Department of Public Works (DPW) Happenings

What Does DPW Do?

From designing/building road stabilizing retaining walls on Edgewood and Marguerite Avenues; to cutting the grass at Boyle Park; to rebuilding the Sycamore Pump station; to changing the lights at the Library and everything in between, your Department of Public Works team has been hard at work trying to maintain, protect and improve Mill Valley.  This week we’re taking advantage of the Council break and associated gap in the MVConnect schedule to update you on some key DPW items. The DPW team includes maintenance personnel, equipment operators, technicians, an arborist, fleet mechanics, civil/traffic/structural engineers, project managers, technicians, an inspector and a management analyst.

An annual highlight for the team is the American Public Works Associations National Public Works Week (NPWW). This year’s NPWW occurs from May 17-23, 2026 with the theme of “Rooted in Service, Powered by Community”.  The program is intended to educate the public in all that Public Works entails, to encourage students and the public to consider a career in public works and to show staff appreciation for their skills, expertise and efforts to improve the community. This year the Department plans to have a BBQ lunch and enjoy the newly installed volleyball courts to help celebrate.  Learn more about National Public Works Week here.

Some Current Projects

Construction of three key projects is about to kick off.  This year, DPW staff were successful in completing design and strategically scheduling of bids to obtain excellent results for the Annual Paving Maintenance and Sewer Rehabilitation projects. 

This year’s paving project was designed by in house staff budgeted to cost $1.2M. The project includes making digout repairs to failed areas and slurry sealing about 50 street segments in town. Six bidders responded to the City’s invitation to bid, with the several bidders coming in below the engineer’s estimate. The winning bidder came in almost 20% under the estimated cost! 

This year’s sanitary sewer rehabilitation project includes pipe bursting and sliplining of existing sewer pipes as well as completing some open trench repairs in conformance with the City’s 10 year Sewer Capital Improvement program approved by Council in June of 2025 to improve reliability and protect the environment form potential sewer spills. This year’s project was budgeted to cost $2.2M to implement. The sewer project had eight bidders, amazingly with all but one bidder coming in below the estimated costs.  Neighboring residents and stakeholders will be notified of the specific construction schedules via mailers and public postings on the project websites as the contractors dial in their schedules.  

Back in 2021, when designing the 3 phase, multi-year, East Blithedale Avenue Rehabilitation project, the project team observed an opportunity to rehabilitate some aged and deteriorating guardrails. It’s taken years and significant coordination with the design team, Caltrans and contractor regarding how to best deliver this project in an environmentally sensitive; high traffic volume; geographically constrained roadway, but with the help of an $800,000 federal safety grant, staff is ready to build this project this summer. The project includes replacing four separate aged wood barricades with current guardrail technology to help protect the roadway users. The project will impact traffic, so please be patient and keep an eye out for the construction workers. The project webpage includes project plans and background and will be updated as more detailed schedule and work hour information becomes available.  

City staff has been diligent in seeking grant funding for improvements to pedestrian access around town. With successful applications to the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) and the Safe Pathways grants, Mill Valley was awarded over a million dollars to design and implement much needed safety improvements. These two grants are funding new curb ramps, sidewalk gap closures, high visibility pedestrian crossing enhancements and other features at various locations to improve walkability within our community. Some locations for these features include improvements to intersections of Nelson Avenue and Matilda Avenue, Throckmorton Avenue and Cornelia Avenue, Shelter Bay Avenue and Hamilton Drive, Roque Moraes Drive and Kipling Drive, Fern Avenue and Catalpa Avenue, and Elm Avenue at Park Elementary School. Additionally, several improved crossing locations on Miller Avenue will be created with the installation of three new Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacon (RRFB) systems. Most of these locations are currently in design and will be phased for construction in 2026 and 2027. 

For more information on these and on most DPW led Capital Improvement please visit the individual project webpages located here.

Introducing TMAC Crossing  

Do you think Mill Valley traffic is getting better or getting worse? What do you think will help? In 2024, the City Council expanded and renamed the former Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission (BPAC) to the Traffic & Mobility Advisory Commission (TMAC). Members of TMAC are tasked with helping to reduce traffic congestion in town. They do this by encouraging alternate modes of transportation, working with schools, businesses and staff to better utilize the city’s infrastructure and operations, educating youth and parents and supporting traffic reducing programs and projects.  To help with this endeavor and to involve the community, TMAC held a logo design contest. Kim Tran, an art teacher at the Middle School, helped organize the contest. The winning logo was selected from a group of 10 finalists and designed by sixth grader Eliana Moglen. Thanks very much to Kim Tran, Middle School art teacher, Eliana and all the participants!

Members of the Committee volunteer their time and energy to this passion and have developed a newsletter to help get their message out.  TMAC Corner is written and published by your volunteering neighbors. You can access the first edition of the newsletter here. Future editions of the TMAC Crossing will be included in the MVConnect, and hosted on the TMAC homepage.  Staff and TMAC members look forward to hearing your feedback.

Sea Level Rise Community Meeting

If you’re reading this newsletter, you likely have experienced the closure of Miller Avenue, the Multi Use Plan or other flooding in the city.  To help plan for the increased size and quantity of king tides and our changing environment, the City applied for and accepted a $965,000 grant from the Ocean Protection Council in October of 2024 to develop a Sea Level Rise Adaptation Plan. DPW and Planning staff have been working on this important topic in compliance with the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) requirements and invites your participation and attendance at a Community Open House on May 6th. The Open House will be held at the Community Center from 5pm to 7pm. More background and information about the project can be found on the project webpage.

Community Safety

A friendly reminder from our friends at PG&E: please dial 811 to have your utility lines marked at no cost before you dig. PG&E recently notified staff that Mill Valley and its surrounding sphere of influence (Alto, Tam Junction, Homestead, etc.) has a high number of gas dig-ins compared to the other Marin jurisdictions. This is a concerning piece of information, but something that can be greatly improved upon by using care and proper planning. Many may not know that it is actually state law to mark your planned digging area in white and to notify utilities prior to excavating. Please visit PG&E's "Call 811" webpage to learn more about how you can keep your home and neighborhood safe.

See Something/Take a Photo and Say Something

Have a maintenance inquiry that you'd like to make the Public Works Department aware of? For all operations requests, you can submit a request through our citizen request portal. Log into (or sign up for) your account, and let our team know what you're seeing around the city. Our portal request system helps the right folks get notified to resolve operations inquiries as efficiently as possible. Thanks for keeping an eye out!

Thank you for taking the time to read about our Department and for reporting issues that you see. If you have any concerns please feel free to report maintenance items via the above citizen request portal, or contact us at publicworks@cityofmillvalley.gov.