility, we do not accept compostable plastics because it would violate our compost’s OMRI-listing (Organic Materials Review Institute) for organic farming application.”

The global changes in recycling began in January 2018, when China, long the world's dumping ground for recycling, enacted its “National Sword” policy, banning the import of most plastics and other materials headed for its recycling processors, which had handled nearly half of the world’s recyclable waste for the past quarter century.

To accommodate those changes, Mill Valley Refuse has shifted to dual-stream collection for residential customers to start, with paper put into one cart and all other recyclables into a separate cart. 

The City of Mill Valley and the Mill Valley Chamber have finalized a new, five-year professional services agreement (“PSA”) that continues their ongoing collaboration around business and community vitality services, resident and visitor engagement, beautification initiatives and promotion of City programs and services, among other programs, initiatives and events. 

The agreement builds off and extends the PSA that was originally struck in 2012 on the heels of the efforts of the Business Advisory Board, which ultimately created the Resident Shopper Vehicle Program (“RSVP”), allowing residents of Mill Valley and nearby towns to purchase an annual pass and park for free at metered spaces around town for at least two hours.

The multi-pronged agreement spans myriad programs, initiatives and events and includes a full-service Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center distributing valuable information about the full spectrum of City and County services, as well as the limitless array of ways to enjoy Mill Valley, to residents, businesses and visitors.

“Economic vitality, with an emphasis on small and local-serving businesses, remains one of our Core Values, and the Chamber continues to work in a multi-faceted way to create and sustain vitality in our community,” says Mill Valley Mayor Jim Wickham. “We look forward to continuing our ongoing collaboration for the next five years and beyond.”

"We're thrilled to extend this direct partnership with the City in a way that enhances our community in myriad ways," said Mike Son, chair of the MV Chamber Board of Directors. "We continue to provide great value to the City through this agreement and appreciate the City's prioritization of business and community vitality and our extensive communication capabilities."

With that continued collaboration in mind, the City Council's annual retreat dedicated the morning session to hearing thoughts and input from Chamber, Downtown business owners, the Planning Commission Chair and Planning and Building Director regarding potential Development Review Process improvements. They also discussed the interest in considering land use policy and regulation review to enhance efficiency and bolster the business environment.

The City also supports the Chamber's ongoing Biz Essentials educational workshops.

Helpful information on doing business in Mill Valley can be found here.

The September 30, 2019 expiration of your current Employee Parking Permit is in two days. The new stickers are on sale now! Come to the MV Chamber (in the mobile office on the Miller Ave. side of the Depot Plaza) from 10am–4pm, Tue.-Sat. to purchase your new stickers. Permits are $60 & good through March 31, 2019. Avoid that ticket!!

We've worked hard over the past several years to encourage the City of Mill Valley to allocate more parking spaces for employees. As part of its examination of the Parkway section of Miller Ave. between the Mill Valley Lumber Yard and Willow St., the City Council dedicated 37 new spaces for employees on Miller. The City will be striping and putting up signs for those spaces in the coming months!

**IMPORTANT INFO ON EMPLOYEE PARKING CHANGES – DO NOT SKIP OR YOU WILL NEED TO COME BACK TWICE!!**

As part of that expansion, those spaces must be vacated on Red Flag weather days or other hazardous weather conditions, and permit holders must provide more info than in year's past to make sure they can be contacted by emergency personnel to alert them to move their car.
Questions? Email us at info@millvalley.org or call 415.388.9700.

To save yourself time in advance of registering for and purchasing your Employee Parking Permit, GO HERE TO FILL OUT THE FORM. You can fill out the Smart PDF, download it and email it to us at info@millvalley.org, simply print it out and bring it in or fill it out at our office, whichever you prefer.

Go here for more info about the location of Employee Parking spot locations.

More than 40 Chamber Members and friends had an opportunity to ask City officials direct questions in a casual setting in the beautiful confines of the Piazza D’Angelo dining room this week.

The result of our “Coffee & Conversation with the Mayor and City Manager” on Sept. 10 was a far-reaching, free-form discussion on a wide array of subjects, from the City’s efforts to improve commercial application processing and PG&E’s planned Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPSs) to employee parking and a subject that is steeped in complexities: what qualifies as a formula or chain business, whether the City should seek to regulate them and, if so, how?

Mayor Jim Wickham kicked off the event by regaling the group with his memories of the downtown Mill Valley business community when he was a kid and later as a Mill Valley Police Dept. foot patrol officer downtown.

“I always wanted to make sure the business community was deeply tied into the larger Mill Valley community,” he said.  

Planning Process Improvements
Wickham and City Manager Jim McCann lauded the recent efforts of Planning Director Patrick Kelly to reach out to the business community for feedback on ways to make the commercial permit application process faster and less expensive. Kelly recent gathered a number of business owners, City and county planning and health officials and planning consultants into a room to identify ways to improve the process.
Kelly and his team came away with a number of actionable recommendations, including:

• Develop improved hand out materials to better explain permit process (flow chart to better explain steps to process; handout on how to open a business in Mill Valley, etc.)
• Provide for concurrent review by City and County Environmental Health Services for food establishments or permit applications
• Knowing who to call instead of waiting
• Provide opportunity for making appointments
• Make a pre-application meeting mandatory
• Offer expedited review (subject to appropriate fees)
• Staff encouraged to attend after hours Chamber meetings
• Continue the conversation and hold periodic meetings like this between City and business representatives.

The Depot
Wickham said the continued closure of the Depot Bookstore & Cafe, which closed its doors in March in anticipation of a renovation, was due “to a lot of issues outside of our control” and that they hoped to resolve it soon.

McCann added that “we are working hard to bring them over the line – you can help if you all are investors and are interested in investing in that. The City has authorized a construction reimbursement agreement in April 2018 and as well as a lease extension and allocated $500,000 from the City budget for the renovation of the Chamber office and construction of public bathrooms. The building permit is sitting in Patrick’s office ready to be issued and it has been ready for months – they simply need to have their funds together in sufficient quantities to move forward.”

Public Safety Power Shutoffs
When PG&E’s Public Safety Power Shutoffs came up, McCann noted that the City Council will continue its discussion of contingency plans in the event of a power shutoff on Sept. 16, and the Chamber will be producing a resource toolkit of sorts to assist businesses.

Kelly pointed out that the City has some ordinances on the books that don’t consider the possibility of PSPSs, particularly noise constraints. At its Sept. 16th meeting, the City Council will consider a one-year emergency ordinance to give business owners an opportunity to explore installing power generators to serve as a contingency in case of a PSPS, and will monitor the issue if/when PSPSs arise. 

“We have to balance all these needs,” he said. “We’ll build in some reasonable restrictions and and live with it and see how it goes and revisit it next year,” McCann added. Wickham noted that when PSPSs do occur, the longest delays in restoring power will likely come from PG&E’s requirement that each power line be visually inspected before restoration.

Mill Valley Market’s Ryan Canepa noted that while they’re deploying a 250 kilowatt generator to manage PSPSs, “We just hope to avoid next year the City saying that the (noise exemptions) aren’t needed anymore. It’s a big investment for us and I’m sure it is for other businesses that need to get generators.”

Chain Businesses
Chain stores garnered most of the attention of the discussion.
Bill Green, chief operating officer of the 15-store Margaret O’Leary business and spouse to its eponymous founder, noted the brand’s deep roots in Mill Valley: “We’ve been connected to this town in various ways for a very long time. But we don’t have a plan in Mill Valley to say as a community what businesses we want. And now we have J. McLaughlin, a Wall Street-financed company, coming to town (ed. Note: the business plans to open in the former Once Around and Uko Boutique space at 75 Throckmorton Avenue.)

“How do we work on some sort of guidelines for this town so that we see the retailers we want to see come in?” he added.

Wickham noted that what works financially for a landlord tends to drive the types of businesses that come to town, and that while “everyone would love to have a hardware store in downtown, you’d have to sell a lot of screws to make it work with the rents in downtown Mill Valley.”

Both Wickham and McCann suggested that the business community continues to gather feedback on the subject and bring possible recommendations to the Planning Commission. The Chamber intends to do just that, with plans to convene a discussion in the coming weeks.

McCann noted that the City does not have an ordinance that prohibits chain/formula businesses from opening in town, but does “have policies that give guidance in the General Plan – I think we have sufficient strength there, and if there are new policies to incorporate that the business community wants to explore, that’s something that we can look at.”

Equator Coffees co-founder Helen Russell, who recently navigated formula business regulations for their new cafe in the Cibo space in Sausalito, said, “We don’t think of ourselves as a chain, but Sausalito is extremely well-versed in chains, and we had to change the name of our new cafe to Sausalito Equator in order to go through that process. We made that investment of money and time – it took us eight months – but we get it, if you’re Sausalito and Godiva Chocolate or Starbucks wants to come in. They have a lot of history with this issue.”

Downtown Project
Bonnie Powers, co-owner of the Poet and/the Bench retail shop at 11 Throckmorton Ave., reminded City officials of the extremely difficult experience they had during the 18-month Miller Avenue Streetscape Project and, equally impactful, with the myriad utilities that dug up all around the shop’s former space on Locust Avenue. With that in mind, she wondered aloud how the City planned to manage the Downtown Project, a multi-year effort to improve the infrastructure downtown, starting with the sewer system, but have delayed until 2020 due to the likely impact that construction would have on downtown merchants during the critically important fall and holiday retail seasons.

“When this project does kick off, how can we ensure that we as retailers are really kept in the loop about what’s happening?” she asked.

“You were in the eye of the storm there on Locust,” McCann said. “Both the work the City was doing and and then unfortunately there were some utility failures from PG&E and MMWD in that area as well. We’ve got an advisory group that will help us review some design components of the Downtown Project and we’ll be sure to communicate plans to businesses long before the project begins.”

​Have questions/comments about any of the subjects discussed at this event? Email us at info@millvalley.org. And thank you to Piazza D'Angelo for hosting us and to Equator Coffees for the delicious coffee and pastries!