Why do you feel you would be a particularly effective City Council member?

I am an action-oriented, diligent and innovative leader. My work as chair of the City’s Emergency Preparedness Committee, chair of the City’s Safe Routes to School program, and president of the West Blithedale Canyon Neighborhood Association has proven my dedication to resolving conflicts and championing improvements from the ground up.

I am a trained facilitator and know the value including all points of view in the resolution of any issue. Through my experience spearheading corporate environmental compliance programs and managing local neighborhood debates, I have established a successful model of decision making that brings people together to act for the greater good.

I have a track record as an innovator and an optimizer and implemented the first evacuation drill for Mill Valley, upgraded emergency planning and training at all the schools; and worked to establish the Safe Routes to School program in Mill Valley. I truly believe that we cannot continue to preserve all that is special and precious about Mill Valley without embracing innovation. I am passionate about using my experience and skills to reach the goal of ensuring Mill Valley is a beautiful, vibrant and livable community.

What are your top priorities/goals for the City Council?

1. Foster a greener town that is less congested:

•Enhance the City’s Safe Routes to School program by working with the Mill Valley School District and the Sports Leagues to promote carpooling, walking and biking to schools and after school activities.

•Pursue improvements to roadways, sidewalks and bike lanes, such as those planned for Miller Avenue, to make these alternatives safe and accessible.

•Explore a “Bicycle Boulevard” concept with neighbors in the Sycamore area to allow students to ride and walk to the Middle School and Tam High by limiting auto traffic on the Boulevard during school commute hours.

•Fund the Steps, Lanes and Paths initiative to restore and promote our town’s original pedestrian access routes.

•Pilot-test ways to reduce “cut-through” traffic in our neighborhoods.

•Pilot-test an intra-Mill Valley shuttle and incent the use of existing public transit to get people out of their cars.

2. Further the City’s Emergency Preparedness Efforts:

•Sponsor an annual “Get Ready Mill Valley Day” with disaster reenactments, demonstrations, information and supplies to get people ready for anything that Mother Nature sends their way.

•Implement a routine creek and storm drain maintenance program that reduces excessive vegetation and debris to minimize flood impacts, while allowing creek waters to flow freely and protecting sensitive habitat.

•Complete the Stetson Flood Study for Corte Madera del Presidio Creek and implement a cost effective, multi year program to reduce constrictions on the creek that contribute to flooding during times of heavy rains.

•Advance wildfire evacuation planning for hillside neighborhoods by identifying pedestrian and automotive evacuation routes; making improvements to critical pedestrian steps and paths for evacuation; and holding annual evacuation drills to ensure citizens know what to do should a major wildfire occur.

•Integrate emergency planning into all City activities and programs including Building Codes, traffic circulation planning, and road and parking improvements.

3. Promote proactive government that expands citizen input into decision-making:

•Establish The Council of Neighborhoods, made up of Neighborhood Associations, to provide input to major City projects and initiatives and to share common concerns and best practices for promoting and preserving our neighborhood communities.

•Utilize technology to improve the availability and delivery of City information sought by citizens

•Use innovative methods to open up the communications and dialogue process at our public meetings, increasing citizen input and decision making on City issues.

What do you think of the City’s current state in regards to local issues?

Environment:

I’ve been passionate about protecting our environment ever since participating in the first Earth Day event as a child. So I’m proud that Mill Valley has a great history of protecting open space and wetlands. The foremost environmental issue we face today is climate change, which urgently calls us to take necessary steps to reduce our impact on the environment. The City must lead the way in reducing carbon emissions and supporting citizens doing their part by increasing transit options, encouraging energy efficient building and design, and locating moderately sized, mixed use development near transit corridors.

Finance:

The City is in a solid fiscal position thanks to the local real estate market of the last few years and the conservative fiscal policies of past City Councils. As City Council member, I would prioritize funding for important issues like reducing traffic, supporting emergency preparedness, and addressing affordable housing. Our tax dollars need to go toward funding our most pressing issues as well as our longer- term needs.

Infrastructure:

The City’s infrastructure is an unseen but critical community asset. As a member of the City’s Municipal Services Tax Renewal Committee, I learned that much of our infrastructure was put into place 50 to 75 years ago. It’s really important that we maintain and upgrade these aging systems that have such an impact on our everyday lives. We need to address infrastructure improvements like maintaining roads and upgrading sewer lines, improving hillside drainage and fire evacuation routes, widening the bridge crossings over our creeks, and developing a network of bike paths and pedestrian walkways to reduce traffic congestion.

Schools:

Our excellent local schools have drawn many new families to our town, and this enrollment growth has created both short- and long-term financial pressures. The City needs to work with the school district to address these issues and continue the outstanding public education that our community both expects and supports.

As the co-chair of the City’s Safe Routes to School program, I know the City also must work closely with the schools to encourage students to walk, ride bikes and carpool, which will reduce traffic congestion at key times during the day. People might be surprised to learn that roughly 20% of morning traffic is school-related, which shows what a great opportunity we have to make a difference in reducing traffic.

Seniors:

Marin County hasn’t done nearly enough to address the implications of our growing senior population. We can be proud that our City has a long-standing record of providing housing and services for these important members of our community. We need to continue to work to expand housing choices and transit options, particularly along Miller Avenue, and to enable more seniors to enjoy a high quality of life in our town.

What do you believe are the three most important issues facing the City of Mill Valley and how would you deal with them?

Traffic

When I talk with people about improvements we need to make in our town, reducing traffic congestion is always one of the first things they mention. Addressing this issue would be one of my top priorities as a member of the City Council. I am concerned about our reliance on large automobiles for transportation and the obvious adverse impact the resulting traffic has on citizen health and safety, and on the environment. I believe the increased traffic also has had more subtle, but equally important, negative effects on our collective sense of community, and our ability to move forward with future planning that will accommodate more affordable housing and increased diversity in our town.

The most important thing we can do is to find ways to get people out of their cars whenever possible. Since school related traffic represents roughly 20% of morning and afternoon traffic, my plan is to collaborate with the Mill Valley School District to address this issue. My goal is that five years from now we will see a meaningful reduction in our town’s auto traffic and congestion.

Emergency Preparedness

After six years and two chairmanships on the City’s Emergency Preparedness Committee, I know it often takes a disaster somewhere else to focus us on taking action, and even then, our interest is short-lived. We must pay constant attention to this issue given the unique place we live, surrounded by forests and water, and right in the middle of earthquake country. Although Mill Valley has made great strides over the last few years to prepare for natural emergencies, we need to continue and expand our efforts, including making sure that we are working with our neighboring communities to ensure that we have a common appreciation of the risks and the need for focused preparation.

As the fires up and down California and over into the Western states this summer have vividly shown, we are always vulnerable to a devastating fire. Such a fire would cripple Mill Valley for decades; if not largely destroy its character forever. We cannot rely on hope that such an event will not occur; we need to ensure that as a community we are all doing what we can to both prevent a fire and be able to survive a fire.

Similarly, we must institute flood preparedness measures, make improvements to bridges to allow the creeks to flow more fully during the rainy season, and utilize the City’s warning system for neighborhoods in the flood areas.

Important improvements that were made during my tenure on the City’s Emergency Preparedness Committee, such as the seasonal city-wide communications plan, the informational and action-oriented website www.bepreparedmv.org, and the individual preparedness classes, must be maintained and expanded.

Planning for the Future

We need to come together as a community to define our vision for the future of Mill Valley and then take the necessary steps to realize that vision. The long-running Miller Avenue Precise Plan is a an example of a planning process that has stretched on so long that we now need to take the time to step back, reset, and assess where we are going as a community and how we can promote effective participatory planning. We need to plan for the future in a way that is both interactive and inconclusive. As an experienced facilitator, I have the skills to help us achieve this.

What’s your view regarding the Miller Avenue Precise Plan?

The City needs a defined framework for considering future development on Miller. Having a Plan to manage moderate development is a good idea. The current Plan is missing some critical information about traffic, parking, the impacts of proposed development and housing density, and the potential costs and benefits of providing increased transit. The City needs to take time to get the missing information, and then resume the public dialogue with a process that makes all information easily accessible to citizens, provides satisfactory community input and consensus, and ultimately, develops a plan for Miller Avenue that we can all be proud of.

As chairman of the Safe Routes to School program, I have studied the Miller roadway for several years and strongly endorse the recommended improvements funded by County Measure A.

Mill Valley has lost a number of longtime local-serving businesses recently. What might city leaders do to reverse this trend?

This has been a perennial problem in Mill Valley and across the United States. The development of a local Business Advocacy Board would bring focus and priority to the problems of the business sector and identify the goods and services needs of the community. Assisting the Chamber of Commerce and interested businesses in re-establishing the Downtown Business Alliance would help address this issue as well. We can also look to other cities for “best practices” including Sausalito’s Caledonia Street.

As a member of the City Council I will also advocate that we take advantage of a marvelous opportunity to reduce traffic and green house gases while supporting local businesses: by encouraging residents to patronize local serving businesses in Mill Valley and working with local businesses to provide the services that people want and need. I will promote a collaborative effort by the City, the Chamber, and local environmental groups, such Sustainable Mill Valley, to develop a marketing plan to highlight this mutually beneficial opportunity.

What local measures would you support/and have you supported to address climate change and promote environmental sustainability in Mill Valley?

There is a wide range of things that need to be done to reduce our carbon footprint, and the place to start is with the areas that generate the most impact – transportation and the built environment. As a city and a community of concerned citizens, we need to do all we can to reduce our car trips and to practice good energy efficient habits in our homes, our businesses and our city government. This takes some thought and effort, but if we make small changes over time, we can have a big and positive impact on the environment.

As discussed previously, for the last several years I have been actively involved in taking steps to increase reduce green house gas emissions and enhance environmental sustainability in the following ways:

•Supported the adoption of the City ordinance to join the International Council for Local Environmental Initiative's (ICLEI) Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) program

•Promoted and advanced the City’s Safe Routes to School program

•Advocated the use of school buses to the MV School Board

•Helped to create Mill Valley’s Steps, Lanes and Paths Map and worked with community groups to restore and maintain our network of steps, lanes and paths

•Identified needed bike lanes and sidewalk improvements throughout the City and worked with Public Works to include these projects in future road improvement projects

•Worked with Mill Valley StreamKeepers to monitor creek health and restore fish and wildlife habit along our creeks

•Support moderately sized, mixed-use development in town and smaller sized units to enable people to live close to transit and local shopping opportunities, thereby reducing their reliance on cars and carbon emissions

•Follow sustainable living practices with my family at home

In my professional career I managed a major environmental change process at a large company. This began in the early 80’s when federal and state laws were passed to regulate the use, storage and disposal of toxic substances. Many changes to both the facilities and the operating procedures were required to comply with the new standards. The change process was as much an effort to find ways to reach people with the message that things needed to change and to incent the modification of many long held individual behaviors, as it was an effort to engineer new solutions and institute changes to long established policies and procedures. The “change process” required to reduce carbon emissions in city owned facilities and in private homes and businesses is much like the process I managed as part the environmental compliance program, and I know this can be accomplished.

What are your top budget priorities for the City of Mill Valley?

Fire response capability, public safety, and improved city governance infrastructure are at the top of my list. Beyond those three priorities, we need to continually monitor the 5-year capital improvement budget and make sure that we frequently revisit the priorities articulated in that plan to adjust for changing infrastructure challenges. We also need to make sure that the budgeted programs and projects are in line with the City’s stated goals and priorities, such as reducing traffic congestion and providing affordable housing.

This ongoing active monitoring is essential because the City’s infrastructure is an unseen but critical community asset. As a member of the City’s Municipal Services Tax Renewal Committee, I was reminded that much of our infrastructure was put into place 50 to 75 years ago. It is important that we maintain and upgrade these aging systems, since they have such a major, albeit often invisible, impact on our everyday lives. We need to address infrastructure improvements like maintaining roads and upgrading sewer lines, improving hillside drainage and fire evacuation routes, widening the bridge crossings over our creeks, and improving our network of bike paths and pedestrian walkways to reduce traffic congestion.

Do you have any particular political heroes, post 1970? Who are they and why?

At the broader political stage level I admire the way former President Jimmy Carter has, in a soft but determined and persistent way, fostered global health, democracy and human rights issues. He has been very effective without seeking attention for himself, which is a good sign of the depth of care that underlies his commitment to public service.

I also believe that Senator Dianne Feinstein has accomplished much good by using her style, which involves knowledgeable and clear-eyed focus on the facts and the practical alternatives, to bring groups together to forge reasonable consensus outcomes.

However, for the most part, my heroes are all local. They are the named and unnamed people who have led or actively supported the efforts to ensure that the communities we create are the communities we want. They include the many people described in Marty Griffin’s book “Saving the Marin-Sonoma Coast” and all those who have followed in their steps, whether it be by promoting Safe Routes to Schools, the development of the Mill Valley Community Center, the preservation of our creeks and streams, or the improvement of our parks where we can play with our children and grandchildren. My political heroes are the people who roll up their sleeves and get something done to improve our sense of community and the places where we choose to live.

What is your vision for the future of Mill Valley in 10 - 25 years?

Mill Valley in the year 2025 is a quieter and better place to live than it was in 2007. It is a place where simpler sustainable lifestyles and a community of vibrant community-minded neighborhoods allow people of all ages and backgrounds to connect to the community, even as they live their individual lives according to their desires and preferences. The streets of Mill Valley in 2025 are filled with bicycles, electric motorized bikes and scooters, and small hybrid electric vehicles used for local travel and which may be shared among neighbors. Smaller quiet hybrid electric passenger vans circle the town to allow easy travel to local serving businesses, which thrive as the people of Mill Valley shop locally for most of their basic needs.

The weekly farmers’ market at the Community Center is both a social gathering spot and a place where a wide variety of fresh, healthy foods can be acquired. Miller Avenue has new senior and mixed-use housing, and there is a stop light at Miller and La Goma to keep traffic moving smoothly.

The revitalized downtown has become a frequent gathering spot, while the Community Center continues to provide a recreational hub for the city. The twice- a-year town meeting, held at the Community Center (outside in the lawn during the late summer; inside in the mid-winter) provides an opportunity for citizens to review the state of the city and reflect on priorities, problems and accomplishments. Citizens who are unable to make the meeting, or any other meeting of the City Council or the various city commissions, can review any meeting by accessing the city’s fast and easy web-site. All city documents, including planning documents of any sort and budget updates, are easily available on the web-site for review and comments may be submitted and are publicly posted via the City website.

The Mill Valley volunteer fire crew and the neighborhood CERT teams (Community Emergency Response Teams) continue to expand in support of our highly trained professional fire department. Mill Valley has had no major fires, but several minor fires have been quickly controlled with the assistance of neighboring cities. The Mill Valley volunteer police assistance team continues to relieve the professional police personnel of some administrative functions to allow them to focus on providing effective safety and protection services.

With the advent of the on-line collection at the Mill Valley Library, there is additional space available to public service groups to utilize for meeting purposes in the lower level of the library.

The City of Mill Valley and the Mill Valley School District continue their close cooperation and have reduced morning auto traffic 70% below its level in 2007. Most students are either using the newly completed network of sidewalks and bike paths in town or are carpooling to school. And the City and the District have now completed several phases of the Mill Valley Solar Project, designed to both reduce City and School District energy use in the first instance and to provide local solar generation from City and School District sited projects. The City is working with local residents to further increase the access to no emission and renewable resources. With the passage of an ordinance years ago, city facilities and private homes that are remodeled meet the LEED Silver and Green Points checklist.

There are more birds in Mill Valley now, and, with the quiet streets, their calls echo through the canyons.