Friends of Mill Valley

Please read our brief newsletter on Miller Avenue Planning, and get involved in upcoming City meetings.

The next meeting is Thursday, June 24th, 2010, from 6-8PM at the Mill Valley Library Creekside Room.

Dear Members of the Mill Valley City Council,

On February 22, I wrote to add my name to the list of well informed citizens of Mill Valley including eleven of its former mayors calling for you to opt Mill Valley out of the Marin Clean Energy (MCE) project and to withdraw Mill Valley from the Marin Energy Agency (MEA) as soon as possible. Since then, much additional information has become available and has been disclosed, significantly including the Shell contract, the identity of the sources of renewable power incorporated in that contract, and information concerning MCE’s funding. Based on this additional information, the case for opting Mill Valley out of MCE and withdrawing from MEA has become even more compelling, if not indeed, an imperative.

Background

Just like many Mill Valley and Marin residents, I have long believed in the need to take personal action to counter environmental degradation, climate change, and greenhouse gas emissions. Just to provide a few examples, as a grad student in 1970, I initiated and led the first campus-wide recycling program at UC Berkeley. In 1980, as a Presidential Exchange Executive inWashington D.C., I led the implementation of a Department of Energy’s program which provided $240 million in grants to the nation’s schools and hospitals to install energy conservation measures for which I received the Secretary of Energy’s Exceptional Service Medal. And many years ago after we moved to Marin, our family installed solar panels on our roof. We produce 100% of our electric power from this renewable source. When it comes to “green” we have long put our actions and our money where our mouth is.

To City Planners,

Although I could not attend the Monday meeting , I am strongly opposed to the 20 unit development. The scale is massively disproportionate and the traffic impact on The Worst intersection would be terrible. Who would be the beneficiaries?

Sincerely,
Julia Evans

Dear Mr. Moore and the Planning Department,

I have spent my entire life looking at, playing on, and simply enjoying kite hill. In a sense, I grew up on that hill. I am 28 years old and, aside from living in Los Angeles for college, and attending law school in Minnesota, I have lived my entire life in Mill Valley, a City within a County that I care about.

Mike and Commissioners,

When I came to Mill Valley almost 50 years ago, the disposition of the Richardson parcel (which, I believe, was then owned by someone in New Jersey) was also being discussed publicly. It has always been available for purchase since then. However, consider this:

There are a lot of very astute and business-wise developers in southern Marin. Some more environmentally sensitive than others, but nevertheless successful businessmen. But NONE of them in that half-century has bought that parcel. Why not? Because they've all done their homework before purchasing – and they concluded that developing the parcel was inconsistent with the best interests of the future of Mill Valley. Hence, they knew that, for a multiplicity of reasons, they could not get development approval from responsible planners.

Dear Mr. Moore and members of the Planning Commission,

First, thank you again for the long hours you put in to the benefit of our town.

Mill Valley would be ill served if the Planning Staff attempted to move the DEIR to the certification round without recirculating it to the public. Members of the community and the Planning Commission raised far too many reasonable questions about the DEIR's project description and mitigations. There's no way that the applicant could satisfactorily respond to these without providing new information, which, under CEQA guidelines, triggers recirculation.

Dear Mr. Moore,

I am extremely disappointed with the quality of the Draft EIR and in our own City staff for allowing this document to be released to the public. We expect our City to represent and protect the citizens of Mill Valley.

It seems that every resident who attended Monday night’s meeting believes that developing the proposed project on this site would result in significant impacts to traffic, safety, and aesthetics that would be difficult if not impossible to mitigate. Yet somehow our environmental consultant failed to identify these obvious risks or too quickly dismissed others with minor mitigation measures. The report is just not credible to the public.

The EIR is also required to consider a range of alternatives, and it’s not clear why only the proposed 20 unit project was considered.

Dear Mr. Moore,

Further to my message of 5/7/2010, I would like to call attention to the listing of birds and mammals in appendix B of the DEIR.

I realize that this list simply represents species noticed during one particular visit occurring sometime in the past; however, the list gives the impression that there is not much wildlife at the site to be concerned about.

This site is used by squirrels and racoons and of course field mice, and I noticed that a young lady at the planning commission meeting of May 10 mentioned a bobcat.

Also, while I am not expert in bird identification, I can say there are various hawks, blackbirds, turtle-doves, robins, and many smaller birds of the size of finches and sparrows.

Hello Mr. Moore

The following comments are a follow-up to the Planning Commission meeting last night (Mon. May 10).

1. Commissioner McCauley requested the EIR contain research on traffic impacts during all the "peak traffic" periods. Morning commute, mid-afternoon school pick-up time, and evening commute were specifically mentioned. I would submit that weekends, and especially Saturday morning should also be studied. Saturday mornings are atrocious on E. Blithedale.