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P u b l i c a t i o n Profile: The Cat Coach Spotlight: Demystifying Drones Micro Climate: Creativity Begins at Home
ISSUE SEVENTY SEVEN • JANUARY • 2022
It’s Back in Class for Community Colleges
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR•
A “Back to School” story seems like an incongruous topic for a January issue, but the San Mateo Community College District this month is opening most of its classes to in-person instruction for the first time since the Covid pandemic upended normal life nearly two years ago. A lot has been happening during that hiatus, though, including the construction of a new athletic facility at Cañada College, which later this year is also slated to open to the public. This comes as district staff also takes over the management of the athletic club at College of San Mateo, which has been open to duespaying members of the public and had been run by a for-profit company. Among the big unknowns about the post-pandemic is whether students will return to junior college campuses in the same numbers as they did pre-Covid. These are among the challenges facing SMCCD which are addressed in writer Kathleen Pender’s feature story on page 8. She presents a comprehensive overview of this changed educational world facing administrators, staff, board members and students and it’s well worth reading. Every issue of Climate brings to our readers the awesome photography of Creative Director Jim Kirkland but this month some of those images illustrate a story Jim wrote himself—about drones. They began not that many years ago as glorified toys, but have proven their usefulness in many ways, one of the most obvious being for aerial photography. And their future? To learn more about that, turn to Jim’s story on page 24. This month’s issue also introduces readers to Redwood City resident Marilyn Krieger, aka “The Cat Coach.” An author and a blogger who grew up in the Burlingame area, she has become an expert on felines, both domestic and in the wild. Writer Dan Brown interviewed her about how cats became such a focus in her life and asked about some of the behavior problems that can be so baffling to us cat owners. That story begins on page 18. We’re pleased with the January issue to welcome a new writer to Climate, Joanne Englehardt, for a Business Climate story on the Birder’s Garden store in San Carlos. In a world where so much buying is done online, the survival of a small retailer, especially in such a specialty niche, is quite a merchandising and management feat. So please enjoy this, our first issue of 2022—and the new year too!
Janet McGovern, Editor January 2022 ·
CLIMATE · 3
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TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S •
FEATU RE
Heading Back to Class
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PROFILE
The Cat Coach
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SPOTLIG HT
Demystifying Drones
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MICRO CLIMATE
Creativity Begins at Home
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AROUND TOWN ���������14 BUSINESS CLIMATE ��������16 HISTORY......................30
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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 ©2022 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.
6 · CLIMATE · January 2022
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January 2022 ·
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Photo by Lui Photography
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F E AT U R E •
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After a Covid Timeout, Students Head Back to Class San Mateo Community College District reopens three campuses
By Kathleen Pender
For the first time in almost two years, the three schools that make up the San Mateo Community College District will hold most of their classes on campus starting January 18. It will be the first time that many students who enrolled at the College of San Mateo, Cañada College or Skyline College since the coronavirus pandemic will see the inside of a college classroom. Jordan Salgado, who enrolled at Cañada in Fall 2020, is one of them. “It has been difficult with Covid,” he said. “It’s kind of like being on your own.”
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• The district suspended normal campus operations on March 12, 2020. Since then, almost all classes have been online except for some that were hard to convert, such as the police and fire academies, nursing, dental hygiene and athletics, which returned at various times. Middle College—a districtwide program for high school students who attend school at a community college—returned to campuses in Fall 2021. A lot has happened since the shutdown. The elected Board of Trustees fired the district’s former chancellor for alleged financial improprieties and redirected $6.75 million in one-time funds from this year’s budget to start a “free community college initiative,” aimed at making college more accessible and affordable. The “vast majority” of these funds will go toward “staffing infrastructure,” according to a board report. The district, which received three rounds of federal coronavirus-relief funds totaling $42.2 million, distributed $23.4 million of that amount in direct financial aid to students taking at least six units. Students got $1,250 to $2,750 apiece from the third and largest round. “We are trying to alleviate some of the major issues they are facing: transportation, housing and food insecurity as well as the cost of going to school, tuition and books,” Trustee Tom Nuris said. The district used an additional $700,000 from the third round to erase debts that some students owed to the colleges for things like unpaid fees or parking tickets. In other developments, district staff applied for nearly $100 million in state grants
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F E AT U R E •
to build below-market-rate student housing on the CSM campus, and Cañada finished its spectacular-looking athletic facility, which is now home to the college’s kinesiology, athletics and dance programs. They will share space with a health club that will open to dues-paying members of the public starting this summer or fall, although aquatic programs in the two outdoor pools could begin in the spring, said Chancellor Michael Claire, the district’s top administrator.
his old salary of $467,700 a year. Galatolo was fired from that position in February 2021 for allegedly having undisclosed personal relationships with outside vendors and taking undisclosed gifts from contractors who worked for the district when he was chancellor. Of course the biggest change since the pandemic was the transformative shift to online education. The district announced last February that it would remain primarily remote through the end of 2021. But as the vaccines rolled out last spring and summer, some trustees urged district staff to speed up the reopening and offer at least 30% of courses face-to-face during the Fall 2021 semester. That didn’t happen, which administrators attributed to some students and teachers not wanting to return to campus and the difPhoto by Lui Photography ficulty of revamping course catalogs. A Change in Management Only 11% of classes at Cañada and 25% The club will be similar to the smaller San at CSM were offered in person last semesMateo Athletic Club at CSM, which was ter. Statewide, 25% of community classes managed by a for-profit company until were offered on campus and 10% were hydistrict staff took it over Jan. 1, 2022. Both brid (in-person and online), according to athletic centers were funded with vot- the California Community College Chaner-approved bonds, which will be repaid cellor’s Office. with higher property taxes. Neither of Richard Holober, the district’s lonthe ballot measures – in 2005 and 2014 – gest-serving trustee, said he was “less than disclosed that some of proceeds would be satisfied” with the percentage of in-person used to build athletic clubs. classes. At press time, the district was still awaiting the outcome of a two-year inves- Will Students Return? tigation by the San Mateo County District That percentage will go up this semesAttorney into Ron Galatolo, who was the ter, but it may never return to pre-pandemdistrict’s chancellor for 20 years until Au- ic proportions. Cañada is slated to offer gust 2019, when he resigned abruptly and 54% of Spring 2022 classes on campus and was given the job of chancellor emeritus at CSM is targeting 65%. That compares with
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80% and 85%, respectively, in Spring 2020. he said. “Zoom has a lot to offer you can’t “I think we are going to see a perma- get from a classroom, and the classroom nent bump” in remote learning, Claire gives you so much you can’t get on Zoom.” said. Surveys show that 30% to 40% of district students prefer it. Community col- Enrollment Decline leges serve many adults with full-time jobs Going online helped the district retain and families and for them, not having to some students who moved away because commute was a big stress reliever, Claire of the pandemic or the area’s high cost of added. living. “I think we will have more students Holober said the district “is not sur- choosing online options and my hope is veying students who have fallen out of the that increases the pool of people using the system.” community colleges,” Trustee John Pimen The colleges now offer five types of classes: wholly in-person, in-person some days and online others, wholly online with a teacher and students participating live, wholly online without any live interaction and live with a teacher and some students in a classroom and others on Zoom. Guillermo Garcia was struggling when he started attending Photo by Lui Photography Skyline in Spring 2020, shortly before the shutdown. “I was hav- tel said. That could help stem a long-term ing so much trouble school wise, being at- decline in enrollments. tentive, understanding content,” he said. Total headcount at the three colleges The next semester, he switched to online – which includes any person who took at classes through CSM and did better. He least one credit or non-credit course – fell could get up and move around and see 27%, from roughly 30,000 in Spring 2009 his classmates and professor at the same to 22,000 in Spring 2021, according to state time, instead of just focusing on the data. That’s slightly better than the average teacher. But “there were always technical for all 116 California community colleges, issues,” and he often fell asleep during which fell 29%. four-hour classes. One bright spot for enrollments has Garcia was happy when his film and been an increase – especially at Skyline communications classes returned to cam- – in the number of high school students pus last fall, because those subjects are taking free courses for college credit on much better in person. “I got confidence a high school campus. The district’s free working on Zoom every day. I know how college initiative includes $2.5 million to to work on a team, interact in a meeting,” expand this “dual enrollment” program with the hope that more local high-school
graduates will head to the three community colleges. The initiative also includes $3 million to expand the district’s Promise Scholars Program, which helps full-time community college students earn associate degrees or transfer to a four-year institution within three years. It provides them with counseling, academic support and money for tuition, fees, books and either food or transportation. Almost half of Promise Scholars are meeting that goal, compared to a district-wide rate around 20%. In addition, the district is receiving $2 million in county salestax revenues to expand the number of Promise Scholars to 2,500 from 2,000 for two years. The extra $3 million in district funds could boost program capacity to 4,000 by 2023-24. The remaining $1.25 million from the initiative will provide free textbooks and course materials. The state’s community colleges charge $46 per unit, or about $1,100 a year for a student taking 12 hours per semester. About a third of the district’s students got a state fee waiver last fall, down from 42% pre-pandemic, but many still struggle with housing, transportation and other costs. Student Housing Two years ago, the district began investigating student housing as a way to boost enrollments and help its neediest students. “There was a bill (in the state Legislature in 2019) to allow homeless students to sleep in their cars on community college campuses. We said we owe our students more than this,” Trustee Maurice Goodman said. January 2022
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F E AT U R E • Photo by Bruce Damonte
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That idea got a jump start in September when the Legislature passed SB 169. The bill appropriated $500 million this fiscal year to create affordable rental housing for full-time, primarily low-income students at the state’s public colleges and universities. The bill stated the Legislature’s intent to appropriate $750 million in each of the next two fiscal years for the same purpose. Half of those amounts was earmarked for community colleges. Schools had only three weeks to apply for a one-time construction grant for “shovel-ready” projects and/or a planning grant to conduct feasibility and other studies. The San Mateo district applied for both grants. It requested $9.7 million for planning and $88.7 million for construction to build apartments for 495 students, including 45 with families, on a CSM parking lot.
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The district said it would kick in an extra $10 million from its own funds, which would allow it to allocate 9% of the housing to part-time students, those taking fewer than 12 units per semester. At the Oct. 27 Board of Trustees meeting, Holober said he was glad the district applied so quickly, but added, “It’s not a good way to run a government public agency.” If the state grants were not available, “and we were just to do this on our own,” the project “could be very different.” Holober stressed that the board had not discussed spending $10 million of district money to house part-time students, and he was not convinced it was a good idea. In a statement, the district said the board “will determine the exact allocation of the $10 million if the project is approved.”
Administrators expect a decision between March and April. If the district loses the construction grant, it could still get the planning grant and apply for a future construction grant. The California Department of Finance said it received 21 applications for construction grants and 71 for planning grants from 81 individual community colleges. The board has not addressed what would happen if it won the construction grant but the project goes over budget. “I do have that concern. If we do pursue housing, I’m going to watch it like a hawk to ensure we don’t have a Cañada Building 1 experience,” Pimentel said. Cañada Athletic Center Pimentel was referring to the new Cañada College Kinesiology and Wellness Building. Its cost ballooned from $40.7 million
• when it was first conceived in 2014, to $88 million in 2016 when a design/build contract was awarded, to $121 million by January 2020, according to documents provided by Maxine Terner, a member of the district’s bond oversight committee. Reasons for the cost escalation included design changes; a parking lot expansion; activating the roof with an outdoor running track, yoga studio and pickleball courts; integrating an alumni “Hall of Fame;” and rising wages, materials costs and “contractor margins.” The 105,00-square-foot, two-story building includes a competition basketball court, dance studios, a kids’ gym, locker rooms, workout space, offices and one classroom, but it remains largely devoid of exercise equipment except for a weight room reserved for student-athletes. The two pools have been heated since May but were not used last year. The new facility will include a club for dues-paying members of the public. It’s similar to the smaller San Mateo Athletic Club at CSM, with one major difference. At the San Mateo club, known as SMAC, students still took most of their physical education classes and used the locker rooms in the school’s old gym. The club and its two pools were used primarily by club members, although students and faculty could join the club at a discounted rate. At Cañada, the new athletic center replaced a gym that was demolished in 2017. It will house students and club members under one roof. It was designed with one set of locker rooms for students and a much larger, more luxurious set for members. When it opened to students and faculty in May, they were not allowed into the locker rooms reserved for members, raising complaints among some students, teachers and trustees who argued that students should have priority.
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The 105,00 -square -foot, two-story building includes a competition basketball court, dance studios, a kids’ gym, locker rooms, workout space, offices and one classroom, but it remains largely devoid of exercise equipment except for a weight room reserved for student-athletes. The two pools have been heated since May but were not used last year. “The membership locker rooms opened in mid-September, only after multiple complaints about all of us having to share two sinks and four showers,” said Vera Quijano, an adjunct dance and yoga teacher. Gym Access Issues Similar complaints were raised about lack of student access at SMAC. In December, signs in the club were still instructing CSM students to use the old gym for “dressing/ changing/lockers.” A company, now named Exos, managed the club since it opened in 2010. The district said Exos' fee in fiscal 2021 was $346,421. That appeared to include a 5% pandemic discount. The surplus funded campus activities and offset other college expenses. Then the coronavirus hit, and membership fell from just over 6,000 to just under 4,000 today. Over the past two fiscal years, the club lost a total of $2.6 million on $8.1 million in revenues. (The author of this article is a SMAC member.)
As the Exos contract came up for renewal, some trustees began questioning whether students were being shortchanged in the pursuit of profits. After months of debate, the board decided to end its relationship with Exos and manage SMAC in-house starting this year, with the goal of breaking even. SMAC employees could reapply for their jobs, and many were rehired. “What we are doing at SMAC is switching from a private, for-profit gym operator to an academic priority, so classes and teachers and athletic programs should get first use of the facilities,” Pimentel said. Claire said there will be no areas off limits to students at SMAC, which is changing its name to the College of San Mateo Athletic Center, nor at the Cañada College Athletic Center when it opens later this year. District staff will also manage the Cañada club; they expect it to have 3,000 members initially, growing to 5,000 to 9,000 over time. “You are going to see a more collaborative process in terms of scheduling (use of the two facilities). The times that tend to be popular with members are not necessarily popular with students,” Claire said. He emphasized that “the world has changed while we’ve been sheltering in place. It’s incumbent upon our colleges, and higher education in general, to change how we deliver our courses and services. We have to be extra mindful of a widening disparity in socio-economic situations among many of the people we serve. We have to change because the world around us has changed.” C
January 2022
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AROUND TOWN•
Hanukkah: A Light of Wisdom and Kindness The 12th annual Hanukkah Festival, organized by Chabad MidPen of Redwood City, was celebrated Dec. 5 in Courthouse Square. The attendees enjoyed food, entertainment and games which were available preceding the lighting of the menorah by State Senator Josh Becker. The menorah was wrapped in handmade scarves, mittens and hats to be given out to homeless people. “Hanukkah is a beautiful holiday,” said Rabbi Levi Potash. “It represents religious liberty and tolerance for all. We light the menorah which is light, and light is a symbol of goodness, wisdom and kindness.”
Library Foundation Opens a New "Makerspace" The Redwood City Library opened a new “Makerspace” Dec. 2 for an advance preview of an area where users will get hands-on instruction in learning new skills and creating things, from sewing and knitting to using 3D printers. Partially funded with a $270,000 Library Foundation grant, the library’s newest service occupies 1,000 square feet of an area once used as a computer lab, which no longer needs as much space, according to Library Director Derek Wolfgram. He anticipates that it could be open to the public in January, largely dependent on developments involving the pandemic. In addition to arts and crafts and gardening supplies, among the many work station amenities are a laser cutter, digital design and modeling software, as well as a video conferencing/audio space. Much of the inspiration for creating the new space goes to Sarah La Torra, the library’s division manager of customer experience, based on her years working with teens. The space will host a variety of programs and activities, from STEAM to workshops for youth.
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Hometown Holidays Lights Up Redwood City Accompanied by parents or grandparents, happy kids with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads thronged downtown Redwood City Saturday, Dec. 4, as the annual Hometown Holidays event returned to Courthouse Square. The 15th annual celebration began at 10 a.m. and included a full day of fun—music, food, arts and crafts for sale, carnival rides and a chance to roll around in a snow lot. Crowds then gathered along Broadway to watch a parade that included costumed reenactors from the Bethlehem AD tableau, school kids, a lighted SamTrans bus, a marching bands and other units, followed by the arrival of Santa Claus on a float. As darkness descended, the lighting of the Courthouse Square holiday tree provided the grand finale. The merriment wasn’t over, though. Shortly after Hometown Holidays ended, the Caltrain Holiday Train rolled into the Redwood City train station, glowing with thousands of lights. Families got a chance to see Santa, Frosty and other characters and listen to live music, as well as to drop off a toy donation for the Marines’ Toys for Tots program and the Salvation Army, which provided the train’s brass band.
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B U S I N E S S C L I M AT E •
Feeding the Birds
Bonnie Regalia found her niche selling bird seed. And so much more By Joanne Engelhardt More than 30 years ago, Birder’s Garden owner Bonnie Regalia found her true calling: as a small businesswoman. Not that she knew it then, of course. At that time Birder’s Garden was owned by Rich and Marsha Held who had the San Carlos franchise of a company called Wildlife Centers of America. The chain offered just about everything for backyard birding. “As a single mother, I wanted to work close to home and be available to my daughters,” she explains. When she learned that the Helds wanted to sell their business, Regalia saw it as the perfect opportunity for her. So she worked out the financial aspects and took over in 1991. (The store continued to be operated under the franchise name until 2006 when she renamed it “Birder’s Garden.”) The charming little stucco store at 926 El Camino Real (sandwiched between the Rustic House Restaurant and idbydna, a medical disease testing company) can be easily missed on a drive-by. “It’s a destination store,” explains Regalia. By that she means that people come from as far away as San Francisco, Sunnyvale and Los Altos to buy from her. Obviously she doesn’t just stock bird seed. She carries a large selection of bird baths, a couple dozen different kinds of bird seed, hundreds of bird feeders for hummingbirds, wrens, orioles and other birds, houses and nesting boxes, colorful socks, hand puppets, natural stone sculpture garden plaques, linen towels—and more.
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“It’s a destination store,” explains Regalia. By that she means that people come from as far away as San Francisco, Sunnyvale and Los Altos to buy from her. Obviously she doesn’t just stock bird seed. Why Customers Return Over the years, Regalia came to recognize that the key to getting and retaining her clientele is good customer service. “I feel strongly that the information we give our customers has to be accurate. “I also go to great lengths to source inventory from all over the United States. I offer only American-made products as much as possible. And the products I buy to sell have to be good quality.” It hasn’t always been easy. Once she became the owner, Regalia decided she’d better put her daughters to work in it after school. “I had to be here, so I told them I’d pay them to help me out.” Recalling those days she says, “My daughters practically grew up in the store.” She now has five grandsons. Over the years, Regalia says she’s learned far more from her customers than she could have picked up by reading books or attending classes.
Bonnie Regalia
“You have to keep educating yourself about your business,” she explains. For instance, the Bay Area has five microclimates, and different ones attract different kinds of birds. That means stocking bird seed appropriate for all five. Some Hefty Bags She estimates she now sells between three and five tons of bird seed a week—a few 50-pound bags, but mostly five, 10 and 20 pounders. She also stocks seed for insectivorous birds who, although they mostly feed on gnats and other tiny insects, need to have a source of bird seed for when they can’t find anything else to eat. “I don’t sell anything that has pesticides or insecticides,” she emphasizes. She points out that she sells organic bird seed but doesn’t label it as such because different states have specific requirements that have to be met to label it organic. Eventually more and more businesses started putting up their own websites and
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Regalia recognized that to continue to be profitable, she’d need to have an online presence, too. Today her birdersgarden. com website brings in about 20 percent of her business. Over the years, she decided to use it to help educate her customers by including sections on birding basics, common winter birds in the Bay Area, and the history of National Bird-Feeding Month (February). She also writes a twice-a-month email newsletter for customers who sign up for it. The December newsletter featured several holiday gift ideas like a suet ball feeder, a snail garden rain gauge and roosting pockets for non-migrating songbirds. Birding Advice Her “Birding Basics” online page is must reading for her clientele because it covers a wide variety of diverse tips. Reading her accurate, no-nonsense advice, it seems logical to dub her the “Dear Abby” of bird enthusiasts. Here are a few samples on topics such as how to keep ants and weeds away from bird feeders, how to make the suet, and how to store seeds: • Ants: Install an ant moat with a light coating of cooking oil above the feeder to prevent them from crawling into it. • Homemade suet recipe: 1 cup chunky peanut butter; 2 cups vegetable shortening, 1 cup flour, 1 cup rolled oats, 1 cup coarse corn meal, 1 cup sunflower chips, medium crushed egg shells. • Seed storage is most successful in a galvanized can with a locking lid. To prevent moisture from building up, line the can with a plastic garbage bag. Adding a bay leaf in the seed will prevent seed moths from forming. • Got weeds? If you have weeds under your feeders, consider switching to Sunflower Chips or No-Mess Mixes. Seeds without shells will not germinate.
As her business has grown, Regalia kept up with it by hiring seven part-time employees to work in the store and help her with stocking, paperwork and shipping. Two dogs (one hers) sometimes come to work with their masters and wander around checking out the store and its customers. In the past two years, Regalia has had to contend with new challenges, not the least of which was the Covid pandemic. That, coupled with problems associated with hundreds of ships unable to unload their cargo, make getting sufficient inventory a persistent worry.
It may come as a surprise that Regalia didn’t come to her profession by starting out as a birder. “I was raised in the Midwest right on Lake Michigan,” she explains. “I loved the outdoors, but my interest in buying Birder’s Garden was simply that I had always wanted to own my own business. Now, after all these years of running my store, I know that I’d rather be doing this than anything else.” That seems obvious when Regalia unexpectedly gets a phone call. What does her phone chime sound like? Chirping birds—what else?
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Local Suppliers So the pragmatic business owner decided to source more of her products locally. Now she sells jewelry, hats, colorful socks, cards and linen towels, many of which she highlights by adding a sign that says “local artist.” January 2022
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PROFILE •
Marilyn Krieger with her cats, Sudan and Olivia, and just visible in the cat tree, Jinniyha.
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PROFILE •
A Cat’s Best Friend Marilyn Krieger found her calling in protecting cats, wild or domestic
By Dan Brown
Marilyn Krieger was inside her Redwood City home writing what would become a seminal book on cat behavior when she heard the helicopters whirling from above. The commotion focused on a wayward mountain lion who had wandered into town and found itself cornered in a tree belonging to one of Krieger’s neighbors a few blocks away. Officials on the scene feared that the puma, estimated at 100 to 150 pounds and nearly two miles away from its natural habitat, presented an immediate public danger.
K
rieger emerged from her house, took one look at the mountain lion and noticed something the others were missing. “The poor thing was terrified,’’ she said. She is a preeminent expert on cat behavior, a go-to resource for pet owners worldwide. But no one knew any of that when Krieger stumbled into the tense scene and tried to sound a warning. “And I was this crazy woman going, ‘Everybody, you’re terrifying her! Just leave
her alone and she’ll leave. ‘Let her be. Let her be. Just go away.’ And they wouldn't.” That episode on March 29, 2011, ended with two fatal rifle shots from a game warden about 11:15 a.m. As it turned out, the big cat was a lactating female, her terror likely exacerbated by concern for her cubs. “It upset me so much,’’ Krieger said, “that I started researching.’’
Cats in the Wild Roughly 10 years later, her quest continues. Krieger has since joined forces with the Felidae Conservation Fund, which notes that all 36 wild cat species are threatened or endangered due to human impacts. Loss of habitat and prey are two common challenges facing wild cats, according to felidaefund.org, and the problems are on the rise because of human population growth, development and encroachment.
January 2022
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• Krieger also writes prolifically on her website, Urban Edge Wildlife, about the challenges mountain lions, bobcats and other critters face in the age of urbanization. She understands household cats, too, and is sought out by national media outlets such as USA Today whenever reporters need insight on feline mysteries. (Martha Stewart Living magazine once quoted Krieger extensively in an article headlined “Why Your Cat Loves to Sit on Your Laptop.”) Her book about changing cat behaviors—“Naughty No More!”—won numerous awards, including one from the literary minds at Tidy Cat. And of course, there’s still her day job helping befuddled pet owners trying to figure out why, say, Fluffy pees outside the litter box. The Burlingame High graduate has become known simply as The Cat Coach. And it’s best to listen up. As the San Francisco Chronicle once wrote of Krieger, “The Cat Coach is less of a cat coach than a cat drill sergeant. Maybe a cat czar.” Krieger originally had a different career path in mind. She earned a degree in art from UC Davis in 1976 and started out professionally as a graphic designer. She later worked as a human-factors engineer for a large tech-company, when she took a lot of classes in behavior. Landing on Her Feet Then, in 2005, she was laid off. Krieger used the juncture as a springboard into a life for which she seemed destined. “I decided to do what I really love,’’ she said. “That’s when I really pursued cat behavior.” In retrospect, this path looked inevitable. The Kriegers have been in the area since 1849, and her genealogy could be rendered as Family Cat Tree. Her mother volunteered for the Peninsula Humane Society, as did her grandmother. Growing up, there were always pets around her Burlingame-area home. And if all those cats and dogs weren’t enough, young Marilyn would venture into the weeds and (as
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PROFILE •
The pandemic has only upped the need for her services. Calls for consultations are way up, especially now that some people are returning to their offices, which means some cats (and some owners) are struggling for the first time with separation anxiety. much as she hates to say so now) trap some other critters to examine. Years later, as part of her life-changing career shift, Krieger started traveling to veterinarian conferences and reading as much as she could. She joined the International Association of Animal Behavior consultants in 2005 and later became the chairperson of their cat division. Her early specialty was the domesticated Bengal cat breed, and she eventually served for many years as the coordinator of California Bengal Cat Rescue. Why Bengals? “Their behavior and their intelligence. They're like little Einsteins,’’ Krieger said. “They are highly intelligent. And Savannahs also. That means they're highly trainable.” One of her own Bengal cats, an 18-year-old named Jinniyha, is so brainy that she doubles as an amateur engineer. Krieger explained with a laugh how Jinniyha loved watching her pull apart a cat water fountain for cleaning. “And one day I went off to do a consultation, and when I came back, the whole floor in the bathroom was flooded,’’ she said. As it turned out, the clever Bengal cat tried disassembling the thing herself. Krieger later found pieces of the fountain hidden all over the house.
Advising Owners If only some pet owners were as clever as their furry companions. Instead, some common mistakes lead to needless challenges around the home. Krieger’s website (thecatcoach.com) allows people worldwide to sign up for a 90-minute consultation at the rate of $305. The sessions are so helpful in addressing most problems—litter box issues, inter-cat fighting and so on—that the Peninsula Humane Society has honored Krieger for her efforts to keep cats from being surrendered unnecessarily due to fixable behavior problems. Every cat is different, Krieger said, which is part of the fun for her when it comes to solving new mysteries. But there are two general themes of advice. For one, the first stop for any change in cat behavior should be the veterinarian’s office to make sure nothing medical is causing the problem. For another, owners should consider the atmosphere they’ve created for the non-humans in their house. Are there enough scratching posts? Ample litter boxes? Have they been patient and methodical enough when introducing new cats into the household? Beyond those basics, Krieger brings her expertise in cat psychology. The cure to most behaviors, she said, is to decode the reasons behind them. Sometimes, you have to think like a cat. “People will say things, ‘My cat is getting back at me. They're revenge-peeing!’’’ she said. “But cats do not do that. Yes, there are always reasons for behavior, but that's not one of them.” If a cat is scratching up a sofa, blocking that area probably doesn’t fix the issue. But putting a nice scratching post in front of that area might. “That's actually, my main thing is to educate people and figure out why the cats are doing the behavior and address those reasons,’’ she said.
• Cats and Covid The pandemic has only upped the need for her services. Calls for consultations are way up, especially now that some people are returning to their offices, which means some cats (and some owners) are struggling for the first time with separation anxiety. “Some people—not everybody—think that cats are low-maintenance and that all you have to do is throw a little food at them and maybe clean their litter box,’’ Krieger said. “And it's not so easy. Cats need attention. They need enrichment, you know?” In one case last spring, a San Carlos resident woke up in the wee hours to discover two of his four cats – who had always gotten along – involved in a vicious and bloody fight. And the tension did not abate, even after the man broke it up. As it turned out, his wife was out of state on a long business trip while he was spending long days at a jury trial that left him drained and tense. The fighting cats may have been responding to the stress and disruption. At any rate, Krieger coached the client through keeping the cats separated to make sure there were no turf wars. She taught him the proper way to de-escalate any tussles – with a calm voice and a large piece of cardboard that worked better than trying to pry the cats apart. Krieger also urged him, among other tips, to add more scratching posts and cat trees to help reduce aggression. It took a while, but by late summer the combatant cats were curled up in the same bed again, purring during long naps. An Influential Voice Thankfully, local officials are doing a better job of heeding her words when it comes to the bigger ones roaming around Northern California: Krieger stepped in again not long ago after the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission weaved twisted wire
PROFILE •
Top: Image of a mountain lion captured by Krieger's camera along a trail just above a nursery school. Right: Krieger checks a camera. Lower right: Krieger's cat Sudan inspects her book.
strands along a fence of a crossover spot for local wildlife. This was a potentially ruinous situation for her favorite canyon, as Krieger explained in a blistering post at urbanedgewildife.org. She detailed the harmful effects such barriers can have on the ecosystem, then stressed the urgency by bolstering the post with video captures from the cameras she’d set up along the corridor fence. The unsettling footage showed bucks getting their antlers caught in the barbed wire. With that, Krieger went far beyond taking out her frustrations at her keyboard. She explained slyly that she made a few “modifications” to the fence. And, presto, the animals can come and go again as they please. She’s a rebel with an actual cause. “And the PUC is very aware of it. Because I told them: It was me,’’ Krieger said. “I'm not hiding anything.”
Krieger worries for the long-term future of big cats on the Peninsula. Gates are easy to address. The issues of climate change and urban expansion are not. But take heart in knowing that The Cat Coach will remain dogged in her pursuits. C
January 2022
· CLIMATE · 21
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M I C R O C L I M AT E •
From Classy Cakes to Prize-Winning Costumes, Creativity Begins at Home Chef Robin Wolfgram is a stickler about teaching students to follow recipes exactly. “If you change the ingredients,” she says, “you’re not making the recipe.” It works like a charm when they get to take home perfectly turned-out croissants and cookies after two hours in the kitchen with the maestro. But the way she launched her business almost two years ago had “recipe for failure” written all over it: quit a successful job as a professional chef—just weeks before the Covid pandemic shutdown arrived. No one, of course, foresaw the party-pooping restrictions that would hobble businesses which are all about celebrations, including baking. But the indomitable Redwood City resident has a glass-half-full outlook: The shutdown allowed her to ramp up slowly, learning how to teach Zoom baking classes in her Redwood City kitchen to wanna-be bakers who were stuck at home. Had she waited to start this year, they’d be back in the office. “The slow pace has let me fine-tune things that I’m trying to do,” says Robin, who is also working on improving “The Cake Robin’s” online presence. The wife of Library Director Derek Wolfgram, Robin made cakes and cookies for city departmental staff meetings and other gatherings and got referrals from those well-fed mouths. Customers looking for specialty cakes, elaborately decorated cookies or even someone to cater a private party found her. She’s on Google Maps under “Bakeries” and was surprised one day to get an order from someone driving from Los Angeles who wanted chocolate chip cookies to take to San Francisco. She met him at Woodside High School and made the handoff. Robin grew up in the Midwest among people who regarded food as “something you have to do. It’s not necessarily some-
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Chef Robin Wolfgram (left) teaches students to make a yule log cake.
thing you enjoy.” Both in college and in their years as a young married couple, she and Derek expanded their horizons, trying new restaurants and recipes, and sharing these new experiences with their friends. (Derek also got into beer-making, something he still does.) The couple moved several times with his library career, and Robin worked in the financial services industry. All the while, the self-taught baker studied and experimented. Her big baking debut, so to speak, was creating nine wedding cakes for Derek’s sister’s 2006 wedding (eight were centerpieces for the guest tables.) Robin Wolfgram continued to hone her skills and in 2016, she changed careers and went to work at Sur La Table in Palo Alto, a retailer which also offers cooking classes. Robin began as a kitchen assis-
tant—doing all the prep work for the resident chef—and eventually worked her way up to take that position herself. She left Sur La Table to go out on her own in February 2020. Teaching allows her to share her love of food and baking, and she began teaching classes last spring through the Parks and Recreation Department— first online and then in person. Among her next classes on the menu: how to make croissants and chocolate babka. For kids, there’s a four-day baking camp in March on how to make a cake from start to finish. Wolfgram loves to pass on what she’s learned over the years and keeps up a rapid-fire patter of tips during her classes—how to weigh dry ingredients on a scale, for example, or to separate an egg. A white almond sour cream cake with “plain old vanilla buttercream” is
• her favorite—and adding raspberries last summer made it her most popular flavor. With humans. The owner of an exuberant Carolina Dog mix named Izzy, Wolfgram is also known for her “Pupcakes.” She has two recipes, one of which includes pumpkin, applesauce, and peanut butter—with mashed potato or Greek yogurt “frosting.” “They love them,” she says. “It’s all dog-friendly.” Wolfgram also volunteers with an organization called Cake4Kids, which provides birthday cakes for children who are homeless or are in the foster care system. Families may be hard-pressed to afford that luxury, says Wolfgram, who tears up talking about being able to provide a memorable cake. For one young man who was about to enter the Marine Corps, she decorated his cake to look like a uniform, with the Corps logo on top. A big Oorah to that!
Jessica Hatfield of Redwood City won a national contest and a $5,000 prize a few months back for creating a fearsome-looking Halloween costume that walks like a monster but resembles a tree with a swiveling prehistoric head. And she can thank her grandmother of all people for giving her inspiration and artistic knowhow— plus the information that she could enter “Korpi the Forest Creature” on “Live with Kelly and Ryan’s” annual Halloween costume contest. Hatfield’s entry, which she’d been working on for seven months, won the grand prize. Her grandmother, Joan Luis, who is a skilled seamstress, has always been artistic and made costumes, says Hatfield. They’d been working on costumes together for several years and created one in 2019 that ended up becoming the basis for the Forest Creature. Luis watches “Live with Kelly and Ryan” and when she saw they were having a contest, she immediately texted her granddaughter to send in photographs to enter. Hatfield, 24, had to par-
M I C R O C L I M AT E •
ticipate in a taping for the episode, when the competition was narrowed to the top five. The day the winner was announced, “I had my grandmother over and we had a watching party.” The costume is heavy and unwieldy to operate so Hatfield has to have a friend help her put it on and then act as a “spotter.” The legs are crutches encased in big sheets of upholstery foam to which pipe insulation is attached to look like roots. The back legs are spring-loaded stilts that Hatfield found in a junk yard. The entire creation had to be wrapped with medical tape to make it solid. Papier-mâché was applied next in preparation for paint and attaching moss, bones and hand-sculpted mushrooms. The mechanical jaw opens and closes with bicycle handlebars connecting to the brake line at the back of the skull. Hatfield has to be strapped into a harness so she can toggle the jaw. She credits her brother, Keith Hatfield, and
two friends for helping to make it come together. Jessica Hatfield does video-editing for an insurance technology company and is also on the board of the Urban Wildlife Rescue Project, which has trail cameras tracking the behavior of the gray fox. Her own YouTube video is called “How I Built My Own 4-Stilted Costume,” and shows the construction, as well as Hatfield taking it out in public. Invited to dress up in it for story hour at the library, Hatfield says kids’ reactions varied. Some were confused when she got out of the costume “because the monster wasn’t there.” Her longer-term hope is to inspire people to be creative. A lot of people she meets think they have to be born with talent do art but the truth, she maintains, is that “nobody is born inherently good at anything” and it takes motivation and practice. Which she will do, putting some of that $5,000 toward her next big Thing. C
Jessica Hatfield takes the Forest Creature out for a walk.
January 2022
· CLIMATE · 23
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SPOTLIGHT•
The Sky’s the Limit
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SPOTLIGHT•
Technology is opening new vistas for drones. But flying cars?
By Jim Kirkland
They come in all sizes. From scale-model airplanes to something to keep the family toddler from swallowing. Drones are remote-controlled airplanes and helicopters or sUAS (Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems) that do everything from police surveillance and agricultural surveys to capturing amazing aerial imagery and delighting crowds with aerobatic derring-do. The most popular version today is the multi-rotor helicopter, which can be easily flown by amateurs who, unfortunately, have earned a reputation of ignoring flying safety and personal boundaries. And that’s become a serious problem for this industry.
P
erhaps the most common perception of freelancing drones can be found in the late Pete Liebengood’s novel, “Accidental Droning.” A story where a drone inadvertently captures the drowning murder of a wealthy woman in her backyard pool, committed by a snooping neighbor. Yet, radio-controlled aircraft have been around for some time; the first RC contest was in 1937. But it wasn’t until the 1970s that this hobby became massively popular. Early versions
were airplanes and gliders, but since a Chinese corporation, Shenzhen DJI Sciences and Technologies, better known as DGI, introduced its small multi-rotor drones, the popularity of these hovering objects has skyrocketed. Rumor has it that Mike Conrardy was born with a pilot’s license in his hand. He got hooked on radio-controlled airplanes at 8-years-old and eventually found himself working at a hobby shop in Mountain View. By then he had also achieved a private pilot’s license for small aircraft. One day a January 2022
· CLIMATE · 25
• man came into the shop with his son and expressed an interested in radio-controlled planes while seeking an instructor to show them the ropes. Conrardy was happy to volunteer and took the pair out for some test flights. Turned out the father was Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison with his son, David. Ultimately, Conrardy would not only teach the two Ellisons how to fly scale-model airplanes, but he would train both how to pilot the fullscale version. Ellison hired Conrady to be his personal pilot, putting him through the training necessary for multiple-jet-engine flying. San Jose Hobby Store Flying Larry Ellison all over the world was a blast, but Conrardy got hooked on becoming an accomplished aerobatic performer as well. The years flew by and Conrardy started yearning for the good old radio-controlled, hobby shop flying days. So, he established California Hobbies in San Jose, balancing shop owner with corporate piloting. Radio-controlled helicopters were becoming popular so he trained himself to fly them. Around the same time a friend gave him a small video camera for his birthday. Being an inventive fellow, Conrardy strapped the camera to an RC helicopter and started filming from the air. The notion that he could be standing on the ground seeing what he saw as a pilot thrilled him, so he designed and built a helicopter with six-foot rotors that was capable of carrying a professional video camera. He then approached producers of films and commercials and was soon shooting high-end commercials. “Then DGI came out with a tiny little drone that could fit in the palm of your hand that could do pretty much every-
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SPOTLIGHT•
Mike Conrardy
“Back then anyone could build a RC airplane, go out and fly it without any problem, but once drones popped up people started doing irresponsible things with them, like flying along the approach pattern of San Jose Airport, trying to get close to airliners taking off. ” thing we could do and maybe a little bit more without all the noise and danger of flying my helicopter,” he said. Flying for Sport Like Conrardy, Evan Turner was young when he started flying radio-controlled airplanes, starting with his dad at 6 years old. By the age of 11 he was entering competitions. A Tennessee native, Turner won his first national championship at 14 when he began racing drones. These small, fiveinch multi-rotor spiders are capable of flying upwards of 100 miles per hour, achieving top speed in under one second and pulling as much as 15G’s around a turn.
First-Person-View Drone Racing is a competition category where pilots, wearing goggles that livestream the video feed, control camera-equipped drones. The feeling is like being inside an actual cockpit. The goal is to complete a complex race course ahead of the other pilots in the heat. Competitions are held in stadiums around the world. The Drone Racing League is the global, professional drone racing property for elite pilots. Merging the digital with the real, DRL delivers visually thrilling races on networks, including NBC, NBCSN, Twitter, Fox Sports, Sky Sports, ProSieben and Weibo. Turner, now 18-years-old, won the National Championship twice, in 2019 and 2020, and is the youngest DRL World Champion. Of the 80 heats Turner raced in 2020, he finished first in nearly 70% of them, resulting in a winning percentage of more than triple his nearest competitor. Subsequently, he was invited to join the Drone Racing League, comprised of the 12 best pilots in the world, who compete across 16 levels of races shown on NBCSN and other cable channels. These pilots are professionals, salaried by the League. Moreover, with partner Armando Gallegos, Turner has started his own company which makes drone parts. So, with racing, filming and his company, he is one busy teenager. Rules of the Air When Conrardry was flying radio-controlled aircraft as a young man, the government was not concerned with what was then a hobby industry. “Back then anyone could build a RC airplane, go out and fly it without any problem,” said Conrardy, “but once drones
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SPOTLIGHT•
Top: An arena for drone competition. Right: Evan Turner Far right: Turner competing.
popped up people started doing irresponsible things with them, like flying along the approach pattern of San Jose Airport, trying to get close to airliners taking off and landing or flying over crowds of people who had no idea what a drone was. There were no rules or responsibility.” Enter the Federal Aviation Administration. After a flood of calls from concerned citizens over privacy issues and drones threatening both wildlife and fullscale aircraft, the agency decided that it was time to enact some rules and restrictions to this burgeoning industry. Even Homeland Security has entered the fray—and sees risk without controls. As one article on the agency’s home page notes, the popularity of drones has grown as they become more affordable. “Their nefarious capabilities continue to increase, as well,” the story continues.
“They can attain high speeds and move in three dimensions with the potential to carry dangerous payloads, smuggle contraband, and conduct illicit surveillance. The applications are endless, which creates a formidable challenge for our national security agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security.” Conrardy thinks most fears are overblown. “All of this drone hysteria, hype and excitement that worried people in the past has been overcome. The stigma of drone fear is not there anymore that they are mindless machines that are going to come into your backyard and come spying on you are gone. Chances are that one of every three people you know has a drone.”
Safe Skies for All “The FAA involvement is a touchy subject as it affects the legality of what drone operators do and love,” Turner added. “The livelihood for many pilots like myself could be taken away, however, I understand from the FAA’s point of view what they have to do.” Turner is involved with the FAA, participating in panels to discuss oversight of the industry and drone use. “We recently did a panel titled ‘Droning on After Dark’ where several of us represented our views and willingness to compromise and work with them. It also gave the FAA an insider look at the drone community.” He walked away with a better understanding of what the agency is attempting, trying to create a “safety sky” in an increasingly crowded airspace that could
January 2022
· CLIMATE · 27
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SPOTLIGHT•
A Popular Science 1957 cover depiction of a flying car.
contain drones delivering Amazon packages. Not to mention amateurs endangering aircraft and public safety with reckless flying. “But, there’s a fine balance between regulation and ending our hobby as a whole,” Turner said. “I believe there is a way for the drone community to work with the FAA where we can still fly and keep the skies safe. That’s going to involve compromise.” Danny Zemanek of Redwood Shores is a videographer who uses a drone when clients, such commercial real estate developers, seek low-level footage of their projects. The limitations set by the FAA for flying can cost him work. “Flying along the coast is prohibited due to the many species living and nesting there,” he said. “Any populated area — and where in the Bay Area is there not a ‘populated area’ — is prohibited. Additionally, nowhere near an airport, a fivemile radius zone. Basically, there aren’t that many areas where you can legally fly a drone.” It puts a real crimp in Zemanek’s ability to operate this specialty tool. He explains that a drone operator
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can apply for permission from the FAA for a specific area that is restricted to the public at a time of day, but even that is limited and can take weeks to obtain. That’s something Conrardy knows well. Once he was all set to fly and film in the Mojave Desert in air space used by military aircraft when the permission he’d received was yanked at the last minute. Conrardy was faced with an angry client or risk losing his pilot’s license. He chose his license. Goodbye client. Advancing Technology But Conrardy foresees a time when drone cars will be able to take off vertically and fly instead of clogging up freeways—in much the same way local helicopter innovator Stanley Hiller Jr. envisioned back in the late 50’s when he drew up plans for a flying car. “They will be unmanned and will fly better than any pilot can. It’s paving the way for transportation because innovators in this field remember that toy drone sitting on their kid’s bedroom desk.” Just as people today don’t bat an eye about getting into an “unmanned” eleva-
Videographer Danny Zemanek
tor, Conrady thinks the public will come around to trusting their lives in an unmanned flying aircraft. “One day it will be normal to travel in an electronic flying vehicle. It’s safer to take the pilot out of the equation,” he said. In fact, that day may have arrived. The New York Times recently reported that “several companies say they are on the verge of being able to offer safe, cheap, clean electric aircraft that can help passengers travel distances between two and 150 miles without the need for a conventional runway. These companies are betting they can bring electric urban and regional air travel to the masses, and have developed new aircraft to compete for a slice of this nascent market within the next few years.” Drone safety and limitations are still being studied and argued about. In the meantime, new and improved hobby models, many equipped with cameras, are continually cropping up. The tech industry has embraced the idea of fully automated personal aerial transportation and it appears toy drones have led the way. Move over George Jetson. C
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January 2022
· CLIMATE · 29
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H I S T O•R YC LbI M y A J iTmE • Clifford•
What Will Fill the Role Played by Local Newspapers? One of journalism’s best-kept secrets is that much, maybe even most, of news starts with local reporters and works its way up the news chain, a bit like the food chain. I was in the news game for 40 years, a career split between the San Francisco bureaus of both United Press International and The Associated Press. Much of that time was spent as a broadcast editor, rewriting newspaper stories that would be slimmed down and sent to radio and television stations. I gave all this much thought recently when I visited the San Mateo County government office building in Redwood City. For old times’ sake, I planned to pop in at the press room to see if I knew anyone. The press room was named for Janet Parker Beck, an accomplished San Mateo Times reporter who died in 1994 at the age of 41. The Times would die a bit later, and so would the press room, which still has Beck’s name on the door but is home to a county office. Not a news person in sight. There was a time when just about every city in San Mateo County had a newspaper of its own. “There are more newspapers in San Mateo County to the square mile than in any other county of the same size in the state of California,” publisher Denis O’Keefe wrote in a history of county journalism published in 1928. O’Keefe, for many years editor and proprietor of the Redwood City Times-Gazette, said the county was “a fertile field for budding journalists and staid editors.” Compare his optimism to today when news jobs are few and hard to come by. O’Keefe’s comments came when the county boasted 15 newspapers, albeit most of them weeklies.
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Photo by Reg McGovern courtesy of Janet McGovern
First in the County The first newspaper was the San Mateo County Gazette, which made its debut in Redwood City on April 9, 1859. It was a five-column, four-page weekly that shared its offices with a library. The first daily in San Mateo County was the San Mateo News-Leader which came out in 1914. The publication could trace its lineage to 1889 when it was simply called the Leader, a weekly founded by Charles Kirkbride and Richard Jury, both of whom had worked for the Gazette. The rival San Mateo Times started out as a weekly in 1901, quickly growing in circulation until it merged with the News-Leader in 1926 to become a powerful daily. The deadline-every-minute atmosphere of the newspaper world was recalled by the late Reg McGovern, an award-winning photographer for the Redwood City Tribune, in a 2010 article for La Peninsula, a magazine published by the San Mateo County Historical Association: “The news business was intensely competitive, with four San Francisco papers, the Oakland Tribune, the San Mateo Times and the San Jose newspapers all vying with each other – and with us – for sensational stories and angles.”
Adding to the challenge, McGovern wrote, were the tight quarters where the reporters worked—a former janitor’s closet in the old municipal courthouse (where the San Mateo County History Museum is today.) A 1947 photo he took to make the case for more space exaggerated the cramped conditions, but not by much. The entrance to the museum’s elevator is where the old press room used to be. Not Missing a Beat Flipping through copies of the defunct newspapers, one can only be impressed by the amount of local news covered in each edition, everything from church services to city council meetings. Those were the days when reporters had “beats,” meaning they were expected to cover particular areas, say school districts or police and fire departments. Editorial staffs numbered in the double figures, which brought to mind the song “I Cover the Waterfront,” the swing classic inspired by a 1930s book about a reporter whose beat was the docks, conjuring a time when the comings and goings of ships was a news staple. Time will tell if internet news sites can come up with enough reporters to cover beats. To me, it doesn’t look that promising. I keep reminding myself that “news” is the important part of the word newspaper, not “paper.” Looking back, I think I could describe my time as being spent in what some have called “The Golden Age of Journalism,” 1960 to 2000, when the nation supported two major wire services. Not only that, it was possible to make a good living as a reporter. If you are lucky enough to have access to a newspaper read it and support it!
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