Environmental Repair and Emergency Preparedness

By Ken R. Wachtel

ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY AND REPAIR

It is my understanding that the vast majority Marin's Green House Gas (GHG) emissions are generated from transportation (over 50%) and the built environment (over 40%). Those are the two areas we need to address. As a City Council member, I would actively promote the following means to reduce Mill Valley's contribution to the climate emergency:

1. I would actively promote Mill Valley's continued participation in ICLEI's Cities for Climate Protection program. Mill Valley, with the County, has already completed the first step of this program by establishing our GHG baseline inventory. The next steps are to affirm a GHG reduction target, develop a GHG reduction plan, implement the plan, and monitor and report results. I will join my colleagues on the City Council to ensure that these steps are followed through in a timely and effective manner.

2. I am in favor of building debris recycling. On the Planning Commission we once tried to stop the demolition of a 10-year old house because the resource waste it would cause. We were told that Mill Valley's ordinances would not allow such a denial so we conditioned the demolition on the recycling of removed building materials. I would like to see this as a part of our code.

3 I would encourage a reduction of the use of single occupancy vehicles in the following ways:

a. Actively restore and then fully maintain Mill Valley's extensive network of Steps, Lanes and Paths to foster a more walkable City and to promote ease of walking from the canyons to downtown (This is also a fire safety evacuation issue);

b. Promote more bike lanes and walking paths throughout the City;

c. Work with the School Board to reinstate school buses to address the substantial traffic problems in the mornings and afternoons when parents are dropping off and picking up their children;

d. Support the Safe Routes to School program so students can walk and bike to school; and

e. Work with the County to bring shuttles to Mill Valley--they have indicated they are interested in working with Mill Valley on a pilot program.

4. I would foster energy reduction in the built environment in the following ways:

a. Promote the adoption of a City Green Building ordinance so that all public City facilities are required to meet the LEED-Silver standard of the U.S. Green Building Council. The City is looking into solar panels behind the public safety building, and hybrid or electric vehicles where feasible;

b. Foster the use of green building techniques in private development by requiring LEED-Silver for all commercial developments; requiring the submittal of the Green Points checklist for all residential development so that developers and buyers become familiar with green building techniques; and encourage discussions on whether the City should mandate that residential development meet the Bay Area standard for green building development; and

c. While on the Planning Commission we worked hard with staff to include green building and recycling provisions into the building code and design review guidelines. This included solar panels, the minimization of off haul of soil, hillside slope guidelines, tree replacement, construction and demolition waste management guidelines and native vegetation landscaping. The City has since enacted energy efficiency standards, a wood burning ordinance, and green building guidelines. We should consider reducing or eliminating building fees for solar panels and other energy saving features.

CONCERNS ABOUT TRAFFIC CONGESETION AND PARKING THROUGHOUT MILL VALLEY

With every project the City reviews, the issue of parking and traffic should be one of the top issues considered. I am concerned about every project's effect on the community's quality of life. I also think the City should be flexible with regard to a landowner's attempt to build and remodel in ways that do not have a noticeable or substantial negative effect on the community.

EMERGENCY PREPARERDNESS AND FIRE SAFETY

We need to keep emergency preparedness and fire safety on the forefront of our every day thoughts. The beauty of Mill Valley is its Achilles' heel when it comes to fire danger. There are a lot of open spaces, and ample fuel on the ground in the form of flammable vegetation such as manzanita and scotch broom. While our Police and Fire departments are well trained and prepared for a major emergency, I believe that much of our community is not. Many of us live in a Wildland Urban Interface Area.

The fire department is confident that it can fight a small localized fire downtown or even in the hills. It is the major conflagration for which it constantly prepares. Such major fires are likely to start in the late afternoon on the heated south facing slopes of Mill Valley which is generally covered in a thick undergrowth of chemise and chaparral. The concern is a fire racing down from Mt. Tamalpais into the City. The vegetation management program continues to build fire fuel breaks and shaded fuel breaks not only to stop a fire from crossing from one Mill Valley canyon to another but to establish a target for aerial chemical fire fighting. Since 1996 the Mill Valley fire department has cleared 4,000 tons of vegetation from our hillsides and continues to clear such vegetation every year. When necessary I would use more than the allotted funds from the Municipal Services Tax for vegetation management and supplement the funds taken from road repair from the $300,000 annually which the city collects as part of the road maintenance fee charged as a part of building permits.

Battalion Chief Greg Moore explained to me that there is 10 times more fuel per acre on our hillsides than there was in the catastrophic Middle Ridge fire of 1929. Fire safety depends on fire prevention. We need to enhance our vegetation management program that maintains fire breaks on our ridges. We need to better inform our citizens of fire safety issues and the location and maintenance of our network of hillside paths and trails.

Mill Valley is blessed with the highest percentage of CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) trained volunteers in Marin County. These volunteers, as well as City employees are trained in First Aid, Search and Rescue and Traffic Control. We need to expand this training and encourage more of our community to become CERT trained so we can better help each other in all forms of emergencies. The City should again encourage the creation of neighborhood emergency preparedness groups.

I would consider amending our municipal ordinances to encourage best practices for fire safety. For example, Battalion Chief Moore agrees that wood shingles as building siding are a fire hazard and should be limited. The City should consider an enforcement mechanism for the clearing of dangerously flammable vegetation.

The City should publicize the advisability of storing at least three days' provisions per resident in case of a major disaster. As we learned in the Hurricane Katrina disaster, you can die waiting for help to arrive. In the case of a major disaster, the professional emergency personnel (fire fighters and police) may not arrive in Mill Valley because they live and will be called into service elsewhere.