The Mill Valley City Council this week unveiled its choice to facilitate its Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Task Force it is forming, dove deeply into its police department’s use of force over the past three-plus years and received a lengthy, in-depth presentation on how MVPD’s policies align with the recommendations of #8CantWait, a data-driven campaign to bring change to police departments and reduce the number of deaths and injuries related to interaction with police. 

Councilmembers continued to pledge their commitment to do the hard work and listening necessary to make impactful change on systemic racial inequality in Mill Valley. But the response from many residents and community activists was continued frustration with a perceived lack of urgency, despite protestations to the contrary from councilmembers.

“The City of Mill Valley is ahead of every other city in Marin on these issues,” Vice Mayor John McCauley said. “I know there is a lot of angst around this. But once the facilitator launches and spends a small amount of time getting situated, our five councilmembers are as committed as any in this county to address these issues."

The Council received an outpouring of concern around several components of the DEI Task Force it is forming, particularly that the recently selected facilitator for the group, Paula Patton, was not introduced at Monday night’s meeting and wouldn’t be until Sept. 8. Residents also raised concerns about the yet to be determined composition of the task force, its size, its guidelines, its scope of work, the criteria used to choose its participants and whether or not some of the $30,000 dedicated to the task force would be used to pay task force participants.

Fifty-five people have expressed interest in serving on the task force, city officials said. The selected group will then create forums for community members to share their experiences, recommendations, and proposed solutions for addressing the issues of inequities and injustices affecting Black and people of color in Mill Valley.
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“We were expecting it to be a conversation,” June Cooperman, co-founder of the Mill Valley Community Action Network, said about the selection of Patton. “I’m personally insulted and offended by your lack of recognition that we have a plan to discuss these issues.”

City Manager Alan Piombo assured those concerned that the city had not yet finalized the contract with Patton and that its details will be made public as soon as it is.

Patton, who was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, in a racially, ethnically and culturally diverse environment, has worked in education, nonprofit, and corporate settings in the US and abroad for more than 20 years. She has been a facilitator, executive coach, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion consultant, and has worked to build community relationships, city officials said in announcing the selection. See more on her background here.

“Our very humanity is a function of our ability to join together in solidarity around the ideal of, if one person is denied their inalienable rights to live with dignity, authenticity, respect, and the ability to turn their dreams into reality, we must band together in unison to right these wrongs," said Patton, who will be introduced officially to the community at the Council’s Sept. 8th meeting. "Together, we turn conversations into actions that power toward common goals of racial equity and justice, while chasing away racism and anything that divides us. As the saint, John Lewis, who was a social activist and civil rights leader taught us, we must engage in 'Good Trouble' that will make our country finally what our ancestors died and lived for, a chance to finally take a ‘40 acres and a mule’ and build it into a life well lived."

Interim Police Chief Lindsay Haynes kicked off her report on MVPD’s use of force and data collection policies and how they align with #8CantWait with a reminder that additional reports on other aspects of the department are forthcoming.

“This is not a one and done report on the police department,” she said.

She added that the agency has already adopted most of the #8CantWait policies, which include de-escalation training, requiring officers to give a warning before shooting, requiring officers intervene to stop excessive force, mandating comprehensive reporting for using or threatening force and banning chokeholds and strangleholds. While MVPD does not ban shooting at moving vehicles, it is highly discouraged.

As a starting point, Haynes provided some basic details about MVPD, which serves approximately 14,000 residents within the City of Mill Valley (Marin County Sheriff’s Office serves an additional 16,000 residents within the broader unincorporated portions of the 94941 zip code.

The agency has 18 sworn officers and 6 staff members, with sworn police officers divided into four patrol teams with each officer working 12-hour shifts, 3-4 officers on a shift at a time – either 6am-6pm or the opposite – including one sergeant, one corporal and two officers. Haynes noted that MVPD has “released” three officers over the past five years because “they were not a fit” and “not up to our standards.”

MVPD has handled 83,100 incidents since Jan. 1, 2016, an average of approximately 18,000 calls annually, including “anytime an officer is requested by a member of the public, conducts self-initiated activity, makes a traffic stop, or conducts extra patrol or community policing activity. These calls consist of everything from a barking dog complaint, to a municipal code violation, traffic stop, petty theft, or burglary, to a violent assault or robbery.
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Over that span, MVPD made 885 arrests, used control holds 23 times, brandished guns and Tasers 42 and 17 times, respectively, and discharged Tasers and guns five times and two times, respectively. Both cases of gunfire were for incidents involving animals, the report indicated.
                        

1. Require De-escalation – De-escalation is required, both by MVPD policy and by state law, when feasible. In addition, "officers should consider that taking no action or passively monitoring the situation may be the most reasonable response to a mental health crisis." “We do that every day,” Haynes said. “It doesn’t mean it’s a use of force call – it could be neighbors arguing or a traffic accident when two parties are very upset with each other. Haynes said that in addition to required police academy training and a 20-week field training program, MVPD officers must do a range of continued professional training on de-escalation strategies, crisis intervention and more, with some MVPD officers also taking the instructor courses that allows them to subsequently train their colleagues in-house. Haynes added that MVPD uses Lexipol software to continually update department policies to ensure that all policies are aligned with continuously updated state and federal law.    
2. Require Warning Before Shooting – MVPD policy says that an officer "may use deadly force to apprehend a fleeing person for any felony that threatened or resulted in death or serious bodily injury, if the officer reasonably believes that the person will cause death or serious bodily injury to another unless immediately apprehended. Where feasible, the officer shall, prior to the use offorce, make reasonable efforts to identify themselves as a peace officer and to warn that deadly force may be used, unless the officer has objectively reasonable grounds to believe the person is aware of those facts."
3. Duty to Intervene – State and federal law and MVPD policy states that officers are required to intercede why see another officer using force that is clearly beyond that which is necessary, as determined by an objectively reasonable officer under the circumstances."
4. Require Comprehensive Reporting – Much of the focus from both the Council and the public was on implementation of the tools spurred by AB 953: The Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA), which requires California law enforcement agencies to begin “collecting and reporting data on complaints that allege racial or identity profiling,” as well as “perceived demographic and other detailed data regarding pedestrian and traffic stops, including “the perceived race or ethnicity, gender, and approximate age of the person stopped, as well as other data such as the reason for the stop, whether a search was conducted, and the results of any such search.” Law enforcement must implement that RIPA data collection by 2023, and Haynes reported that while MVPD does not yet have capability to do record the data and transmit it to the RIPA board, “we can explore capturing that data and holding it in house for now,” and “we can get that data out there” long before the requirement of 2023 for agencies of MVPD’s size. Councilmembers expressed deep concern about reports of Mill Valley being dubbed “the zone” for many years by residents and visitors of color who’ve said they faced heightened scrutiny simply because of their race and presence in Mill Valley at the time. “2023 seems like a lifetime away from now,” Carmel said. “Let's think through more clearly what we can do to make that happen sooner.”
5. Ban Chokeholds & Strangleholds – Haynes said MVPD already did not support the use of chokeholds or strangleholds. On June 5, Gov. Gavin Newsom called for a ban on police use of the carotid restraint, a technique used to restrain people by compressing their carotid artery, a tactic “that literally is designed to stop people’s blood from flowing into their brain,” Newsom said. He said the state must ban “strangleholds that put people’s lives at risk.” One day later, MVPD eliminated the use of the carotid restraint as a "control hold" and updated department policy to reflect that it “may only be used in a deadly force encounter only as a means of last resort.
6. Ban Shooting at Moving Vehicles – Haynes said shooting at moving vehicles is not “currently prohibited by MVPD policy but is strongly discouraged and regarded as a “particularly dangerous and ineffective tactic.” “This must be categorically banned,” the report stated. MVPD policy also indicates that "officers should move out of the path of an approaching vehicle instead of discharging their firearm at the vehicle or any of its occupants."
7. Require Use of Force Continuum – “It’s very dangerous and doesn’t work – an outdated model,” Haynes said. A number of deadly use of force incidents in 2018 and 2019 sparked a “robust dialogue to come up with terminology that would allow officers to respond appropriately in a dynamic situation that would not require a step by step process,” Piombo added. In her report, Haynes indicated that officers “must have an understanding and true appreciation for their authority and its limitations, and that “vesting officers with the authority to use reasonable force” “requires monitoring, evaluation, and a careful balancing of all interests.” Haynes said that officers must file a “use of force” report within 24 hours of the incident. 
8. Exhaust All Alternatives Before Shooting – Haynes said MVPD requires a warning before shooting and uses a verbal warning in all situations before using deadly force. Officers are not allowed to use deadly force against a person based on the danger that person poses to him/ herself, if an objectively reasonable officer would believe the person does not pose an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or to another person." MVPD also requires officers to report every use of force application, and body cameras must be worn, and stay on, at all times. 

                    
The report sparked a lively discussion on nearly all of the #8CantWait recommendations. Frank Leidman, a member of the Mill Valley Action Community Network, said he was concerned the report did not break down the use-of-force incidents by race and did not classify brandishing a weapon as a use-of-force incident.

“I know there are a lot of 911 calls that come in and about barking dogs and kids on playgrounds – we are not sending police officers out to barking dogs, right?” asked Councilmember Tricia Ossa.

“This is just like the conversation the rest of the country is having,” Haynes replied. “We’re looking at the types of calls we can move away from in Mill Valley, such as having a code enforcement officer or our community services officer respond to those.”

Local resident Frank Liedman asked the city to create an independent oversight panel on MVPD, particularly on the RIPA data. Councilman Jim Wickham, who spent 37 years with MVPD, said that the council should serve as the oversight for the agency and asked Haynes to provide the council with monthly reports on the police department in the form of a publicly available dashboard.

​Resident Veronica Wilson encouraged MVPD to move quickly than required on RIPA data. “It seems like it’s very much in the realm of possibility to start collecting that data sooner,” she said. “It’s about uncovering systemic biases.”

Resident Kyra Payne questioned why Mill Valley needs four armed officers on duty at a time. “It seems really excessive given the amount of crime we have here,” she said. “What if half of those officers were not officers and instead were two EMTs or social workers? Anytime a police officer shows up wearing combat boots in a full uniform and has a weapon, that is escalation." 

"I’ve worked here for 16 years – I love this department and I hope to put in 16 more,” Haynes said. “We have a great group of people here that are trying to do their best and working to be as progressive as possible. This report absolutely does not cover everything. We look forward to further direction from council and the task force in order to bring about that information.”

“I’m glad that we’re having this discussion as a community but we will take the time to do this right and it’s not going to happen overnight,” Wickham said. “I will be the first person to criticize our department if they go astray. I will say that we are not going to defund the police department – that’s not going to happen.”

“I am open to having a deliberative evaluation of the police department to see if there are areas we can truly get better on,” Piombo said. “But we’re not getting rid of mehe police department anytime soon.”

“This will be the first of many discussions we have about the police in this community,” Mayor Sashi McEntee said.

READ THE FULL REPORT HERE.

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Of all of the things we've had to put on long-term pause during the COVID-19 crisis, the limitations on our ability to gather in groups and shake those hips and tap those feet has been one of the most difficult, particularly for the array of local organizations that help kiddos with ants in their pants dance.

That includes PAAM, Roco Dance & Fitness, Marin Conservatory of Dance and Happy Feet Dance School, the latter of which turned its shelter in place-induced inability to perform much anticipated end-of-year shows at Marin Center into a virtual recital project. That project featured performers dancing in their homes all over town via Zoom and videographer Chris Haroff turning it into a series of 37 heartwarming, fun short films.

"Within a few days of the shelter in place order, we began the process of moving our dance classes online, hoping that this was just a short-term situation," Happy Feet Artistic Director Cece Bechelli says. "But once it became clear that this was going to be a long-term shutdown, we quickly shifted gears and began work on a virtual recital project, creating a fun and memorable performance experience marking this very unusual year."

The Happy Feet team devised a contact-free plan to get costume to their students, with parent volunteers picking them up in the school's parking lot and delivering them to nearby families. They also modified the choreography and staging of the dances from their originally conceptualized form to one that would work virtually.

"Ultimately, we developed two virtual formats: one for our high school dancers and another for our preschool through middle school dancers," Bechelli says. 

From their respective bedrooms, living rooms, and backyards large and small, Happy Feet's high school dancers recorded and submitted performance videos, in costume, for each of their class dances. Haroff synchronized the dancers' recordings to a master music file, and in select dances, depicted formations through creative editing.

"We held a special Zoom event for our graduating seniors and their families where we viewed their final dance footage together," Bechelli says. "We celebrated our graduates’ many years at Happy Feet with our traditional senior remarks and an incredibly touching slideshow produced by Happy Feet parent Katherine Cope."

They did the same for the younger students, weaving in other special moments from each class Zoom show including siblings, parents, and even the family pets joining in the fun. 

"While it is so much fun to see the complete virtual recital, it was equally rewarding to find a way to continue to connect with our students each week," Bechelli says. "Keeping our students moving, learning, and enjoying dance with their classmates and teachers provided some normalcy and joy for all of us in the midst of the pandemic."

The three dances shown below," all choreographed by Cece Bechelli, included Lean On Me, with music by Michael Bolton, and was choreographed and taught via Zoom, exclusively during shelter in place for the graduating seniors. They also included Tornado, music by Timothy Graphenreed and Harold Wheeler, and If I Only Had a Brain, music by Harold Arlen, two dances from a multi-section Wizard of Oz Suite originally choreographed and staged for Happy Feet's Marin Center shows. 

Here are the performances:

Lean On Me, Music by Michael Bolton, Choreography by Cece Bechelli

Tornado, Music by Timothy Graphenreed and Harold Wheeler, Choreography by Cece Bechelli

If I Only Had a Brain, Music by Harold Arlen, Choreography by Cece Bechelli

Happy Feet Dance School is at 15 Montford Avenue. MORE INFO.
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Richard Habib, owner of Alexander’s Artisan Rugs in Mill Valley, just celebrated his 42nd year in the rug business, as well as his fourth year at his location along the landmark brick walkway at 1 El Paseo Lane and Sunnyside Avenue.

​That anniversary came with a cherry on top, as his longtime local shop was named Best Rug Shop in Marin from the Pacific Sun's lauded annual "Best of Marin" awards, unveiled late last month.

Habib says he's thrilled to receive the honor, especially considering that it's the eighth time he's received it, having garnered the honor every year between 1998 and 2005. "It came as a surprise as I've tended to keep a rather lower profile, yet been very active serving the rug needs of Marin Counties more discerning clientele," he says. "It's taken a lot of twists and turns, and I'm so grateful to my friends, family and customers for being with me through it all."

Just like all of us, the past five months for Mill Valley residents Annette and Paul Venables have been dominated by the day-to-day murk of the pandemic: health and safety, social distancing, wearing a mask, checking in on family and friends, finding and sticking with a routine and trying to avoid getting overwhelmed by the doom and gloom of a virus that has ravaged the globe.

They can also be forgiven if their thoughts have wandered beyond the 94941, specifically 7,800 miles to St. Xavier’s Gurap campus, the hub for post-primary education for children from the Santal tribe, a group that has a longstanding history of facing prejudice and generational poverty in Kolkata, India. 

When Annette Venables has had a particularly tough day in the COVID-19 era, she’s been keen to think of those children’s at St. Xavier’s, to whom the Venables, and many Mill Valley residents, have established deep ties and dedicated their time, money and effort.

“They know how to do hard things,” Venables says of the children. “They do them every day.”
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The allegiances between people in Mill Valley and at St. Xavier’s stem from Father Maria Joseph Savariappan's impromptu visit to Our Lady of Mount Carmel to step in for a vacationing Pastor Pat Michaels in 2017. Savariappan educated parishioners about the plight of the Santal, and that education has had cascading impacts thousands of miles away ever since.

​Mt. Carmel parishioners acted quickly, launching an Advent sponsorship program to provide education, meals, boarding and uniforms for students. And in the two-plus years since, those efforts have gone into overdrive, with parishioners galvanizing around Tribe Rising India, the nonprofit organization created by the Venables that has raised tens of thousands of dollars and expanded dramatically into the construction of much-needed buildings that will create lasting positive change for the Santal.

Tribe Rising India’s latest effort toward that end is its annual gala which, like all events amidst the COVID-19, will be virtual. It’s set for Thursday September 17, will feature Indian meals from San Rafael's Delicious Catering delivered directly to the homes of "attendees," as well as a Fund a Need campaign. But event tickets here. Sponsorships are also available.
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The purpose of the gala is to raise funds to build a high school for the Santal students, a move that will provide a sense of place to children who have lacked it, as the existing Jesuit school only spans kindergarten through fourth grade. The Venables took two trips to the region in 2019, including for the groundbreaking of the very first girls dormitory, providing girls in fifth through tenth grade their own space.
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“The Santal children have never had a school that is unique to them and their needs and offers them a safe place,” Venables says. “The kids that show the most promise are the most at risk of failing because the cultural norm and mainstream culture requires them to give up their education in favor of supporting their families."

"The ones who don't come back are the girls," she adds. "They get married off or get caught up in chores. The dorm is there now, so that we can say to them, 'the opportunity is still here for you.'"

An unintended benefit of the creation of those physical spaces, particularly outdoor play areas, was that it allowed the children to interact with other schools, Venables says, noting that they recently won a kho kho match against a nearby private school, with the celebratory moment shown at left.

"We thought we had some resources we could provide and we could build this environment we thought we wanted to exist," she says. "But in spending time there and seeing the culture, it wasn’t about building up something that was already there – it was about creating something completely new. There has to be that basic, simple opportunity for education."

Those opportunities build on themselves, she says, and the results are born out over years, if not decades. "That is just going to be a numbers game," she says.

As research has shown throughout the COVID-19 crisis, the virus puts a disproportionate burden and effects of the resulting economic instability on poor and marginalized children, and those effects will continue far beyond the end of this crisis. Educational opportunities, especially for girls, are at great risk.

“We want to show our students that while they are hidden in their villages during COVID, far from the news headlines, they are not forgotten,” Venables says. “We can show them we still believe (that) hope is for everyone."

MORE INFO ON TRIBE RISING AND ITS SEPT. 17TH GALA HERE.

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Business owners throughout Marin have been constantly innovating on ways to bring vibrancy to their commercial neighborhoods, all while striking a balance between liveliness and the absolute necessity of a safe, socially distant environment. 

The owners of the Strawberry Village shopping center are doing just that, launching Saturday Sounds, a live music series that happens every Saturday, 11am-2pm through Oct. 24 in the village's piazza near Pizza Antica, Parranga and Woodlands Pet Food & Treats. 

"We're inviting folks to come and enjoy while they brunch/lunch on the restaurant’s patios and run errands or just breath in some fresh air," Strawberry Village reps said in a statement. "Come by and enjoy live pop-up music every Saturday afternoon  under the sun while you dine al fresco on our outdoor patios and shop your favorite stores. We can’t wait to see you!"

Strawberry Village is at 800 Redwood Hwy. 
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While micro schools and pods have gotten plenty of attention in recent weeks amidst the kerfuffle around what format Mill Valley's schools will open with later this month, a group of organizations and a local musician are teaming up to help children who lack access to those same opportunities.

Mill Valley-based children’s music recording artist Megan Schoenbohm has joined up with the Marin County Covid Homeschool Micro School+Pod Resource & Matching Group, along with Marin tutoring companies Tutor Corps and Sage Educators for a virtual concert event that seeks to raise money to provide free tutoring for under-resourced kids in Marin. The fundraiser, “Tutors for All: A Virtual Concert to Support Underserved Kids in Marin Starring Megan Schoenbohm,” is set for Sept. 12 at 10am PST.
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“We want to do whatever we can to keep kids from falling through the cracks during this Covid-induced education crisis,” said Kristen Vandivier, head of inclusivity efforts for the Marin pod-forming group and organizer of the “Tutors for All” fundraiser.

Organizers says that all proceeds from the concert will go towards providing 20 under-resourced students from Marin with three hours of weekly 1:1 tutoring for the rest of the year while schools engage in distance learning. Organizers of the fundraiser are coordinating with the Marin Foster Care Association to reserve two spaces specifically for foster children in Marin who have been removed from their biological families due to abuse and/or neglect, and are under additional distress during SIP through no fault of their own while they engage in distance learning in foster homes.

The goal is to raise $25,000 by Aug. 10 to guarantee services for the remainder of the year.

Other inclusivity efforts of the Marin Pod-forming group include an initiative to get digital access to kids in Marin that need it as well as a partnership between Usborne Books and Marin City’s Performing Stars to help families with limited access to books and resources.

Tickets for the performance are $40 and may be purchased HERE.  
Donations can be made here.

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When Dez and Liz Fiedler sold their hugely successful frozen yogurt business Loving Cup in 2018, their heads were swirling from the eventful journey that had preceded the sale.

Liz Fiedler had launched the business nearly a decade earlier. The couple grew it exponentially over subsequent years, so much so that renowned La Boulangerie partners Pascal Rigo, Nicolas Bernadi and their team bought it. 

But tragedy struck in 2017 when, after living in Santa Rosa for just five months, the couple lost their home in the Tubbs Fire that was, at that time, the most destructive blaze in California history. Upon evacuating, they fled to the Acqua Hotel in Mill Valley, the town where they’d lived for three years before heading northward.

It was in that moment, and in the months that followed, bringing so many highs and lows, that two ideas dominated their thoughts: beer and Mill Valley. 

The latter was simple: after years of living in San Francisco’s Presidio, then the 94941, then Healdsburg and Santa Rosa, “we realized that we just wanted to live here again,” Liz Fiedler says. In a supremely odd twist, the fire “gave us the opportunity to move back here and we realized our commutes had been terrible and that we just really loved it here.” Fast forward two years, and the couple is in the midst of rebuilding a house here in Tam Valley. 

And then there’s the beer: Dez Fiedler, a longtime attorney focused on real estate and financial services litigation before joining his wife to expand Loving Cup in 2013, is beer obsessed. Fiedler’s dream has been to open a beer garden in Tam Junction, a place where he could showcase the small batch microbrews he loves, from Santa Cruz to Half Moon Bay to Sonoma County.

​They connected with Carter Collins, longtime owner of the Collectible Coins & Jewelry shop at 226 Shoreline Hwy., and learned that Collins, who bought the building in 2013 after 20 years there as a renter, was amenable to leasing the space after longtime Marin Auto Science shut down (NOT, as previously reported, CR Automotive at 220 Shoreline Hwy., which remains very much in business).

​"This has been an odyssey for me," Collins says. "When I bought the building, I needed about 500 square feet of space for my business and now I had 6,000. Collins had minimal intentions for all that extra room – he planned to just park old cars there and fix them up over time. 

When the Fiedlers approached him with the idea, he said, "No, no, no, you want a silk purse and I’ve got a sow’s ear here. I had no business plan, really. They came along and they are, quite honestly, visionaries. They see this whole block and they see a whole new world."

If he needed any additional convincing, Collins' soon-to-be 88-year-old mom Patricia gave him an extra nudge. "She told me, 'What are you waiting for?' It is a now a truly a silk purse. It’s a transformation that I never ever envisioned."

The couple quickly realized that they also needed plenty of outdoor space if they were going to realize their vision for a dog-, kid- and bicyclist-friendly space where families could gather.

That was before outdoor space became the most sought-after real estate in the midst of a terror-inducing pandemic.

They turned their attention to a portion of the massive land behind Martin Brothers Supply, the longtime Tam Junction staple founded by Jack and Judy Martin. Part storage facility, part junkyard, the massive space was everything the Fiedlers had hoped for. But it’s also a completely separate property from that of Collins. That meant finding a workable arrangement involving two neighboring landlords agreeing to lease space to the same business.

So Dez Fiedler simply went and knocked on their door.

Not long after, they had a deal, a move that provided not only nearly 5,000 square feet of outdoor space to complement the 3,000 square feet of inside space, but also the property’s massive parking lot that allowed them to meet the County of Marin’s parking requirements for a business taking that much space.

"We weren't expecting to be approached about it," says Judy Martin, noting that the Martin family sold them the business in 1985, and they sold it to Rob and Gina Tuckey in 2005, but the family continued to own the land. "But we always thought this kind of thing, a more community-oriented business, was what we always wanted to see happen."

The Fiedlers spent the next 12 months clearing out the detritus, and as they drew closer to their vision, they realized it lacked a critically essential element: food.

That’s when Pete the Plumber – who else? – came to the rescue.

Peter Romeo is a plumber who has played a major role in residential and commercial buildouts all over the Bay Area for nearly 40 years, including Loving Cup locations for the Fiedlers. He told the couple that Krupman, a former software product manager turned local legend of sorts in the Bay Area food scene for having built a business on making pizzas in the streets and parks of San Francisco’s Mission district in the "FrankenWeber," a modified grill that he turned into a mobile pizza oven, had just moved to Sausalito. Given the continued success of Krupman’s Pizza Hacker brick-and-mortar business in Bernal Heights, Romeo said he might make for the perfect food partner for The Junction.

Having known the Fiedlers for years and as a diehard fan of Krupman’s pizzas, Romeo told them, “You guys would be so great together. It’s a marriage that just sort of had to be.”

Krupman says the timing of it all – his move to Marin and Pizza Hacker’s SF location long since solidified – compelled him to dive in almost right away. “I probably skipped a few steps on the due diligence front,” he jokes.

"But it works so well – I have no interest in beer and wine, and they have no interest in pizza," Krupman adds. "A great fit."


Krupman notes that Pizza Hacker's pizzas at The Junction will be 33 percent larger than those of his shop in Bernal, and he'll also be serving his Internezzo and Kale Caesar salads, as well as Mexican Coca-Cola. He'llalso be selling jars of his tomato sauce, made from tomatoes from Maqiquita Farms in Watsonville. 

MENU HERE.

​"I have spent a lot of time in breweries," Dez Fiedler says with a laugh.

The Junction's 30 taps are focused on "breweries with super limited distribution," Dez Fiedler says, from Cooperidge Brewing Company in Santa Rosa to Hop Dogma in Half Moon Bay. "We have three craft beer distributors but everything else is direct."

Those relationships have an added beneficial twist in the COVID-19 era, Fiedler says. Because tasting rooms are closed, beers that are rarely if ever available outside of those tasting rooms are now more widely available. For instance, The Junction has HenHouse's Red Overalls, a hard-to-find Vienna lager.  

"It's the fun part of the business," Fiedler says. "With direct relationships, you are meeting the people brewing the beer. A lot of the breweries we're working with are not big yet. You can help them grow. These are all small businesses predominantly within 100 miles of here, and every single beer on our tap list is from California."

The Junction also features a pair of rotating taps of hard kombucha, two taps of wine, and more by the bottle, glass, or to go.

​Pizza Hacker’s system allows customers to simply scan a QR code, select their food, order, pay via Google Pay, Apple Pay or via credit card and pizzas are brought to your table. “No unnecessary interaction,” says Krupman, noting that "we're serving only in The Junction's backyard at first, with pickup and delivery to follow soon thereafter via HackerTJ.com." 

"This is truly a place where you can come hang out and bring your kids and everybody can gather, almost a replacement for so many of us in Mill Valley with small and/or sloped backyards," said Liz Fiedler. "It’s really great to put something there that the whole community can enjoy."

“As plumbers, we love restaurants and cafes – we’ve built 40 or 50 of these places and we love have to relationships with them afterwards,” Romeo says. “And when you can put all of that together and bring people together, that’s the magic you need once in a while.”
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The 411: The Junction and Pizza Hacker are at 226 Shoreline Highway in Tam Junction. Opens Wednesday, July 29. Open 3-9pm weekdays, 1-9pm on weekends. Enter directly through the backyard (not front door for now), and park on the south side of building (parking lot is connected to Dipsea Cafe parking lot). Eventually, long after The Junction's interior space is allowed to open in compliance with County health and safety guidelines, they'll host live music in the space as well. 

Here's the full menu of pizzas and food. (The Meatballer has been renamed Romeo after Pete the Plumber).

On the way: Gluten-free and takeout options.

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Our EMV Films highlight some of the myriad creative businesses, organizations and people in Mill Valley. You’ve likely seen our films on some incredible local chefs, businesses with decades-long roots in town, the power of health and wellness, sustainability in the heart of Tam Junction, the spectacular Mill Valley Lumber Yard and the family-centric businesses along Miller Avenue. Photos of some of the amazing people running these businesses are below. We’ve got plenty more on the way! GO HERE to check them out. And then take the time to experience some of the array of restaurants,
shops, experiences and services that Mill Valley has to offer!