CLIMATE RWC – December 2020 Edition

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Spotlight: Racism in Housing Profile: Harry's Hofbrau Political Climate: Mark Simon Wraps it Up Changing Climate: Working on the Railroad

ISSUE SIXTY FOUR • DECEMBER • 2020

Goodbye – and Good Riddance?

A year people would like to forget

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR•

As December counts down to 2021, I think a lot of people would like to speed things up if that’s what it would take to put 2020 and its turmoil behind us sooner. This has been a year when bad circumstances have piled up, leaving many fearful and isolated but others with more immediate concerns, such as losing a job or home or seeing a business crater. We’re approaching the yearend holidays this year without our normal traditions – Bethlehem AD, Hometown Holidays and the Caltrain Holiday Train, Christmas Eve services in churches and the menorah lighting at Courthouse Square. With that in mind, Climate invited Elizabeth Sloan, a new writer to us, to put this “worst year ever” into an historic context and assess the various impacts—the bitter and the sweet. Her story is on page 8.

It’s been a real rollercoaster year for restaurants – intermittently open for indoor dining but mostly trying to survive with takeout and outdoor dining. This month’s Profile is about Harry’s Hofbrau, and I can’t think of a restaurant that’s been open longer in Redwood City. Climate’s story takes you “back stage” at this local icon to see how they’ve been able so consistently to turn out food that comforts body and soul. In November, when the story was being written, Harry’s was open again for indoor dining and gearing up for Thanksgiving. Now with the return of restrictions as a result of the Covid, it’s critical that we continue to support our restaurants like Harry’s that mean so much to our community.

Writer Jayme Ackemann’s December Spotlight takes up the subject of redlining and other mechanisms after World War II which have been tied to the segregation of the suburbs. We’re all familiar with the deed restrictions which kept African Americans from buying in certain neighborhoods, stemming from federal-level New Deal-era policies that kept veterans from getting loans to buy in these areas. Jayme’s story looks at some of the local ramifications and the possible long-term implications. Her story is on page 16.

Christmas and trains go together, so we’re delighted to welcome to Climate Christopher J. Palermo, a model railroad buff who writes about the subject with firsthand knowledge. One of the benefits of the Covid lockdown has been the free time people have had to try out or develop their hobbies, and Chris’s story introduces us to many model railroaders who have made the most of their down time to put down tracks and build scenery.

I hope you enjoy this last issue of Climate in a tumultuous year, with hopes for a return to a “normal” – even a duller – next year.

Janet McGovern, Editor

December 2020 ·

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FEATU RE

2020 — Worst Ever?

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SPOTLIG HT Racism in Housing

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PROFILE

Harry's Hofbrau

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CHANGING CLIMATE 14 MICRO CLIMATE...........22 POLITICAL CLIMATE ������26 AROUND TOWN ���������28 HISTORY......................29

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It's Not A Day, It's A Movement!

Our mission relies on donations from our community and we are so thankful for every donation we receive.

One Life's 2020 Impact One Life Counseling is here for our community. With almost 8 months into the pandemic, many of our families are still in need. We are grateful for your contributions of food and essential items, but we project mental health services will continue to skyrocket in the next several months and through 2021.

The pandemic has and will continue to take a toll on the mental health of children, teens, adults and senior citizens. Mental health does not discriminate.

Currently, we are providing mental health services through tele-health and inperson sessions with great success. We are available to serve anyone and everyone in San Mateo County.

It’s not a day….it’s a movement. This year, Giving Tuesday is on December 1.

2020. By participating in #givingtuesday, you can spread the word about mental health awareness and give back to charities like One Life Counseling Center.

Your generous donation will continue to help us help others to be more direct from donor to impact.

Donate Now at www.OneLifeCounselingCenter.com This ad was provided as a courtesy of

Neighbors helping neighbors since 1938· 5 December 2020 · -CLIMATE

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CLIMATE M A G A Z I N E Publisher

S.F. Bay Media Group Editor

Janet McGovern janet@climaterwc.com Creative Director

Jim Kirkland jim@climaterwc.com Contributing Writers

Elizabeth Sloan Jayme Ackemann Janet McGovern Christopher J. Palermo Mark Simon Jim Clifford

C L I M AT E •

Dinner & a Movie and More In the heart of the Theatre District, Redwood City.

Our restaurants, theatre and services are open and eager to serve you.

Arya Steakhouse (650) 367-4939 Century Theatre (650) 701-1341 Chipotle Mexican Grill (650) 216-9325 Cyclismo Cafe (650) 362-3970 Dignity Health GoHealth Urgent Care (650) 381-0616 Five Guys Burgers and Fries (650) 364-3101 Marufuku Ramen (650) 257-3012 Pizza My Heart (650) 361-1010 Portobello Grill (650) 299-9918 Powerhouse Gym Elite (650) 369-6000 Sola Salon Studios www.solasalonstudios.com/locations/redwood-city Timber & Salt (650) 362-3777 Vitality Bowls (650) 568-1779 West Park Farm & Sea (650) 549-8620 2107 Broadway Street, Redwood City • shopsonbroadway.com

Photography

Jim Kirkland Editorial Board

Janet McGovern Jim Kirkland Adam Alberti Advisory Board

Dee Eva Jason Galisatus Connie Guerrero Matt Larsen Dennis Logie Clem Molony Barb Valley CLIMATE magazine is a monthly publication

by S.F. Bay Media Group, a California Corporation. Entire contents ©2020 by S.F. Bay Media Group. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use in any manner without permission is strictly prohibited. CLIMATE is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork. CLIMATE offices are located at 303 Twin Dolphin Drive, Redwood City, CA 94065. Printed in the U.S.A.

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6 · CLIMATE · December 2020

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Check out the daily news and read Climate Magazine at: www.climaterwc.com Some of the local businesses where you can pick up a copy: Fox Theatre Fox Forum Stuff on the Square Powerhouse Gym La Tartine restaurant Ralph's Vacuum Nick the Greek Peet's Coffee

Ikes Sandwich Crouching Tiger Tea Spoon The Sandwich Spot Sakura restaurant San Mateo Credit Union Talk of Broadway Patty Shack

Harry’s Hofbrau County Courthouse 24 Hr Fitness Noah's Bagels Franklin St. Café Whole Foods Bianchini’s Market Key Market

Hassett Hardware Round Table Pizza Popeyes Canyon Inn Sanchez Taqueria San Carlos Airport Hiller Museum Devil's Canyon

December 2020 ·

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F E AT U R E •

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2020 Is

the Worst Year Ever?

In a year clouded by multiple dire events, blue skies hard to find

By Elizabeth Sloan

Remember the day the sky turned orange?

Across the Bay Area Sept. 9, the sun disappeared, temperatures dropped, and it got dark—really dark. Streetlights came on at midday.

The world took on a burnt orange hue. It was strange and unsettling, and on top of a global pandemic, economic fallout, social unrest, political division, and raging wildfires, it made some people wonder: What next? Locusts? Raining frogs?

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• Anybody with a smartphone and a couple of minutes could figure out the culprit. Particulate matter from the California wildfires, snuggling down on top of a layer of marine air, can turn normal sunlight into apocalyptic orange skies. But what if that explanation hadn’t been readily available and people were left to their own dark imaginations about the end of the world?

That’s what happened in 536 A.D., when an inexplicable, choking fog blotted out the sun, plunging Europe, Asia and the Middle East into 24-hour darkness— for two years. Crops failed, famine spread, and then—after extended cold and starvation—bubonic plague followed. This one-two punch, climatic and pathological, wiped out 100 million people.

Only recently did scientists determine the likely cause: an Icelandic volcano that spewed tons of ash into the sky.

Putting 2020 in Perspective 2020 has been an extraordinary year, to be sure. Nobody is trivializing the impacts: lives and livelihoods lost. Food and shelter insecurity. Upended patterns of working and learning. Zoom fatigue. Life milestones canceled or deferred. Social isolation and loneliness.

But is it the worst year ever?

Objectively, globally; probably not.

Most historians give that undesirable distinction to the year of the Icelandic volcano. But there are other contenders closer to home. Many Americans of a certain age remember 1968 fondly—the Summer of Love, the moon race, the civil rights movement. But 1968 had Vietnam, rage and protest filling the streets, shocking assassinations. For anxiety and social upheaval, it rivals 2020.

As devastating as Covid-19 already is (more than 1.3 million deaths globally by mid-November), other pandemics will ex-

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F E AT U R E •

ceed it. The Black Death (bubonic plague) took 200 million lives in the 1300s. Spanish Flu (erroneously named—it didn’t start anywhere near Spain) killed an estimated 50 million people from 1918 to 1920.

Almost no family escaped those scourges. And in those pre-modern medicine, pre-information ages, nobody understood them either.

forces at play in how humans interpret the events of their lives.

“When you talk about assaults on lives, these things are real,” says Stanford psychiatrist Dr. Mickey Trockel. “This is the worst year in many people’s own experience, in their personal recollection.

(They think) ‘It certainly feels bad to me.’”

Beyond personal perspective, evolutionary biology plays a part. “We are wired to be vigilant,” says Trockel, “and that works really well when we are facing a threat that is real and immediate. We are poorly adapted to an environment where we are constantly bombarded by false threats, or exaggerated threats.

That’s just a recipe for anxiety.”

So, being chased by a saber tooth tiger? Real, immediate threat. The possibility of getting Covid, or losing a job, or watching kids fall behind in their learning? Definitely real, but not as immediate. Even unrealized dangers, though, can unleash a flow of stress hormones to fuel a physical reaction like fight or a flight.

A World Upside Down For insults to normalcy, 2020 has been unusual for its sheer number of challenges, their simultaneity, and how quickly they transformed everything.

For Mike Callagy, the day of transformation was March 3. “The year started with such high hopes,” says Callagy who as San Mateo County manager leads a staff of 5,500 and a $3.7 billion organization providing safety net services, health, parks, public works and public safety programs for 760,000 residents. “The budget was outstanding. We had a thriving economy.

We had plans to do so many great things.”

Then came the county’s first confirmed case of Covid. “We needed to shut things down immediately, open the Emergency Operations Center, and respond to so many things—all without a real blue-

The Black Death (bubonic plague) took 200 million lives in the 1300s. Spanish Flu (erroneously named—it didn’t start anywhere near Spain) killed an estimated 50 million people from 1918 to 1920. Almost no family escaped those scourges.

If 2020 is not the worst year in history, why are so many calling it that? For starters, this year has been plenty bad. But there are also social, emotional, and biological

• print,” he says. “You can rely on your emergency training, your instincts. But until you have been through it, you cannot begin to understand the complexities.”

Securing supplies of personal protective equipment for the county kept Callagy up at night. “We knew what it meant for the health and safety of our front-line workers,” he says. “Our people were on the phones day and night, calling all over the world—only to hear: ‘Sorry, you got out bid.’ Or,’ We can get it to you in four months.’ It was crazy.” Shortages eventually eased, helped in part by donations from local companies.

The county and its public health officer, Dr. Scott Morrow, have been praised for their response but Callagy says everyone involved deserves credit. “I am so proud of how everybody came together—our employees, our elected officials, our health people--and our residents.

We had 1,500 volunteers who signed up to do anything we needed.” While the crises have been brutal, says Callagy, invaluable lessons and could not have come without them.

Unexpected Changes For Dr. Elina Hudson, a physician with the Palo Alto Veteran’s Administration Medical Center and mother of three schoolaged boys, the transformation took a few weeks, but was just as dramatic. Speaking with medical colleagues around the world in early March, Hudson was not alarmed.

“We learned about this virus in medical school 25 years ago,” she says. “It was not considered a big danger. ‘How bad can it be?’ we were asking each other.”

Soon they had their answer. “We started watching New York,” she says, “the pictures of overwhelmed medical people, the morgue trucks lined up outside the hospitals.” The VA completely transformed its operations, pooling resources and creating response teams—waiting for the surge they all assumed was on its way.

F E AT U R E •

Mike Callagy

“We created the Covid Compliance Team to work with businesses, offering carrots rather than sticks. But this is a deadly disease. We cannot fill restaurants and stores. We have to do it in a strategic way. Wearing masks is critical. Everyone will have to sacrifice to save lives.”

Hudson worked in the urgent care and Covid clinics, treating patients, attending endless meetings. “We were ready to be overwhelmed,” Hudson recalls. “There was a lot of anxiety.”

The surge never came, though case numbers have recently been on the rise.

Hudson says as she treated patients, “I got to know more about how this disease worked, how it progressed, who was at risk, who would likely do well and who wouldn’t.”

Trockel, who specializes in physician wellness, says people have also experienced a psychological impact this year from feeling that they were accomplishing less. “It’s important to think about how we see ourselves,” he says. “Early on, when everybody was transitioning to remote working and being alone at home, the change in venue meant a loss of efficiency.

It feels harder to get same amount done.

And it’s easy to get down on yourself.”

Stress with Doing Less Hudson saw the same thing in her practice. “There are so many Type A people here, and they are all going 150 miles an hour,” she says. “Along with the isolation, being less productive makes people very stressed.”

Her own household hasn’t been immune, although her husband Greg Hudson was already managing shopping, meals and childcare when the pandemic hit. But

their high-energy boys were used to going to school, being with friends, playing soccer, and doing lots of physical activity outside. Remote learning did not work well and by June, “They seemed drained of energy, fatigued,” she says. “Almost like a sub-depression. It was alarming.” After a chance encounter with a dog owner at a park, Hudson told her husband: “Okay, it’s time for either a shrink or a puppy.”

Three days later, an exuberant German Shepard joined the household. “It made all the difference,” she says.

Psychological wellbeing is affected by the news, and how people consume it. “Social media expose people to information individually tailored for them,” Trockel, the Stanford psychiatrist, observes. “It’s a simple business practice—selecting items they think will interest you specifically, in order to sell you more stuff.” The selection, he says, skews negative, for neuroscientific reasons. “It’s no secret that YouTube videos that are most disseminated and most watched are the negative ones. Bad news is viewed more extensively. It’s more gripping. We watch it all the way through. It renders more value for advertisers.”

The Economy It’s a little early to predict Covid’s eventual toll on the Bay Area economy. Suffice it to say: 2020 was very tough on local businesses.

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F E AT U R E • duties. “We are optimistic about the future,” says Angelica Cuschieri, though she wonders how things will do during winter weather. “I think it will be May before things start to turn around.”

Economic recovery—for individual owners and the region at large—remains a daunting challenge as the year closes.

“We talk about this all the time,” says County Manager Callagy. “We created the Covid Compliance Team to work with businesses, offering carrots rather than sticks. But this is a deadly disease.

We cannot fill restaurants and stores. We have to do it in a strategic way. Wearing masks is critical. Everyone will have to sacrifice to save lives.”

Peter and Angelica Cuschieri

Aside from indoor dining, “we were mostly about business catering and events,” Peter Cuschieri says. “All that was gone.”

Street protests and smoky skies kept customers away, and costs for everything—food, gloves, masks, special sanitizing equipment — all got higher while revenues shrank.

In January, Angelica’s in downtown Redwood City seemed poised for a different kind of surge. “We had events booked out through the year—many of them sold out,” says Angelica Cuschieri, who coowns the restaurant with husband Peter Cuschieri. “We’d have 200 people here on a weekend.”

When the restaurant had to close in late March, the federal stimulus loan helped keep things going. The couple partially reopened in late May, but the takeout style that was allowed at the time didn’t fit their operation well. Aside from indoor dining, “we were mostly about business catering and events,” Peter Cuschieri says.

“All that was gone.” Street protests and smoky skies kept customers away, and costs for everything—food, gloves, masks, special sanitizing equipment--all got high-

12 · CLIMATE · December 2020

er while revenues shrank.

The Cuschieris’ normal recipe for success built around the food, service, ambiance and live entertainment needed a new ingredient in the Covid era: customer confidence that an evening at Angelica’s was safe. Now restaurant staff sanitizes like fiends and is strict about distancing and masks. The menu has been reimagined to bring in younger people (who are more likely to go out to eat now) and Angelica’s outdoor spaces have been a plus. The couple also credits their landlords and Redwood City for helping them survive.

“It is teamwork and tenacity that keep us going,” Peter Cuschieri says. Three of the couple’s eight children work in the restaurant while attending college: Krystal is general manager, Angel runs the bar, and Mary Elena handles front-of-house

Look for the Up Side In the midst of the storm, are there silver linings? Absolutely, say Bay Area residents. Many report a sense of solidarity, of “being in this together.” People shared coping strategies, created social pods, swapped recipes and TV recommendations, traded everything from childcare to haircuts. Sheltering in place brought a return to hearth and home. Families spent more time together. Previously unaquainted neighbors got to know each other on the endless walks everyone seemed to be taking. People got creative and developed new hobbies.

Others reported a sense of relief that life got less busy. On the plus side, Hudson was freed from juggling three sets of soccer schedules for her kids. She wonders if post-pandemic, the go-go Silicon Valley could retain its newfound sense of time and space. Her family, from the former Soviet Union, was deeply imprinted with the ravages and deprivations of World War II. “Maybe this experience could bring Americans a little more patience and gratitude,” Hudson says.

Faced with the prospect of canceling milestones and celebrations, people had to come up with “Plan B’s.” Weddings that

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could no longer be held in a church had to downsize, becoming more intimate with less emphasis on “the party.” Zoom calls sprouted among families and friends who never talked. Video chat became a new venue for weddings, bar mitzvahs, funerals, graduations and live performances, rendering geography irrelevent and often producing, for some, a surprising verdict: That was so much better than I expected!

Telemedicine is also on the rise; even online psychological counseling seems to have advantages—lowering barriers of access for people seeking help.

Will the changes of 2020 last?

Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom says working from home will continue to grow, with caveats. Not everybody can work

For their October wedding, Holly Tokar and Shane Ryan had to pivot from their planned venue to a High Sierra meadow, accessible via a one-mile hike.

The intimate streamside ceremony was made all the sweeter and more memorable by the planning challenges. (Photo by Cindy Tokar)

Weddings that could no longer be held in a church had to downsize, becoming more intimate with less emphasis on “the party.”

“There are two qualities that resilient people seem to have: Gratitude and compassion. If you have the capacity to notice and appreciate what is good in your life, there are demonstrable mental health benefits … When we start with empathy for others, we cultivate better brain chemistry in ourselves." from home, which could generate economic inequality. For it to work well, people have to choose it. A hybrid seems best, with at least some days in the office.

Stanford historian Walter Sheidel has studied how past pandemics have changed societies. The Black Death, he says, led to collective bargaining and weakened feudalism. But a pandemic has to be so big, so painful, that change becomes the only alternative. For all its destruction, it’s not clear yet if Covid-19 rises to that world-changing, history-altering level.

Gratitude and Compassion What will not change is the need for human resilience, which can be cultivated, according to Trockel. “There are two qualities that resilient people seem to have: Gratitude and compassion. If you have the capacity to notice and appreciate what is good in your life, there are demonstrable

mental health benefits … When we start with empathy for others, we cultivate better brain chemistry in ourselves. Engaging with others with an intention to help—to alleviate their suffering--activates a set of neural pathways that trigger pleasure centers in our own brains.”

Short of cultivating these qualities— an ongoing project, surely—what can people do to cope with a year which, if not the worst ever, is still plenty challenging?

Trockel points to the list of recommendations published by the California Surgeon General for keeping stress in check during Covid: plenty of aerobic exercise, good eating habits, consistent sleep patterns, meditative practices and social support.

And one last RX, he adds: “Go on a media diet. Turn off the devices.” C

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C H A N G I N G C L I M AT E •

Quarantine Gets Hobbyists “Workin’ on the Railroad”

By Christopher J. Palermo As a few weeks spent working at home have stretched into months, many have turned their attention to home improvement, gardening, cooking, and crafts. One community of hobbyists has turned the drudgery of quarantine into busy, happy time at the workbench. Throughout the Bay Area, scores of model train enthusiasts have found new time to construct intricately detailed trains, cars, track, and buildings. Some work alone at home, others in small groups. Many exploit multiple talents to construct fully operational, artistically finished, moving replicas of real railroads, called layouts.

These are not the toy trains of the 1950s; the goal of model railroaders is a realistic but scaled-down depiction of real locomotives and cars of the past, usually in a lifelike landscape and often controlled using sophisticated computer-based systems. A majority of modelers work in HO scale, or 1/87 proportion, but enthusiastic groups also pursue the smaller N scale (1/160) or larger O scale (1/48). Some modelers like replicating struggling, Depression-era logging railroads, others model today’s mainline railroading, and many more are in between. Some purchase ready-made models to set on track and run; others build virtually everything from scratch.

Frank Markovich, a long-time Belmont resident, models the West Side Lumber Company of the Sierra Nevada in the 1930s.

Tucked in a utility room off his garage, Frank’s O-scale layout includes meandering track, weathered buildings, tall trees, and short trains hauling logs. A local leader in the National Model Railroad Association, he’s pursued the hobby for 50 years and is a frequent model contest winner.

14 · CLIMATE · December 2020

“What I enjoy most about the hobby is that it provides a period of escape,” Frank observes. “When I’m at the workbench, any daily troubles you have just fade away. I relax, create something tangible, and gradually improve and complete my miniature world.”

Running a Railroad Seth Neumann models Bay Area railroads of 1999 on an extensive layout in Mountain View that can be operated just like the prototype. “We can form trains in the yard, dispatch them, run them over the line, switch cars into industry, deal with conflicts with other trains along the way, and bring the train into a destination yard,” Neumann says. “It’s a terrific form of intellectual puzzle that requires you to think on your feet while the trains are moving, but it’s never stressful, just fun.” He regularly hosts groups of operators to run multiple trains over a period of several hours.

In the past most modelers have been men over 40, but that’s changing. Lisa Gorrell models the Sacramento Northern, a line that once had extensive interurban electric lines. “The SN had a remarkable diversity of equipment, interesting customers, and a short but colorful life,” Gorrell says. “Not many people model it, so it’s a challenge to find models and I end up building many of them myself, which I love.”

Kiran Kaja is sight-impaired but has benefited from the wide availability of ready-to-use products that can be quickly set up to run, yet still offer operational enjoyment. A Sunnyvale software engineer, Kaja’s love of trains developed from his use of rail systems in Europe during work assignments. “My focus is on collecting trains that I like or rode, and running them in miniature on my home layout,” he notes. “I’ve also enjoyed using today’s command control systems to activate effects like sound.”

Even retired people — ordinarily with plenty of time on their hands — have found that reduced outside social activities have created even more time for the hobby. In San Carlos, Charlie Getz, a retired lawyer and former president of a national hobby organization, used newly freed time to tackle building the “Queen City Coal Company,” an incredibly intricate commercial kit. He eventually devoted 65 hours to creating a stunning diorama featuring the building.

“The Covid-19 flu pandemic stay-athome order earlier this year provided the opportunity, and excuse, to spend the considerable time needed for the project,” Getz says. “And as a result, I have an eye-popping showpiece to enjoy for many years.”

More Time for Trains Two retired doctors in the Santa Rosa area also have increased their hobby time in quarantine. Giuseppe Aymar, a successful dentist before his retirement two years ago, used to participate in a Wednesday night “round-robin” social group of friends who rotated time working on each other’s layouts near Rohnert Park. “With quarantine, we no longer do that, and I’ve probably spent 30 percent more time working on my own models as a result,” Aymar says.

Ed Merrin, a longtime Santa Rosa resident now retired from a career in psychology, says “I’ve just completed one project after another lately—it’s been great.” Merrin models the Northwestern Pacific Railroad as it appeared in Sonoma County in the 1950s. Among his accomplishments: learning new skills for painting brass passenger cars, and scratch-building a replica of the railroad’s “Haystack Landing” drawbridge across the Petaluma River.

Historical accuracy can be pursued with stunning results. One of the Bay Ar-

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At a 2019 convention, Robert Lawson shows two wood factory buildings with complete scale interiors to friends Gerry Leone and Joe Becker.

ea’s best-known HO-scale layouts faithfully reproduces the Yosemite Valley Railroad as it existed in a single month, August 1939. Jack Burgess, the layout’s builder, has constructed examples of nearly every engine and car that the YV owned in that month, as well as replicas of every significant building on the 80mile line, which closed in 1945. Operations follow real 1939 timetables and involve the same kinds of trains running on a historically accurate schedule.

Not Just About the Trains In many ways, model railroading is among the world’s first “maker” hobbies. A key attraction is its multidisciplinary nature.

Feel like working with wood today? Practice carpentry while building “benchwork,” a specialized table on which trains run. In the artistic mood? Paint a backdrop, construct a hillside, farm, or river.

Techies can work on digital electronics, connecting or tuning up specialized power routing systems, signals, animated lighting systems, sound systems, circuit breakers, and other devices. In fact, well suited to Silicon Valley’s tech crowd, today’s train control systems use sophisti-

cated digital signaling to enable multiple engines to run on the same track. Trains “listen” for their digital address and respond accordingly. This technology has led to complex and realistic engine sounds, lighting, and other effects. Key developers live in Berkeley and Mountain View and have contributed tech improvements for two decades.

Models, complete trains, and building supplies are available locally at The Train Shop in Santa Clara, J&M Hobby House in San Carlos, Just Trains in Concord and Hobbies Unlimited in San Leandro. Specialty magazines like Model Railroad Hobbyist and Railroad Model Craftsman cover product developments and showcase the work of builders around the world.

Tracking Together There’s also a strong social aspect. Clubs, each with dozens of members, are found around the Bay Area, hosting their meetings at finished layouts in San Mateo, Menlo Park, Santa Clara, San Jose, Walnut Creek, Richmond and elsewhere. Groups like the National Model Railroad Association offer quarterly meetings, contests, educational clinics, swap meets, tours of

local layouts, and periodic conventions.

These activities are online now and have attracted big audiences. One recent all-day virtual convention, packed with clinics, brought several hundred people “together” at once. NMRA’s next national convention is set for Santa Clara in July 2021, and when in-person events return, they’re expected to yield a rush of model contest entries as quarantined enthusiasts bring all the work they’ve completed at home over past months.

For these modelers, home confinement has been a gift. With the passion of “makers,” a dizzying array of new products available every year, multiple skills to learn and perfect, ample social opportunities, and a large cooperative community worldwide, model railroading is steaming ahead on clear track into the 21st century.

C Christopher J. Palermo is a Bay Area native who lives in San Carlos and has been involved in the model railroading hobby for 40 years. He has contributed numerous articles to the hobby press. When he’s not running trains, he works as a partner in the Palo Alto office of Baker Botts, L.L.P., a large international law firm, specializing in patents and trademarks.

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SPOTLIGHT•

The History of

Housing Discrimination San Francisco Bay Area communities affected by national policies

In December 1946, John Walker, a decorated Navy veteran, surveyed what was left of the house he had started to build in Dumbarton Oaks in unincorporated Redwood City after it was set on fire. The Redwood City Tribune reported on the public indignation that followed as veterans and civic organizations gathered petition signatures demanding action and collected funds for a reward. (Reg McGovern photo courtesy Janet McGovern)

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SPOTLIGHT•

By Jayme Ackemann

Redlining, blockbusting, racial home-buying covenants – these are some of the well-known tactics that were used to create and maintain systemic racism in the United States. But in this typically liberal bubble called the San Francisco Bay Area, people might be surprised to learn how segregationist attitudes and tools associated with the Jim Crow South played a role in the development of the Peninsula and where African AmericansW could – and couldn’t – buy a house.

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hat author Richard Rothstein calls the “forgotten history of how the government segregated America” is the subject of his provocative 2017 book, “The Color of Law,” which was the focus of a recent workshop by the San Mateo County Housing Leadership Council.

To be sure, racial attitudes in Northern California in the early 1900’s were more relaxed than elsewhere in the country, including America’s southern states. But the Bay Area did experience episodes of overt racism, and attitudes that reinforced racial segregation contributed to how the communities that formed San Mateo County grew.

East Palo Alto Truck farms, commune dwellers, and transient newcomers were typical of the residents in early 20th century East Palo Alto, then considered the eastern outskirts of Palo Alto. It was part of a rural, unincorporated area known for its rich soil and abundant, small farms, according to Palo Alto Historical Association Historian Steve Staiger.

“Truck farms grew high-value crops on an intense, concentrated scale,” said Staiger. “The rich soil and abundant water were the perfect foundation for a Utopian society with a shared social philosophy to make a community. That community came to be known as Runnymede.”

Runnymede Street still cuts across the City of East Palo Alto today.

But by the 1920’s, the growth of Asian and African American settlements began to draw concern from local residents, leading to a Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce resolution supporting a segregated district for minorities. Racial zones were never formally adopted by local governments, but private developers used restrictive covenants to prevent people of color from purchasing homes in the neighborhoods they built. As a result, there were few areas where December 2020 ·

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• minorities could find housing of any kind.

Communities that did allow integration sprang up in North Fair Oaks and East Palo Alto, among other places in early San Mateo County.

Rothstein uses the story of the postWorld War II organization, the Peninsula Housing Association of Palo Alto, to illustrate this problem. The group sought to increase the local housing supply through a cooperative that included several African American families. The co-op purchased a 260-acre ranch adjacent to the Stanford campus. But because the project included African Americans, the Federal Housing Administration rejected the request for an insured loan. At the time, FHA did not permit lending to African Americans – even those who had served in the United States Armed Forces.

Eventually the co-op was forced to sell the land to a developer who constructed single-family homes for sale to whites only. The Ladera subdivision still stands next to the campus today, although such bans have long been unenforceable.

A Race Riot Averted At the same time the Peninsula Housing co-op was attempting to improve integration, Redwood City’s residents were experiencing their own racial reckoning.

December 1946 in Redwood City was one of racial conflict for the small community. The Redwood City Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle recounted the disturbing saga of two African American families living in the Dumbarton Oaks neighborhood. One family, the Derbigneys, had built a home on an unzoned parcel on Stanford Avenue and was generally considered part of the community until a second such family began building a home nearby.

That set off alarms for segregationists within the community. Mrs. Derbigney was harassed with menacing phone calls and letters, a false fire hazard report and

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SPOTLIGHT•

Racial zones were never formally adopted by local governments, but private developers used restrictive covenants to prevent people of color from purchasing homes in the neighborhoods they built. threats of hanging by members of the Ku Klux Klan, according to the Chronicle.

Neighbors filed petitions and exhausted other legal options to keep John Walker, a decorated veteran of the U.S. Navy, from building his house.

A fire claimed the structure before the family could move in, setting off fears of a race riot. Tensions climbed between veterans groups who supported Walker and those opposed to the neighborhood’s integration.

Though community members rallied to the Walkers’ side, by the 1950’s exclusionary home-buying covenants and a banking system designed to consider minorities “high risk” loan candidates would do the work of effectively segregating these communities in subsequent years.

Blockbusting and White Flight Most historians suggest the post-war suburban boom was partially driven by “white flight,” or fears over increasing integration in industrialized cities. As Rothstein explains, this was partially born of the federal government’s emphasis on home-ownership through VA loans for returning World War II veterans and the creation of federally-insured FHA loans.

African Americans were barred from obtaining VA and FHA loans. On the rare occasion a family could afford to rent or buy in a traditionally white community, real estate agents engaged in a tactic

known as “blockbusting” to drive home prices down and white residents out.

As Rothstein writes, “blockbusting was a scheme in which speculators bought properties in borderline black-white areas; rented or sold them to African-American families at above-market prices; persuaded white families residing in these areas that their neighborhoods were turning into African American slums and that values would soon fall precipitously.”

Eventually the president of the California Real Estate Association showed the organization’s commitment to the tactics by setting up an office in East Palo Alto specifically for the purpose of blockbusting. Word spread among local real estate agents that minority families should only be shown homes in block-busted communities due to covenants that prevented non-white homeowners from buying elsewhere.

East Palo Alto’s Incorporation East Palo Alto City Councilman Carlos Romero first moved to the then-segregated community as a Stanford freshman in the 1980’s and soon began working on an effort to incorporate the area. The community was cut off from the rest of the county

by U.S. 101 on the west and saddled with an influx of industrial zoned activities that ringed the residential neighborhoods.

It was common for industrial uses, local dumps, wastewater treatment facilities and highway construction to be targeted for areas often adjacent to redlined and block-busted communities, according to Rothstein. As a result, without incorporation and access to city services, residents in these areas suffered the local zoning and regulatory decisions of their nearby city governments, in addition to federal and state impacts, with little to no voice in the process.

The rapid rise in rents in the 1980s was a driving issue in East Palo Alto’s incorporation. “One of the first acts after incorporation was to put in place rent control laws

• in the city and to prevent unjust evictions and unfair rent increases,” Romero recalled. Predatory rental tactics are another by-product of block-busted communities. Often landlords purchase properties in low-income neighborhoods, put little investment into maintaining homes, but implement market-rate rental increases working class communities struggle to keep up with.

Romero went on to found EPA Can Do, a nonprofit responsible for the construction of more than 500 housing units to date. His work on housing justice took him to communities throughout the state before he eventually returned to run for office in East Palo Alto.

“East Palo Alto remains a low-income community and some people may feel that is not a feather in one’s cap, but for me it reflects the policies that we put in place to preserve homes for low-income and working-class folks in a sea of enormous prosperity whereas many other low-income communities are being pushed out to the fringes of the Bay Area,” Romero said.

Lessons for Today Rothstein and others make the point that the negative impact on property values, business opportunities, the quality of schools, and even a resident’s physical health is long-lasting.

The communities hardest hit by today’s pandemic are largely the same ones that are home to the majority of the low-income and working-class residents in the county, not coincidentally those groups are disproportionately people of color.

That disparity is a symptom of the massive wealth gap between African Americans and white Americans, Rothstein stated.

According to a report by the Brookings Institute, on average white Americans own 10 times the wealth that African American families do.

“African Americans were precluded from joining some of the nation’s largest

SPOTLIGHT•

In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan had tried to get established in Palo Alto but eventually moved on. Two decades later the KKK insignia was painted on the intersection of Homer and Ramona streets, near the University A.M.E. Zion Church. The graffiti was one of several disturbing signs in the years following World War II of the difficulties faced by African Americans trying to get a foothold in suburban neighborhoods.

(Reg McGovern photo courtesy Janet McGovern)

unions in the post-World War II manufacturing boom and many of the occupations they were allowed to hold were not eligible to earn Social Security credits – which meant African American families had to spend more of their income caring for aging relatives than white families,” Rothstein added. “The consequences of that is that housing continues to be unaffordable to a large proportion of African Americans today who were excluded from the opportunity to generate that wealth.”

“Covid-19 exacerbated a problem we already knew exists,” said Marya Ouro-Gbelou, a supervisor with The Daly City Partnership Program. “We went from 100 people seeking food or rental assistance to 1,000 people with needs overnight.” DC Partners aids qualifying families and individuals in northern San Mateo County.

“We work with clients who are trapped in unhealthy rental situations and afraid to ask for safety improvements or mold abatement out of fears of eviction or deportation,” she added.

Romero thinks it’s important for ev-

eryone to learn about how housing policies have shaped communities. Of Rothstein’s book he said, “People of color have understood this for quite some time. More important than the book is that by understanding and remembering this past, we put energy into vocal movements across this country that create a national insurgence of activism and organizing.”

Rothstein is optimistic that this summer’s activism can lead to a long-term solution. “The main thing I emphasize is that without a new civil rights movement that will be aggressive about making it uncomfortable to maintain segregated boundaries, these issues are not going to change. I think we are having a more accurate and passionate discussion about race in this country than we ever have had in American history. So I think that provides an opportunity.”

C But, he cautions, the marches alone are not a movement. He says that movement is possible, “but it hasn’t happened yet.”

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M I C R O C L I M AT E •

Menlo Park Filmmaker Focuses on Plight of Pregnant Homeless Women About five years ago, Laura Ferro chanced to be watching the television news and saw a segment about a pregnant homeless woman in San Francisco, who was facing the prospect of giving birth at a bus stop.

The woman’s desperate circumstance troubled Ferro, a filmmaker living comfortably in Menlo Park – who happened at the time to be expecting a child too. “I didn’t have a connection to the homeless community until that point,” she says.

That unlikely moment was the inspiration for a documentary which Ferro has been working on for the past three years, “Pregnant on the Streets” in the San Francisco Bay Area. The expectant mothers, who are almost invisible on the fringes in an area brimming with wealth, are shown as they experience the difficulties of life on the street, either navigating social service agencies or lost in a fog of mental health issues and drugs, Ferro says.

A native of Argentina who came to the U.S. eight years ago, Ferro connected with Tony Gapastione, founder of the filmmaking nonprofit called Bravemaker, and told him about her project. He put her in touch with Pastor Dave Shearin and his wife Shawn of Street Life Ministries, a Redwood City-based organization with an extensive meal and outreach program to the homeless community. Shawn Shearin provided the entrée to Ferro to go to homeless camps and find pregnant women willing to tell their stories. At an earlier period in her life, Shawn had been homeless and pregnant too (in Seattle), but was able to get into a shelter and turned her life around. Through the Street Life ministry, Shawn already had a relationship with most of the women she introduced Ferro to, “and I was able to explain what we were doing and they were very open to it.”

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Film director Laura Ferro (left) and ShawnShearin of Street Life Ministries interview a homeless woman.

The documentary, a color film which will be 30 to 40 minutes long, follows three homeless women over three years, from the time when they were pregnant until after their babies were born. One of the women was determined to stop using drugs for the sake of her child, Ferro says. She accepted help that has enabled her to get a job and today is providing for her son. Another woman, unfortunately, is back on the street and had to surrender her child. Ferro says the women she interviewed appreciated the opportunity to be heard and that anyone would think their stories are important.

About 60 percent of the documentary has been completed, and Ferro plans to do more interviews with experts on homelessness including doctors and social services providers. She has established a GoFundMe account at https://gf.me/u/y82g26 to raise the estimated $66,000 needed for completion and is also seeking other individual and organizational supporters. Bravemaker, which is a 501(c)( 3) organization, is the fiscal sponsor to receive donations. Ferro does videos for corporate clients—to get an idea about her work, visit Rebelmonk. com—but “Pregnant on the Streets” is her first documentary. After it’s completed, she plans to submit it to film festivals and,

once Covid-19 allows, to screen the film for local audiences. She hopes people who see her video will be encouraged to reach out and build relationships with homeless people rather than just walk on by. “Many people,” she says, “don’t want to look.

Through the documentary, we have a tool to show that there are women like us that have the same values. They want to do what’s best for the child and fight for them.”

Thirty-plus years ago Roy Klebe was making a sales call at Muir Woods for his company, Hike America, and bought a redwood burl to put in water at home. Very few take-home burls will actually take root and become a tree, but “this one rooted,” Klebe says, “and the rest is history.” Today the little burl is all grown up, towering 100 feet in the backyard of his home at 321 West Oakwood Blvd. in Redwood City. With the Christmas holidays approaching in this year of turmoil, Klebe decided it would be

Roy Klebe

• a good time to top his improbable survivor with a lighted star. A friend who is licensed to climb trees attached the PVC pipe creation to the top of the tree, and the white lights came on in early November. “It’s five feet wide and it does look pretty cool, even if I do say so myself,” Klebe, 69, says. “It’s one of the things I’ve been talking about the last 10 years, and the way the world’s going, there’s no guarantees there’s any tomorrow,” he says with a laugh, “so you’d better do it now.” His goal was to give people a lift when they see the star atop his tree, and that’s exactly what’s been happening.

“When everyone’s kind of melancholy, it just puts a smile on people’s faces.”

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says. “It’s very high energy.”

At least it was before the Covid restrictions arrived, and Kahn admits that taking the plunge to open was stressful. “But it took me so long to find a place in Redwood City that I didn’t want to let go of this opportunity,” she says. “I think long-term it will be fine … just kind of lie low for the next six months and hope we can survive the pandemic,” she adds laughing. Zareen’s is a bright space with high ceilings, and eventually she hopes people can come to hear independent artists, such as at open-mike evenings; see films or gather socially. The menu features gourmet kaRestaurant owners babs, samosas, curries and who have retooled for more—and a delicious takeout and then creChai tea. Kahn says part ated outdoor dining of her mission with her spaces have certainly restaurants is to generate been battle-tested this funds to support nonprofyear. So extra points its in keeping with her for bravery seem in orvalues, such as for civil der for Zareen Khan, rights, women’s empowwho in mid-October erment and education. opened a restaurant on When customers come in Broadway in downand have a great time, she town Redwood City. adds, Zareen Khan “Zareen’s,” as it is “you’re called, features Pakistani not just serving just and Indian cuisine and is the third restau- food here. You’re in rant the Saratoga resident has launched (the the business of making others are in Mountain View, in 2014, and somebody’s day better. in Palo Alto in 2016.)

They come here. Maybe Khan and her family hail from Kara- they’ve had a bad day chi, Bombay and Punjab. All the women in and they have a good her family are “amazing cooks,” she says, time. Then it’s mission and she learned how to cook growing up. accomplished for us.”

She came to the United States 28 years ago and got into the food business after The year of the Covid has 12 years in corporate America. Khan says imposed an open-endshe’d been looking for a location for a third ed pause on the events restaurant for two years, from Santa Clara that made downtown to San Mateo, before finding a spot at 2039 Redwood City such a Broadway. “I just like the downtown,” she dynamic place, among

them the annual Hometown Holidays festivities always held early in December.

The event brought scores of families downtown for activities like arts and crafts, music, a chance to see Santa, a tree-lighting and a parade. The Downtown Business Group has come up with an alternative to give back to the community and it will be a parade of decorated cars on Saturday, Dec. 19 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. They’ll drive up to Courthouse Square where the kids can see Santa and get a bag of candy, donated by Grocery Outlet, according to DBG Executive Director Regina Van Brunt. The Chan Zuckerberg Foundation is sponsoring the music. Vehicles are to be decorated at home, and participants must sign up in advance since there’s a limit on how many will be allowed. “We’re lucky that we even get to do this. No one can stay on Courthouse Square to watch it,” Van Brunt says. “Everybody has to move along.

We’re not letting large crowds congregate because of the virus.” For information, go to the hometownholidays.org website under hometownholidaysonparade.

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PROFILE•

Where “Cutting Edge” is About the Knives

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PROFILE•

Harry’s Hofbrau an enduring comfort food haven for generations

By Janet McGovern

Talk turkey at Harry’s Hofbrau in Redwood City and the conversation inevitably turns to numbers. Sixty-six years ago, Harry’s carved its first turkey sandwiches. In normal times, Hofbrau chefs roast 18 to 22 turkeys weighing 26 to 30 pounds every single day, seven days a week, 364 days a year. For Thanksgiving this year, Harry’s presold 150 turkey dinners with all the fixins’ for packing home to Grandma’s. In a pre-Covid year, the Hofbrau pushed out close to 2,000 meals on Thanksgiving Day for diners who chose to do their turkey self-stuffing inside the festively decorated eatery rather than at home.

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s this unusually challenging year winds down, employees from Hofbrau pastry chefs to carvers will be just as diligent dishing up something that Silicon Valley people – in theory – should disdain: “the usual.” Yet through generations, Harry’s has outlasted fads, fashions and competitors by figuring out what customers like—and sticking with a tamper-resistant formula based on serving quality, affordable food in plentiful portions and a welcoming atmosphere.

“I’m not saying it’s 100 percent stagnant because it’s not,” Bob Paul, whose “director” title at the Hofbrau includes “protein procurement” and other tasks. “We do make changes. But you have to make changes very carefully because when you’ve been around since 1954, people anticipate that they’re going to come and get something they’re used to and they like.”

Daily Specials That means Beer Braised Brisket for dinner on Mondays, Chicken Pot Pie on Tuesdays, Weinerschnitzel on Sundays, two kinds of soup daily and a choice of seven breads for a bulked-up carvery sandwich. That also means for dessert, customers can select among the nine-apple pie, the towering chocolate cake – or even rice custard and Jell-o. Ambiance? As regularty as the seasons change outdoors, Harry’s décor molts from New Year’s Day to Valentine’s, all the way to Christmas.

Both Paul and Operations Manager Mike O’Brien say it’s the customers who decide what’s on the menu—and they speak up when something goes missing. Adapting for fewer customers because of December 2020 ·

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• the Covid, for example, O’Brien briefly removed Manhattan clam chowder to reduce waste. He put it back on the menu when people complained. About 10 years ago when various factors significantly drove up the price of Miner’s Bones, Paul recalls, management decided it was better to take the specialty off the menu. “Well the outcry was so high, we put them back at the price it had to be for cost of the item, which is about $4 or $5 more,” Paul says, “and they didn’t say a word.”

Redwood City residents Julia O’Leary and Sandra Riedy, who were settled into a padded booth for lunch on a day in November, are long-time customers and don’t come to Harry’s for the nouvelle in cuisine.

Their meal portions were so ample that both of the retired Redwood City School District employees took home leftovers for dinner. “I like it because I can have whatever I want,” says O’Leary. “I can just get something small, or like today, I was starving so I had dinner at lunchtime.”

Riedy was having turkey enchiladas for the first time and has never had a Hofbrau meal she didn’t like. “No,” she says with a laugh, “because we wouldn’t order it.”

San Francisco-Style Hofbrau Change, in fact, has taken place at Harry’s Hofbrau but it’s been so gradual as to be easily forgotten. The restaurant’s founder and namesake was Harry Kramer, a native Austrian who got into the restaurant business in San Francisco in the 1940s, where restaurants like Lefty O’Doul’s and Tommy’s Joynt gave the German “hofbrau” a different spin. Kramer and Tommy Harris were original leaders in the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, according to Paul.

Kramer migrated down the Peninsula before opening his first Harry’s Hofbrau at 1700 El Camino Real, where Roosevelt Liquor & Grocery is today. He outgrew that space and 10 years later moved two blocks south, in 1964. Son Larry Kramer, who had worked in the restaurant in high

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PROFILE•

Operations Manager Mike O'Brien

school and college, bought the restaurant from his dad, who retired in San Diego, in 1969. Larry Kramer did a major remodel and expansion in 1988, and subsequently added six more “Harry’s” in the Bay Area.

He’s down to two Hofbraus (the other is in San Leandro) and splits his time between Redwood City and a Southern California office, where he is involved in real estate, restaurants and other business.

“But Redwood City’s home,” says Kramer, who has lived in that city his entire life. Working in his upstairs office, he can see friends coming into the restaurant on a television, so he’s up and down the stairs many times a day to greet them. “We just try and retain and keep a status quo that I think is so important today,” Kramer says.

“Most places are so impersonal … I want to maintain that feeling that it’s a warm, friendly place to go to and you’re always going to see someone you know there. It’s not going to be something that’s just a place to get a meal and get the hell out.”

In the Kitchen Like all restaurants, Harry’s Hofbrau has had to adapt to changing rules because of Covid, expanding takeout service and outdoor dining when indoor dining isn’t allowed.

Hours before the first lunchtime customers queue up and start to steer a brown

plastic tray along the serving line, the morning shift has already been at work: Preparing 12-gallon pots of soup, steaming potatoes, trimming beef, baking bread, and dropping globs of cranberry sauce into scores of tiny plastic cups. O’Brien toured a visitor through the kitchen, where convection ovens were roasting four or five beef roasts and six whole turkeys for lunch. The next cook would be coming in at 2 p.m. and make an assessment for dinner.

“All our salads are made fresh,” O’Brien adds. “The food is fresh cut daily.

There are no canned products. Everything is done for that day.” A walk-in refrigerator holds the jumbo quantities Harry’s requires: whole turkeys, two to a box; gallons of salad dressing; a garbage can filled with bread for stuffing. “Come Thanksgiving,” O’Brien says, “I’ll have five of these ready to go.”

Out of the same kitchen, Harry’s operates its catering business, which took a hit as a result of the Covid, when demand for weddings, parties and corporate events evaporated. O’Brien was busy nonetheless last month gearing up to deliver turkey, potatoes and gravy for industrial and commercial accounts. Prime rib roasts are popular with families who want to take them home to serve at home at Christmastime, O’Brien says. It’s sold by the pound and comes with au jus and horseradish.

A Cost Advantage Meanwhile, another part of the Hofbrau operation is housed in a nondescript building several blocks away which serves both the Redwood City and San Leandro restaurants as a storage and production facility. The space affords Harry’s price advantages that come with purchasing in bulk or by the pallet, Paul says, where smaller restaurants don’t have space to store large quantities.

Upstairs, bakers turn out the cakes, pies, cookies, bread and other baked goods that are distributed to the two restaurants.

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PROFILE•

Left: Carlos Rodas feeding pastry dough through a “sheeter” for placement in baking dishes before adding pie filling.

Baking for both restaurants takes place Tuesdays and Thursdays, and cake assembly and decorating on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Downstairs, beef briskets are injected with a special brine, vacuum packed, cured and turned into corned beef for the other big holiday on the Hofbrau calendar. “During St. Paddy’s week, we will go through about 4,000 pounds,” Paul says.

His association with Harry’s Hofbrau goes back to the 1970s, when he worked for a meat supplier and Harry’s was a customer. After he retired, Larry Kramer asked him to come on board to help with procurement. But in a family restaurant, Paul says, “everybody wears a lot of different hats.” Kramer, for example, is hardpressed to remember having Thanksgiving at home. Instead, Harry’s owner himself is doing whatever it takes, from saying “hello” to washing dishes and bussing tables.

“One hundred percent,” he says. “I’m on the floor just like everyone else.”

Top: Manuel Chavez stirs up the daily gravy while Eduardo Hernandez prepares beef. Both are 35 year employees.

Right: Large refrigerators store the large quantities of meat that Harry’s goes through every day.

Family Focus O’Brien went all through school with Larry Kramer’s two sons, and started with Harry’s Hofbrau as a bartender at the Mountain View restaurant. He worked at other Hofbraus and currently oversees operations at Redwood City and San Leandro.

Redwood City’s features 28 varieties of beer of all styles and O’Brien does the buying. Craft beers have become a huge part of the business, according to Kramer, and brought in a clientele that is “not the old guard I grew up with in Redwood City and Atherton in the ‘50s and ‘60s.”

That said, families dine in the next room, so raucous conversation coming out of the bar is discouraged. “You want to be a family-style restaurant,” O’Brien says, “you don’t need the wrong words coming out of the mouth and kids running around.”

Likewise, there’s an employee dress code calling for minimal jewelry, no visible rings or studs on other body parts, mustaches neatly trimmed and beards grown only on vacation or time off. Hair color must be “a natural shade” and body markings can’t be visible. “It’s just the policy of what we ask,” Kramer says. “No one por-

trays their own personal identity. They all sign up for it before they go to work.”

The Comfort Tradition With the Hofbrau’s longevity, it’s not hard to find customers who were introduced to Harry’s brand of comfort food by their parents and then raised their kids to become customers. Or to find non-Peninsulans like Warren Hanson, a Pleasanton resident who sells construction equipment and regularly eats at Harry’s when he’s doing calls.

“I enjoy their turkey sandwiches and their pea salad,” Hanson says, pausing over lunch. “You can’t get pea salad everywhere … My mother used to make this.”

When he tells customers, “’I’ll meet you at Harry’s,’ they know exactly where I’m going to be. A lot of my deals have been made here. I’ve sold a lot of machines because of Harry’s.”

In fact, Hanson eats at one or the other Harry’s locations three or four times a month. “I come here because the food’s wonderful, always consistent,” he says.

“The guy that carves the turkey, he sees me and he knows exactly what I want.” C December 2020 ·

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P O L I T I C A L C L I M AT E b y M a r k S i m o n •

In 2020, spilling over from 2019, Redwood City hit the reset button. All the old scores were wiped out, and it’s a whole new game.

Indeed, decades from now, 2020 might well be seen as a year when everything changed in Redwood City politics. Perhaps more than any election anywhere – here or across the country – the outcome of the Redwood City Council election was transformative, as sweeping as it was swift.

For the first time, a majority of the council represents the full spectrum of the city’s residents -- four seats held by people of color with the return of Jeff Gee and Alicia Aguirre and the arrival of newcomers Michael Smith and Lissette Espinoza-Garnica. And, in the case, of the latter two, it’s the first time the council has had two members who openly identify as gay or nonbinary.

It would not have happened without the city’s move to district elections, and the less publicized implementation of voluntary spending limits, which were agreed to by all but one of the nine candidates running in the four districts on the ballot this time.

In a citywide race, Gee might not have not run – a decision he made in the last citywide election in 2018 -- and it’s impossible to imagine Espinoza-Garnica winning citywide.

District elections cleared the way for the election of Smith and Espinoza-Garnica, each of whom represents minority-majority districts, and Gee, who represents a district that is substantially Asian-American. And, perhaps more importantly for the long-term policymaking of the council, district elections have diminished the impact of a small group of noisy nogrowthers, while enhancing the influence of long-overlooked neighborhoods.

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This has caused grumbling among the mainliners of the status quo, of course.

There has been some online complaining from the usual suspects that the city “caved” on the threatened lawsuit that forced the creation of districts, noting that other cities resisted the implicit coercion.

This is what happens when the establishment loses power to a new reality, and my response to the complaints is: Tough.

We have just elected the first woman Vice President, the first South Asian-American Vice President, the first African-American Vice President. Change is coming to America. Too slowly, for some, too radically for others, too frighteningly for still others. But inevitably. Kamala Harris represents a rising generation of young and younger Americans who will be diverse in background and ethnicity and who will see their world and the future in different ways that will break the longstanding white male dominance of this nation.

Redwood City is at the cutting edge of that change – ahead of California, ahead of America. The move to district elections, regardless of why or how, was the right thing to do.

As was demonstrated in the defeat of Councilmember Janet Borgens, one of the biggest upsets on the Peninsula, district elections represent a change that also poses a genuine and substantial threat to incumbents.

As state Sen. Jerry Hill said in an interview with me as he neared the end of his remarkable 30-year career in elective office, “Incumbents who don’t pay attention to these changes won’t be incumbents for long.”

PRACTICAL POLITICS: Two of the city’s contested seats went as could have been expected. Gee, long a denizen of Redwood Shores, easily won a new term on the coun-

cil in the face of a credible challenge from Planning Commissioner Nancy Radcliffe.

And Alicia Aguirre, deftly deploying all the advantages of incumbency, staved off a vigorous challenge from retired police officer Chris Rasmussen in the Farm Hills district.

It is likely Rasmussen will remain a force in the community and this race may well set him up for another race in the future.

The stunner remains the defeat of incumbent Borgens in Friendly Acres by Espinoza-Garnica. Borgens’ deep ties to the area looked like enough of an insurance policy against an unknown, inexperienced challenger in Espinoza-Garnica. But the pandemic clearly crimped Borgens’ campaign effort. And she was running in a district where most of the residents don’t look like her, speak a different language and have a different experience as workers and as residents of Redwood City and America.

There is no more public-minded individual in Redwood City than Borgens and in a citywide election that might have been more than enough. But the new attention on civil rights, historic patterns of discrimination and segregation and the militarization of police departments energized a previously dormant constituency. Borgens did her best to reflect the concerns of the district residents, but it was never going to be enough.

That confluence of events, however, proved timely for Espinoza-Garnica. She charged ahead, raising money and identifying and getting to the polls a new wave of voters. The bottom line is that Espinoza-Garnica is more like the residents of the district. It is worth noting that turnout in this district was half that of the other districts – to the benefit of the challenger.

The new majority promises to be fascinating to watch. Espinoza-Garnica is a full-throated progressive who advocated abolishing the police. With housing and

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The new majority promises to be fascinating to watch. Espinoza-Garnica is a full-throated progressive who advocated abolishing the police. With housing and development still the dominant issues, voters elected councilmembers who were the object of dismay and unhappiness by the no-growth element of the city. development still the dominant issues, voters elected councilmembers who were the object of dismay and unhappiness by the no-growth element of the city.

This ought to be fun.

SPOILERS: By the way, there also are those who say Mark Wolohan took votes away from Rasmussen and helped Aguirre win and, similarly, Isabella Chu took votes from Borgens and helped Espinoza-Garnica win. How do we know it’s not the other way around and Rasmussen prevented Wolohan from winning? The answer is that we don’t, and to label Wolohan and Chu as spoilers is to a disservice to their candidacies.

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES: It was a meaningful election for Rainbow politics. In addition to Smith and Espinoza, another openly gay candidate, James Coleman took out well-regarded incumbent Councilman Rich Garbarino in South San Francisco.

A PENINSULA-WIDE WAVE: The sweeping changes were not limited to the City of Redwood.

In San Mateo, the easy win by appointed incumbent Councilwoman Amourence Lee over challenger Lisa Diaz Nash speaks to the changing political dynamics in San Mateo. Nash was heavily backed by development interests who saw Lee as a too-progressive outsider. Not coincidentally, Lee comes from a part of town long overlooked by the city’s establishment.

And Measure Y, the extension of San Mateo’s height limit lost – narrowly, yes – but its defeat is another loud signal that the status is no longer quo. The influence

of the anti-growth forces has diminished in the last 30 years and no longer sets the agenda for San Mateo’s future.

Even more interestingly, the issues of height and growth now are in the lap of the City Council, which is where these decisions should be made, even with the heated rhetoric and predictions of doom that are likely to dominate the discussion.

It also was a big election for progressives and those associated with the Democratic Socialists led by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. In addition to Lee and Espinoza-Garnica, there were a number of other wins, most notably the relatively easy win by Chelsea Bonini over longterm, incumbent Rod Hsiao for a seat on the county Board of Education.

This is bench-building and we will see more efforts to push Peninsula politics to the left.

WELL, NO, NOT QUITE: In my last pre-election column, I made a number of guesses, and, boy, was I wrong – particularly about how well Espinoza-Garnica would do, the Lee-Nash race and the race for a San Mateo County Community College seat between incumbents Maurice Goodman and Dave Mandelkern, won by Goodman. I said Joe Biden would win a landslide and that it would be evident on election night, although I did hedge that one a bit.

The normal post-election news media analysis would be to say these outcomes were a surprise. But just because it’s a surprise to me doesn’t mean it’s a surprise to the candidates.

SAFE HARBOR: And 2020 was a big year for Virginia Chang Kiraly, who was re-elected to Menlo Fire Protection District board and the San Mateo County Harbor Commission. The latter outcome also was a win for those who want the long-turbulent Harbor Commission to operate with some semblance of decorum and a big loss for the allies of Sabrina Brennan, who seemed intent almost entirely on making mischief.

MOVING ON: The ideal outcome of 2020 would be for everyone to take a deep breath, let it out slowly, take a look around and get new bearings.

I’d like to see those in the political arena engage each other over honest differences and stop this constant wave of suspicion and cynicism that seems to dominate our public discourse.

What brings this to mind was a late complaint from the Yes on Y forces in San Mateo that a mobile vote center had been placed at Hillsdale Shopping Center, which is owned by the Bohannon Company, a major backer of rival Measure R. “Is this one more thing that big money can buy in this election? Shameful!” went the complaint. Well, it didn’t work, as Measure R was thoroughly trounced. Hillsdale Shopping Center is a community gathering place, which is where a mobile vote center should go. The dang thing wasn’t plastered with Yes on R stickers. It just sat there, like the inanimate object it was.

Not every action warrants outrage or suspicion. Really. C

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Second Harvest Seeking Support as Need Grows

The impact of Covid-19 and subsequent economic downturn has resulted in job loss, wage loss and the depletion of savings, which has led to a dramatic increase in food insecurity across the Bay Area. As a result, Second Harvest of Silicon Valley is now providing food assistance to an average of 500,000 people every month – twice as many people as it served pre-pandemic. A much needed lift from community leaders San Mateo Credit Union and the Elks Club arrived to the tune of $5,000 and $10,000 donations.

To help cover increased expenses and to sustain emergency response efforts related to the pandemic, Second Harvest is asking for financial donations and volunteer support. Since Second Harvest is unable to accept community food donations this year, individual and groups can also host a virtual food drive to encourage their friends and families to make donations. Visit SHFB.org to make a donation, start a virtual drive or to sign up to volunteer.

Elks Lodge representatives Lyle Personette, Amy Anderson-Giugliano and Carol Ivin present a check for $5,000 to Shobana Gubbi of Second Harvest

Lejla Bojer, Corporate Philanthropy Officer of Second Harvest, receives $10,000 from Wade Painter President/CEO of the San Mateo Credit Union.

The Big Top Goes Big Sky November saw the Zoppé Italian Family Circus put away its usual big top tent and set up open air at the Port of Redwood City.

For 2020, Zoppé referred to its circus as “The Show Must Go On”. This one-ring circus honors a 178-year-old Italian tradition starring many thrilling acts. Uniquely intertwining historic footage and live performances, it was a show only a pandemic could create. The Zoppé Circus has survived previous pandemics and even world wars… because the show must go on!

Photos courtesy Zoppé Circus

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HISTORY by Jim Clifford•

San Carlos Airport Trained WWII Pilots The San Carlos Planning Commission recently approved plans for the construction of two aircraft hangars, applauding the project’s proposal to honor Amelia Earhart and other pioneering female pilots. I am not sure what Earhart’s connection to San Carlos is, but I do know about Walter van der Kamp’s. Walter van der Kamp?

Perhaps it is time to also honor him and others who trained at San Carlos and went on to fight and die in World War II. The cadre of hopefuls included a group from China who wanted to return to their homeland and defeat Japanese invaders. Even earlier, it was not unusual for Chinese cadets, including women, to train at American airfields. Their government planned to build an air service that would link the cities of the vast nation.

Van der Kamp, who graduated from Sequoia High School in 1930, was killed on Feb. 22, 1944, when his B24 Liberator bomber was shot down during an attack on a German aircraft factory. His Sequoia yearbook photo shows a handsome, tousle-haired young man looking directly into the camera. His campus activities included theater and the hospitality committee.

An Early Interest According to the yearbook, van der Kamp, who planned to attend Stanford University, had a keen interest in flying, which was then in its early years.

“Walter was one of the young men who hung out at the San Carlos Airport, in love with flying,” recalled Corrine Cooley Derringer, Sequoia class of 1951, whose father’s family owned the airport.

Kamp standing in the back row, towering over Chinese pilots being trained at the San Carlos Airport. The photo was taken in 1937 when the Japanese were ravishing China, which didn’t have much of an air force.

Top: Crew of Liberator bomber piloted by Walter van der Kemp, back row second from right.

Bottom: Walter van der Kemp in back row, towering over fellow cadets from China who learned to fly with him at San Carlos Airport.

Photos courtesy 450th Bomber Group Memorial Association and San Carlos Airport Association.

“He was an opera fan, and an Anglophile – probably fueled by Britain’s endangered role against Hitler,” Derringer wrote in a letter to the San Carlos Airport Association, adding that her father, Charles, taught van der Kamp to fly. She added that another student, William Nichols, was shot down and spent most of the war in a German prison camp. The fate of the Chinese pilots is unknown, but Derringer said her father did not have much hope for the young men who would be “going against the Japanese military with only civilian flying training.”

Van der Kamp also might have been looking west and seeing the blood red rising sun flag of the Japanese Empire.

Derringer has a photo showing van der

Flyers for the China Front Even before Pearl Harbor, Americans volunteered to fight for China. The American Volunteer Group, called the Flying Tigers, was the most famous example. The war in Europe also saw Americans fighting before their country officially went to war. Van der Kamp was one of them. He joined the Canadian Air Force which was helping Britain battle the Nazis. After Pearl Harbor, he transferred to the American air force.

Derringer said that the last time she saw van der Kamp was when he came home on leave and visited her family in Long Beach where her father was serving with the Navy.

“After the war, back in San Carlos, we were visited by his widow and his little boy, about two years old,” she recalled.

Van der Kamp’s widow moved to the Napa Valley area with the couple’s son, Martin, who went on to a successful career in the wine industry.

“My mother, a native of Ireland, met my father in Canada where he was training Canadian pilots,” Martin told the Journal of Local History in a 2014 interview. She remarried around 1960 and died in 1995.

Martin kept in touch with members of his father’s old outfit. One told him the men had “one hell of a party on the day I was born.” C

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Hometown Holidays on Parade 2020 Decorate your car for the holidays and sign up at www. hometownholidays.org to join in on the fun. Enjoy music, lights, Santa at Courthouse Square and receive free giveaways all from the safety of your car!

December 19th from 3 to 6 pm 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes for best decorated cars Must sign up to secure your space and time

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