Climate RWC – August 2021

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P u b l i c a t i o n Profile: The American Dream Granted Spotlight: Olympian Aisha Chow Ovation: Video Producer Dylan Sesco

ISSUE SEVENTY TWO • AUGUST • 2021

The Dope on Local

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR•

This month’s issue focuses on cannabis because Redwood City is readying to grant permits for up to six storefront retailers. Cannabis is a rapidly changing industry, and there was no substitute for the informative in-person visit Creative Director Jim Kirkand and I made to Airfield Supply Co. in San Jose, where we were given a full tour, from the nurseries to the retail shop. Cannabis has clearly gone mainstream. While Jim and I were there, he bumped into someone he knows from this area. That’s a customer who won’t have to drive so far if stores open in Redwood City. The feature begins on page 8.

Putting together a printed monthly publication is a challenge with stories like writer Dan Brown’s Profile of Aisha Chow, a remarkable San Mateo woman who was training to compete in the Tokyo Olympics when Dan interviewed her in the early part of July, before her departure.

Furthermore, by the time you’d be reading this, the rowing event she was preparing for would be over. Then increasing cases of Covid put a cloud over the Games themselves. This Olympics presented a second-in-a-lifetime experience for Aisha, who was competing again for her native Trinidad and Tobago. Regardless of the outcome in Tokyo, we were inspired by her determination and hard work and think you will be too. The story is on page 22.

This month’s issue also introduces readers to Cristina Huezo, vice president and head of community for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, where she helps steer philanthropic investments to local grantees. Cristina’s father was an immigrant from El Salvador and she is strongly motivated to assist in making the American dream come true for everyone. Writer Liz Sloan’s story about this community leader is on page 18.

Dylan Sesco, the subject of August’s Ovation story, is a filmmaker who grew up in Redwood City and went to Woodside High School. We’d heard that he had put together a terrific video about Union Cemetery, and found it lived up to that billing. Dylan and his brother Jett were a delight to get to know and the videos are definitely worth checking out.

After a year and a half of Covid, how about the happier news in the MicroClimate column?

Street Life Ministries, which serves the homeless, announced that it has a $1 million gift to match for a new recovery program. And on Fernside Drive near Roosevelt Avenue in Redwood City, neighbors and anybody else who passes by have been enjoying the whimsical inflatable dragons in the front yard of a couple who likes to spread some joy.

So check all the good reading in the August issue!

Janet McGovern, Editor

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TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S •

FEATU RE Cannabis

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PROFILE The American Dream Granted

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SPOTLIG HT Olympian Aisha Chow

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OVATION Video Producer Dylan Sesco

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AROUND TOWN ���������14 MICRO CLIMATE.............16 HISTORY......................30

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The Redwood City Downtown Business Group “DBG” is a non-profit organization that lends support and guidance to an economically viable downtown business district. The DBG is a relevant member of the downtown community, a sponsor and host to many of the city’s diverse musical and cultural celebrations.

Look for these upcoming events!

December 4, 2021

February 2022

June 18, 2022 For more information contact: Regina Van Brunt Executive Director • 650-455-5144 • regina@redwoodcitydowntown.com

This ad was provided as a courtesy of

2021 · CLIMATE ·5 Neighbors August helping neighbors - since 1938

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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

Janet McGovern Liz Sloan Dan Brown Jim Clifford 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 ©2021 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 570 El Camino Real, Ste. 150 #331 Redwood City, CA 94063. Printed in the U.S.A.

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C L I M AT E •

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TOGETHER, WE DESIGN PLACES THAT INSPIRE PEOPLE

851 MAIN STREET

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The Wee

Redwood City gets ready for its

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eed Store

for its first retail marijuana stores

By Janet McGovern

Never mind that marijuana is illegal at the federal level, that it still has a ways to go to achieve cultural acceptance, that bringing the product to consumers was a costly, uncertain and highly regulated enterprise, even before a pandemic came along. Yet the weed business has grown like— well, a weed — since California voters in 2016 approved Proposition 64, which legalized non-medical use of cannabis. On Nov. 9 of that year, adult use by people 21 and older became legal.

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• California led the nation in both sales and revenue in 2020, in Leafly’s annual jobs report, with nearly $3.8 billion in sales and 57,970 employed in the industry. Cannabis was declared an essential business during the Covid pandemic and almost 24,000 jobs were added in 2020. The State of California late last year estimated it had taken in more than $1.8 billion in tax revenues since January 2018. And sales continue to climb.

This is the green rush that Redwood City has entered—in the slow lane.

Completing a phased program begun nearly four years ago, the city is expected this fall to issue up to six permits for retail cannabis dispensaries. City Manager Melissa Stevenson Diaz will pick the winners, chosen from an initial 28 applicants, each of which had to put down $23,863 in non-refundable fees and go through a lengthy screening process.

The Mayor’s Doubts Mayor Diane Howard, a nurse whose husband, Steve Howard, is a physician, had her doubts about allowing retail pot sales and had to be convinced before voting in favor. What changed her mind was a field trip to two “reputable establishments” in San Jose and meeting with both the owners and representatives from the police and fire departments. They wanted to pass along what they’d learned so Redwood City could avoid some pitfalls.

“As I nurse, I’m coming in here skeptical because I always felt things like this probably should be handled from a pharmacy or hospital base for safety’s sake and assurances that you were getting quality product,” she says. “I was going in with skepticism.”

Mayor Howard says she is very concerned that allowing cannabis into stores might send the wrong signals to kids. At the same time, she personally knows of people who have benefitted from using cannabis for pain and migraine relief. Since

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Redwood City Mayor Diane Howard

“As I nurse, I’m coming in here skeptical because I always felt things like this probably should be handled from a pharmacy or hospital base for safety’s sake and assurances that you were getting quality product. I was going in with skepticism.” so many states have legalized it and there’s a strong demand, “I felt I would be almost negligent in my duty if I didn’t step up and learn every way we could do this to make sure it’s safety first, that it’s regulated properly, that the companies that are chosen are truly reputable licensed individuals who will do our community proud.”

Among the useful tips from the San Jose field trip: Limit the number of licenses and limit the zoning areas. Howard says one of smartest decisions the council made was putting the final choice in the hands of the city manager. “We are getting lobbied by the different companies,” Howard says. She tells them they just need to follow the process.

Since 2018, when the state began issuing state licenses to businesses selling cannabis products to adults, Redwood City opened the door incrementally—while city staff worked on potential regulations.

Deliveries and cannabis nurseries are now allowed. Currently there are six licensed, non-storefront delivery operators, three of them active, according to Simon Vuong, the city’s economic development manager.

Companies outside the city also do deliveries. There are no permitted indoor cannabis nurseries.

The city went through a long process to determine whether to allow walkin purchases, how many retailers to let in—and in which zoning districts —and how to choose among them. Two community meetings were held. An online survey showed more than 61% “strongly” or “somewhat” supported allowing storefront retailers, but a significant minority (almost 39%) were just as opposed. There was virtually no middle ground (.5%).

Retail Sales Okayed In October 2020, the City Council approved zoning amendments to allow for retail sales. The city identified more than 500 potential sites for sales and distribution, generally in the commercial, mixed-use and downtown areas—no closer than 600 feet from parks, schools and other sensitive locations, with no commercial cannabis operations in residential areas. Stores have the option to do delivery service.

The application window closed in February, and working with a consultant, Redwood City’s staff has been evaluating and scoring the contenders. Two of the 28 applications were deemed incomplete and were ruled out of the running, according to Vuong. An early goal to issue permits by summer has slipped to the fall. He says the application fee will continue to be reviewed to make sure it truly squares with the time spent on them.

• Because cannabis is a Schedule I narcotic at the federal level with no accepted medical use, industry entrepreneurs from growers to retailers have had to deal with unique difficulties accessing the traditional credit and banking systems and a lot of business is conducted in cash. Vuong says the city required a thorough vetting of the applicants’ safety and security plans, cash-handling procedures, employee training and other business practices “to limit the amount of exposure any particular storefront retailer may have.”

Background checks are required for owners, and they must work closely with the Police Department to ensure that appropriate alarm systems are in place and vehicles are inspected. “Many cannabis operators,” Vuong adds, “have been able to slowly gain access to financial services and banking systems to streamline their business operations and reduce their reliance on cash.”

From Redwood City to the cannabis dispensary Airfield Supply Company near the San Jose Airport is a 20-mile journey by car, and it’s an instructive place to visit to get an idea of what’s involved in this rapidly transforming industry. Founded under a different name and as a collective in 2010 during a time when a doctor’s recommendation was required to join, Airfleld rebranded itself in 2015. Chris Lane, the company’s chief marketing officer, who has a background in corporate branding, has moved Airfield beyond the “green crosses and purple leaves and zigzags” of marijuana’s flower power heyday to an aviation-theme for the website and some products. Deliveries are done in Teslas.

Though regulations have swiftly changed the industry, Airfield’s business is still medically driven, he adds.

“The mission for Airfield is making the most out of life’s journey every day.

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Above: Airfield Supply's retail store rivals those in high-end department stores.

Left: Chief Marketing Officer Chris Lane.

"Obviously we do not make medical claims. We’re not doctors. But there is a wide variety of uses of cannabis for anyone looking for whatever they’re trying to solve or alternatives to opioids or alcohol or a variety of addictive substances that are really toxic on the body.”

That’s what we’re here to do. We do it as trying to help people, whatever they need, whether it’s relaxation, fun, sleep. … Obviously we do not make medical claims.

We’re not doctors. But there is a wide variety of uses of cannabis for anyone looking for whatever they’re trying to solve or alternatives to opioids or alcohol or a variety of addictive substances that are really toxic on the body.”

A Busy Trade Within some 30,000 square feet split between two buildings, Airfield Supply houses both its headquarters and a retail shop staffed by “budtenders" which is as genteel as a cosmetics bar at a nice store.

Airfield Supply sells about 450 to 500 products at a given time, and does about 35,000 transactions a month, according to Lane.

Every product sold has to come from a state-licensed manufacturer with third-party validated testing to ensure ingredient quality. Gummies. Tinctures.

Chews. Harvested cannabis buds. Topicals. A squeezable THC “beverage enhancer.” A 30-calorie, cranberry-sage, cannabis-infused “social tonic.” Edibles, including peanut butter cups. And for the green thumber, plant clones to grow at home. (Airfield sells only clones from third-party suppliers, not its own plants.)

Past the retail space and largely unseen by the near-constant stream of customers is a precision growing, cultivating, cutting, trimming, packaging and retail (including ecommerce) and delivery operation that keeps about 175 people employed.

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Airfield’s Chief Cultivation Officer Noah Sweeters stands among plants in the nursery.

“We’re vertically integrated and always have been, which means all the way from seeds to sale for lack of a better phrase,” Lane tells his Climate magazine visitors. “You’re literally standing below a garden above us.”

Past the retail space is a warren of rooms where employees fulfill mail orders. On the cultivation side, workers pluck (remove) buds and leaves and handtrim plants. In climate-controlled spaces both downstairs and upstairs, something like 15,000 cannabis plants are in various growth stages, from "mother" plant to full flower. Indoor plants can reach four to six feet tall at harvest.

Marijuana plants produce chemical compounds known as cannabinoids, and receptors in the body are particularly responsive to tetrahydrocannabinol— THC—which is the active, mind-altering compound that makes users get high.

Another compound called cannabidiol— CBD—is considered the healing element.

A third-party lab tests Airfield’s products for things like THC and CBD, as well as heavy metals and various contaminants,

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and all plants have to be tagged with unique identifiers in the state’s computerized Track-and-Trace System. Inspectors can drop in and check at any time, Lane says. They can make sure that all plants are present and accounted for.

Green Genes Noah Sweeters—Airfield’s Chief Cultivation Officer—acquired a taste for marijuana while a student at Los Gatos High School, where he played baseball. “It has always been big,” he says, “but I just knew there was going to be a market someday.”

Self-taught in the art and science of growing weed, he manages the progress of the plants to make sure that everything from the THC content to the flavor profile remains consistent so he knows exactly what he will get from each plant.

“We’re very proud of what we do,” he says.

“We can’t lose a garden to unstable genetics,” Lane adds. “We’d literally lose a lot of revenue.”

Back in the ‘60s and ‘70s when smoking pot was the thing to do, getting high flew in the face of “The Man,” usually a

teen-ager’s parents. The passage of time has transformed those rebels into senior citizens with aches and pains and sleep problems.

Charles Freeborn, today a 64-year-old cabinet maker living in Portland, Ore., was part of that generation, growing up in Palo Alto. “I didn’t care for alcohol as a kid,” he says. “The loss of control and feeling of it — not to mention the hangover. I tried cannabis and discovered it enhanced overall sensation and, more importantly, music. It really added to the concert experience.”

He’s learned to grow his own, “two plants every other year, which yields about a half pound, and that's all I need. I don't grow it to smoke it,” Freeman says, “but prefer to extract it by boiling it into a tea then mix it with coconut oil. Then I take that and use a quarter teaspoon and stir it into my sleepy time tea at night. My use now is more to help me sleep and for pain relief.”

A Challenging Business People in the cannabis business—from delivery to retail companies and from

• manufacturers to cultivators—had until recently been regulated and licensed by three programs housed within different departments at the state level. Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 141, which consolidated the three programs into a single standalone cannabis department for licensing and regulatory oversight.

The new Department of Cannabis Control will regulate all commercial cannabis license holders in California, including cultivators, retailers, manufacturers, distributors, testing laboratories, microbusinesses, and industry event organizers. DCC will also manage the Track-and-Trace System used to record the inventory and movement of cannabis plants and products every step of the way within the legal supply chain.

Cultivators must attach a “Unique Identifier Tag” to the base of each plant.

The Bureau of Cannabis Control has a statewide public information program called “Get #weedwise,” which has two audiences: It’s designed to encourage consumers to only purchase cannabis from licensed purveyors but also warns unlicensed businesses to become licensed.

The Get #weedwise ads inform consumers about dangerous foreign material, including chemicals, mold and fecal matter, that can be found in illegal, untested cannabis.

The campaign also includes alerts to unlicensed dealers that they could face confiscation of cash or cannabis by engaging in unlicensed activity.

One of the other challenges the growers of these water-loving plants face in this drought year is possible water restrictions.

Lane says Airfield Supply did a beta test of using reclaimed water which showed it would be a costly challenge, but the company is still interested in the possibility. The indoor plants grow under intense lighting with large fans running to circulate the air, which is also expensive.

“Regulations and permitting and all of that, it’s a lifelong effort in the cannabis in-

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“Regulations and permitting and all of that, it’s a lifelong effort in the cannabis industry.” dustry,” says Airfield’s Lane. “Regulations are constantly evolving and changing and so you’re just constantly cognizant of the fact – you know, it’s a part of working in the industry.” A simple change in a packaging requirement, for example, can put a company out of compliance overnight, so it’s a good idea not to overinvest in something that all of a sudden isn’t allowed.

Cannabis is taxed at many levels, and the challenge to government is not to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Legal cannabis businesses need to be able to compete with the illegal market. Growers pay a cultivation tax based on a percentage per ounce, and a 15% excise tax. The sales tax rate in Redwood City is 9.875%, and the city has levied an additional 4% business tax on gross receipts on storefront retail.

There will also be an annual $29,530 permit renewal fee, according to Vuong.

The city expects to collect almost $1 million in sales taxes once all six retailers are up and running. Renewal fees will help fund cannabis drug education to prevent youth use, according to Vuong.

Benefits to the City Vuong joined the Redwood City City Manager’s staff early in the year and had prior experience with cannabis regulation while working for the City of San Rafael. “We know that there is a demand for legal cannabis products, and cannabis retail businesses typically serve the local community. It is in the community’s best interest to provide safe and greater access to retailers through regulated channels.”

This, he says, is also an effective strategy to limit greater availability of “untested and potentially harmful products within the illicit market.”

Mayor Howard, for her part, has sympathy for people operating cannabis businesses under a legal and financial cloud because of the mismatch between state and federal law. Without federal research and testing, consumers also don’t have reliable information about dosing and whether cannabis really is good medicine.

Since so many states have legalized cannabis and there’s a strong demand, Howard would like to see the federal government “step up and take charge. … If it’s been made legal, then the federal government should put money into research so that good products are promoted, good companies are promoted, make it as regulated as alcohol, cigarettes, any of these things. Because it’s here.”

Asked if she’d be willing to do ribbon-cutting duties at the first retail store opening, Howard said, “Actually that’s a good question. I would feel obligated to do that because we have made these companies jump through a lot of hurdles. …

They’ve been patient. They’ve done everything we’ve asked them to do. I have to believe the cream of the crop are going to be the ones that are chosen. … I would go to their opening because I would like to thank them for being patient with us. And I think we’re all going to learn together.”

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Casa Circulo Finds a New Home Casa Circulo Cultural has been providing educational, cultural, and developmental opportunities for underserved and immigrant families throughout San Mateo County for the past 12 years. And on July 14 they celebrated the opening of their new locaton at 3090 Middlefield Road.

San Mateo County Sheriff Carlos Bolaños had the honor of cutting the ceremonial ribbon as a crowd watched, including Redwood City Mayor Diane Howard and Mexico's Consul General in San Francisco, Remedios Gomez Arnau and other dignitaries.

Festivities included performances by Metro Taekwondo and dancing by Brianna Rivera and Omar Quezada.

"Our focus is to be accessible to as many people as possible; moving to the new facility in the heart of North Fair Oaks, home of the most vulnerable residents, seems to be the perfect solution. We would be able to provide social, economic, wellness, and cultural building blocks for the present and the future", said Veronica Escamez, director and founder of CCC.

Mexico's Consul General Remedios Gomez Arnau

Left: Casa Circulo Cultural board members Right: Dancers Brianna Rivera and Omar Quezada Below: Metro Taekwondo

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AROUND TOWN•

Groundbreaking is Held for New Senior Center An enthusiastic crowd turned out July 16 in Redwood City to celebrate the start of construction of a new Veterans Memorial Building/Senior Center. The modern 45,000-square-foot complex will be built between 1455 Madison Ave. and 711 Nevada St. and include a 290-seat theater, a catering/demonstration kitchen, multi-purpose rooms, a mini gym with two pickle ball courts and a rooftop garden and walking track. Among other elements of the project, there will also be an adaptive physical education facility, as well as exhibits recognizing the city’s veterans and the NFL Alumni organization. It's estimated that the $51.1 million project will take about two years, with an anticipated occupancy by July 2023.

This is the first phase of a project which will eventually incorporate the Sequoia YMCA and its new facilities, which will include an indoor/outdoor pool.

Top: Parks and Recreation Director Chris Beth Top right: Military veterans led the audience in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Right: Council members made the ceremonial first dig to begin construction.

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A $1 Million Gift Challenge, Plus a Spirit-Lifting Gift to Neighbors Street Life Ministries has been given a challenge by a local family to match up to $1 million to start a new program aimed at getting homeless people permanently off the street. The “Homeless to Healthy” initiative represents a major expansion from the free meal service that the Redwood City-based ministry provides for homeless people in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, operating it out of “borrowed” kitchen facilities.

Homeless to Healthy participants would be given food, housing assistance, job training and faith-based counseling in a permanent new facility, with a mission to get them fully integrated back into society. “We’ve been here for 20 years, feeding the homeless,” says David Shearin, Street Life’s lead pastor/executive director and a former addict. “We’ve grown enormously, built a huge reputation for who we are and what we do. But we’ve never put our feet into a recovery program.” That is now in reach because of the $1 million matching gift from a local family’s charitable fund.

They want to remain anonymous.

Street Life, which has a year to raise the second million, put out the first appeal July 8, telling contributors that their donations will effectively be doubled. “A million bucks, to me that’s a lot of money,” Shearin says. “I literally cried when he told me that. I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ I couldn’t catch my breath.”

The donor, whose association with Street Life began as a volunteer, thought it had gotten along “quite well in a modest way” but a permanent facility will give the ministry its own kitchen both for cooking and job-training, as well as space for counseling. (Street Life Ministries uses the kitchen at Peninsula Covenant Church.)

Initially, the program will be limited to men, and Street Life will be looking for candidates showing signs of wanting to

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David Shearin

Homeless to Healthy participants would be given food, housing assistance, job training and faith-based counseling in a permanent new facility, with a mission to get them fully integrated back into society. change. The donor likes the ministry’s approach, which is to solve addiction problems and homelessness, not enable and perpetuate them.

Shearin says the Homeless to Healthy program needs at least a 10,000- to 15,000-square-foot building with room for walk-in refrigerators and freezers, classrooms, a corporate office and possibly some living space. Street Life currently dispenses meals—with a sermon—in Redwood City, Menlo Park and Palo Alto.

The program would operate in partnership with charities such as LifeMoves, which is involved in finding housing for low-income residents in San Mateo County and Silicon Valley. Participants will get a caseworker, housing and attend classes to help them conquer addiction and find employment. LifeMoves has agreed to

provide space at Redwood City’s Maple Street Shelter for 20 homeless men, Shearin says, who will be free of the distractions and temptations of the street during their year in recovery.

The cost of sustaining one person in the program for a year is $42,750, according to the Street Life website, compared with an $830,000 societal cost over 10 years if that person remains homeless. Addiction is a chronic condition and the key to successful treatment is keeping people engaged in a program, according to Dr. Brian Greenberg, LifeMoves’ vice president of programs and a psychologist. LifeMoves is not a faith-based program and only encourages its clients to get involved in one that’s right for them. But Greenberg says, “People need to have hope that they can get this addiction under control and be able to have a life for themselves, and a faith-based approach is really effective for many people.”

Shearin, who celebrated 16 years of sobriety in July, says it was his experience with the Salvation Army that made the difference. “If they pussyfooted around with me with my recovery, I would never have gotten sober. But because they held my feet to the fire and I had consequences—you did certain things or you were kicked out.” Sixteen years ago, he says, “Most people wrote me off. … Look where I am because I had a support system. I had people at the Salvation Army, at church, that poured into me and they just mentored me. And you know what, I was willing to be mentored.” Keeping addicts in a recovery program and “allowing them to stay loaded on drugs,” he adds, “what are you doing, just wishing that they’re going to get clean?” For more information, go to streetlifeministries.org.

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Megan Gardner and Taylor Pope with their handmade dragons.

Megan Gardner and her husband Taylor Pope needed a psychological lift because of the prolonged isolation brought about by the Covid pandemic. They got one alright— and so has the whole neighborhood—courtesy of the giant inflatable dragons that the two software engineers have been placing in their Fernside Drive front yard for more than a year. Gardner, who has always had an inexplicable love for dragons, stitches them together on her Bernina sewing machine, and her husband takes care of the accessorizing—hats, flags, glasses—for holidays, special events and other themes.

It takes 30 to 40 hours to cut out and stitch a dragon together.

They’ve got six “basic” dragons, but by making simple costume changes, the couple has been able to populate the yard with an ever-changing cast of characters for special days both well-known and obscure: Post Office Dragon, Easter Dragon (Post Office Dragon with fuzzy ears), Back-to-School and Vote dragons, plus dragons for Father’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. They put all their dragons out for “Appreciate a Dragon Day” (Jan. 16). The only dragons the couple didn’t make themselves were ones purchased in 2016 for Halloween and Christmas, which seeded the idea of making their own.

Gardner loves Halloween too and she’d seen an inflatable dragon at Home Depot. She bought it and three months later, another one for Christmas. To describe her personality as “bubbly” seems inadequate. “I don’t know what it was,” she recalls, “but I was like, ‘This is amazing!

I want to do this more! … You know what I really want? I want an Easter dragon.’”

She bought a smaller dragon but put aside the Easter dragon idea. Then Covid came along, and the duo turned the Christmas dragon into a “Covid 19 First Responder Dragon”—with a mask, blue gloves and a little roll of “toilet paper” made out of very strong nylon.

They put the dragon out in April 2020 and left it up for months. “We’d be out in the yard and people would say, ‘We love your dragon!’” At the time, Gardner continues, “People were searching for ways to connect and it was a way to connect in the neighborhood.” The dragon eventually developed a tear so she took it apart to make a paper pattern, and sewed a dragon for the Fourth of July. But when the novice dragon-makers inflated the creation, it was too top-heavy to hold the weight. They’ve learned a lot through trial and error, including where to buy windproof silpoly and silnylon synthetic fabric to turn their

never-ending ideas into durable dragons.

They’ve added zippers to the head and belly to make it easy to attach accessories like a large foam top hat for New Year’s Dragon.

For “Talk Like a Pirate Day” (Sept.

19), Gardner placed a baby monitor by the dragon and would give visiting kids a hearty pirate greeting from inside the house. “We had kids coming for like a week after trying to talk to the dragon,” Gardner says. Her husband set up a website (fernsidedragons.com) and an Instagram account (@fernsidedragons). The feedback from neighbors continues to be enormously gratifying. People leave notes thanking Gardner and Pope for the joy they’ve brought to the neighborhood during the pandemic. One person dropped off a succulent. The couple treasures the dozens of handmade Valentines and notes they received in February. “It’s like super validating,” says Gardner, who had felt so alone during the pandemic.

Knowing she was doing something to lift her neighbors’ spirits justifies all the effort. “I can’t fix Covid. I can’t fix all the unrest in the country. I can’t fix the political divide. But I can make dragons,” she says, with a burst of laughter. “And people can connect over it.”

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n Dream Granted CZI’s Cristina Huezo wants the same chance at success for all

By Liz Sloan

The American Dream was invented in 1931.

No, really. Remarkably, this phrase was coined at the height of the Great Depression in the book “The Epic of America” by Scott Truslow Adams.

The words caught fire with politicians and writers, and almost instantly worked their way into the American ethos. Their defining idea? Everybody—wherever they are born, whoever their parents, whatever their class—can attain success in this country through their own grit, determination, and hard work.

But how often is this the storyline? Not often enough, says Cristina Heuzo, vice president and head of community for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

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PROFILE •

“Achieving the American dream should not be a matter of luck,” says Huezo. “That dream should be available to everyone.”

This daughter of immigrants saw her own family reach the dream. But she believes chance plays far too large a role in who thrives and who fails in this country. She has forged a career to change that.

Immigrant Parents Huezo’s father was born and raised in El Salvador, landing in San Francisco’s Mission District as a teenager. “He truly had the immigrant experience,” she says, “working multiple jobs—at the airport, in the fields of Napa picking grapes—all while trying to get through school. My grandparents believed that education was the key to success, especially for immigrants. My father was able to go to college because my grandfather worked at USF as a janitor.” Huezo’s maternal grandparents were also immigrants, coming to Oakland from Portugal shortly before Huezo’s mother was born. “My mother was an English-language-learner growing up.”

It was work that brought Huezo’s parents together—literally, a workspace. “My father met my mother because they shared a desk at the phone company. She had the day shift and he had the night shift.” The two met, married, and eventually settled in Newark, where Huezo grew up.

“I was very close to both sets of grandparents,” says Huezo, who served as their translator and navigator with doctor’s appointments, banking and other everyday tasks. “I grew up seeing the racism and systemic barriers they faced. It really shaped my work in the Bay Area today.”

Huezo originally imagined a career in international development. “I thought I would work for a global NGO (non-governmental organization) or be an ambassador.” Graduating from UCLA with a degree in international development, she joined the National Council of La Raza,

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Huezo speaks with Pastor Paul Bains and CZI colleague Dominique Turrentine at an internal CZI staff meeting in 2020. Bains leads WeHOPE, an East Palo Alto-based nonprofit and CZI partner. Photo courtesy of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

a Latino civil rights organization now known as UnidosUS. “My job was to bring stories to Sacramento to make the case for statewide policy change,” she says. “I started to realize how many needs were right here at home. I thought about that American dream, and how out of reach that was for so many people.”

Changing Course Impatient with the slow pace of change in policy work, Huezo decided to “zoom out” and think about the other avenues of impact. It was while pursuing a master’s degree at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government that she got interested in philanthropy. Tapping her networks in Sacramento and at Harvard, she approached the Gates Foundation, ultimately landing a job as an educational grant maker. She spent a few years on the East Coast, but the Bay Area called.

“I always knew I wanted to come back home, and I had a feeling that Mark and Priscilla would ultimately do some pretty significant investing in the Bay Area.” That would be Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, and his wife, physician Priscilla Chan. That “pretty significant in-

vesting” turned into the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, or CZI, launched in 2015 with the ambitious goal of creating “A Future for Everyone” through transformative investments in education, social justice and science. Huezo joined CZI’s predecessor organization in 2014, a tiny team operating in startup education.

Over time, Huezo built CZI’s Community program, which houses CZI’s “placebased” work—initiatives focused on the needs, solutions and attributes of the Bay Area and California. The program encompasses these areas of outreach: affordable housing; youth and family homelessness; the grantmaking/capacity building Community Fund (which is on track to grant $7 million this year to San Mateo County organizations); and Community Affairs, which responds quickly to local needs.

Through its Community team, CZI has committed more than $12 million to Covid relief and recovery in the San Francisco Bay Area, including expanded health services, remote learning, financial assistance and small business relief. Another focus area in 2020 was wildfire response, with $3 million going to organizations in the Bay Area and the state. CZI also provides meeting and events space in its Red-

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PROFILE •

“I always knew I wanted to come back home, and I had a feeling that Mark and Priscilla would ultimately do some pretty significant investing in the Bay Area.” wood City headquarters to community organizations free of charge.

A Listening Approach In working with community organizations, the team’s grantmaking philosophy is: trust and empower their partners.

“It’s not about dropping in with a strategy,” says Huezo. “It’s about really listening, saying ‘You are the ones developing solutions. What can we do to help you succeed?’”

These questions guide the grantmaking: “How do we make sure that people and communities are thriving?” asks Huezo. “Are people living with dignity?

Do they have access to socioeconomic opportunities? Do they have agency in helping shape their own futures?”

Now entering its fifth grantmaking cycle, the Community Fund has given millions to San Mateo County organizations focused on housing, education, healthcare, job and career skills, and civic engagement. Applications are easy, reporting requirements minimal, and “partners” (the word Huezo uses rather than grantees) are trusted to spend the money in whatever way will grow the capacity of their organization. Operating grants can be used for communications, leadership development, fundraising, outside collaborations— whatever will help the organization best serve people in the community.

John Baker, superintendent of the Redwood City School District, lauds Huezo’s collaborative approach. “When I became superintendent,” he says, “Cristina congratulated me, then asked: ‘What kind of needs do you have?’” Baker was dreaming of a laptop program in which middle school students would have dedicated computers they could take back-and-forth,

school to home. “It’s really important to the continuity of the learning,” he says, “and we didn’t have the funding to support it. Cristina was intrigued. She said, ‘Let me take this back to our team and think about what we can do.’” CZI granted two years of funding, after which the district would pick up the costs.

The laptops were a huge success, says Baker, and not just for the students. “The parents could use the devices to look for jobs, housing, medical assistance and so forth.” This was especially useful in lower-income households that lacked any computer. In addition to the machines, CZI funded internet hotspots, professional development for teachers and administrators, and outreach to bring girls and students of color into science and technology.

The program spread to other schools. Now, every student in the district has a dedicated laptop (middle schoolers can take them home), an innovation that proved prescient during the pandemic year.

Help with Connections Baker has appreciated Huezo’s creativity, connections and partnership. “I wanted to look at our community schools,” says Baker. (Community schools offer on-site wraparound services for families—things like health care, parent education, legal support, emergency food and other social services.) “Cristina connected us with some people in other states who were doing these programs way before Redwood City was.”

These thought partners helped take the community schools to the next level.

“Many times, when a grant maker wants to help, the resources come with an agenda,” muses Baker, who finds Huezo a refreshing contrast. “Cristina has been a wealth of collaboration, knowledge and as-

sistance in helping me achieve my goals. I am so grateful for knowing her, and for the time I have spent with her getting these exciting opportunities off the ground.”

Huezo’s job brings stark lessons, every day, of life’s inequities. “I am struck by the incredible contrasts of San Mateo County,” she says, citing the breathtaking wealth of Silicon Valley existing side-byside with people struggling intensely just to get by. Covid both illuminated and exacerbated those inequities. Huezo, who resides in Menlo Park with her husband and three children, lived at least one of those pandemic challenges: trying to keep a young family on track with remote and everyone working from home. “That was hard,” she laughs.

But in a strange way this year of pandemic—along with 2020’s awakenings around race and social justice— bring her hope.

“People got more attuned to social problems during this pandemic; they became more compassionate, more civic-minded,” says Huezo. “In some ways, we were able to move more quickly with innovative solutions and models because of Covid. The governor is actually putting a lot of the state budget surplus toward homelessness.” The question, says Huezo: Can it be sustained? The answer to that question embodies the mark she seeks to make.

“I am an optimistic, glass-half-full kind of person,” she says. “I don’t want the American dream to be about luck. When I think about my work today, it goes back to my dad, and the experience he lived. If I can point to families in our community who are thriving, that will be my legacy.”

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SPOTLIGHT•

The Unlikely Olympian Dual citizen Aisha Chow rows for Trinidad and Tobago in the Tokyo Olympics

By Dan Brown

Before heading off to the Tokyo Olympics in the world’s most populous city, Aisha Chow trained at a quaint oasis that remains unknown even to some locals. Chow, 44, rowed her way around the Bair Island Aquatic Center in Redwood City, where a crowd consisting largely of pelicans, Canadian geese and seals watched her power her single scull across the open water.

Photo by Lisa Worthy

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• For many years, Chow was among the San Mateo County residents oblivious to the charms of Bair Island, but once she discovered it, it changed her life. A friend’s offhand reference to this slice of watery heaven resurrected her athletic side and, soon, the 5-foot-9, 160-pounder became the most unusual of athletes: the accidental Olympian.

“Someone at my work said, ‘Oh, you used to row? Have you ever been rowing at the Bair Island Aquatic Center?’” said Chow, an associate director of cell biology at FibroGen, a biotech company in San Francisco. “And I'm like, ‘What is that?

And I'd never known it was there. It's like 10 minutes from my house.

“And it is awesome. I mean, there’s rowing, there’s masters rowing, there's juniors rowing, there’s kayaking, stand-up paddle-boarding and outrigger canoes.

But I never knew it was there. If someone hadn't told me I would never have known how to look for it.”

Reclaiming the Oars Chow had taken 10 years off from rowing after college but thanks to muscle memory and her dual citizenship with her birthplace, she trained hastily enough to represent Trinidad and Tobago at the 2016 Games in Rio. In doing so, she became the first-ever rower to represent the island country at the Olympics. And almost immediately after her final stroke of that 2016 race, Chow resolved to train maniacally for the chance to do it again, but better, at what would become the much-delayed 2020 Tokyo Games.

She resumed her workouts at the place known by its acronym, BIAC, an expanse that serves as home to several rowing clubs, including Stanford. The site and its tight-knit community proved to be so idyllic for rowing that Chow eventually had to pry herself away in early July. To prepare for the soaring temperatures expected in Tokyo, she did some last-minute prep in

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SPOTLIGHT•

Photo by Daniel Kaplan

Sacramento hoping that the 110-degree heat would provide the finishing sear to her well-done training.

Seeking out such suffering was no surprise. To Chow, misery is among the most appealing aspects of her sport. Because so much of rowing has always come easily to her—she’s freakishly strong—the San Mateo resident prefers it when circumstances require her body to reach beyond its limits.

“I think a lot of endurance sports is basically sort of the games you're playing with yourself to see how far you can take yourself,’’ she said. “You're playing a game of chicken with yourself: How tough can you be? When are you going to quit? Are you going to quit?’”

What Competition is About That said, speaking with Climate in July before her departure for the Tokyo Olympics, Chow was reconciled to the prospect of being soundly defeated by her rowing idols in the Women’s Single Scull 2,000-meter event. Never mind that her friends, as well as the Trinidad and Tobago media, reflexively urged her to “Go for the gold!”

That message misses the point for athletes such as Chow.

“Not everyone is winning a gold medal,’’ she said. “Some of us are just glad we made it here.” For every Michael Phelps and Simone Biles, there are hundreds of other Olympians whose more realistic hope is to represent their country with the best effort of their lives. Chow was aiming to “go for the goal.”

“I'm still not a medal contender. But I have my own personal expectations that I didn't have before,’’ Chow said, referring to 2016, when she finished 22nd out of 32 rowers. “And, so, I think that makes it a little more heavy in terms of things I want to accomplish. … You never want to embarrass yourself. I think that's still like a baseline. But then on top of that, I have my own goals that I want to hit.

“I think before, I was just nervous about being on such a stage and racing with those athletes. Now I've had four or five years of racing at that level. And it's less about the crazy fast women who are in my race and will be leaving me behind and more about, well, ‘What have I spent the last five years doing? Am I going to put it together and have a good race today to satisfy my own self?”

In that light, losing an Olympic race could be more meaningful than winning a lesser one. Chow spent a few years so dominating the older competitors of the Masters circuit in the U.S. that the thrill gave way to a version of boredom.

“Like, I entered all the events and then I was just winning, which is awesome because I was beating people I never thought I could beat,’’ she said, “but if you're just winning, that's just no fun. If this (Olympic) opportunity hadn't opened up that allowed me to start racing at an elite level, I guess I would probably would have had to quit rowing because there would have been no more challenge.”

SPOTLIGHT•

Photo by Lisa Worthy

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Behold the instant Olympian – just add water.

Born to Row Chow was born in Trinidad and Tobago in 1977. As a kid, she was just fine at dancing, gymnastics and jiu jitsu. She was less fine at swimming. “I was actually really slow and terrible,’’ the Olympian said.

But she was also powerful. Like insanely naturally, Wonder Woman-y powerful.

Her might became obvious soon after she moved to the United States for college and tried out for the rowing team at the University of Miami. Chow was there on an academic scholarship en route to her undergraduate degree in biochemistry & molecular biology, microbiology & immunology.

Her cousin recommended to Chow that she try out for Miami’s rowing team, and she walked onto the novice squad with scant experience. A few months into training, the rowing coaches put athletes from all levels through a 2,000-meter test on a stationary machine called a Concept 2 RowErg. Chow set the novice team record that day. She beat every other person on the varsity squad save for the team captain.

“I got off and (the coach) was looking at me and her jaw was literally dropped,’’ Chow recalled. “And I was, like, ‘Did I do something wrong?’’’ The coaches promptly elevated Chow to the varsity team, though in retrospect it was a premature promotion considering that she had no idea what she was doing. Though she would eventually learn how to combine her brute strength with the sport’s subtleties, those lessons took time.

For a team to maximize its efficiency, rowers must pry the boat, get it up to speed

and take the oars in and out of the water without disturbing the rhythm. When a team is working right, the boat glides.

Choppy Waters For much of Chow’s early days, she literally rocked the boat.

“The reaction of the team was not super awesome,’’ she said. “I was super strong, but I didn't know how to row so I was disrupting the boat. … I made the boat faster, but I made it crappy, right? It was bobbing all over the place. But I did get better, enough so that I stopped annoying them as much.”

After Miami, she set her rowing skills aside to concentrate on the other – if no less challenging – parts of her life. Chow earned her Ph.D. in pharmacology and cancer biology at Duke. She got married to Daniel Caplan, who – surprise! – is also just a typical scientist / endurance athlete.

(He’s a cyclist.)

But after discovering BIAC, and dusting off her rowing skills, she got word of a strange twist of international fate. Trinidad and Tobago had an athlete in line to go through the Olympic Trials, but suddenly that competitor dropped out.

Chow never would have considered trying out for the U.S. Team – that was no place for a part-time athlete. Chow’s demanding day job wasn’t something she would give up.

But as her Masters dominance proved, she was no slouch with an oar, so she reached out to her contact with the T&T Olympic Committee and volunteered to replace the athlete who dropped out.

“And it was ‘Sure!’’’ she said. “I mean, that's basically that's how it happened. I think that happened in like, November of 2015. And I think the trials were in March of 2016.” After a couple of months to prepare, she qualified at the Americas Rowing Olympic Trials.

Behold the instant Olympian – just add water.

Disciplined Strength Knowing what she knew the second time around, Chow was better prepared both mentally and physically for the Tokyo Games. Her training partner, Jon Carlson, readily attested to that.

“Rowing with her is mostly about me trying to keep up, as you might expect,’’ said Carlson, the current board President of BIAC. “But strength in the boat is a mixed thing if you can’t harness it reasonably well. I think she’s had time during this past cycle to really train and refine the technique aspects. … She is very dedicated, so it’s a rigorous thing. She’s someone who is very self-disciplined.”

Chow will forever carry her home country’s flag in her heart, whether she’s at the Bair Island Aquatic Center or on the international stage of Tokyo.

“I've lived now in the U.S. longer than I lived at home. I left when I was 17, 18,’’ she said. “But it’s been really, really great to strengthen the ties and have this stronger connection. Because Trinidad was amazing. I had such an amazing childhood. It was such a fantastic place to grow up and it made me who I am.” C August 2021 ·

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O VA T I O N •

Life Through a Wide-Angle Lens

Producer Dylan Sesco resists type-casting his eclectic videos

Video producer Dylan Sesco takes a selfie at the Sierra Nevada ghost town of Bodie.

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O VA T I O N •

By Janet McGovern

Video producer Dylan Sesco would like more viewers for his quirky YouTube channel. But then the rabid 49er fan, history buff, stadium nerd and explorer of the abandoned and off-limits might have to settle down in the one place in the world he’s at pains to avoid: a niche. “I kind of have a splintered audience,” he cheerily concedes, “which makes it harder to grow. But that’s what makes me happy and that’s why it’s called ‘The Somethin’ or Other Tour.’ Because you never know, (it’s) somethin’ or other.’”

A random sample of his 200-plus video oeuvre proves the point.

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• The Moaning Caverns of Vallecito. The last Oakland Raiders game in Oakland. A closed water-treatment plant in Newark.

Gang-tagged abandoned apartments in Los Angeles. Historic Fraunces Tavern in New York City and Rengstorff House in Mountain View. A pop-up Cluckin’ Bell restaurant in Oakland from the Grand Theft Auto video game. And a flight with his brother from San Diego to Portland— with an unexpected cameo appearance by fellow passenger Bill Walton.

Whenever Sesco comes across another “somethin’” he’d like to film—which happens all the time—it goes right into a voluminous list on his phone.

“No matter what I do,” says the 36-year-old producer/director/ host/editor of the SOOT.TV channel, “I know that I’m going to die with ideas on the table.

There’s no shortage of ideas.”

Sesco, whose real last name is Scott, grew up in Redwood City but moved to Sunnyvale earlier this year. His “day job” is doing new employee training for a self-driving car company, but his passion is producing mini documentaries, through his company VertLife Entertainment. On days off or the weekends, he and his unpaid crew (often his relatives or friends) bound off to film their latest adventure.

O VA T I O N •

when the hunt for the right person came up dry, he ended up doing it himself. Ditto the research, the filming, the editing.

“I mainly help out where I can,” says 16-year-old brother Jett Carpenter. “Hold the camera. Maybe talk a little bit. Really 99 percent of the work is my brother. He does almost all of it.”

Which in large part explains the channel’s combination of a high production quality with a homespun, goofy charm.

Often dressed in ripped jeans and wearing

and shakers,” he told the then-12-year-old Jett as they wandered through the city’s oldest residence, now located in Mountain View’s Shoreline area.

His reaction to touring Fraunces Tavern, where General George Washington in 1783 gave a farewell address to his officers? “This building has so much American history,” Sesco told his viewers. “It’s just nuts. I mean George Washington for Pete’s sake. George Washington was here!”

Room Self-Service With Covid restrictions in place in August 2020, the Gold Rush town Sonora was noticeably quiet during Sesco’s filming of the Historic Sonora Inn (1896). Wandering down the main street, he paused. “You guys want to see a real antique? Look at that.” The camera locked on a pay phone. With only takeout available for dinner, “The Somethin’ or Other Tour” Sesco and brother Jett Carpenter pose in a mirror room at host returned to his hotel San Francisco's Museum of Ice Cream. room and happily chowed down on a “California burrito” (with carne asada and French fries inside). “Delectable,” he said.

Occasionally managers of museums or other tourist a baseball hat backwards, Sesco approach- sites worry that allowing him to film will es his visits with boyish gusto and a droll keep people from coming, but Sesco mainsense of humor—but also a reverence for tains the opposite is true. “I’ve never once history when called for. Before filming, he watched a video of a place where I thought, tries not to over-prepare so his reactions well I don’t need to go now. I already saw it. It makes me want to go more.” are spontaneous and honest.

“My view is that I’m the visitor,” he For all the amiable joshing in the videxplains. “I’m going to tell you what I like. eos—consciously at his own expense— I want people to feel like they’re kind of Sesco receives scores of thumbs-ups from YouTube critics, including praise for all the hanging out with me.”

At Rengstorff House, for example, he facts about historic site he weaves into his admired the wallpaper and an unusual- play-by-play. His recent 14-minute video ly tall mirror. “They must have thrown about Redwood City’s Union Cemetery, some real shindigs here, all the movers

“My view is that I’m the visitor, I’m going to tell you what I like. I want people to feel like they’re kind of hanging out with me.”

In MTV Style Sesco has a background in music video production, and most of his high-energy videos have a fast-paced MTV feel, with music montages, drone shots and plenty of free-association commentary by the host. He intersperses his chatter with herky-jerky hand movements and does a robot dance in every video. Sesco hadn’t planned on being the star of the show but,

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O VA T I O N •

which included some ghostly fade-ins and He earns revenue under a complicated YouTube algorithm; the more “engage-outs, snagged rave reviews.

“This is awesome,” wrote Kathy Klebe. ment” viewers have—such as by com“I’m the President of the Union Cemetery menting or watching an ad or the entire Historic Association for this cemetery and video—the more income he receives. He averages about $3 an episode but occasionI even learned some stuff!!”

“Thirty years in Redwood City,” anoth- ally gets a spike. His biggest score (about er commenter added, “and I still get creeps $400) was with a video about the abandriving by this place. Now after hearing the doned San Diego Chargers headquarters. remarkable history that ‘lives’ here, I’m def He’d like to earn more so he can afford to check more “somethin’s” off his list, but gonna make a pit stop next time.”

A new video about San Francisco’s “the integrity of my content is important abandoned greenhouses in the Portola district presents a rather subdued look at a flower-producing enterprise that lasted from 1922 to 1990.

“I love how you teach the best local spots in the bay,” one commenter said. “Much love. I’m from Excelsior but moved to San Mateo, keep on your work!”

Sesco tries to release one video a week and has about 8,000 YouTube subSesco takes in the view from Redding's Sundial Bridge. scribers and a handful of Patreon supporters. He’s sure the number to me,” Sesco says. “I do things that aren’t could be exponentially higher if he nar- as trendy and I don’t attention-grab or do rowed his focus, sports-related subjects clickbait type things to trick people into being the obvious candidate, as those watching videos. I don’t do any of that.” videos attract the most eyeballs. A self-de- His day job puts him in view of the scribed stadium nerd, he likes to check out Golden Gate Bridge—a place people come their architecture. Sesco got lucky on the from the world over to see—and Sesco flight to Portland when basketball great takes a moment every day to look at it. “I Bill Walton happened to be traveling to see never want to just not see it … and I think that (attitude) is definitely in my videos.” the same game and is in the video.

The View from the Stands Followers get his take on the action, both on and off the field. Attending a 2016 Christmas Eve football game at the Los Angeles Colosseum, he and brother Cole Scott displayed for the camera their $50 chicken-sandwich and burger dinners. Plain. “How can they smile and say ‘Merry Christmas’ and hand you that?” Sesco asked.

Crashed in Brooklyn In deference to viewer attention spans, he tries to keep videos under 15 minutes. His main camera is a SONY A6500 with a microphone, but he uses a lot of aerial footage —and is on his third drone. The first— Dewey the Drone—crashed in Brooklyn; the video about its demise features a mock funeral performed by Sesco and brother

Cole. “We lost a drone,” they intoned, “but we gained an angel.”

A 2002 Woodside High School graduate who had to go to adult school to finish up, the young man then known as Dylan Scott was a quiet teen-ager who would never have been voted by his classmates “most likely” to become anything, let alone a maker of unconventional short subjects.

He played in the Redwood City National Little League but, by high school he’d become “a bitter lost youth” and quit sports and extra-curricular activities.

(He adopted “Sesco” as his last name about 12 years ago.)

The death of his little sister at the age of 2 made a profound impression on him—her name is on one of his many tattoos—and kept him from following the example of some of his friends who got caught up in the drug underworld and made bad decisions.

Says Sesco: “It gave me an early perspective on life in a lot of ways where I knew I didn’t want to mess up my chance because I knew that life was fleeting.” His sister’s memory “is like my guardian angel.”

His videos, Sesco says, are a way to “show there’s cool stuff out there whatever it may be, and appreciate it and you know we only have one life. You don’t have to live it in one little place. You can go explore and do things. I’m not smart enough to invent a new medical device and improve people’s lives in that way, but I thought this is one way that I can do something even if it’s tiny incremental positive influence on society. Even if one person sees it and says, ‘You know what, I’m going to explore instead of sitting on the couch.’

That’s worth it for me.”

Check it out at on YouTube at SOOT.TV or on the web at somethinorothertour.com.

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H I S T O•R YC LbI M y A J iTmE • Clifford•

A Gondola to Half Moon Bay? There Was One in Portola Valley A professor’s envisioning of an aerial tram stretching 10 miles from Interstate 280 to Half Moon Bay renewed my interest in Andrew Hallidie, famous for inventing the San Francisco cable cars that take tourists “half way to the stars.” Few people are aware that Hallidie built a tramway from his home in Portola Valley to the Santa Cruz Mountains.

College of San Mateo business professor Dr. Peter von Bleichert knows the ropes, pun intended. He is the great-greatgrandson of aerial ropeway pioneer Adolf Bleichert, whose firm built trams throughout the world. Von Bleichert, who recently wrote of his plan in Wire Rope News, said his family, along with a partner, “built the majority of mining and passenger systems in the western United States.”

A gondola to Half Moon Bay would, among other things, “alleviate traffic” and “spur economic development and urban renewal,” said von Bleichert, whose dream tram would be much longer than Hallidie’s, which measured about a mile and a half.

There wasn’t much traffic to alleviate in 1894 when Hallidie’s tram debuted. Many wondered why he wanted to build such a spectacular and apparently useless device in Portola Valley. The late historian Dorothy Regnery concluded the reason was the simplest and most logical.

“Hallidie was in the wire and cable business and his aerial tramway was a working demonstration of his product,” Regnery wrote in a 1959 article in La Peninsula magazine.

Marker Notes Tram Site A history marker on Portola Road informs visitors that the tramway ended at a station near the intersection of Skyline Boulevard and Old La Honda Road, a vertical rise of

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“The buckets suspended from the cable, much like some ski lifts, swung out over young orchards and mounted the steep slopes, keeping a straight course over canyons, gulches, and hills, from the rough timber tower to the next, and on to the summit,” she wrote. The summit platform was near what was then a dirt ranch road.

Andrew Hallidie

1,168 feet. Heavy timbers created the towers from which the cable hung. The longest span between towers was 630 feet. The highest point above ground was 120 feet.

The device had 20 buckets for up to 300 pounds of cargo that could include ore, wheat, or wood products. There were also three cages capable of carrying two passengers on the 30-minute ride to a turnaround platform from which the entire Bay Area could be seen. The system was powered by a 10 horse power steam engine.

On Aug. 2, 1894, The Redwood City Democrat newspaper reported on the “novel form of railway” at Hallidie’s Eagle Home Farm located on the west side of Portola Road. Hallidie, the newspaper reported, had built many such tramways that are “working very satisfactorily.” The Portola Valley system “is perfectly straight and passes over very rugged country.” According to Regnery’s account, crews of Chinese laborers cleared the land and helped build the towers. The workers were housed in tent camps on Hallidie’s land.

For Special Events The tramway’s operations were limited, usually as a sales pitch to prospective customers, but there were also special occasions, such as the dedication of a school in 1894 when the climax of the ceremony was the sight of the tram’s buckets moving slowly up and down the hillside.

Hallidie died in 1900 and shortly after the tramway was sold, dismantled and taken to a copper mine in Mexico. All that was left were a few remote tower bases. The land that had been cleared to make way for the line was soon overgrown by oak and madrone trees as well as dense shrubs.

According to historian John Edmonds, Hallidie, who was born in England, learned early in life how to braid wire to increase its strength. When news of the California Gold Rush reached him, Hallidie went to America where he discovered that his engineering talent was as good as gold. He established the California Wire Rope and Cable Company in San Francisco in 1857 and was quickly inundated with orders for cables and machinery. C

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Proud member of the historical Redwood City Woman's Club

Summer promises many things. Among them pollen, smoke from forest fires and everyday pollution. Protect your lungs with compact air purifies for indoor use.

We carry the best in HEPA filter technology with Ideal and Austin Air brands.

DRE 01886755 cell: 650�430�8220 office: 650�556�8674 www�kathyzmay�com email: kathyzmay@gmail�com 1629 Main St�, Redwood City

Ralph's Vacuum and Sewing

• Sales & Service • Bags, Belts & Filters • Sewing Classes

2011 Broadway • 650-368-2841 • ralphsvacnsew.com

SUE LEHR MITCHELL Realtor

®

Community Matters

650.619.9311 suelehrmitchell@gmail.com suelehrmitchell.com DRE# 01087715

Creator, Sponsor & Chair, Mardi Gras Carnival Sponsor & Chair, Hometown Holidays Celebration Downtown Redwood City Office located at 555 Middlefield Road

Each office is independently owned and operated.

STREET LIFE MINISTRIES

THE “HOMELESS TO HEALTHY” INITIATIVE

Original Oil Paintings by J. Ennis Kirkland www.jennis-kirkland.squarespace.com

Street Life Ministries is banding together with a handful of local organizations to launch “Homeless to Healthy”. A 12-Month Christian Rehab Program that will take homeless addicts and turn them into healthy members of society.

LEARN MORE

SCAN BARCODE WITH MOBILE PHONE STREETLIFEMINISTRIES.ORG/HOMELESS-TO-HEALTHY

August 2021 ·

CLIMATE · 31

D

avies

APPLIANCE

The Davies Family has been doing business on the same block since 1916

Shop where designers, architects & contractors shop Always honest competitive pricing, industry wide selection and extraordinary assistance to guide you to your perfect kitchen, laundry or outdoor living space�

Electrolux Laundry Front Load Perfect Steam™ Washer with LuxCare® Wash and SmartBoost® - 4.4 Cu.Ft. The Electrolux Front-Load washer machine with the exclusive SmartBoost technology provides the most effective stain removal by premixes water and detergent before the cycle begins, maximizing the cleaning power of the detergent. It features the industry’s first Adaptive Dispenser that accepts detergent packs to give you the flexibility to clean with all detergent types for a thorough clean.

Unlike many washers, our Perfect Steam rises from the bottom, gently lifting dirt and stains from fibers. The 15-Minute Fast Wash quickly deep cleans your items you need most.

Mention our Climate magazine ad and get free normal delivery and installation valued at $200!

daviesappliance�com • (650) 366-5728 • 1580 El Camino Real, Redwood City, CA 94063 Hours: Tuesday - Thursday 8:30am - 6pm • Friday & Saturday 8:30am - 5pm • Closed Sunday/Monday