Order, arms.

About faith.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the eye of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under your eye.

I had the great privilege of serving alongside Councilmember Milburg.

And I'm really honored to be able to just be here to say a few words to open this up.

Today we're going to hear from many others.

This room is also full of many current and former elected officials.

It means so much that you would come here to honor Mark in this way to support the City of Novato in this way.

And I just want to start by recognizing all of those current and former elected officials.

So thank you so much.

And Mark was always very complimentary.

He'd always come up and say something afterwards.

And later on, I learned that he was a poet and very inclined to writing, and I really think that he was just humoring me for giving it a good try.

But I cannot think of a more fitting tribute to Mark for somebody that just makes rhymes to recognize a prolific writer and poet like Mark Milberg.

So this is for him.

We're here to celebrate the legacy of our dear friend.

His contributions will live on.

This isn't the end.

Not to make a pun, but he truly left his mark.

Whether mobile homes, childcare, or Pioneer Park.

He started serving through the Finance Oversight Committee, but that was just the start of his role in this city.

A man of integrity and free of bias, he was destined to serve on this council dais.

In 2021, he was appointed as the unanimous pick, joining Eklund, Lucan, Athis, and Warnick.

He quickly stepped up from the new kid on the block, where he welcomed O'Connor, Jacobs, and Farok.

In 2024, Mark took the gavel in the mayoral seat.

He was all over town and never missed a beat.

Serving on other boards, he wore many hats, diving deep into details, metrics, and all the stats.

He certainly loves serving on the board of Smart, where riding the train was close to his heart.

And at Tan, he focused on the first and last mile, and he always showed up with that incredible smile.

He did wear one hat that I'd like to forget, but as a Dodgers fan, he was as good as they get.

Coffees, lunches, and the occasional call.

He always asked about family above all.

To Lauren, the family, and your entire crew, sharing Mark with us deserves a huge thank you.

We will share some laughs and we will shed some tears as Mark's impacts will be felt for many, many years.

Thank you, Mark Milberg.

And with that, I'd like to introduce members of the Nevada City Council to come up next.

Starting with uh Vice Mayor Farak.

Eric, I was hoping you would do a rhyme because Mark loved them so much and would always be the first one to run up to you and say, that was fantastic.

Thank you all for being here to celebrate a life that has been loved.

I first met Mark when I served as a leadership mentor.

That year, the team was so strong, I didn't have to do much.

But even then, Mark stood out.

He was thoughtful, engaged, and had quite strength that made people feel heard.

I had the honor of serving alongside Mark on the Novato City Council for three years.

It's a unique relationship, full of long hours, tough decisions, and shared responsibilities.

Through it all, Mark was steady, a team player, respectful, and always focused on what was best for Novato.

Sitting next to him on the dais was a joy.

He brought warmth, humor, and a calming presence to every meeting.

Mark didn't just show up.

He showed up with heart.

He never failed to ask about my kids.

And that simple, consistent gesture meant more to me than he will realize.

I wanted to share a story.

I was sitting next to Mark on the dais.

When he glanced at my screen and saw a photo of my four-year-old daughter.

My screensaver rotates pictures every few hours, so I never know which one's gonna pop up.

And he said, What a cute picture.

The funny part, that fit picture was actually the 20th attempt at getting a headshot for her Irish passport.

So she wasn't allowed to smile.

And after trying everything from posing, coxing, bribing, I finally had to layer down on the floor to get a shot.

Honestly, it was a terrible photo, really terrible.

But Mark saw something different.

He saw the sweetness in her expression.

He found the good in even the most imperfect moment.

That's just who he was, always seeing the light in everything.

Mark served Nevada with dedication, representing us on the smart board and the Transportation Authority of Marin.

As mayor, he led with integrity and care.

He was a true public servant, and I will miss him deeply.

To his family, thank you for sharing him with us.

His legacy lives on in the work he did and the community he loved.

Rest in peace, Mark, you will never be forgotten.

And with that, I want to introduce the next council mayor.

Eckelin, are you next?

Council Woman.

Women.

Good evening.

What a great demonstration of the impact that Mark has had.

Just take a minute and look around the room.

It is completely filled with people, and there's even folks in the annex.

And I know you cared for Mark as much of all of us that are in this room.

And there's still some standing room only if you want to make your way through.

I first met Mark when he moved to Hamilton.

And he asked for coffee.

We had coffee, and he wanted to get involved.

He was working for Ultragenics at that time.

And he wanted to get involved in the city a little bit, and he wanted to apply for the finance authority, Novato Finance Authority, which provides guidance to the city council.

And so, you know, based on his background, what he told me, I thought he was going to be a great asset for the city because of his financial background.

And he sure was.

And with the genuine effort that he put into everything, whether it was financial planning or just deciding whether we should do something or not.

He brought a lot, not only to the city council, but to the city of Novato.

And I've been asking all over County, have we ever had a city council member die while in office.

And unfortunately, I think he's the first one ever in the county to have died while in office at a city council meeting.

We've had two board of supervisors die in office, but never a city council member, at least that I could find.

He takes his place in history, he takes his place in Novato.

And he's always going to have a place in my heart as well.

And I know that every single person has the same.

I didn't have kids, but I love kids, and he had the same.

He shared that history of Hamilton that I absolutely love and the history of the city of Novato.

He's going to be missed.

And I really appreciate all the currently elected officials from Center Fell coming from formerly former mayors in Novato, our fire district having representation here.

Our Coast Guard, you know, the Coast Guard was very much a big part of Hamilton.

So everybody, I tell everybody Hamilton's been closed three times, but it's still opened.

And that's because the U.S.

Coast Guard is still here.

And I hope to God that they continue being here so we can always keep Hamilton open, which is what we should do.

But I just want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for coming and giving of yourself for Mark and Sharing and Mark's purpose and his love for Novato and Brank County and making things better.

He was a kind man.

He had a big heart.

And he really worked for the people.

So thank you very much.

And I guess I would like to call up a former council member, Kevin.

So Kevin, would you like to come out?

Oh I'm sorry.

The last time I was a wonderful person who always had a smile on his face.

Someone who genuinely cared about others and found joy in the things he loved.

Mark truly loved the Dodgers.

Just a week before his passing, he and I were in Long Beach for a conference.

We planned to meet afterwards, and he sent me a text that said, I'm still at the hotel watching the Dodgers.

It's the 11th inning.

So he showed up a little later.

They won the game, and he was thrilled.

That was Mark.

Fully present in the moment, passionate about things that brought him happiness.

But what defined Mark most was his love for the city and his dedication to improving it for all the residents.

He didn't just serve, he truly cared for the people.

He was always concerned about what he could do for them, how we can make their lives better.

His work wasn't just a position.

It was his calling.

It's extremely hard to see someone like Mark leave us so early.

He had so much more to give.

I can say with certainty that Mark was not only a fellow council member, a good friend and a mentor to me.

When I was running for office, he was always there, offering his support and encouragement.

I felt honored to take the oath of office right alongside Mark and of course Tim.

That moment will always be special to me.

Mark will never be forgotten.

His smile, his passion, his dedication to serving others.

These are the gifts he gave us.

And they will live in this community forever.

Thank you.

I'd like to invite Susan Gilmore of the North Bay Children's Center up to say a few words.

Welcome, Susan.

Wow.

It is such an incredible honor to be asked to speak here today.

I met council member Mark Milberg for the first time in 2022 when he came for a tour of the North Bay Children's Center.

True to his thoroughness and thoughtfulness, he was doing his due diligence in preparation for an important vote coming up at a future council meeting.

As he prepared for that meeting, it was important for him to fully understand MBCC's mission, history, community impact, and plans for the future.

Meeting with me and Ralph O'Rear about our capital project was not enough.

He wanted to see those programs in action.

He returned to our Sea Street campus the next day.

He spent time in our classrooms observing parents dropping off and picking up their children.

He talked to parents, he talked to teachers, he talked to volunteers, and he talked to two-year-olds.

He learned everything he could possibly learn about NBCC as he prepared to take action for his next council meeting.

He was so authentic in his approach to better understand what his community needed.

Mark's support for NBCC did not stop at that council meeting.

He attended our fundraising events, he popped in on the construction site to monitor progress, and he volunteered at our community work days, and he loved celebrating milestones with us.

The thing is, as special as he made us feel at North Bay Children's Center, he supported all the other community service organizations in that same manner.

He was a friend, a supporter, an advocate, a leader, and a real mench.

He was always so generous, kind, and open.

And during all his check-ins, he would always say, What can I do to help?

Is there anything I could do?

He eagerly introduced us to others from his circle who he believed could further our mission.

So one of my favorite stories or examples of that is when I called our chief program officer, Christina Sisek, and she answered her cell phone in a very hushed voice.

And I asked, Christina, where are you?

What are you doing?

And why are you whispering?

She replied softly, I'm in a classroom with 48 kids practicing mindfulness with a self-care specialist and the mayor of Navado.

So not only had Mark made that introduction, but he was enthusiastically participating in the session he had set up for us.

As we got closer to our new facility, Mark could not wait for us to start Friday assemblies.

So I had shared with him when I was a young teacher at the Marin Jewish Community Center.

We used to all gather for Shabbat and sing songs and celebrate community, and that we built this new facility with a big multi-purpose room so that we could continue that kind of tradition of gathering for a Friday assembly and honoring community.

And he's like, when is the first one?

I want to come to the assemblies.

It's like, okay, you get to come.

So as I prepared for today, I went back and I watched the footage from our recent ribbon cutting.

He was so excited to welcome attendees from all over the Bay Area to Novato, his Novato.

He was so proud of this project and of his role in getting it across the finish line.

This new campus is going to bring generational monumental change to the community.

Living here, representing District 5, and having the opportunity to see this campus completed is just a lovely feeling for me personally.

Having the opportunity to help MBCC with infrastructure and moving this project forward was one of my proudest moments serving on the Nevada City Council.

I need a sip of water.

I uh I do this when I start talking about this.

This is my husband David.

He's used to this.

So, you know, Mark was the real deal.

He was a dedicated public servant, a champion for his community, and a dear friend whose memory we will cherish forever.

So MBCC's first assembly planned for Oct is planned for October 31st.

And we would like to invite you, Lauren, Lauren is watching this at home, to be our guest of honor as we dedicate the launch of this new tradition to our dear friend Mark Milberg.

We promise to practice mindfulness.

We will sing songs, celebrate each other, and make lovely memories.

We at NBCC look forward to carrying Mark's spirit, enthusiasm, and love for his community forward, and in his words, for many generations to come.

We'll miss you, Mark.

Hi, I'm Paul Fordham, CEO of Homeward Pound, and I'm honored to say a few words about Mark.

I'm gonna start out with a little personal story because I have kids, and when our kids ask us about making new friends at school or at Summer Camp, we always say to look for people who are smart, kind, and funny.

This has begins becomes something of a mantra in my house.

Smart, kind and funny.

Well, you can guess why I'm telling you this, because when I sat down to collect my thoughts about Mark, the first things I wrote were his intellect.

Like he thought deeply about issues and the people in his community.

So smart.

Kindness was immediately on my page of notes.

Because Mark led with his heart all the time.

He was empathetic.

To almost everybody he came across, to the two-year-olds that were mentioned earlier.

You know, he was right there.

Um humor.

When I close my eyes and I think of Mark, I see that big beaming smile.

And I wrote this before, and then look around me, and that smile is everywhere.

He's he really uh had this effusive humor that flooded out of him.

So true to the mantra.

Homeward bound of Marin found a great friend in Mark Milberg.

He was always making connections, advocating for the people we served, and giving of his own time and resources to support our mission.

And he did all of this with a very personal touch.

For example, we had a dinner at Homeward Bound that was um for donors and supporters, and one of our uh people we served came up and told this story, and it was very sort of conservative.

Everyone sat at the tables, and there's this gentleman sharing his his journey out of homelessness, and Mark raised his fist in the air and said, Yeah, Todd, let's go!

And he brought the enthusiasm that was missing in the room, you know, but it was it wasn't fake cheerleading, it was the real deal.

Um similarly in his role of mayor of Novato, we invited Mark to share a few comments of the opening of our veterans housing.

Um some folks leaned towards formality.

Mark was immediately personable and addressed our new veteran residents as citizens of Novato and a welcoming them home immediately.

I think in those few phrases, you know, welcome and the citizens.

That was what we saw Mark doing every day, every moment.

He always, for me, what was remarkable was he always said hello to our staff by name.

He remembered everybody, and uh it was just those personal touches that made him so special.

So he was a genuine, accessible person.

And I think the other thing he did that we really noticed at home were bound is he projected peace as he moved through the world.

Um he was so positive.

If we had a world full of Mark Milbergs, it would be an infinitely better place.

So thank you, Mark, for what you the joy you brought into this world.

Um, we'll miss you greatly.

Thank you.

I want to start by saying thank you to all of you for coming this evening.

The last two weeks have been incredibly challenging for my colleagues, city staff, for everybody.

As you can imagine, putting something together like this is a big undertaking.

But Mark would have killed us if we didn't do it.

When you put together, you know, you sit down, you try to write words.

It's a really hard thing to do to sum up someone like Mark and talk about him for about three minutes.

But I say, look, Odyssey, I see the Coast Guard, he went to all your quarterly events.

There's a lot of folks from Marin Valley.

He was such a champion of yours, and many other people that are here this evening.

Thank you for coming.

I mean, more than anything else, your presence here speaks to his legacy and what he gave to Novato.

And I can't emphasize that enough.

I first met Mark in 2018 when he was appointed to the Finance Advisory Committee.

I was very quickly impressed by his positive attitude, high energy high energy, intelligent, thoughtful feedback, and obviously this was evident to a lot of other people because shortly afterwards he was taken from us and appointed to City Council.

He did such a tremendous job.

When I had the opportunity to join council a little while later, the first person I reached out to was Mark.

Not just because he was a friend, but also because I knew I could count on him to give me good, honest advice.

I knew that he would tell me if I was out of my mind for thinking about it, if he really thought so.

But that wasn't Mark.

He was such an authentic person, such a genuine, like you've heard people talk about how he was a cheerleader.

That was him.

It wasn't fake, it was incredibly authentic in just who he was as a person.

Mark lives a huge hole in all of our lives.

He was a wonderful friend.

He was kind, caring, good natured, and he brought that to our community as well.

Every decision he made, conversation he had, meeting he went to, he always stayed true to the values that meant the most to him and put the well-being of our community first.

He truly, truly cared about the people he helped.

And I think you know that.

It was never lip service with him.

Beyond that, he always did it with a huge smile on his face.

I can still see it.

Even under some very challenging times and very stressful issues, he was able to maintain a positive attitude, which really lifted up everyone around him.

Almost every conversation I had with them began with some version of, before we talk about that, let me tell you about this great group that I met that did this wonderful thing every time.

And he meant it every time.

It was an incredibly broad spectrum.

Like he would he would get excited and spend five minutes talking about magic shows for children that he went to, to local economic forums, trips down to Cal Cities, conferences.

Like he Tammy, some of the meetings we would go to, it's hard to get excited about, I'll be honest with you.

But he um it wouldn't matter.

Like it just doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter how dry the subject matter.

He loved it, he poured himself into it.

He just enjoyed and appreciated it all.

So over the years, Mark really took to the writings of a person named Don Miguel Ruiz.

The work that this author seems to be best known for is that a person's life is determined by four agreements that they make with themselves, with others, with God, and with society as a whole.

These four are be impeccable with your word, do not take anything personally, do not make assumptions, and always do your best.

This was his mantra, and I truly believe he did his best to live by it every day.

As I've been dealing with Mark's passing, um, these sayings have kept coming back into my mind.

They hold a lot of value, and I think they're extremely good values to aspire to and live your life by.

I certainly know I want to be better in in these regards.

Mark tried to live his life, live every day by this code.

And in my time with him, I think he was more successful than not.

I think most of you would agree with me too.

And his legacy will be overshaped by the good he did for Novato, for the changes he made to things that improved the quality of life for thousands of people.

And perhaps most importantly, for being a good friend and family member he was to everyone in this room.

I know we will all miss him dearly.

Thank you.

If you'd like to join us, please take a candle from the lobby and head on outside.

Thank you very much.