Turmoil within the California Democratic Party over this year’s election for governor and fallout from the party’s naked grab of congressional seats could have long-term effects, undoing two important political reforms — the top-two primary system and redistricting by an independent commission.

As many of you undoubtedly have tolerated, I have ranted often in this very locale against the ongoing efforts of short-sighted regional “leaders” to wrest management of Caltrain from SamTrans.

Former Burlingame mayor and longtime community volunteer Terry Nagel heads a list of deserving individuals chosen for 2026 induction into the San Mateo County Women’s Hall of Fame this month.

This weekend, I’ll be supporting two International Women’s Day events in the Bay Area. On March 7, Asians Are Strong hosts its annual Asian Women Are Strong summit at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. On March 8, Christine Rimer is hosting the San Francisco Peninsula SheBuilds Lovable D…

Women are meant to be homemakers. Not all of them, but many. Most of my childhood outside of school was spent with family, especially my mom. My dad worked two jobs: a gardener by day and a janitor for local banks at night. When I was a year old, my parents went house hunting and my mom foun…

My father used to tell us kids that we shouldn’t think of our homes as an investment. Although he was certainly in favor of home ownership when possible, and he well understood that houses can and often do appreciate in value, he observed that to cash in on your home investment you need to s…

What constitutes an event? Are there temporal, spatial bounds, and do we evaluate the event by its intent or its impact? 

The Winter Olympics are about five days in the rearview now, and the review pieces have all been written. But there has to be room for one more right?

For the last year, as the array of announced and potential candidates for governor constantly fluctuated, those who closely follow California politics have waited for the field to stabilize and for independent polling to reveal who really has a chance to win.

Now, here is an example of how useful AI can be. I asked it for a list of things you could have done in the hour and 48 minutes President Trump took to deliver his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

Do you want to be a journalist? Hey, come on down. We’re always open. The profession has never been more ultra-available than it is now.

As an elected delegate to the state’s Democratic Party representing our Assembly district, I spent the past weekend at the endorsing conference meeting candidates up and down the ballot and listening to gubernatorial debates and interviews. It is the governor’s race that I walked away most c…

When I read that guards at the ICE detention center in Dilley, Texas, were going room to room, confiscating and ripping up letters and drawings children incarcerated there had made, I thought of Ruth Mix, the “girl with hair like the sun,” a nickname she earned from the internees at the Gila…

I have to hand it to Menlo Park, they seem to do things in a big way. First was the massive Facebook (now Meta) campus, and then there was all of the other office, hotel and, more recently, multifamily development projects in the part of the city between Highway 101 and the Bayfront Expressw…

A few weeks ago, I ordered a shirt from a popular teenage clothing brand online. When it arrived and I tried it on, it ripped immediately.

Educating California’s nearly 6 million public school students is the state budget’s second largest expenditure, and one that has increased sharply during Gavin Newsom’s governorship.

Signatures are still being gathered for the Connect Bay Area initiative, which would ask voters in five counties to approve a 14-year sales tax increase — a half-cent increase in San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa, and a full-cent increase in San Francisco.

The timing is rather ironic. Next Tuesday, Feb. 24, will be the 30th anniversary of the heralded opening of the BART station in Colma.

Our biggest mistake is thinking, “this is a safe place.” After growing up in San Mateo County my entire life, I was naive as a child, thinking I was safe at all times.

Although some miners undoubtedly got rich during California’s gold rush, the people we remember are those who supplied them: people like Levi Strauss (who made and sold tents and, eventually, denim jeans) and Leland Stanford (who, with his brothers, began with a general store in gold country…

On Valentine’s eve, after Carlmont High School has mostly emptied out, my Associated Student  Body Recognition Commission works in C-Hall, the school’s central hallway, taping string to the ceiling and spacing paper cutouts along the corridor.

By all accounts, the elimination of cellphones at San Mateo High School has been largely successful in ensuring students have been focused on learning in the classroom and away from devices.

It would be interesting to calculate just how unlikely it is that the hottest race of this year’s election cycle would be for San Mateo County assessor-clerk-recorder and chief elections officer. But there you go.

Unionized teachers in the San Mateo County Community College District are not happy. They want more money. They are threatening to strike. That would be precisely what officials of the district don’t need right now.

American exceptionalism taught us to worship the win, but it never taught us how to judge effort, risk and responsibility while outcomes are still uncertain.

“HEY! I raced you didn’t I?” Two students from rival high schools spotted each other in the massive crowd at Central Park in San Mateo. Thousands of young people walked out of San Mateo County high schools and middle schools on Friday, Jan. 30, to, well … that’s what I asked many of them abo…

As I write this, I’ve just gotten off an overnight train trip from Olympia, Washington. Some dear friends just moved to that area, and my wife and I spent the last four days helping them settle in. Because their new house is just 5 miles from the Olympia-Lacey Amtrak station — which, like Sa…

Hundreds of my Burlingame High School classmates walked out of class to protest ICE Jan. 30 then marched from Washington Park in Burlingame to Central Park in San Mateo. We were joined with students from San Mateo High School, Hillsdale High School, Aragon High School and Abbott Middle School. 

Nascent old-timers like me see the southwest corner of San Mateo Drive and Third Avenue and think of Collins Pharmacy, however, Liuyishou Hotpot is there now.

Finally, here is the top 10 most influential people in San Mateo County.

This crusty corner has received several inquiries about the legality of strikes conducted by public employees. The subject was broached in this space not long ago.

After a concentrated period of using Waymo, I am a convert and believer that autonomous vehicles will make driving safe. 

You know you found the one, when they say, “it is so nice to see you.” There is something special about being a repeat customer at establishments.

I love maps. I love to try and puzzle out why odd-looking boundaries are the way they are, and I love to discover new and interesting ways to get from one point to another. Even in areas I’m intimately familiar with — like Redwood City, where I’ve lived for more than 35 years — maps remain useful.

Two Wednesdays ago, my mom dragged me to a friend of a friend’s fundraiser for women’s education. She had given me very little context as to what to expect, and upon arrival, seeing the various charcuterie boards, well-dressed parents and ice buckets of fancy sodas, I assumed I was nothing m…

A few times over the past two weeks people have questioned why some people are named in stories and others are not, specifically in two instances related to fatal traffic collisions.

As I have said from the start of this series on the most influential people in San Mateo County, a long-established status quo has passed and power is up for grabs.

This is becoming tedious as a distinct air of blissful unreality continues to surround the hierarchy that governs the financial details of the state’s long-delayed and grossly expensive high-speed rail project.

Depending on who you ask, it is either a proven road map for saving lives or a well-intentioned slogan that cities adopt and then fail to fund.

A few days after the horrific killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis by an ICE agent, I stepped off the bus at Jefferson Avenue and El Camino Real in Redwood City to the cacophony of honking car horns. Dozens of drivers traversing El Camino Real in both directions were loudly honking th…

Last week I wrote about a couple of affordable housing projects now well under construction in that city. The walk I took to check on their progress reminded me of two other such projects well underway in a very different part of the county: North Fair Oaks. Accordingly, early this week I la…

“And with that, I celebrate an early birthday to America — ‘the home of the brave.” 

I typically believe in an all of the above approach to problems. That means there is a recognition that not every one solution is the perfect one, and that there are often multiple ways to get to a positive result.

Life has intervened.

It’s been nearly a full year since a Hillsborough police officer was shot by an intruder on the grounds of the town’s municipal offices.

This is the perfect time to think about which organization you’re going to give a few hours to this year.

This week I took a long walk up into Belmont, to check on a pair of affordable housing projects well underway along El Camino Real.

As a writer, I’ve attempted solitude before. Sometimes, solitude would work; my own company would make me feel giddy, eager to prod through the layers of resistance, of static between the world and my wisest self. However, when it didn’t work, I’d leave empty libraries or move to my bed feel…

As was discussed in last week’s masterpiece, power and influence are in a state of flux in San Mateo County. This was borne out in my informal survey of key local opinion leaders in which I asked who are the most influential people in the county.

Let’s hear it for the mobile phone. It’s a technological blessing ever more valuable as the years roll by. Uses for the handy device are seemingly endless. A favorite for this correspondent is communication while shopping inside big box stores.