Burlingame's Vice Mayor Emily Beach to resign

“Once I walked through the potential conflicts of interests with the city attorney, it was really clear an early resignation was the only responsible and ethical thing to do,” she said.

The City Council will meet July 1 to discuss next steps for seating an interim councilmember for the remainder of Beach’s seat until the upcoming November election, Mayor Donna Colson said, with a goal of swearing in the new member by Aug. 19.

Burlingame will see three City Council races on the November ballot: two for newly-delineated full-term District 2 and 4 seats — one of which will replace Beach’s now at-large seat — and a two-year District 1 seat.

Former Councilmember Ricardo Ortiz resigned from his District 1 seat in February and was replaced by interim Councilmember Andrea Pappajohn.

The City Council wishes Beach all the best in at her new position, Colson said.

“Vice Mayor Beach has been an incredibly productive member of the Burlingame City Council, especially around transit, so it’s no surprise that she’s going to work in a transit agency, which is very much her passion,” she said.

Beach, too, acknowledged she’s been partial to transit policy issues throughout her tenure, serving on the San Mateo County Transportation Authority Board, the Commute.org Board, and the Caltrain Modernization Local Policymaker Group, among others.

That passion is dually motivated by an interest in addressing climate change — of which transport is a leading cause — and enjoying the policy considerations.

“Make [transport] easy for everybody to use and access. The more we do that, it’s better for the environment and for our collective futures,” Beach said. “Also, the policy is exciting and complicated.”

She worked extensively on the Broadway Grade Separation project, which will separate train tracks from the roadway to prevent accidents and decrease traffic congestion when completed.

One of Beach’s successes on the Caltrain Modernization Local Policymaker Group was tackling grade separation as a regional issue for communities along the transit corridor, she said.

“I certainly learned a lot about Caltrain there and helped advance the idea, from a city perspective, having a coordinated grade separation strategy, where Caltrain looks at it holistically,” she said. “This has got to be a priority for the corridor.”

She also focused on the El Camino Real road renewal project. Designed to improve road and sidewalk safety and maintain Burlingame’s urban forest, the project could break ground as early as fall 2024.

“That is a generational project that will really transform and improve quality of life in Burlingame,” Beach said.

Aside from transit-related issues, she also worked on fulfilling an original campaign goal of developing more inclusive housing policies for the city, helping to pass a general plan that envisioned nearly 23% population growth. Now, over 2,800 new housing units are in the pipeline or development phase.

“It’s pretty incredible what we’ve been able to do from a housing perspective,” she said.

Beach is also proud of the City Council’s work developing use-of-force policies for the police development, as well as leading the city through the COVID-19 pandemic as mayor.

“I think it was really an honor to lead the community through 2020 … the council and community really came together with a spirit of communication. [It was] messy, creative, responsive,” she said. “I hope that spirit will continue in all of our communities moving forward.”

Although she had previously decided not to seek a third term in office, the decision not to fulfill the remaining five months of her current term was a challenging one, Beach said— but she believes the skills she developed on the City Council will serve her in her new role.

“This is a people business. I think the relationships run deep. I’m always trying to operate in a way that we can move forward as a team, work collaboratively as a county to get big things done,” she said.