Tonight Eric Rodriguez will take over the reins as the new mayor of San Mateo from outgoing mayor Joe Goethals. Unlike the typical reorganization rituals where the City Hall chamber is overflowing with family, friends, guests, elected officials from throughout the county and city staff, this one will be COVID-safe and remote. That doesn’t bother Rodriguez who is prepared to be a mask-wearing mayor who must confront the ravages of the pandemic on the city’s small business owners and the city’s finances (The county is in charge of all health matters).
Despite these difficult challenges, the city has seen some welcome changes as a result, according to the incoming mayor. Closing off streets to automobiles has always been an impossible dream for visionaries of an invigorated downtown but with COVID, the city was able to close B Street to make more room for outdoor dining and other activities. Parklets fill up Third and Fourth avenues to allow people to eat outside, the lifeline for local restaurants. And with plans for a new downtown garage maybe some of these innovations can remain post-COVID. Also more people are participating in public comments at council meetings, especially young people, now that you can comment from home.
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I asked Rodriguez how the city was going to approach new development with the passage of Measure Y which will keep the city’s heights and densities at the same level they have been for the past 30 years. Even though the vote was close, Measure Y received a majority of votes and it is still the law. Rodriguez said all sides, those who supported Y and those who opposed it, recognize the affordable housing shortage. He feels there is a strong possibility that representatives of the two sides could get together and do some tweaking of heights and densities in certain areas which would then be brought back to the voters for approval. Rodriguez is just the mayor to pull this off. He has always been sympathetic to the concerns of the homeowner associations and has good relationships with them. He did oppose Y together with the rest of the council but, despite that, Yes on Measure Y leaders trust him. And as long as voters have the final say, they could be on board with certain limited changes.
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Nicole Fernandez, age 37, will be the new district director for our new state Sen. Josh Becker. She was born in Mills Hospital, grew up in Belmont and attended Carlmont High School. She is the child of Pakistani immigrants. After graduating from San Jose State University with a major in politics, she plunged right into the political world and 10 years of working for state legislators. First was Santa Clara assemblywoman Rebecca Cohn. She was then hired by the late Ira Ruskin and worked in his Assembly district office for 3 1/2 years. Then she spent two years working for Jerry Hill when he was in the state Assembly and three years in his Senate district office. She decided she needed a break and went to work for San Mateo county’s Aging and Adult Services specializing in elder abuse.
But Fernandez has remained very active in local politics. She is the chair of the San Mateo County Democratic Party. She will remain in that position until her term is up in January as she prepares to work for Becker. She will not run for re-election, a wise decision since Becker will be representing Republicans as well as Democrats.
She is part of the progressive movement on the Peninsula and has been active in promoting women of color to elective office. In a DJ op-ed in November 2019 she wrote in support of Amourence Lee’s appointment to the City Council:” I encourage all women of color with an interest in progressive policy and change in San Mateo County to find others with a similar call to activism, and specifically search out those established women” in power. No decision yet on where the district office will be. But certainly there will be a well-connected and experienced district director at the helm.
Sue Lempert is the former mayor of San Mateo. Her column runs every Monday. She can be reached at sue@smdailyjournal.com.
Good luck to the new mayor Rodriguez, out of all five city council people, you are probably the best of the lot. Unfortunately that is not saying much. I hope you remember the people of San Mateo when making decisions about our future. The exiting mayor did not listen to long time residents and certainly went against them when the special interests he represented wanted him to. One piece of advise, put all that racial divisiveness and social justice nonsense away once and for all and try to lead by uniting the entire city together instead of dividing us like so many on the council are doing now.
One thing seems to hold true with most of those that are right wing supporters. They don't seem to know what a mirror is or if they do they never look in it. Talk about hypocritical comments.
"One piece of advise, put all that racial divisiveness and social justice nonsense away once and for all and try to lead by uniting the entire city together instead of dividing us like so many on the council are doing now."
Racial divisiveness and social injustice are the forte of the orange idol in Washington that they hold in such high esteem. Of course when their sole source of information is OANN and Faux News it is understandable.
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(3) comments
Good luck to the new mayor Rodriguez, out of all five city council people, you are probably the best of the lot. Unfortunately that is not saying much. I hope you remember the people of San Mateo when making decisions about our future. The exiting mayor did not listen to long time residents and certainly went against them when the special interests he represented wanted him to. One piece of advise, put all that racial divisiveness and social justice nonsense away once and for all and try to lead by uniting the entire city together instead of dividing us like so many on the council are doing now.
One thing seems to hold true with most of those that are right wing supporters. They don't seem to know what a mirror is or if they do they never look in it. Talk about hypocritical comments.
"One piece of advise, put all that racial divisiveness and social justice nonsense away once and for all and try to lead by uniting the entire city together instead of dividing us like so many on the council are doing now."
Racial divisiveness and social injustice are the forte of the orange idol in Washington that they hold in such high esteem. Of course when their sole source of information is OANN and Faux News it is understandable.
Both are wonderful people and expect them to serve us very well.
Have known both for years and support their efforts moving forward
Thanks Sue for this article
Welcome to the discussion.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.