Outstanding candidates

Joe Mathews, who writes a Sunday column in the San Francisco Chronicle (His grandparents were longtime San Mateo residents), recently opined that good candidates were giving up politics and moving to community work and foundations where they felt they could be more effective. He cited the popular black former mayor of Stockton who plans not to run again (he lost his last election but is still considered a formidable candidate) and instead heads a foundation. Luckily, we in San Mateo county have not experienced that trend. The main threat has come from redistricting. Several outstanding candidates have to wait years before they can run or they have to run against a colleague and a friend.

Rick Bonilla, mayor of San Mateo, would be a natural candidate for the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors to take Carole Groom’s expired seat. Except Charles Stone of Belmont is the primary candidate and his only opponent is elementary school board Trustee Noelia Corzo, a good friend of Bonilla’s. Corzo told me “Rick would never run against me.” And he isn’t.

Because of redistricting, he is now placed in a San Mateo city district where he has little chance of beating the incumbent, the popular Eric Rodriguez. So he will have to wait until 2026 if Rodriguez decides not to run again then, or possibly as late as 2030 if Rodriguez serves the entire 13-year term allowed. That’s a long time on the political calendar. Another strong candidate for the same seat would be Lisa Nash who lost a close City Council race to Amourence Lee two years ago before redistricting. Nash lives in the same district as Rodriguez and Bonilla.

Nash hasn’t been relaxing. She is now on the San Mateo Library Board, chair of the Measure S Oversight Committee, a member of Atma Connect (a tech nonprofit for social connectedness and resilience in vulnerable communities); on the boards of HIP Housing, San Mateo Neighborhood Watch, Rotary Haciendas, Baywood Homeowners Improvement Association and co-captain of Sisters Project on the Peninsula. She has more energy and brains than most of us. She would be an asset to any city council or board and it’s too bad she has to sit it out for so long. We need smart people on our councils and school boards during these difficult times. People who do their homework and ask questions, not seat burners who attend meetings but never do anything.

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I am not a fan of redistricting. Term limits would be a better way of opening the doors to newcomers. Now incumbents in districts without term limits have the advantage of name recognition and money and could serve until they die.

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The San Bruno City Council is still under the illusion that it has some special right to the fields at the shut-down Crestmoor High School. It has endured since the high school was shut in 1980 due to declining enrollments in the northern part of the San Mateo Union High School District.

The district has tried to sell the site since it needed the money after Proposition 13. But the city regards the playing fields as its turf. The district never gave the fields to the city. It has had a long-standing agreement that the city will provide maintenance in return for use of the fields similar to arrangements in other high schools which benefit both government entities. It’s about time San Bruno gave up this fantasy.

Sue Lempert is the former mayor of San Mateo.

Her column runs every Monday. She can be

reached at sue@smdailyjournal.com.