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!

We hope you read the Friday Flash each week!

But with so many issues swirling around us and potentially affecting your business, from the Depot closure and PG&E power shutoffs to the downtown construction project, employee parking and the City's efforts to improve the permitting process for commercial applications, it's time to get away from our phones, gather in a room and have some face-to-face conversations.

We're hosting a "Coffee and Conversation with the Mayor and City Manager” on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 8:30-10am at Piazza D'Angelo, 22 Miller Ave. Mayor Jim Wickham and City Manager Jim McCann will cover the aforementioned topics and answer your questions, so we want to hear from you!

The 411: MV Chamber and City of Mill Valley host a "Coffee and Conversation with the Mayor and City Manager” with Mayor Jim Wickham and City Manager Jim McCann on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 8:30-10am at Piazza D'Angelo, 22 Miller Ave. 

Guest Editorial by Mike Son, Bank of Marin and MV Chamber Board Chair

As we approach the two-year anniversary of the completion of the City of Mill Valley's 18-month, $18 million Miller Avenue Streetscape Project, a massive re-imagining of one of the town’s two main arteries, it’s easy – and appropriate – to focus our attention on just how user-friendly, forward-thinking and downright gorgeous the street is.

But for business owners and residents on and around Miller Avenue, the project was a long haul of headaches, from parking and access disruptions to road closures and the need to remind customers they were open for business and appreciative of the support.
Business owners up and down Miller did what they could to mitigate the challenges. Three Mill Valley residents in particular stepped up to lead the way, thinking creatovely about the challenges they faced.

Jim Iavarone, a longtime and significant Miller Avenue property owner and managing partner of Mill Valley Refuse Service, went the extra mile to provide his tenants a much-appreciated break on monthly rent to account for the project’s impact on their business. He also served as a liaison with the City in terms of the project’s impact on regular garbage and recycling pickups. At a broader level, Iavarone continues to champion “Zero Waste” initiatives at a wide range of Mill Valley events, including the annual Winterfest in December and the Chamber’s Wine, Beer & Gourmet Food Tasting in June.
 
Jim Revoir, owner of Grilly’s restaurant and one of the most respected and influential business leaders in Mill Valley, saw the project as one of the biggest challenges his business faced since he founded it 25 years ago. He provided a laser-like analysis of the impact on Miller businesses to both City officials and Chamber staff, and he successfully lobbied for local business tax adjustments and fought to preserve strategic parking for employees and customers. 
 
Jim Welte, the third Jim, serves as the Director of Membership and Community Engagement for the Mill Valley Chamber, and also was the communications specialist for the City of Mill Valley, a pair of roles that placed him in a unique position to communicate “the road ahead,” so to speak, to business owners about what project-related challenges were on the horizon. He relentlessly encouraged residents to shop, dine and support Miller Avenue businesses, kept the community informed and ensured business voices were heard in City Hall.

Welte also gave early feedback to project managers about unintended consequences of their upcoming construction plan, and spearheaded the Chamber’s “Snack, Sip & Shop” event series designed to get residents to support Miller businesses. He also was among the organizers the Millerfest celebration in November 2017 to mark the completion of the project.

MORE INFO ON THE 2019 SPIRIT OF MARIN AWARDS.

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.

In the interests of educating its members on existing laws and in advance of any new regulations, the Mill Valley Chamber is hosting, with support from Sustainable Mill Valley, City of Mill Valley and Ambatalia's Molly de Vries, a Food Business Forum on Monday, Sept. 16, 2-3:30pm, in the Forest Room of the Mill Valley Community Center (180 Camino Alto).

The event, which builds on de Vries' successful Mt. Tam EcoFest in June, features a panel of experts across the spectrum of waste disposal, composting, recycling and reuse. They include:

• Upstream's Miriam Gordon, who will serve as moderator of the event.
• Mill Valley Refuse Service Managing Partner Jim Iavarone
• Waste Management of Northern California Director of Communications (and Marin native) Karen Stern
• City of Mill Valley Senior Planner & Sustainability Coordinator Danielle Staude
• ReThink Disposable's Grace Lee

Don’t miss this second forum especially crafted for food businesses. Bring your questions, comments and concerns. It will be a fantastic opportunity to learn, not just from the experts, but from your peers. 

The event will feature plenty of time for food business owners to express their concerns with the ability to get answers from the people most informed on the subject and who are immersed in the details of these issues every day.

​Good Earth Natural Foods is graciously providing light snacks. BYOB(ottle) to fill up at the event.

The 411: The Mill Valley Chamber is hosting, with support from Sustainable Mill Valley, City of Mill Valley and Ambatalia's Molly de Vries, a food business forum on Monday, Sept. 16, 2-3:30pm, in the Forest Room of the Mill Valley Community Center (180 Camino Alto). RSVP attn: Susan Lopes at info@millvalley.com.​

In March, the Mill Valley City Council sought to make a decision about how best to configure the section of Miller Avenue between Millwood and Willow streets, the area between the Mill Valley Lumber Yard and Mill Valley Music and Critterland Pets. It had plenty to consider: parking, safety, emergency access and a quintet of possible choices about a stretch of road that was the subject of a pilot project at the conclusion of the 18-month Miller Avenue Streetscape Project in 2017.

In the end, the Council decided to keep this segment of Miller striped as a one lane roadway with a single vehicle travel lane, a bike buffer, bicycle lane and parallel parking aisle along the curb, and directed its staff to develop parking restrictions to manage parking in this segment of Miller to enhance its ability to  function well during emergency conditions. 

On Aug. 5, the Council unanimously approved a recommendation from Fire Chief Tom Welch, Police Chief Alan Piombo and Public Works Director Andrew Poster that will 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.

The Mill Valley Chamber intends to include the availability of those additional 37 spaces as part of its Employee Parking Permit Program (EPPP), with specific conditions and requirements to receive emergency notifications like Alert Marin and Nixle. 

FULL STAFF REPORT HERE.