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Bakery shop burglary suspect arrested

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An arrest had been made in the burglary at a local bakery on Tuesday.

Manuel Magdaleno, 28, of Redwood City, was arrested on burglary and vandalism charges in connection with the incident at Emily’s Cakes at 3102 Middlefield Road, according to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.

The sheriff’s office said Magdaleno broke into the business at about 11:20 p.m. by
shattering a glass door, then broke open two cash registers and stole money before fleeing.

The business “had high quality surveillance cameras that recorded” Magdaleno, recognized from a previous burglary in January, committing the crime, the sheriff’s office said. Magdaleno was on probation due to the January incident.

On Wednesday at 11:48 a.m.,  Magdaleno was arrested at his home, where evidence of the bakery shop burglary was found, the sheriff’s office said.

Anyone who has additional information regarding this burglary, or additional crimes carried out by Magdeleno, is encouraged to contact Deputy Arcila at Marcila@smcgov.org or call the Sheriff’s Office anonymous tip line at 1-800-547-2700.

New org aims to bridge gap between local tech industry and schools

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Redwood City has experienced immense growth in the past decade, especially within the tech industry, with more than 150 tech companies calling Redwood City home today.

But that growth hasn’t trickled down to the local school system, according to Dan Ho, Cody Voellinger and Jane Buescher, local parents and denizens of the tech industry. Budget cuts due to declining enrollment recently forced the Redwood City School District, where over half of kids are income eligible to receive free or reduced lunches, to close four schools.

And so Ho, Voellingera and Buescher have founded Community Best, a nonprofit aimed at supporting the school district by connecting it to the local tech community.

Redwood City Mayor Ian Bain, who joined the Community Best team as a Special Advisor, said the city needs “corporate neighbors with great people, ingenuity and resources to get involved.”

“I joined Community Best in an advisory role to help bridge the gap between tech companies and local communities,” Bain said in a statement.

Tom Moss, COO at Skydio, an autonomous drone startup headquartered in Redwood City, expressed a desire to “give back and also deepen our ties with the community and local schools.” Meanwhile, Sandra Oh Lin, CEO of KiwiCO, says her company “wants STEAM education available to all children.”

“Our mission at KiwiCo is to provide the next generation of innovators with the tools and a foundation to become creative problem-solvers and critical thinkers,” Lin said. “So we are excited to partner with Community Best and contribute to STEAM initiatives at Redwood City schools.”

Community Best is hosting their first fundraiser to support Redwood City Schools, a “Night Out with Community Best,” on Thursday, May 30 at Angelicas in Redwood City. Tickets are still on sale and can be purchased here.

For more information about Community Best and ways you can get involved you can visit their website here.

Redwood City aims to incentivize ADUs while also addressing concerns about them

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Redwood City is aiming to incentivize the construction of accessory dwelling units while also addressing community concerns about them, such as their height and impact on neighbor privacy.

On Tuesday, the Redwood City Planning Commission discussed and, at points, challenged recommendations by city staff to amend zoning code related to accessory dwelling units (ADUs), otherwise known as in-law units. State legislation in 2016 aiming to incentivize ADUs to address the housing crisis led to a sharp increase in applications to construct them in Redwood City. Neighbors have posed concerns about ADUs being built atop garages that overlook their yards, cast shadows and may not be aesthetically compatible with neighborhoods.

To address concerns, staff recommends reducing allowable height from 28 feet (the current maximum height for single-family homes) to 24 feet, although the Planning Commission has asked staff to explore reducing the height limit even further.

Some of the city recommendations aim to incentivize construction of ADUs. The city is proposing to increase their allowable size from 800 to 1,000 square feet and to reduce single-story rear setbacks from 10 feet to 6.

See the list of recommended changes below.

City staff aims to review the recommendations further and return to the Planning Commission with any revisions as soon as June 18.

Second Story ADUs and Privacy:

  • Reduce maximum heights for second-story ADUs above garages from 28 ft. to 24 ft. to limit height and mass and to keep units secondary to the single-family home.
  • Restrict exterior stairs, balconies, and roof decks facing immediately adjacent neighbors to reduce privacy impacts.
  • Require opaque or clerestory windows when facing immediately adjacent side and rear neighbors to reduce privacy impacts.
  • Prohibit roof decks above accessory structures to reduce privacy impacts.

One Story ADUs:

  • Reduce single-story rear setbacks from 10 ft. to 6 ft. to increase ADU production.
  • Exempt ADUs from a 50% rear lot coverage requirement to increase buildable footprint in the rear yard.
  • Allow replacement of detached garages into ADUs to incentivize one-story ADU construction and to ensure new structures into compliance with setbacks.
  • Increases ADA maximum size from 800 sq. ft. to 1,000 sq. ft. in order to incentivize construction.
  • Exempt one-story ADUs from the Hillside Ordinance to reduce further barriers to ADU construction

San Carlos man arrested in alleged sexual assault on minor

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A 57-year-old San Carlos man has been arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a minor twice after meeting the victim using an online dating app, according to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.

Jeffrey Ramsden was arrested and booked at the Maguire Correctional Facility on Friday, May 17, following an investigation, the sheriff’s office said.

Ramsden sexually assaulted the victim on two occasions in a private San Carlos home, the sheriff’s office said.

“We believe there are potentially more victims out there that may have been contacted by Ramsden via online dating applications,” the sheriff’s office said.

If you or someone you know has had contact with Ramsden, contact Detective Joe Fava at 650-363-4192 or email him at jfava@smcgov.org.

Bair Island Aquatic Center to offer free rowing lessons June 1

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In honor of National Learn to Row Day, the Bair Island Aquatic Center boathouse will be open to anyone interested in learning to row at a free event on Saturday, June 1.

This event will run from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the boathouse at 1450 Maple St. No experience is necessary.

“Have an opportunity to spend some time on an erg (rowing machine) to get the feel for different parts of the rowing stroke and go on the water in a rowing shell,” organizers said.

To register online, go here: www.gobair.org and click on “Upcoming Free Event.”

Political Climate with Mark Simon: Will state senate race remain drama-free?

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The buzz around the wide-open race for the 13th State Senate District is that there is no buzz.

There are five able and reasonably well-credentialed Democrats running to replace Democrat Jerry Hill, who is termed out next year. But the talk among political insiders is that the field is not generating any excitement and that someone else might still get into the race. It’s not entirely fair, I suppose, because “someone else” can always seem more intriguing than the people who actually are running.

The five candidates continue to soldier on, of course, raising money, gathering endorsements and holding campaign events. And even though the primary is still more than 10 months away – the filing period for the race is still six months away – the opportunity for “someone else” diminishes every day.

In about a month, the candidates will disclose their latest fundraising reports, and we can expect public interest entrepreneur Josh Becker to continue to win the money race.

We also can expect that Redwood City Councilwoman Shelly Masur will have raised a viable amount of money – nothing like Becker’s totals, but enough to run a competitive campaign. Similarly, Burlingame Councilman Michael Brownrigg is likely to have sufficient funds on hand, although a fair amount may be his own money.

It’s hard to know how much money will have been raised by Millbrae Councilwoman Annie Oliva. She got into the race only recently and the word is that she is backed heavily by the local Realtors organizations. We’ll see if they’re ready to pony up so early in the race. As for former Assemblywoman Sally Lieber from Mountain View, she barely raised any money in the last fundraising cycle and there is no indication that is going to change this time.

Meanwhile, the candidates are scrambling to collect endorsements, and Masur appears to be leading that part of the race. Masur, it is said, has extensive ties to organized labor and that shows up in endorsements from carpenters, sheet metal workers and sprinkler fitters. Her high-profile endorsements include state Treasurer Fiona Ma, San Mateo County Sheriff Carlos Bolanos, former state Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin and state Senator Connie Leyva, who chairs the state Legislature’s Women’s Caucus. And she has gathered endorsements from council members from Redwood City, Belmont, Burlingame, Brisbane, Foster City, Half Moon Bay, Mountain View, San Carlos, Sunnyvale and Pacifica. Head of an education nonprofit, Masur also has endorsements from 36 school board members throughout the district.

Becker’s high-profile endorsements including San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, South Bay Congressman Ro Khanna, Assemblymen Phil Ting, Ash Kalra and David Chiu, and councilmembers from Mountain View, Menlo Park, Los Altos, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto and Sunnyvale. Also endorsing: Lenny Mendonca, chief economic advisor to Gov. Gavin Newsom, Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith and Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen. San Mateo County Supervisor Warren Slocum also has endorsed Becker, as has Supervisor David Canepa, who is so full of political largesse that he also has endorsed Brownrigg.

Brownrigg also has endorsements from councilmembers from Atherton, Half Moon Bay, South San Francisco, San Carlos, San Bruno and all four of his colleagues on the Burlingame Council.

Oliva listed no endorsements on her campaign Facebook or web pages. And Lieber also listed no endorsements, which seems a little strange given her status as a past officeholder and her ties to progressive Democratic politics in Santa Clara County. Perhaps they’ll come later, or that she’s focused in other areas.

As for Facebook pages, for what it’s worth, Lieber has the most followers, 1,182. Becker has 1,035, Masur 932, Brownrigg 482 and Oliva five, although, it should be disclosed, I’m one of them because I’m following all the candidates.

NOTES, QUOTES AND EPISODES: If you thought it was too early for candidates to be running in a 2020 Senate race, cast a tremulous glance toward Belmont City Councilman Charles Stone, who last week held a high-profile kickoff to his campaign for the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors seat currently occupied by Carole Groom. You may have noticed that Groom was only re-elected a scant seven months ago and still has three years to go on her current term. Yes, that means Stone announced for an election in 2022. He seems slightly embarrassed to be announcing this early. But only slightly.  And it didn’t appear to diminish the number of people who showed up for Stone’s kickoff, which included Assemblyman Kevin Mullin, who announced he has endorsed Stone. Also on hand were four members of the San Mateo City Council. This is notable because the other likely candidate for this seat is San Mateo City Councilman Rick Bonilla, who apparently will not have the support and encouragement of his council colleagues.

Two-term San Carlos City Councilman Ron Collins, after several weeks mulling it over, has decided to run for re-election next year. “I don’t think I’m done,” Collins said. “I don’t think I’ve finished the job.” Collins has a long list of issues he still wants to tackle, including housing, transportation, commercial development and better recreational facilities for the City of Good Living. Collins also serves on the SamTrans and Caltrain boards of directors, which gives San Carlos a voice on two of the more critical regional bodies. “I’ve learned a lot in the last seven years. I not only want to continue that learning experience, but apply what I’ve learned,” Collins said. He said there is an energy in the current political environment that undoubtedly will result in several candidates for the two seats that will be up next year. Incumbent Mark Olbert also has indicated he will run again. Last year’s city council election cost candidates between $25,0090 and $30,000 and Collins said he expects his race will cost at least that much. “It’s my hometown,” Collins said. “It’s where I grew up. I love it as much as I ever have.”

Contact Mark Simon at mark.simon24@yahoo.com.

*The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Climate Online.

Hart family’s impassioned plea for enhanced police training, equipment

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“Our officers deserve to have the best tools and resources available to them. And our citizens in crisis deserve dignity and support.”

Those were just some of the impassioned words spoken by Kristin Hart during the Redwood City Council meeting on Monday. Hart’s whose husband, Kyle Hart, was fatally shot during an encounter with police on Dec. 10, 2018. She was joined by Kyle’s mother, Lori, and other family, friends and supporters in advocating for law enforcement changes they believe will help prevent fatal police encounters in the future.

After Kyle’s death, the family and their supporters spent several months learning about police best practices, equipment, policies and training. They presented their findings to council Monday with help from a retired law enforcement veteran with expertise in use of force tactics.

Their recommendations involved improving department-wide crisis intervention training, equipping every patrol car with M40 bean bag guns along with Tasers, and body cameras for all patrol officers. Kristin Hart felt it was her responsibility to share their knowledge and influence change.

Their advocacy has already made a difference. Mayor Ian Bain and City Manager Melissa Stevenson Diaz met with the Harts to discuss their research. At Monday’s council meeting, the mayor said the city is already working on a plan to equip all officers with body cameras by year’s end, and is “seriously considering all of the recommendations and research.”

“I applaud the Hart family for wanting to try to make something positive come out of this terrible situation,” said Bain, who knew Kyle as his daughter’s social studies teacher.

Like many in the community, the mayor said he was “shocked and saddened” by the news of Kyle’s death.

Kyle Hart, 33, was a devoted father who loved teaching middle school and also liked to bike, surf, sail and travel, his wife said. He was being treated for anxiety that had been under control with common medication and a healthy lifestyle, she said.

Then, on the morning of Dec. 10, 2018, Kyle had an unexpected reaction to his medication, causing him to become suicidal. According to an investigation by the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office, Kyle was attempting to commit suicide by cutting himself with a large kitchen knife when his wife called police to their Lincoln Avenue home. Kristin pointed two arriving officers in the direction of her husband toward the backyard. During their encounter with Hart,  Hart didn’t respond to officer calls to put his knife down, and then reportedly charged at the officers with the knife raised. After one officer unsuccessfully fired a Taser, the other fired his gun five times, striking Hart three times.

In March, the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office decided not to pursue criminal charges against the officers involved, saying its investigation revealed the use of lethal force was justifiable under the law.

The Hart family, however, say their investigation shows equipment and training could have prevented Kyle’s death.

“We support public service agencies, including our police department, but like any agency, there are always opportunities for improvement,” Kristin Hart said. “With our city’s recent growth, it is not a surprise that changes need to happen.”

Added Kyle’ mother, Lori, “My son was an authentic and amazing person who led a very full and meaningful life. Neither this work nor the way he died will define his legacy. His legacy will be defined by his beautiful children, the love his family and friends will carry with them, and how we will move forward with him, in our hearts, to make a more inclusive and kinder community. But nevertheless this work is very important and must be a priority. It is simply the right thing to do.”

Redwood City’s Famous Climate Fertile Terroir for Backyard Vineyards

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Eight thousand years ago a farmer somewhere in the Georgia region of Central Asia stepped out of his stone dwelling to check the grape vines in his yard, hoping they were ready for the wine crush. He was one of the first.

Eight thousand years later Russell Muzzolini stepped on his porch on Valota Road in Redwood City and did the same, the green leaves of the vines blending into the vista of Red Morton Park beyond, across the street.

So did Tom Boyle on Don Court, Ann Ramsay on Alameda de las Pulgas, Bill Butler on Montelena Court and many other residents with their own yards of vines, each of them participating in one of the oldest, most maddening and most rewarding endeavors in human history: winemaking.

This is a great place to grow wine grapes. Of the more than 100 American Viticultural Areas designated in California by the Alcohol and Tobacco and Trade Bureau, one, the Santa Clara Mountains AVA, comes right down the hills to Interstate 280 and almost touches Redwood City at Woodside Road. That puts the hills above the city on the map of AVAs that includes Stags Leap, Oakville, St. Helena and internationally renowned growers.

David Page says of the region, it’s “an amazing place to grow wine, because of the moderate climate and because of the elevation and because of the variety and richness of the soil. If Silicon Valley weren’t here it would probably be a more gigantic version of Napa.”

Page’s two businesses in the Fair Oaks area — Post & Trellis, which designs and builds vineyards for private clients; and La Honda Winery, which makes wine and hosts 150 functions a year in its event space — manage 35 acres with 35,000 vines on 50 scattered plots. One of them is a homestead with 110-year-old Cabernet and Zinfandel vines that has been in the same family since 1860.The wine is good, and the soil and climate are productive.

Butler gets the equivalent of 3,500 bottles of Cabernet and Merlot out of the fewer-than-two-acres vineyard in his Woodside backyard. His yard is within the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA.

A poor producer would yield fewer than 3,000 bottles in the space; a commercial producer might get over 10,000. But Butler’s spaced his vines eight feet by eight feet, which cut the size of the vineyard by a third compared to a commercial operation.

It’s good wine.

“I sold some to a guy named George Lucas,” he said. “He bought a case and then called and said ‘I want another case.’ Our niece went to Marin Catholic and he was at an auction and we provided the wine.”

Thousands of people have had the same chance as George Lucas. At any number of charitable fundraisers — for Kainos, the San Mateo Police Activities League, the Sheriff’s Athletic League, Susan G. Komen breast cancer research, Hope Services, the Make-a-Wish Foundation or Lucille Salter Packard Children’s Hospital — chances are that Butler’s Montelena Vineyards wine was served. And that attendees had the chance to bid on it. He estimates this wine has helped nonprofits generate more than $100,000.

Muzzolini’s 10-year-old vineyard is whatever fits onto his standard 5,000- square-foot residential lot, after the house. His 33 plants are both low-water-use landscaping and grape workhorses that, in a good year, could make 10 to 20 gallons of Cabernet, Zinfandel and Pinot Noir.

“I could probably get a half barrel, 12 cases, which is not bad if the animals would not eat all my stuff,” he said. “I’ve never got to that … the more I think about it the more I think I’m devastated by stuff getting eaten by animals, so I usually only end up getting maybe only half of that. It must be that animals talk to each and know to come by.”

His is a melting pot of invaders, raccoons, possums, squirrels. He doesn’t get many deer.

Tom Boyle does. He and wife Catherine are hanging up their Brix meters and retiring the TomCat Vineyards label after almost 20 years. He hasn’t decided what to do with the 58 Sangiovese plants next door to Sequoia Hospital.

They netted the vineyard, installed water “scarecrows” and watched the grapes, but the vermin, especially the deer, won. “The vines were just starting to bud and the grapes were nothing more than a little tiny speck,” Tom Boyle said. “They came early and I wasn’t prepared and they ate everything in one and a half days. They took the whole crop away.”

Expense also is figuring into his decision. “By the time we could actually make some grapes it was 2005, but it was $40 a bottle to make … I felt good. I liked it. We both enjoyed doing that, having the wine, sharing it with our friends, that was all fun. But that just seemed too expensive after a while. It just didn’t seem right to spend that much money.

“My ego was not that great,” he said.

Tom Boyle still likes the idea of a vineyard, because it connects with his father-in-law, an Italian immigrant who built the house. “He passed away when we did all of this, but I would have liked to have seen him walking through the vineyard here on his property. He would have been really happy to see that. … I’m a little melancholy that I’m not going to continue.”

Ramsay is in a similar predicament for different reasons. Thousands of people are surprised every day to suddenly come upon her two-acre vineyard hard on the side of the road at Alameda de las Pulgas and Polhemus Avenue, a burst of agriculture among block after block of gated mansions.

She’s the third-generation owner of the land and the mind behind what once was Orchard Hills Vineyards’ Pinot and Sauvignon Blanc wines. At one time they were sold at local supermarkets and liquor shops.

“I planted this vineyard in 1994,” she said. “I thought it would be so exciting. It was exciting then. Maybe a little less now that the accountant sat down with me and said, ‘Do you know how much this vineyard’s costing you?’

“I almost passed out.”

Her vineyard is connected with Napa Valley wine royalty. The planter was Jim Barbour. Barbour started his career driving a tractor for Laurie Wood, who with Charles Carpy, brought Freemark Abbey out of dormancy in the 1960s. In 1976 Freemark was one of the six American wineries that competed for honors against four legendary French wineries in the famous “Judgment of Paris.” The high finishes of the American wines established the fame of the Napa wine region.

Barbour Vineyards today produces 300 cases of estate wine handmade by Celia Welch Grace Family Vineyards, one of whose wines auctioned for $160,000 at the 2012 Naples Winter Wine Festival.

Ramsay has had much experience with vineyard managers and winemakers, some good, some bad. At one low point Barbour told her, “Ann, go to Safeway and buy your wine.”

But she has persisted and is now very happy with the vineyard management of David Page and La Honda Winery. La Honda blends her grapes and produces a Sauvignon Blanc that she says is “just delicious.”

Her problems come on two, not four, legs. Her large property is prime Atherton real estate and one of the very last of its size in the urban landscape. The town is not an enthusiastic booster.

“I just hope, if La Honda doesn’t want to do it any more, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll try to find somebody new before I rip it up, but I’m not going into the wine business again.”

On the other hand, “I like to look at the vineyard. I eat the grapes,” she said.

Butler and Muzzolini, though, show no signs of giving up their bottle labels.

Butler was looking for “cheap landscaping” 25 years ago — a vineyard cost half the price of two acres of landscaping — and he didn’t drink wine when he hired Bob Mullen, founder of Woodside Vineyards, to establish the vineyard. Woodside’s Brian Caselden still makes the wine. Butler’s so committed that he built a magnificent 1,000-bottle wine cave and tasting room under the house and has 10,000 bottles in off-site storage.

“Cheaper than landscaping? I was kidding. It was landscaping gone awry,” Butler said.

“By the time I’m all done, assuming the land’s free, it’s 20-, 30-dollars a bottle. We don’t use anything non-natural on this property and it’s not the way I used to do it — my daughter’s a strident environmentalist — but obviously it’s a great idea. It’s a lot more work and costs a lot more money, but that’s all right.

“The fewer grapes I pick, the less money I lose. So you have a bad harvest, I’m way up front,” Butler said.

Muzzolini is converting his vineyard, not abandoning it. As Cabernet vines give up growing or get eaten, he replants with Zinfandel and Pinot.

“That’s the journey of the past eight to 10 years now, trying to figure out what’s the best,” he said.

He produces every bottle of Vinneria Muzzolini wine in his garage and has a barrel room in his basement, maintains years-long good connections with Thomas Fogarty Winery in the Santa Cruz Mountains and knows where to pick up more grapes when he wants to augment the pick.

“It’s sort of died down as far as how aggressively I try to produce and sell wine now, so it’s more doing it for fun, which is where I started. But what’s the old saying? ‘How do you make a little money in wine? You take a lot of money and invest it in a vineyard.'”

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

Political Climate with Mark Simon: Caltrain power struggle may derail progress

in Featured/Headline/PoliticalClimate by
Caltrain will operate 42 trains instead of 92 every weekday starting March 26

You had to look quickly or you would have missed the notice of a special, closed session meeting on this month’s Caltrain agenda. The significance of the short-lived notice is that there is a struggle going on at Caltrain over how the agency is managed and by whom.

And that’s a shame. Of the transit systems on the Peninsula, Caltrain has been the most effective and most efficiently run.

For decades, the Caltrain board was a model of regional cooperation and there were numerous instances when a representative from one of the three counties on the Peninsula would put their parochial interests aside in favor of what might have been the greater good for the entire Caltrain system. None of which seems to matter to people who can’t seem to leave well enough alone.

It was too good to last, I suppose, but there is no question representatives of San Francisco and Santa Clara counties are determined to assert their own interests, particularly as San Francisco and San Jose scurry to build huge infrastructure projects of which Caltrain is a central part.

They will say they are doing this under the name of restructuring Caltrain’s governance, and that they want Caltrain to be an independent agency. Putting aside how impractical – and expensive – such an independent agency would be, what they really object to is that Caltrain is managed independently from them, and they can’t stand that thought, something that was made very clear in a recent posting by one board member on the Friends of Caltrain Facebook page.

Of course, San Francisco’s track record of running transportation keeps getting worse. The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority hasn’t especially covered itself in glory, either, whether it’s running bus and light rail or delivering the massive BART-to-San Jose project on time and on budget. So, certainly, let’s give them more authority over a transit system that is widely considered successful.

In the interests of full disclosure, I worked for Caltrain for more than decade, the last two years for Caltrain Executive Director Jim Hartnett, who also is a friend of mine and whose integrity and sense of fairness are beyond question. I have not talked to him about this column, but, most assuredly, my views are a direct result of serving Caltrain.

Anyway, back to the special session, which was described as a performance review of Hartnett. The Caltrain board actually has no “performance review” authority over Hartnett. Hartnett works for the San Mateo County Transit District, which is one of three partner agencies that own Caltrain, the other two being the City and County of San Francisco and VTA.

Since 1992, when the Caltrain partnership was formed, SamTrans has been the managing partner. That means the general manager of SamTrans also is the executive director of Caltrain (and also runs SamTrans and the San Mateo County Transportation Authority – three jobs in one, managing five separate budgets and three separate boards of directors. The job is not for the faint of heart). The SamTrans board hires the general manager, and, in so doing, hires the executive director of Caltrain. The SamTrans board does the general manager’s performance review and it includes his performance as executive director of Caltrain and the TA.

When Mike Scanlon left the agency and Hartnett was hired to replace him in 2016, San Francisco representatives, in particular, were upset they didn’t get to make the decision. It’s an objection that didn’t come up when Scanlon was hired, or any of his predecessors. Only once Hartnett was hired have some board members tried to insert themselves into his performance evaluation and raised the specter of governance, which, again, is a code word for putting Caltrain in the hands of San Francisco and Santa Clara County.

They don’t care whether the agency is being well-run. They care that they don’t get to run it.

And, it should be noted, the management of Caltrain by SamTrans is an astonishing bargain.

SamTrans employees who work on Caltrain – either full-time or part-time – are billed to Caltrain, but at a rate that comes nowhere close to the amount of actual work being done.

Consider Hartnett as a prime example. He is paid an annual “stipend” of $85,000 for serving as executive director of Caltrain. That amounts to 16 percent of his total compensation. I can absolutely guarantee you that Hartnett spends more than 16 percent of his time on Caltrain. If you add the stipend to his base salary, it still represents only 22 percent. It’s the same for most of the executives at SamTrans who work on the Caltrain system.

In fact, SamTrans has been carrying Caltrain for years.

Aside from screwing up a well-run agency that is moving forward with revolutionary plans to electrify, this behind-the-scenes maneuvering is likely to torpedo any effort to pass a three-county sales tax and finally bring home the Caltrain holy grail – a permanent, dedicated and reliable source of revenue.

As recent polling showed, the tax measure is on the cusp of defeat. That can change for the better. Or, if the Caltrain board continues to wallow in parochial self-interests, it can get worse.

Contact Mark Simon at mark.simon24@yahoo.com.

*The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Climate Online.

Redwood City selects district map after turbulent process

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After a controversial six-month process, the Redwood City Council adopted a map that will change how residents elect councilmembers.

And this time, the council’s decision hasn’t led to a protest.

Under the threat of legal action, Redwood City is transitioning from an at-large election system, where residents vote for all seven council members, to a district-based election system, where they vote only for council candidates running in their district. Hundreds of California jurisdictions have been forced to make this transition under the legal claim that at-large systems violate the California Voting Rights Act of 2002 by discriminating against minorities and minority candidates.

But the process to divide the city into seven districts has been divisive on the council and in the community. After its seventh public hearing on the issue on Monday, City Council approved by a 6-1 vote a revised version of district map 13h crafted by the city’s demographer. City staff says the map complies with federal and state laws and best addresses community concerns.

The decision came down to three maps: 13h, 21f and 13g, all of which included two minority-majority districts, which is in the spirit of the Voting Rights Act. A majority of councilmembers expressed support for maps 13h and 21f, as they allowed Redwood Shores, where community members have historically felt lacking of a voice at City Hall, to have its own independent district. Six councilmember voted in favor of 13h, with only Councilmember Alicia Aguirre, who preferred 21f, voting no.

Councilmember Diana Reddy expressed opposition to having Redwood Shores as an independent district, wanting it to be combined with Bair Island.

“Bair Island has a very large Asian population,” Reddy said. “Combining Bair Island with Redwood Shores empowers the Asian community and separating them promotes isolation in my opinion.”

That opinion wasn’t shared by a large contingent of Redwood Shores community members who advocated for their own district. Councilmember Borgens said she would have supported combining Redwood Shores and Bair Island if it made Redwood Shores residents feel included at City Hall. But in her discussions with residents, she said it became apparent an independent district was the most inclusive approach (story continues below map).

“I will not support 13g because it doesn’t do what you are requesting loudly and clearly,” she said.

Mayor Ian Bain said 13H did the best job out of the three considered maps in keeping the neighborhood associations together. City staff said 13h also reflected resident feedback by “retaining the Centennial neighborhood together as part of an overall district, maintaining the Downtown neighborhood as part of an overall district, connecting the East Bayshore neighborhood with the Friendly Acres neighborhood, and connecting the Bair Island neighborhood with the Downtown neighborhood.”

Districts 1, 3, 4, and 7 from that map will begin voting in the new district election system in 2020. The remaining districts will join district elections in 2022, although by then the map will be redrawn to reflect the 2020 Census.

In an effort to avoid future controversy, a citizen’s advisory group is being considered to help develop the next map, Vice Mayor Diane Howard said.

“Considering what little time we had and the importance of making sure the whole community had a voice, I’m glad we did it this way this particular time, and I think we all learned a lot,” Howard said.

A second reading of the ordinance is scheduled for May 20, which is 10 days before the deadline for the city to transition to district elections.

For more details, go to www.redwoodcity.org/districtelections.

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