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Do you want to see storefront retail cannabis businesses operate in Redwood City? The community can weigh in on the proposal on Tuesday, Feb. 18. The Veterans Memorial Senior Center at 1455 Madison Ave. will host the event from 7-9 p.m.

The city is in its fourth phase of implementing regulations for commercial cannabis businesses. As a result of the first three phases, the city approved delivery of retail cannabis from warehouse centers in the city. For the fourth phase, the city will consider revisions to the municipal zoning codes to allow storefront or walk-in cannabis retail stores.

On March 5, the Fair Oaks Community Center will host another community meeting on the topic from 7-9 p.m. The Retail Cannabis Business Survey provides another way for residents to offer opinions. The anonymous comments will matter because City Council will review them before making a decision.  Submissions are due by 11:59 pm on Thursday, March 12.

Photo by Rafael Lima

The City of San Carlos is considering imposing time limits on construction projects within city limits.

New construction brings new housing, interesting businesses, jobs and revenue into the community. However, delayed projects result in unsightly and disruptive job sites. Because of this, the city is considering an ordinance imposing a time limit for their completion.

The proposed ordinance sets deadlines based upon the value of construction. A nine-month deadline would be imposed for projects valued from $0 to $100,000. Meanwhile, a 12-month deadline will be imposed for projects ranging from $101,001 to $250,000. Deadlines would also be imposed after 18 months for project ranging from $250,000 to $1 million; 24 months for projects ranging from $1-5 million; 30 months for projects ranging from $5 to $10 million; and 36 months for those beyond $10 million.

A 30-day grace period will be afforded to projects that remain incomplete after the deadline. A penalty of $200 per day, however, would follow that grace period. The penalty would go up to $400 per day 61 days after the deadline. On the 121st day, the penalty would rise to $1,000 per day.

Extensions would be possible in certain cases beyond a property owner’s control.

The ordinance would apply to all construction activities requiring a building permit. Additions, alterations, modifications, repairs, and improvements would be included.

Currently, neither state nor city codes require such a time limit. Rather, code allows building permits to remain valid as long as “measurable progress” is made and inspections are performed every 180 days.

“Consequently, absent a violation of the terms of the building permit a project could continue almost indefinitely,” San Carlos city staff says. “There are currently building permits in San Carlos that are over five years old.”

Construction projects bring noise, loss of parking and tear up roads. Unreasonable delays deprive cities of needed housing and promised project benefits, according to city staff. For these reasons, Belmont, San Bruno, Burlingame, Hillsborough, Atherton and two jurisdictions in Marin County have adopted deadlines.

The San Carlos Planning Commission is set to review the ordinance at its meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 18, at 7 p.m. in the City Hall Council Chambers, 600 Elm St., San Carlos.

Photo credit: City of San Carlos

The Mardi Gras-minded among us can cancel flight reservations to New Orleans, because the Redwood City Downtown Business Group is introducing a stay-at-home version of the wintertime party for 2020. The Feb. 22 “Mardi Gras Carnival: Brass, Beads & Beignets” is a new event for the presenters, happening during a usual downtown lull between the Hometown Holidays hoopla and the summer music and festival scene. Sue Lehr Mitchell, a member of the group’s board, says Mardi Gras/Redwood City will be a family-friendly version that will include all the Big Easy features, including beads for throwing and for purchase, a parade with a grand marshal, dancing, booths and authentic beverages and cuisine plus four bands deeply rooted in the New Orleans sound. The main stage located at Main Street and Broadway will showcase the original New Orleans swamp rock, funk and blues performed by Fog Swamp; the music of Al Lazard & the World Street Players; MJ’s Brass Boppers; and the fast funky rhythms of Grammy-nominated Andre Thierry.  The event will start at 4:30 p.m. that Saturday and continue to 10 p.m. rain or shine. 

Rather than the usual event site at Courthouse Square, Mardi Gras will take place on Broadway (aka Bourbon Street) from Jefferson Avenue to Main, giving people more exposure to the restaurants in that part of downtown. Mitchell, who was chair of the Hometown Holidays event, is seeking sponsors for what she hopes will turn into an annual tradition, and says everyone she’s spoken to about the Redwood City Mardi Gras is looking forward to attending. That said, Mitchell has never attended the real deal in New Orleans. “I’m creating my own Mardi Gras,” she says with a laugh. For event information, contact her at 650.619.9311. 

Gentle nudging sometimes pays off. Jim Clifford, who writes Climate’s history column, has chronicled the story of the former KGEI radio station, which served as “the voice from home” for GI’s in the Pacific during World War II. The station’s transmitter building on Radio Road in Redwood Shores had once been a church but is now owned by Silicon Valley Clean Water and is used for office space. Clifford had asked SVCW management several times about bringing back the KGEI call letters on the front of the building, which were covered up. And he was pleasantly surprised recently to find that he got his wish, as the historic letters are once again visible. SVCW General Manager Teresa Herrera says she hadn’t even known about them until Clifford asked. Restoring the call letters wasn’t an extra expense because the building was being painted anyway. Construction Manager William Tanner says the “letters were in great shape, just as they were when concrete forms were removed in the 1930s.” An encouraging outcome for wannabe squeaky wheels. 

 Like the putative Mark Twain quote about reports of his death being greatly exaggerated, the much-lamented end of Woodside Deli after more than 60 years turns out to have been just a timeout. As deli aficionados around here know, the eatery had been owned and operated by Dan and Barbara Gallinetti, who retired in 2016. The couple sold it to Kyle Vogel, who remodeled and reopened it in 2018, only to shutter the deli last October, citing a hefty rent increase and employee costs among other factors.  

Enter Gallinetti nephew Brian Colombo, who had worked at Woodside Deli, with his brother, when they were in high school, and for the past 35 years at his own family’s Colombo Delicatessen in Pacifica. “We have a very close family,” says Colombo, adding that his cousins “are more like sisters to me than cousins.” Though the Colombos already have a full plate running their Pacifica deli and an online kitchen in San Francisco, the pull of family ties and Woodside Deli’s long history were compelling. “Everyone wanted to see the legacy live on in our family,” he says. He talked to the landlord and the rent seemed “realistic for our area.”   

So as of Dec. 15, Woodside Deli is open again—to hurrahs from dedicated customers. “I was kind of taken aback just because the community here is unbelievable,” Colombo says. The standard deli items, including the legendary Godfather sandwich, are still on the menu, but the Colombos are bringing in more cheeses, and possibly a grill for hot pastrami sandwiches and an espresso bar. His sons, Nick and Joe, also work in the business.  

Brian’s wife, Monica, however, is an executive assistant at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. How about the Woodside Deli’s phoenix story as a long-time family business for their next case study?  

 This story was originally published in the February print edition of Climate Magazine. 

Who doesn’t love a good mystery, especially one that takes us back in time? A tall, stately street clock stands on the edge of downtown Redwood City’s popular Courthouse Square, a literal landmark to hundreds of people who drive or walk by it every day. Yet little is known about its history. Little? Try next to nothing.  

Meghan Horrigan, Redwood City’s then-spokesperson, came up empty handed last August when she sought information about the clock at Broadway and Middlefield Road. “I attempted to reach out to multiple staff on this including Public Works, Community Development and Transportation,” she said. “We don’t have much background to go on.” In addition, the history museum in the old courthouse just yards from the clock didn’t yield a clue. 

A search, however, came up with a brief city news release in July of 2017 reporting that city workers cleaned the green, ten-foot high clock and made sure it was in working order. In addition, Greg Wilson, the peripatetic author of the popular Walking Redwood City blog, wrote in 2014 he had taken a photo of trees near the area of the clock, which “definitely wasn’t there then.”  One of Wilson’s readers posted that the clock used to be just a few yards away from its present location but was moved back to clear.

There was speculation the clock once stood near a home at the intersection of Vera Avenue and Alameda de las Pulgas, but that was not the case. Old photos show the Vera clock was very different. That landmark clock’s past is well known, but just where it stands today is yet another timepiece mystery. The woman living in the house on Vera said she knew the clock once stood in the front yard near her fence, but otherwise she didn’t have a clue as to its whereabouts. 

In August of 1973, The Redwood City Tribune ran a long feature story about the huge timepiece, calling it “Redwood City’s newest landmark.” The clock was described as 71 years old and 16-foot, 8-inch tall. The device belonged to Ernest Lantz who felt the clock “needed a home.” The clock was built in 1902 by E. Howard Co., one of the more famous clock-making firms in the United States.  The company’s resume included the four-faced street clock that stands on Market Street in San Francisco near the Flood Building.  Lantz’ clock, which had two 42-inch hands, was located outside a jewelry store in San Rafael from 1902 until 1970. “The owner had sold the store 20 years before and the clock fell into disrepair,” Lantz said. “It was hazardous. It leaked water and it didn’t tell time on one side. It needed restoration.” 

The restoration job took Lantz, an engineer at Stanford Research Institute, three years. He added a cement foundation and landscaped a small garden around the base. “It keeps perfect time,” Lantz said of the clock.  Weighing more than 3,000 pounds, it was driven by 125-pound lead weight pendulum that he cranked once a week up a cable that winds around a drum and differential between the dials.  In the interview, Lantz said the clock drew a lot of comment since it started keeping time a month earlier.   

“The policeman, street-sweepers and milkman all like it,” he said. “One man kept returning again and again and finally said ‘I missed its strike again.’” Lantz informed him that the clock doesn’t strike. 

The newspaper article said Lantz, his wife, two sons and a daughter had lived in the same house at 2290 Vera Ave. for 18 years. It is hoped that they or someone else in their neighborhood who knows about the clock will contact Climate with information. Ditto about the clock at Courthouse Square.  

Until then, time marches on.  

 This story was originally published in the February print edition of Climate Magazine. 

Life-changing potatoes may sound like a bit of an oversell, but I promise you: It isn’t. I’ll tell you why, and it involves a small confession on my part. A few months ago I was having a little bit of a food-writing lull. I was running short on ideas and inspiration, and was having a fairly significant “What is the point of all of this?” moment. Because let’s be honest, food writing, is a fairly noisy, inundated space. On top of that, it’s not as if dissecting the virtues of cilantro foam is a life-saving act.  

So needless to say, I was feeling a little down. Then, on a random Wednesday I read one of New York Times Food Editor Sam Sifton’s recipe-laden newsletters. This particular one included his recommendation for Greek Lemon Roasted Potatoes. I’m a sucker for a good potato recipe. Even more important, it looked simple enough and I had all of the ingredients. The mid-week culinary stars had aligned perfectly. 

With no extra effort than it takes to roast potatoes any other way, the end result was nothing short of magical. I think it’s because of the broth, oil and lemon bath in which they’re roasted, but these little cubes of wonder possessed a perfectly crispy, salty outer texture which then gave way to a soft, creamy center. It stopped me — and my husband — in our tracks. This recipe was quickly declared the only way to ever roast potatoes from then on, and we’ve stuck with that decree.   

As I was basking in the potato-fueled euphoria, I had a realization. Sifton’s recipe might not have saved my life, but it absolutely made an otherwise ho-hum Wednesday evening delicious and exciting. And that’s a win in and of itself. So I’m sharing the recipe here with all of you. Because sometimes saving a Wednesday night is just what the doctor ordered.  

New York Times’ Greek Lemon Roasted Potatoes  

 ½ cup chicken broth or water  

½ cup olive oil  

½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (from 3-4 large lemons)*  

1 Tablespoon kosher salt  

3 pounds of large Yukon Gold potatoes (about 6), peeled then halved lengthwise and crosswise* 

1 Tablespoon dried oregano (optional)  

Flaky salt and black pepper, for serving 

 *Ok so I lied a little bit in the article — I didn’t actually have lemons the first time I made this, and it was still delicious. Also, I have used multiple types of potatoes and the results are equally glorious.  

 Directions:

1. Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Toss the chopped potatoes onto a rimmed baking sheet.  
2. Mix together the olive oil, broth and lemon juice and salt. I find it’s easiest to just pour it all into one liquid  measuring cup, and give it a few stirs.  
3. Pour the liquid over the potatoes and mix it all around so the potatoes are coated evenly. 
4. Make sure the potatoes are spread out in an even layer. The New York Times says to make sure they’re “cut side down”. That feels like a lot of effort to me. Just make sure the potatoes are spread out evenly.
5. Sprinkle the oregano, if used.
6. Pop the potatoes into the oven. Set a timer for 25-30 minutes, because you’ll want to flip the potatoes half way through the baking process. Bake for another 25-30 minutes (about 55-60 minutes altogether).
7. If at the end of the cooking time the potatoes are cooked all the way through (tender with a fork) but not as crispy as you’d like them to be, switch to broiler mode and broil them for a few minutes.
8. Sprinkle with flaky salt and black pepper to taste. 

 This story was originally published in the February print edition of Climate Magazine. 

William “Willie” Hugh Turner comes from a long line of William Hugh Turners—he is the sixth with that triple-barreled name. Like his grandfather who flew in WWI and his father in WWII, the 55-year-old Turner loves flying machines. Historic, lore-laden, story-telling vehicles of man’s quest to conquer the sky are Willie Turner’s passion. A licensed pilot, he credits great fortune for landing him 25 years ago at Hiller Aviation Museum, which for a guy with his background, is like putting a kid in a candy shop. 

The Turner family history within the United States stretches back to when Humphry Turner stepped foot in the American colonies after setting out from Kent, England in 1632—12 years after the Mayflower landing. Through the centuries, one Turner ancestor after another has fought in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War (the North on his father’s side, the South on his mother’s), and in the two world wars.  

“I’m afraid the military tradition was broken by me,” Turner says, although his younger son Anthony, 22, forged the link anew by becoming an Air Force pilot. Son William, the 26-year-old seventh in the line of William Hugh Turners, is a commercial pilot with an eye on the new U.S. Space Force.  

Generation after generation, though, the aviator gene has been handed down. The Turner men –and a notable woman — have pretty much been flying since the inception of the airplane. 

Turner’s father got the aviation bug as a kid in the 1930s watching air shows and he developed a love for golden age air racers, eventually building nine full-sized flying replicas of his favorite racers. He became known throughout the aerospace industry as the authority on historic planes and restoration techniques.  

Turner’s mother, Gail, herself a pilot and not one to be left behind, built two airplanes: The Pink Baroness, a 1976 Bowers Flyby, and a 1979 Marquart MA-5 Charger biplane christened the Duchess Papillion, both of which Turner still owns and flies. 

Raised in Belmont, in a house he and his wife Aileen live in today, and encouraged to fly by both parents, Turner received his pilot’s license at age 18 and enjoyed the enviable freedom of flying any number of classic, high powered racers.  

A scary adventure was inevitable.  

Turner’s one crash came on July 21, 1991, at San Carlos Airport. And it was a doozy. He was flying his father’s “Miss Los Angeles,” a rebuilt 1936 Brown B-2 racer with a powerful Ranger 200-horsepower engine, which had recently been featured in the Disney film “The Rocketeer.”  

“I had a bit of a bounce on landing so I decided to go around again. But against my father’s warning, I added full power and pulled up the flaps on the second attempt. The big engine and little wings immediately torch rolled on me and I found myself flying inverted heading right for the power lines along 101. Luckily (and ironically) the museum wasn’t there in those days or I would have plowed right into the side of it. I decided to force the plane in upside down to avoid the powerlines and the freeway.” 

By chance, Turner hit at a 45-degree angle, which broke the engine in half but absorbed the impact. A chain-link fence along Skyway Road acted in the same way an arresting cable on an aircraft carrier does, bringing the broken plane to a halt. It came to rest upside down. 

Luckily the plane did not catch fire, as there was gas leaking everywhere. Turner’s rescuers came running to help pull the young pilot from the wreckage.  

“Someone lifted the tail up and someone else slid under to get me out. They asked me a series of checklist questions and then asked how to get me out. I said to pull on the seatbelt harness so they did. Unfortunately, I was upside down so when they released it and I fell about three feet to the concrete on my head.” 

Turner had survived a high-speed landing—inverted—only to break his neck getting out of the cockpit, an injury he feels the effects of to this day. “I don’t blame the rescuers because they were only trying to help and the plane could have caught fire at any time. Plus, who even knows what they would have found when they lifted up the cockpit. I could have easily been decapitated.”  

 In 1995 Turner was between jobs and researching what he might want to do with his career. While interviewing the manager at San Carlos Airport, he discovered there ere plans under way to build an aviation museum across the way. Good fortune was waiting just across the runway.  

When Stanley Hiller Jr. was laying plans for his museum, he went to the elder Turner and asked if the renowned restoration artist would head up the renovation department at the museum. “My dad said no as he was living in L.A., but would be glad to help set it up,” Turner recalls, “at the same time I was with him in all the meetings with Mr. Hiller. One day Dad couldn’t make a meeting, so he said, ‘You meet with Hiller—and take your resume.’”  

Hiller had hired retired Major General Jerry Shoemacher to get his new museum off the ground and Shoemacher said he needed a righthand man. Hiller hired Willie Turner, making him effectively employee Number 1 (the general insisted on being a short-term independent contractor). Turner became the fledgling museum’s “jack of all trades,” handling all aspects of operations, promotion and anything else that came up. The museum broke ground in 1996 and opened the doors in June of 1998. 

Hiller’s idea of the museum was one of aviation education and awareness more than the display of historic aircraft. In fact, his vision was for an institute of higher thinking and innovation for the industry. An aviation think tank. And as much as that element of the mission was never realized, education has been a central part of the museum’s fabric. 

“The museum has changed so much over the years,” says Turner. “Our educational programs have become huge thanks to our vice president of education, John Welte, who has completely turned the education department around. When we first started conducting camps it was for one week during the summer with 15 kids attending, and now we hold camps in the summer, spring and winter for over 1,500 students.”  

The lessons range from the basics of how an airplane flies to subjects like avionics, weather and physics. Topics directly relate to the STEM lessons teachers need demonstrated, fitting within the grade level required. 

“What’s great having been here so long is that I now have kids coming back to visit after becoming pilots,” Turner says with pride. 

From school field trips and week-long day camps that cater to kindergarten through elementary grades to corporate parties and premier events, Turner oversees them all—more than 50 per year.  

“This is a fun place to work,” says Turner. “We have great leadership that is willing to try new things all the time. We go by, ‘If we can think it we can try it.’ There is a real inspiration here to be creative.” 

The museum’s premier events have included Vertical Challenge, a unique helicopter-centered show, that over 13 years ultimately involved more than 50 hovering craft and attracted an audience of 8,000 for a two-day event. It grew so large for the available space that it became a victim of its own success, and the Federal Aviation Administration eventually stepped in and put the clamps on. Other events have included the Biggest Little Air Show, the Day of Drones, Noon Years, and various aviation lecture series.  

As the Hiller Museum’s Vice President of Operations & Communications, Turner is responsible for the everyday health and well-being of the building, while managing the marketing department and creating promotional events. Somehow that doesn’t aptly describe Turner’s contributions. 

The museum’s CEO, Jeffery Bass, perhaps says it best: “In many ways Willie embodies the heart and soul of the museum’s dedication to aviation adventure. He is a skilled pilot and aircraft owner with a decades-long track record of successful involvement in numerous airshows on the West Coast. He is the mastermind behind most of the museum’s aviation-focused events, from high-adrenaline helicopter airshows to scholarly lectures about aviation history.” 

Annual attendance at Hiller Museum now stands at 100,000. A long way from opening day in 1998. Hiller would be proud — and glad he tapped a young flyboy from an aviation family to help build his dream museum. 

 This story was originally published in the February print edition of Climate Magazine.

At Project WeHOPE’s “safe parking” lot in East Palo Alto, RV life dwells not in the abstract. On a rainy evening in January, lumbering homes on wheels rolled into the shelter to get off the street for the night. Bundled-up “residents” stood under a pop-up tent in the shivering cold chowing down a free dinner of chicken and rice from Styrofoam containers.  

Janitors. Housekeepers. The working poor, relieved to have a legal, protected haven in the shelter. 

Meanwhile, recreational-vehicle-living is far from an abstract concept either in the growing number of communities, now including Redwood City, where people priced out of the sizzling housing market are decamping to business districts and other people’s neighborhoods. To the consternation of both residential and business neighbors upset about sanitation, traffic and parking — not to mention the visual impact— the RVs are congregating in pockets along Stafford Street in the Centennial neighborhood next to the Caltrain tracks north of Whipple Avenue, in the Spring and Chestnut streets area south of Woodside Road, and along Veterans Boulevard and Walnut Street.  

The largest enclave is the line-up of upwards of 30 oversized vehicles, including a commuter-type bus and crippled motor homes, that snakes along Oddstad Drive, a frontage road north of the Maple Street freeway overpass.  

Business people and residents want the city to do something about on-street RV parking —banning it outright or finding somewhere else for them to park, among other solutions. 

Entwined with larger social problems with homelessness, it’s a polarizing issue that is cropping up all over the Bay Area and testing the idea of what “community” and “neighborhood” mean. In Mountain View, which has three overnight RV lots, the City Council last year passed a ban on parking by oversized vehicles, which has been challenged by residents who think it’s unfair and inhumane. The ban’s repeal is now headed for a citywide vote in November. The Palo Alto City Council plans a trial of allowing RVs to park at interested churches. 

The Redwood City Council has an ad-hoc committee, which includes Councilmembers Diana Reddy and Gisele Hale and has been meeting with neighbors and RV residents and visiting other cities to see what’s working elsewhere. The goal is to come up with recommendations for the full Redwood City Council by the spring. 

“It’s a very sensitive, highly complicated issue that on the one hand, the vast majority of people who are living in RVs tend to be displaced renters,” says Reddy, who has gone door-to-door to find out who lives in the RVs. Most, she has found, are people who work locally and live in RVs “in order to make working here viable for them” not the small percentage with the mental health or substance abuse issues so many fear. 

“The people that I talked to are doing what they can given the situation,” Reddy says. “… No one is trying to take advantage of the residents. Some people are not taking care of their footprint and I’d like to address that, but I have not talked to anyone that I felt was trying to take advantage or had ill feelings toward the residents or were trying to do anything detrimental to Redwood City.” 

City officials have been meeting with neighbors and working on near-term answers to their concerns both with homeless encampments and RVs, including reports of human waste and trash being left behind, drug-dealing and other unsavory activities. Following a Dec. 3 meeting with Centennial residents, city crews came back Dec. 12 and did street sweeping and trash collection on Stafford Street, which hadn’t been done in two years, according to Jim Hedges, the neighborhood association co-chair. 

The City Council has also set aside $150,000 in one-time funds, two thirds of which will be used for safe dumping of sewage and other waste and removal of hazardous items and debris.  

Addressing the complaints on Oddstad Drive is a pressing issue, and a meeting was held Jan. 23 with affected business people.  

Marlene Guinasso manages La Petite Playhouse, an indoor play and party space for young children. “We’re down about 18 percent from last year, and it’s really impacted our business because people complain that there’s no parking,” she says. “People complain that they feel unsafe parking around the area. I try to assure them that they (the RV dwellers) don’t bother anybody. But yeah, honestly, there’s drug-dealing there. We see it all the time.”  

From the window of the Jewelry Exchange store on Oddstad, Bob Butera sees the same RVs every day, despite signs prohibiting parking between 2 a. m. and 5 a.m. “Once in a while, you’ll see a police car drive by but that’s all they do is drive by. They don’t stop. They don’t do anything.” The RV-dwellers who go to work and come back to sleep aren’t creating the problems, Butera says. It’s those who are doing drug deals, having bonfires at night and cooking outdoors.  

Redwood City Police Capt. Ashley Osborne, who commands the Patrol Division, maintains that enforcement that is happening isn’t necessarily visible. Police issue citations which are picked up by the owner. People cited for certain drug-related or Penal Code offenses no longer have to go to jail, as a result of the recategorization of some felonies as misdemeanors after Prop. 47 passed in 2014. “We leave and they’re still there.”    

Absent an outright ban, the only available enforcement tool is a 72-hour limit on parking of vehicles of any kind, but a driver only needs to move it one vehicle length to be legal. It can be cited and potentially towed, but RVs take up a lot of space in tow yards and not all companies are equipped to handle oversized vehicles.  

“It’s a much different animal than just towing a vehicle that might be in violation of the 72-hour violation just because of its size,” Osborne says. “It’s also someone’s residence. It’s not just a vehicle and there’s more issues involved with that.” However, the department recently got authorization to hire two dedicated parking officers, who Osborne hopes will make a difference. 

Police are working with other city departments and outside agencies to mitigate the impacts of homelessness and the growing transient population. “Not to say we don’t have a role,” Osborne adds. “We do. But I don’t think we can solve the problem out of the PD.” 

For people who can’t keep up with rising rents, an RV may seem their only option. But even at local trailer and RV parks, it’s slim pickings.  

“I am full until 2021,” says Robin Matthias, manager of the 130-space Sequoia Trailer Park on Barron Avenue, who has a waiting list of nearly two-dozen for various sized RVs. Monthly rent is $1,032 for a 30-amp vehicle or $258 a week; tenants have access to laundry, showers and toilets.  Ninety-five percent are local.  

Matthias is sympathetic. “I wish I had a double-decker park but I don’t.” Indeed, if she weren’t able to live onsite, “I would be out of here myself.” 

Councilmember Reddy says the RV dwellers include people who live in distant but more affordable areas like Stockton or Manteca and used to rent a room during the week and go home on weekends. “That’s no longer the case.” If someone is doing what he can to provide for his family, “I’m not willing to say that one person is more entitled than another person to have housing.” 

Hedges, the Centennial neighborhood leader, concedes that the long-distance commuters parking RVs have been “pretty decent,” but he maintains that RV dwellers should not be considered part of a neighborhood. “If they’re my neighbors, I’d like to know something about them. If Fred moves in, I know in a month whether he’s a drug dealer or not. But these people, you don’t know what they are.” He figures the ultimate solution will be for the city to create RV areas with essential services, as has happened in East Palo Alto, “basically setting up an RV park for them.”  

Deputy City Manager Alex Khojikian responds that it’s premature to talk about possible sites or the eventual recommendations: “We’re working on it over the next couple of months but we’ll be looking at everything.”  

One of those places is Project WeHOPE’s RV shelter, which helps people get back onto the road to self-sufficiency, according to President and co-founder Paul Bains. The fortunate few who have been vetted to take refuge at the shelter since it opened in May 2019 have had access to feeding programs, showers and laundry facilities, but must follow guidelines. They can take classes such as in financial literacy.  So far, 13 families have moved into housing; only two RV dwellers were found to have drug issues, says Bains, who is a pastor. “We are told it’s the first of its kind in the country.”  

The RV dwellers get a permit that allows them into the shelter lot from 7:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m., and they can also park during the day on city streets despite a ban on oversized vehicles. Priority is given to families from East Palo Alto and Menlo Park who have kids, then seniors, then veterans and down the list. The facility is on city-owned land and East Palo Alto covers about two-thirds of the $330,000 annual cost.  

“Most of these people have been priced out,” Bains says of the demographic. “Loss of jobs. Medical bills. The rent increased by 30, 40, 50 percent. That’s the reason why they are in that position. They are the working poor.”  

That profile fits four residents interviewed for this story, most speaking with the help of a Spanish-speaking interpreter.  Two were janitors, one of whom lost his job and then was injured in a motorcycle accident and can’t work. A 58-year-old housekeeper said she and her husband couldn’t afford $2,000 to rent their studio apartment, and are living in an RV now with her sister-in-law, 51, a housekeeper, who’d been paying $800 for a single room.  Parking on the street was frightening and the women are a deeply grateful to Project WeHOPE. 

Says Bains, if someone can change the trajectory of one person or one family living in an RV, “that’s a life being impacted in a positive way.”  

 This story was originally published in the February print edition of Climate Magazine.