Leaders in San Geronimo Valley and all of West Marin have long practiced survival techniques for major disasters — floods, earthquakes, fires. What they didn’t expect was that they would become the refuge — and, in fact, a gourmet food host — for more than 200 evacuees fleeing calamity in neighboring parts of the North Bay.

After a contentious 2 1/2-hour hearing, the San Rafael Planning Commission this week voted 5-1 to deny an appeal by neighbors of a city use permit for a 200-dog overnight boarding, grooming and day-care facility just south of downtown. The denial, if not appealed, clears the way for the proposal, set for an 8,400-square-foot commercially zoned warehouse at 629 Lindaro St., to go forward.

Crews have begun demolishing various San Rafael city buildings along Fifth Avenue across from City Hall to make way for a new $36 million public safety building. The work, which began Thursday, will climax on Oct. 18 when contractors take down the 100-year-old San Rafael Fire Station 51 at Fifth Avenue and C Street.

When Michelle Leopold, owner of Marin Ace Hardware in San Rafael, opened for business at 7 a.m. Monday, she had no idea that within a half-hour, her parking lot would be full with evacuees from Sonoma and Napa county fires. “By 7:30 a.m. there were no spots left in the parking lot,” said Leopold, whose business is just off the North San Pedro Road exit of Highway 101.

San Rafael’s permit approval for a 200-dog commercial grooming, day care and overnight boarding center on the back side of a residential neighborhood near Davidson Middle School has hit a stumbling block with an appeal filed by neighbors. “The residents know they share their street with commercial businesses and are used to sporadic noises that come with business hours,” said Charles Brown of Mariposa Road, who filed the appeal Aug. 30 of a use permit granted by the city to the project on Aug. 23.

San Rafael officials this week unanimously approved a one-year pilot sidewalk repair program that allows for homeowners to recoup partial costs for concrete repairs and full coverage on most tree work, gutters and simple pavement shaving. The compromise plan, which likely kicks off in January if final approval takes place later this month, is thought to be the only sidewalk repair cost-sharing program in Marin, city officials said Monday.

Two new classrooms have been added at White Hill Middle School in Fairfax, allowing teachers and students to move out of the so-called “flex” classrooms that some parents complained was like having their kids sitting in a hallway. “We’re moving them from a three-walled classroom to four-walled classrooms,” Ross Valley School District Superintendent Rick Bagley said at a meeting Thursday of the district’s board of trustees.

Redwood High School on Thursday notified parents that security is being stepped up at the school after a threat was found scrawled in graffiti in a bathroom stall. “I am reaching out this afternoon to address a situation that has come to our attention and is now circulating on social media regarding a threat to the safety of the Redwood community tomorrow, Friday,” Principal David Sondheim wrote in an email.

Numbers below reflect percent of students tested who exceeded or met standards in each category. Student test scores in Marin and across the state mostly dipped or flatlined in 2017 over results from a year ago, the state Department of Education reported Wednesday. At the same time, despite the stagnant progress of test results overall, Marin students continued to score significantly higher than their peers statewide in the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress — a computer-oriented test now in its third year.

A Marin man who is suing San Rafael over city employee pension “enhancements” he claims were approved illegally in 2002 and 2006 said he will file an amendment to his complaint after a judge ruled last week that his claim was too late. “I fully intend to amend,” David Brown of Mill Valley said Tuesday.

Alan and Barbara Miller dodged the proverbial bullet this past winter when heavy rains collapsed a section of the Idylberry Fire Road in the open space above their backyard, triggering a landslide of mud, water and debris up to — but not past — the sandbags stacked against their back door. But now, with the rainy season on the horizon again, they fear they may not be so lucky.

When San Rafael officials granted a use permit for a new craft brewpub in the city’s west end, applicants Trevor and Stephanie Martens — surrounded by about two dozen supporters — were thrilled. “We are really, really excited,” said Stephanie Martens after the city signed off Sept. 13 on the proposal to establish Pond Farm Brewing Co. at 1848 Fourth St., the current site of Wooden Duck furniture store at the unofficial start of the Miracle Mile between San Rafael and San Anselmo.

The Ross Valley Charter School board took a step forward this week to try to resolve growing space-sharing problems at White Hill Middle School in Fairfax. White Hill parent Serena Howeth of San Anselmo said later the parents are caught in the middle, left powerless in the whole process and have nowhere to go with their concerns and complaints.

After 17 years in operation, a center that offers technology training for Marin’s 4,000 special needs students got a $100,000 upgrade. “It’s so much more than a fresh new coat of paint,” said Dan Phillips, director of the county’s Technology Resource Center in San Rafael. “What we needed was to open the eyes of a whole new generation.”.

San Rafael city leaders took what some said was a small step forward this week to acknowledge the state Legislature’s pending unofficially named “sanctuary state” bill — but stopped short of sending a letter of support, as some residents had demanded for weeks. The move came the day before religious leaders protested what they called human rights violations by federal ICE officers against the local immigrant community.

In a striking change of course, Tamalpais Union High School District board members informally agreed to put on hold plans for an estimated $450 million bond measure and instead seek approval from voters for an as-yet-unspecified parcel tax in June or November of next year. “Parcel tax, parcel tax, parcel tax,” said board member Chuck Ford at the end of Tuesday night’s two-hour workshop in which board members publicly discussed priorities and options for fixing the district’s structural deficit and declining financial reserves amid burgeoning student enrollment.