Meet Your Neighbor - Tom Blinn

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Tom Blinn and I am a retired teacher and businessman and I work in a youth program in Oakland.  My spare time goes to the San Leandro Historical Railroad Society.

Very Cool.  What do you love about San Leandro?

I just love it because they (the City of San Leandro) are so open to new ideas and they are really supportive of us as a railroad museum but also our approach into the schools in training kids on how to be safe around railroad tracks.

There was something fairly recently when somebody got hit in San Leandro on the railroad tracks.

We generally get involved when there is an accident and we go to the schools and talk to the kids, and sometimes the counselors will get involved, but we are part of a larger organization called Operation Lifesaver which is all around the United States and was started by Engineers in 1949.  We have thousands of people that are presenters, like myself, and we go to schools to speak.  On October 14 we will be presenting to the 6^th grade classes at John Muir School here is San Leandro.

Oh, very cool!  Now you guys have your museum at Thrasher Park.  The building that you are housed in has a little bit of history.  Please tell us about that.

The building we are in was built in 1898 and it was built with heartwood grade redwood, full dimension so a 2X4 is a 2X4!  The building sat on the corner of Davis St. and the railroad tracks for a long time.  It was 22 years ago that we moved it over to Thrasher Park.  We bought it from the railroad.  We had enough money to move it and the City of San Leandro allowed us to place it at Thrasher Park.  We sold it to the City and we lease it back from them on a 20 years lease.  We generally have 2000-3000 people coming in every other month so we have a lot of community involvement.  Most of our visitors are young people.  Some kids don’t have a long span of attention but around trains they do!  So for parents, sometimes the worst part of the visit is trying to take their kids home because the kids want to stay and they cry. 

Right!

But we have a museum, we have a HO scale display and we have an outdoor display for larger trains.  We also have an area just for the kids.  They can go run trains, they can crash them and do anything they want!  They have fun doing that.

You do special Halloween and holiday events?

Yes, we have a special Halloween event on 10/27.  We will have trains with Halloween cars on it and the whole place will be decorated up!  We really look for kids to participate and they will have a great time

.

Great.  What are your normal hours of operation?

Saturday mornings starting about 9:30am until about 1pm.  On Tuesday nights we are open 7:30pm until 9:30pm.  We have about 35 members and we are all very avid about trains.  Sometimes we ask ourselves why we like trains and we don’t know but we really like trains!  (Laughs).

That’s wonderful!  My son and I have visited and we really loved it.  Do you have any last words of wisdom?

Well, our passion is to our trains but even greater than that is that people are not hurt by trains.  A lot of people don’t give enough attention to trains and the tracks and always be aware that the train can come at any time.  We want no one to be hurt.

Thank you for your time today Tom.

(thanks to Patricia Minnis for Transcribing the interview)

Meet Your Neighbor - Paul Francisco

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Paul Francisco, I am an athletic trainer and therapist. I also coach my daughters under nine soccer team.

What do you love about San Leandro?

I love San Leandro's location. It's proximity to San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Silicon Valley. Having BART is a huge benefit that many towns do not have.

Words of wisdom?

Patience is a virtue

Thanks Coach!

Meet your Neighbor - Marilyn Pluth

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Marylin Pluth live in San Leandro I’m a homemaker in the process looking for a job haven’t worked for 4-5 years. I’ve been staying home and taking care of my daughter so now its time to get back to work. I like to garden and to get involved with the school. I seem to be very interested in what goes on in the City of San Leandro because I’ve been a resident here for probably 25 years and I’ve seen the changes and I’m happy with how the city is progressing.

What do you love about San Leandro?

 I like this town because it gives you that small town feeling but its in the middle of the bay area and close to everything. From San Jose to up north Marin its really a great place to live and I’ve grown up in the area all my life, I’m from San Jose actually and I’m married my husbands name is Don my daughters name is Michelle and she is 12. 

Bought our first house on Begeir Ave and then Lee avenue and then on Brie so the time spent here we’ve been pretty happy, nobody really knows about it I mean it's starting to change a little bit but it's been a really pleasant place to live and as the years have gone by and I’ve gotten to know the people I basically feel like there is an interesting community here.

Fairmont Ridge on 7/30/15 by Marylin Pluth

People are warm and friendly and yet there are some very strong political view points and I want to say they’re conservative yet somewhat liberal. I find that I meet interesting people here that are very attuned to the community and want to help the community and either I gravitate towards that or you know there’s just a lot of people like that.

One of the things recent has been the “black lives matter” project and this town has its interesting moments about that, I’m finding its very interesting to be involved in that and to see the reaction of the people in the community, there’s a lot of openness but there’s a lot of.. like everywhere there is a lot of people with concerns and backlash to the black lives matter movement.  I’m a pretty down the middle of the road person I just am trying to see what’s fair for everybody and what’s best for everybody and I find it interesting that I’ve joined something like this because I’ve got enough things to do in my life but it just means a lot to me. I would like to break this barrier between blacks and whites. Having conversations and discussing what’s really going on and make resolve it somehow or I don’t know just to start having conversations about it. I think this town can handle it.

They are allowing a pot distributor to move in which I am happy and surprised, I am glad that they are open minded. The city council has really changed over the 25 years I have lived here.

 The first 10 years I lived here people asked me where San Leandro was, I had never heard of it growing up in San Jose it's not just a town that is on the radar. Now it's going somewhere.

San Leandro is just a pleasant place to be, we have bought 3 different houses here, we could have moved away and tried Berkeley or somewhere else, but we like it here.

Daughters School

She has been going to the schools in San Leandro but now she is going to a charter school in Oakland. Its just opened up last year its an interesting school because its full of technology, its basically everything is done on the computer online, its set up on a google class room situation. Google has really zeroed in on how to create this classroom world for students and teachers and its really interesting. It’s a lot like a corporate office would work, yet these kids have mastered the use of computers within a years time really well. From the time they’ve started until now is incredible they know more than us now.  

Sunset on eight, twenty-one, twenty-fifteen

A natural laser light show. Fairmont Ridge 7/30/15

You take a lot of photos and you post them on This is San Leandro, thank you.

I don't know what got me into it. I took film in college, communication and broadcast video. I have always enjoyed photography. These camera, these phones make it so easy I am amazed at some of the pictures I get myself. My brother-in-law said that I have an eye for things. I was happy to hear that. I see the sun setting and go, Oh, I have got to get in the car go somewhere and find a location. I make the excuse of walking the dog, but I am trying to get to the sun. The formation and the clouds we have been getting, maybe the fire unfortunately has had the skies really nice. I keep looking up and going Wow, look at that.

Are they all taken on your phone?

They are all on my Samsung phone, every single one. I never really do anything to the photo to change contrast or the brightness I might crop it. but usually its left the way it is.

This is one of my favorite images, tell me about it?

This was up on Fairmont Ridge, I go up there a lot and take pictures. There is this bench that is all by itself. My daughter and I were walking the dog, I was just slow, I wasn't keeping up with them, I saw them sit down, then the sun came out through the clouds I thought it was so great. The camera darkened the landscape, it came out perfect.

I love the mood.

I really appreciate your comments and the opportunity to showcase the photos.

Thanks for being out and taking so many photos, they are not just of Fairmont Ridge, you go everywhere

I try to, I keep saying where do I go next. I keep saying I should try something other than landscapes, but it's that that captures my attention. I was at the marina last night, I forget there are boats there, you forget those area if you don't hang out there. It really was pretty.

You have a luck dog!

I guess so, he enjoys it... I always bring a girlfriend along too

Final quote or words of wisdom?

I think the time has come for this town to become more progressive (with technology and our policies), we need to be careful in having his happen in a way that benefits the community.  Make sure the progression benefits the haves and the have not's. We are a mixed society in San Leandro, we need to keep that.

Meet Your Neighbor - Morgan Mack-Rose

Who are you and what do you do?

I am Morgan Mack- Rose, I am currently the executive director for the San Leandro Education Foundation

What do you love about San Leandro?

We moved here because of the house prices. Then you fall in love with the people, it really is the people the diversity of the community.  I love that it is a small enough town that you can get things done and that local government is responsive. I love that it is not cookie cutter. We have distinct neighborhoods with distinct architecture and I feel like it's really vibrant.

You were on the school board and now on SLED.

I started getting involved in San Leandro schools before my daughter was even in schools. I am a real proponent for public education. What was happening in our neighborhood school is a lot of people were leaving it and we felt the more people that left the school the more disparity that created. So myself and a handful of other families rallied around the school. Then in 2008 I was asked to run for the school board which was a little earlier than I had intended to do, as I had a 2 and 6 year old at the time. I ran and I got on. The  first thing I had to do at my first meeting was cut 2 1/2 million dollars, so I came right when the big economic crisis was hitting our school. For 4 years all we did was cut, cut, cut, which is why I didn't want to run again. I felt like I was doing Sacramento's dirty work. There were discretionary  funds available but there was not much choice or influence. It wasn't supporting youth the way I envisioned supporting youth.

I ran for city council but I did not win, that actually ended up being a good thing, I am finding that the further I get from elected politics the more I fall in love with San Leandro. It's so easy to get wrapped up in the politics, when ultimately it's not about that, it's about the individual relationship.

I had worked with SLED. In 2014 I was brought on as their first executive director. I had worked with them prior when I was on the school board. I really felt fortunate that I was selected for their ED position. I continue to work with people at city hall, people in the schools and in the community. I feel like am in an ideal situation. I feel like what I am doing is really impacting youth in the way that I thought it would if I was on the school board.

Explain a little bit what SLED is. What SLED does and the event they have coming up  next week?

It was founded in 2008 by a group of parents who saw that we were having all these beautiful building built with bond money, at the same time that all these programs were being cut because of economics. Other wealthier communities in the county had education foundations, because they had ED foundations they were able to tap into grant money and corporate money. San Leandro needs that. We  needed an organization that supports all of the schools, not just one or two, not just sports not just music. That supports every kid K through 12 at all 12 school sites. They worked very methodically for a good 6 years before they had enough support to bring on an executive director. Since that time things are shifting, the money is different. What we are finding and how we are realigning ourselves is instead of providing just cash assistance we become a conduit for foundations, businesses and individuals to support schools.

We are finding that is not just about the money, It's also about the people and how to we engage San Leandrians in our schools in a positive way. Ultimately what kids need are caring adults. It takes money to run volunteer programs, we still need to raise money, but we raise money for specific programs.

We have 3 focus areas, Positive youth development which is providing programs that help kids become adults that you want to live next door to, compassionate caring adults. Then we do STEAM enrichment we are supporting hands on learning, technology and science, one thing we did this summer was bring a girls robotics camp for FREE to 30 middle school girls, we also did it for boys. We support outdoor education overnight science field trip for 5th graders. Our big project right now is creating opportunities for volunteers in our school. We will bringing on a volunteer coordinator. The schools don't have the capacity to recruit, manage and acknowledge volunteers. Sometimes people have a negative experience working with our schools. not because they are bad, they are just trying to do so many things. That is the roll we are stepping into, the schools have wanted us to do that for a long time.

One of the fundraiser we do is our Gala. It's a great big party for people who support school to and come out for a good time. People say they forget it's a fundraiser. This year it is on September 11th  at Casa Perleta, its outside. We make it gorgeous, be bring fairy lights and make it into a magical place. We have an amazing band this year that is doing Salsa and soul. I heard the guy singing... we may need chaperones , his voice is so smooth.  Acapulco Restaurant is catering it, Mike Wieners restaurant. It's a great time for people to come out, party and support our schools.

You also have the Eat Out for Education

Now it's every Wednesday at 6 restaurants. People have to have the coupon with them, from our website and facebook page. 20% of your purchase goes to a specific school that week. Businesses are really happy to support which is good. That is one of the great things about San Leandro, I have found that if you ask people,  more often than not they will say yes.

I hear you went to the opening of the 21st amendment, I hear it was very well attended.

I have heard estimates of about 5000 people, about 4000 more than they were expecting. I think that San Leandro is excited to have a another brewery, another place to congregate. I was impressed with the people, even though it was a big beer fest everybody was so well behaved. Everyone was having a good time, being responsible.

It was a family event.  We were able to use about 40 high school volunteers to run face painting, water melon bowling, they had a jumpy house and a slide. We also had about 30 adult volunteers doing ID checks at the door.

Words of Wisdom or Finishing quote?

I have been thinking a lot lately about what makes education important and what makes it good. I have come to the conclusion that every child needs to succeed, when a child succeeds we all succeed. Also education is always better when the community is involved. Community brings a depth to the content and the experience. No matter how good a teacher is the experience can always be better if the community is somehow involved

 Thanks Morgan

Meet Your Neighbor - Addie

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Addie, I crawl and eat things I should not. I am a people person.

What do you love about San Leandro?

The weather and Zocalo Coffeehouse, I only just got here.

Finishing quote or words of wisdom?

adadadadadbrrrrrrrph

Meet Your Neighbor - Angele Sweet

Who are you are what do you do?

My name is Angele Sweet and I am a part-owner of a landscaping business here in San Leandro called Friend + Sweet and I design and maintain landscapes.  I love my job!

Excellent, excellent!  What do you love about San Leandro?

Oh gosh there are so many things to love about San Leandro!  I grew up in San Leandro so I love the hometown atmosphere.  People are friendly here.  You rarely meet somebody who doesn’t want to get to know you in some way, so I like that.  I like that neighbors care about each other.  I like all the volunteerism.  I like that people always want San Leandro to be better.  I love that people are always saying, “if only we could add this or that, it would be even better here.”  So the community, the great people are here, but I don’t think all the businesses and restaurants, and that kind of stuff is there yet.  And that’s what I am really interested in working on.

Right.  Cool.  So I know that you involved in with the San Leandro Downtown Association.  Can you tell us a little bit about that and the big event that you have coming up shortly.

Yes! The San Leandro Downtown Association is a group of wonderful people who work really hard to produce fun events in Downtown San Leandro.  So we do Sausage & Suds, It’s a Wonderful Night, Bike SL.  It’s just a great group of small business owners, community people, people who are involved in non-profits, businesses, and we all come together to make fun things happen in downtown.

What is the date for the Sausage & Suds event?

October 4, 2015.  It’s always the first Sunday of October.

Excellent.

Yes, and that’s going to be a fun event.  Lately we have really been trying to focus on what is local and great about San Leandro.  So the last couple of years we’ve had Drake’s Brewery have a special station at Sausage & Suds.  Last year it was Drake’s and 21^st Amendment.  They will both be there again this year.  We also hope to have our small boutique beer maker Cleophus Quealy there as well.  So we like to give the local a little bit of special attention because that is what makes San Leandro great!

And with the three breweries that we have, it feels like the vibe is changing.

Absolutely!  And we want to, with Sausage & Suds, we really want the people to come out and TASTE.  So, you know, I think sometimes people think, oh you’re just drinking beer and sitting in the sun, but we really want people to come out and taste our local products, and taste other breweries from all over the country, and taste that too, and see what’s special about what we have here.  So you know, there will be some big name brands but there are also a lot of small town breweries.  And I think that is what is cool, and I think that gets lost sometimes, in that there really is a celebration of uniqueness.

And you are also involved with the Community Benefit District.  Can you explain what that is and what you do.

Yeah.  So just fairly recently a Community Benefit District was set up in Downtown San Leandro called the San Leandro Improvement Association, aka SLIA.  I’m on the board of directors as well as the secretary.  The property owners in a prescribed district area are assessed a tax and it’s for cleanliness, beauty, safety and all of those good things.  The Community Business District is focused on the nuts and bolts.  So the guys that you see up and down the street sweeping the gutters and the sidewalks, they are paid through the Community Business District.  We are also going to be adding plants to all of the planters.  We will have enhanced security.  We will be supporting the San Leandro Downtown Association with their events.  We have really big plans!  It is very exciting!  We have a small budget but it’s nice to have a little bit of money, you know, to do these things.  So, it’s great.  Yeah!

So, going back to your business, since we are in this drought, how is that affecting your business?  Do you see some people trying to get rid of their lawns?

Oh! Absolutely! It’s amazing.  When I first started this business about ten or twelve years ago, I was really into drought tolerant plants, but then I learned pretty quickly that that’s what people didn’t want!  They didn’t want that, they wanted roses, hydrangeas.  I would always give them two plant palettes.  “Here is your regular water plant palette and here is your drought tolerant plant palette!  Isn’t this wonderful, the second one?”  And they would just look at me, like, “No, I don’t like that.”   And then about three years ago, all of a sudden people were calling me and saying, “I need a Bay-friendly, drought tolerant landscape.  I want to take out my lawn.”  And I was, like, shocked!  Because what I had studied in school ten years ago was finally coming around, because of the drought.  And I also think that the Bay-friendly model, too, you know, trying to use plants that fit within our climate, that don’t need as much water.  Plants that are Bay-friendly, use less pesticides, less herbicides, less water, less maintenance, that all fits into how I think things should be.  And so I am also a Bay-friendly certified designer and maintenance worker.  So it has changed my business a lot. Lawns are being ripped up all over the place and I’m designing new gardens which is, a complete different paradigm from the old landscape, where you have the green grass and you have a tree.  Now we are doing all kind of amazing things and it’s really colorful, more bees, more insects, less herbicides, more flowers.  I like this!  It’s less monoculture.

And is it, I’m sure it’s helping you since you are a very creative person, it just must be wonderful to be able to work with that.

Absolutely!  Yeah, it is, it’s great!  Because, you know, I’ve put in maybe two lawns.  But lawns are kind of boring and I don’t really care for lawns.  So it’s great to be able to put in a tree, ground cover, put in a little stone patio.  I like to create an environment so that when people come home, that they, their shoulders relax, they walk up to the front step and it smells good, there are pretty flowers, they see some insects.  I really want to create an environment that is beautiful… that is really important to me.  I think that we need more of it. 

If somebody wants to see what you do or contact you, if there a website or a FaceBook page?

Yes.  www.friendandsweet.com .  I have a great partner.  His name is Emil Friend.  His last name is Friend and I’m Sweet so we just stuck with our last names for the business because it was just too cute!

Very cool!  Any final words of wisdom?

Well, there is one that is kind of a fun.  People, sweep your gutters and plant a tree!  The best way to make a property look better is to keep your gutters clean and plant a tree! It’s amazing, trees are beautiful and trash isn’t. 

Thank you so much! You are awesome, thank you!

Meet Your Neighbor - Ellen McCarthy

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Ellen McCarthy, I have lived in San Leandro since 1995. I retired a few years ago from the field of public relations, before that I was a journalist, I started in radio KPFA. I wound up getting a PR job at KQED, I stayed in PR. I have always written, I have kept a journal. After retirement I started spending a little more time with my journal, crafting observations I was making, turning them into poems. I thought when I retired I would write a novel, but it wasn't my niche. Poetry I fell into it, I love doing it, almost every day. I have a lot of poems under different themes. 

One was the observations about life, finding out about how I think and feel about things that come up as you are in a beautiful place, often with my dog who died in December after 14 years. We used to take a lot of morning walks. My sister and I started putting books together, we did two of them. For the 3rd one she said let me take your natures poems, as I was assembling them I realized I had a whole bunch that referenced San Leandro. I had not come across any book that referenced San Leandro, no picture books or postcards. Here I had a collection of poems that referenced the beautiful places here that I enjoy so much, and I had my iPhone photos to go with it. I want to give a few copies to the Library, the City and the historical museum (A copy can be found in Zocalos). Purchase Book

What do you love about San Leandro?

I love the geographic location, between a lake and the San Francisco bay, with the redwood groves nearby, the eucalyptus groves and the spectacular weather which is probably the best on planet earth. I love the cultural diversity .

The poems came from the walks with your dog?

When you walk in a beautiful place and it is quiet, and you're not in conversation with anyone, you only have your thoughts. You tend to reflect on life and try to make sense out of the experience. I would stop and just take notes about something that I thought, that I wanted to remember. Then I might stop in a cafe and flesh it out a little bit, on my patio and flesh it out more, play with it until I thought it was done.

Did you find there was one walk or path that gave you more inspiration?

It depends on the time of day. Early in the morning most of the year the redwood groves like Chabot Park there are wonderful scents in the morning, the birds are very active, it's a great time to think, an especially stimulating time to think. Another time is at sunset, especially if you are on the bay, when you have clouds, when you have the light changing. At the marina where everybody walks where they have the loop and the trail that heads out to the San Mateo bridge there are a lot of seabirds. The tide is either in or out, that changes the color and the texture of everything around you. I'm not a religious person but I have become very spiritual in that setting, I think about how beautiful life is, how precious and rare. Midday everywhere is beautiful for walking and thinking, but I don't  find midday as inspirational as morning or evening

There is one photo I love which looks misty or smoky, I think it's near the Frisbee golf?

Chabot park in the early morning, it's just the fog lifting, just on my iPhone. I didn't know that is Frisbee golf. I was hit in the head once

It wasn't me  (Laughs)

He apologized profusely. It was Chabot Park about 8am. The light filtering through the mist. The fog is just starting to lift at that time of morning on a warm day. You can catch that any morning, it's gorgeous.

Any words of wisdom or a final quote?

Not sure if its words of wisdom but it is definitely something to live by, be the change you want to see in the world. Not my quote, but I love it.