Waterdog Open Space Stewards Endorses Julia Mates, Gina Latimerlo, and Robin Pang-Maganaris in Belmont Election
These candidates share our values in keeping Waterdog open to multi-use recreational access
In the upcoming November 8, 2022 election, Belmont has two contested races: its first at-large (citywide) mayor, and the City Council member for District 1. After vetting the candidates, including in-person discussions, we wholeheartedly endorse Julia Mates for Mayor, Gina Latimerlo for District 1 City Council member, and Robin Pang-Maganaris for District 3. 1
If you are a Belmont voter, please vote for Julia Mates (and Gina Latimerlo if you live in District 1). If you are not, you can help by volunteering or donating to Julia’s campaign and Gina’s campaign). This is very important, because if their opponents win, Belmont’s longstanding history and tradition of allowing all users to use all trails will be under threat.
Current Belmont City Council member Charles Stone is running for San Mateo County Supervisor (District 2). We support him because he has consistently supported inclusive multi-use access during his time representing Belmont. He also took on special interests who tried to restrict access to the Crystal Springs Cross Country Course, and kept it open for high school track athletes. But beyond that, he’s the only candidate for District 2 supervisor with the proper qualifications and a proven track record.
On October 13, 2022, Chamber San Mateo County held a Candidate Forum which included a question on mountain bikes and open space. A video excerpt and transcript of the open space question appears below. Our takeaways from the forum are:
Gina Latimerlo, Robin Pang-Manganaris, and Julia Mates were open and transparent, and did not play the political game of avoiding questions. They gave clear and thoughtful answers helping to provide voters insight into their principles, specific reasons why they support continued multi-use access to all of our trails, and concrete policy proposals.
Warren Lieberman and Michael Craig were evasive and opaque. Craig confessed near-total ignorance of open space issues and gave voters no clue of where he stands on them. Mr. Lieberman touted his decision to keep trails open during Covid as Mayor (which was City Council’s decision to make, not his alone), and only vaguely said we need to talk to people from different perspectives to find solutions. Unfortunately, his answer in this forum didn’t reveal anything about where he stands on trail access issues, depriving voters of his actual position. However, he does have a position on this issue, and has made this clear in prior news articles calling for hiker-only trails and “dividing up the resource” to exclude cyclists for the benefit of hikers.
Gina Latimerlo’s answer revealed her approach: the answer is not to divide us more, the goal is for us to “share the land”. She shared a personal story of how communication and education can ensure harmony on the trails between cyclists and hikers.
Robin Pang-Maganaris made it clear she strongly believes that our open space belongs to all of us. She hikes the trails herself and has never felt unsafe due to mountain bikers. She said to the extent people have safety concerns, we should find creative solutions to make it safer so that all trail users are comfortable using our open space.
Julia Mates totally gets it on open space issues. She recognizes that Waterdog is one of the few areas in the region where mountain bikers can enjoy the trails. She said it’s important to ensure trail safety “while keeping the wonderful and long-established multi-use aspect of these trails.” As a frequent hiker in Waterdog, she has no issues with cyclists and even complimented their behavior, including cyclists who say hello and call out the number of riders coming down the trail. She’s willing to use tools developed in the draft open space plan to improve trail safety without excluding user groups. She even has her own creative proposals to enhance safety, including loaner bells.
- While Michael Craig is not openly hostile to shared trail use, he’s endorsed by Lieberman as well as a number of anti-cycling partisans, so he’ll likely march in lockstep with them on open space issues if elected.
Here’s the video excerpt and transcript of the open space issue from the candidates forum:
Moderator: There is a contentious debate as to whether mountain bikers should be allowed in Waterdog. What are your thoughts on this issue and the future of Waterdog?
Gina Latimerlo (District 1 City Council candidate)
Belmont has so much beautiful open space, and each of us is entitled to enjoy that open space. None of us is entitled to monopolize it. Right? The answer in our divided America is not to divide us more, like “hikers here,” “bikers there.” The goal is for us to share the land—hasn’t that been the lesson of the last couple of centuries? So I think if we want to move forward, communication between groups is key: bikers need to understand their role, hikers need to understand theirs. I think I want to tell you a story. So, I’m incredibly unathletic, like walking down a slightly inclined hill makes me nervous. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I married into this ridiculously athletic family. So one day I was hiking with my husband (not in Belmont) and a mountain biker passed us, going the same way as us; and I saw him, and I heard him, and I noticed that I became nervous, and then after I became nervous, I became angry about getting nervous, and then kind of angry at him for making me nervous, so I stopped. I turned to my husband, who’s a mountain biker, and I said to him that I’m feeling nervous, and it’s turning into anger, because I don’t know what to do or what I should do in order to make sure that we don’t collide. And I know my anxiety is not their fault, so I just want to know what I should do not to collide with him. And he said “just stay to the right; when I’m on a bike, I expect hikers and dogs to stay to the right, and I stay to the left.” And then I was fine, I knew what my responsibility was. Lots of bikes passed, and I just went right, and I was fine. So, I think explaining, and having signage around rules like that, as well as some additional safety precautions, like bikes ring bells as they approach is really the better answer here. If a couple of bikers are riding like idiots, then yes, there should be a way to report repeat offenders. Maybe a volunteer ranger could be there on weekends and have some sort of power to enforce the rules, or tell dangerous riders to leave. But I think these are better ways than to just, you know, shut down some trails for an entire population.
Michael Craig (District 1 City Council candidate)
In regard to Waterdog Lake Park to date, I understand there are people on both sides of the issue that are very, very passionate about their views. I have to admit though, I have never personally hiked or biked in the park. I’ve had six knee surgeries and I have arthritis in both of my knees. I know it’s a City Councilmember that I’ll have to represent all of Belmont, and not just my district, so I will make sure to read all of the environmental reports and listen to all the people who bike and hike before making any recommendation. I have spoken to hundreds of my neighbors in Homeview and Sterling Downs, and this issue of hikers vs. bikers has not come up once. So I would like to talk about the issues they are concerned with, which is not on the question, but right now, most of the people are telling me that they’re concerned about the thousands of high-rise apartments and the seven marijuana dispensaries that are being proposed in East Belmont. Neighbors are concerned about issues related to infrastructure, traffic congestion, pollution, and of course parking issues that will clearly come to East Belmont. Many of my neighbors have said that they moved to Belmont to get away from the city with the high rise apartments, traffic, noise pollution, and difficulty finding parking only to find that their local politicians seem to want to make Belmont exactly what they tried to move away from. Neighbors are already dealing with people parking in front of their homes in Sterling Downs from people living in apartments on Old County Road, and I’ve even confirmed this with the Belmont Police officer who said this is a problem they deal with on a daily basis. I promise to be a true voice for all Belmont residents and will help to come up with a solution that is fair for everyone, and does not overly burden one neighborhood. Thank you.
Robin Pang-Maganaris (District 3 City Council Candidate)
Gina actually beautifully expressed what I feel about the open spaces here in Belmont. We are fortunate as a community to have access to such wonderful spaces such as Waterdog Lake and I do not believe that there should be limits placed on who has access to that area. It belongs to all of us—to all of us to use in the ways that are most comfortable to us. Now in terms of the debate between the two sides, ultimately what I hear is that it’s about safety. Well, if it’s about safety I want to first confirm that there really is a safety concern in regards to bikers in Waterdog Lake. I can say that I’ve been on that trail many times and I have never experienced or felt danger in terms of bikers on the pathways, so I want to confirm there really is a challenge, a problem there. And second, if there is, then let’s come up with some creative solutions to make it safer so that everyone, everyone has the right to be on open space that belongs to all of us.
Warren Lieberman (mayoral candidate)
Thank you. Well, we have jewels of resources with Waterdog, with our open space, with trails, it’s—we are the envy of the peninsula, and probably beyond that quite frankly. And that’s why people from all over want to use our trails and come enjoy them, it’s wonderful. I believe that everyone should be able to enjoy our recreational resources safely. The city’s been working very hard to develop a master plan for this, it’s in great shape, we’ll be voting on that soon enough, and as mayor, during the first year of Covid, I think I mentioned, I made it a priority to keep our trails open to all, which was fairly controversial at the time, if you remember a lot of cities were closing their trails, and I thought for the mental health of our community, for the physical health of our community, we couldn’t do that. So I have worked hard to keep everybody on, using our resources. As you even heard tonight, there are very big differences in the ways people think about the safety of, when they’re using the trails. It ranges from mountain bikers believing there are no issues, and we should continue to use the trails as we do, to hikers who want to get rid of bicyclists. And there’s lots of items in between on “should we educate people on staying to the right” as Gina was mentioning, do we do better signage, what do we do? Again, as I kind of made it clear earlier, we need to engage the folks from different perspectives so we can identify the best solutions moving forward so that everybody can enjoy the resources safely. People have stopped hiking sometimes out of fear. That’s not right if that’s the truth, if that’s what’s going on. So we need to do everything, and as an elected official, not an appointed official, not as somebody—it’s just important that we consider all of the perspectives.
Julia Mates (mayoral candidate)
So, I’ve spent a lot of time speaking and communicating with folks who think there are very few issues to be solved at Waterdog Lake, and those who think mountain bikes make the area unsafe, and I’ll say that Waterdog is actually one of my favorite places to hike, it’s right near my home, we live right adjacent to it, and I spend a lot of time hiking the trails there with my family, so I’m familiar with the trails and the shared use of them. And I think there’s people who feel perfectly safe walking the trails, but there are always things we can do to make the trails safer for everyone and improve the experience for trail users. We could improve wayfinding and signage so users better understand where they are on the trails and which trails lead back to the trailheads and things like that. We can implement some tools that have been proven to reduce the speed of mountain bikes to increase the feeling of security for walkers and hikers, and a little bit of what Gina was talking about. We can implement tools such as “Slow and Say Hello” and asking bikers to use bells when they round blind curves; in fact hikers can use bells to alert others when they round curves to alert other hikers. I’d like to start a program where the city provides loaner bells at City Hall or at trailheads for hikers and bikers to use, and there are also tools for trail design that the city could implement to reduce the speed of bikes, and the draft PROS plan actually includes that (the draft open space plan). When I hike these hills, I’m very impressed with the behavior of the mountain bikers, who are friendly, say hello, and often indicate how many people are riding. So they’ll say “it’s just two of us!” or “just three of us!” so that we hikers know what to expect. Waterdog is one of the few areas in the region where mountain bikers can enjoy trails. It brings a diverse group of people from our community and beyond to recreate together. When I’m out on the trails, I see mountain bikers of all generations: families with kids, adults, and senior adults. And going into the future I want to make sure we have the safest trails possible, while keeping the wonderful and long-established multi-use aspect of these trails.
1: In the new district election system, the city is split up into four districts, and only two are electing council members this year, District 1 (eastern Belmont) and District 3 (central Belmont). The candidate for District 3, Robin Pang-Maganaris, is running unopposed.