Will Francis and the Art of the Family

By Victor Carvellas

Grenada-born Will Francis is an artist whose bright colors, abstracted figures, and playful, dynamic compositions both tell the stories of his past and illuminate the joys of his present.

His beginnings were not promising. Though he confesses to having “always been an artist,” it was a flash of inspiration in 1997 that resulted in three paintings, back-to-back. “Then,” says Will, “I stopped for the next 20 years.” He would have more living to do before his subjects would appear.

In the meantime. Francis started both a family and a transportation business. “We were doing really well,” he says, “we had clients all over the Bay area.” When a New York account wanted him to expand to the East Coast, he realized he was already spending more time away from his family than he cared for. Then COVID struck, business evaporated, and he sold the company. “My wife said, ‘now’s your opportunity; start your art business.’”

“Art is my career now, so it blends in with my regular routine. I drop the kids off at school, go to the gym, then come back and paint for a few hours until I pick them up.” Will is prodigiously productive. “The creative process would come to a halt if I wasn’t painting every day. The ideas just keep flowing, so I’m able to finish four or five paintings a week.”

 

The Paintings

For this article Will chose some recent works representative of the subjects and themes that inspire him:

Do I Love You

Do I Love You: “I visited my mom some time ago and I realized something I hadn’t known before—that she loves dogs. The person holding the dog in her picture is her husband. He had a stroke and has been unable to move for the last 10 years, so the dog, playfully frisking about, compensates for the lost mobility and acts as an intermediary, a sort of vessel that shares and embodies the love they have for each other.”

Chapters of Me

Chapters of Me: “It’s about different phases of my life. Different times. The grids there represent the buildings and streets of New York, an important time in my life. That red represents how I see the world today. So many disparities. The space Is so polarized with people fighting for the wrong thing. The red is the blood; it’s the suffering of people, especially in places like the Ukraine. The blood that is behind the scenes is now up front and represents how front and center that suffering is to me.”

Family Time

Family Time: During the pandemic, we spent so much time together. I was trying to be creative but also focus on the kids. I was the primary caretaker since my wife was working. My business had to shut down. I had to figure out homeschooling, then paint for 20 minutes. It was a lot of time together, going to the park, taking walks. There’s a lot of colors in there. You see, we had just bought the house and there was all this tall grass and wildflowers in the back. They just ran around in it and had so much fun. Those wildflowers are where all the colors came from. For me, the structure of the piece suggests support and strength. The grids at angles suggest order amid the spontaneity.”

Aunties

Aunties: “I grew up in Grenada and across the street from us was this big house. They were very affluent, while we were quite poor. There was a lady there from Venezuela and she used to call me over and give me food. She’d watch us play. The yellow and black line of the painting is the street. Her husband watched us too. They never had kids, so I think watching us meant something. As to the title, I could have used the apostrophe, but the truth is there were two people there, so I dropped the apostrophe as a kind of play on the words, to signify the pair of them.”

Nothing Else Matters

Nothing Else Matters: Is all about family, about what you cherish most, what you think is most important. My first business was as an owner of a car service business.  I spent a lot of time away from home, often coming home just in time to put my daughter (we only had the one child) to bed. Now what happened was that I could have been a subcontractor for this huge company in New York with rights to the entire West Coast. It would have been huge for the business, but I was all over the place at all times of the day and night. My wife said to me, ‘your daughter is only a few months old. What are you going to do?’ I realized how much I was missing, and I let the account go. I didn’t want to miss that time in their young lives. It was just in time, though, because Uber and Lyft came on the scene and that would have been my competition.

 

Will Francis is hoping to have a new show opening in San Jose very soon. You can find out more about him and see some of his work at willfrancisart.com.

Hats Off to these Young Entrepreneurs

By Victor Carvellas

Brothers Jalen and Nyles Madison, 16 and 12, have an idea for building brick hobbyists too good to keep under their hats. Their company, MOC Gear, sells caps and beanies that use LEGO© and mini bricks to create custom wearable creations.

The line of colorful headwear uses two kinds of “build plates” that can be attached to the brim of the caps and to the front of the caps and beanies. There, builders can showcase their own unique build (thus, MOC – My Own Creations, as they’re known.)

“My brother and I love LEGO©. About 3 years ago we went to a convention where we got the inspiration for the hats. We started putting our builds on caps and wherever we wore them, they got a lot of attention. People wanted to know where they could buy them.”

The boys’ mom, Nikitha Madison, sees this as a learning opportunity. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” says Nikitha. “My mom [Debra Johnson] has owned a real estate company and a consulting company and co-owns a pet product business. I run a real estate consulting company. This is a great introduction to entrepreneurship for Jalen and Nyles while they do something they love.”

The pair are serious about making a success of it. With the help of their grandmother Debra, MOC Gear is a trademarked name. “It was important,” says Debra, “not only to protect the name, but to make sure they weren’t infringing on any existing brands.” MOC Gear has employed a professional design firm to design their website and manage their social media, but the marketing ideas haven’t stopped at the Internet.

“We envision them being sold in vending machines at places where kids hang out,” says Jalen. Nyles sees them as potentially “helping schools fundraise.” There’s also a place on the website, the MOC Gear Club (https://mocgear.club), where kids can safely share their creations, get special discounts, learn about upcoming releases, and ask questions of special guest builders.

Totem Pole Brings Sacred Space to San Leandro Marina

By Victor Carvellas The evening was cool as the setting sun danced on the golden waters of the Bay. The earthy smell of burning sage billowed in the breeze. A small gathering had come on October 28th to honor the memory of the Lummi Nation’s departed chief, Bill James (Tsi’li’xw, d. 6/1/2020). Strapped to a flatbed trailer, thousands of miles beneath its wheels, the carved memorial, a totem pole, resplendent in bright primary colors and adorned with symbols and scenes from James’ life, lay before the crowd. The totem pole was the work of Master Carver Jewell Se-Sealth James (Praying Wolf) of the House of Tears Carvers. Since 2001, House of Tears has taken a totem pole on an annual journey across the country, visiting sacred sites, villages, and tribes. Jewell couldn’t attend as he has done in the past, but his brother Doug (Sit-ki-kadem) was there, totem pole in tow. This was the next to last leg of a journey that began in Washington State, swept across the country to Baltimore and Washington, D.C., then threaded its way back to the West Coast and the San Leandro Marina before stopping in Sacramento for the annual convention of the National Council of American Indians. As with other stops, Doug recounted the events of Chief James’ life and explained the pole’s carvings (The surname James belongs to both men as the Chief was a second cousin to Doug and Jewell). The evening was also an opportunity for those present to engage in a spirit walk, a time of contemplation, in recognition of the 2022 Sovereignty Run, also taking place in the Bay Area.

In 2002, Tribal Nations, leaders, and Indian Country advocates ran across the country from Washington State to Washington, DC to protest Supreme Court decisions restricting tribal jurisdictions and affecting tribal sovereignty. Commemorating the twentieth anniversary of that milestone, this year’s 1,785-mile relay race from Oklahoma to Sacramento draws public attention to more recent cases (in particular, Castro-Huerta v. Oklahoma. For details see https://www.ncai.org/news/articles/2022/09/13/ncai-president-fawn-sharp-to-lead-20th-anniversary-sovereignty-run-across-indian-country). The Run is conducted in partnership with Bright Path Strong, whose mission is to inspire Native Americans through the example of the superlative athlete, Jim Thorpe. Thorpe, whose Sac and Fox tribal name Wa-Tho-Huk translates to “Bright Path” (1887 – 1953), was stripped of his gold medals from the 1912 Olympics on the dubious application of rules regarding amateur status. He nonetheless went on to successfully play major league baseball, served as first president of the American Professional Football Association (which became the National Football League), and even acted in Hollywood movies. Chief James himself was a Master Weaver, but he was also a strong advocate for environmental issues. Not the least of his efforts included bringing back to her home, the Salish Sea, the orca known to the Lummi as Tokitae. Her story, which is ongoing, is carved onto the side of the pole. The Lummi tribe consider themselves, as Doug James says, “people of the sea,” and as such, they extend that familial bond to the creatures that live below it. Tokitae was four years old when she was captured in 1970 and taken to the Miami Seaquarium (where she has been renamed Lolita.) “We’ve been fighting to get her back ever since,” said James. For those Native Americans whose families experienced forced relocation, her situation is especially poignant.

Notable people in attendance included Miwok Tribal Elder Wounded Knee Del Campo, an activist with the American Indian Movement (AIM) since its founding; Tribal Chair for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan, Ohlone Tribal Elder Corinna Gould; Tribal Elder Ione Mad Plume; Cheyenne artist and poet Kris Longoria; San Leandro City Councilwoman Corina Lopez, and many others. Del Campo spoke to the gathering about the need to preserve the land, forests, and waters for future generations. He reminded everyone that such efforts to change the laws in favor of protecting these things “take time,” and that indigenous peoples need to come together to successfully carry out “what our ancestors want us to do, to protect that which is sacred.”

As a symbol of welcome, Gould presented James and his family with sacred pouches of cedar and tobacco, as well as necklaces representing the earth and sea. Longoria reflected in an interview on the importance of the gift of acceptance. Here family was “shipped to the Bay area” in the late 1800’s but when her Cheyenne family arrived, there was no visible Native population to greet and support them. When the pole came to the area last year, Longoria and her friend Gould uses the sacred space embodied in the pole to “do a prayer together in which she essentially welcomed my family into her territory...it was the first time that I felt I was really home.” The Great Old Broads for Wilderness (https://www.greatoldbroads.org/) sponsored the event, bringing sandwiches and other refreshments. Councilwoman Lopez is on their Board of directors, and members Carol Kuelper and Sheila Jacobs hosted.

Broadway West to go dark after 22 seasons

Broadway West Theater occupies the top floor of the historic Clark Building in Irvington at the corner of Fremont and Washington Boulevards. For 22 seasons, the venue provided some of the best live theater in the East Bay. After the June 9 closing performance of Broadway West Theatre Company will close its curtain for good.

Owners Paula Chenoweth and Mary Galde have been partners in the theater company since the beginning. The first season opened in January 1997 with ‘A Few Good Men.’ Paula had majored in theater at SF State and was running the non-profit North Valley Players out of Milpitas when she met Mary. After Mary’s son graduated high school, “I just missed the theater people,” she says. At age 40 she landed a role in a North Valley Players production. The two became friends, but Paula left to run a theater company without a board of directors calling the financial shots. After Paula found the Clark Building, Mary soon followed and the two became business partners

The pair have formed a strong bond navigating the complexities of entertaining. “There isn’t a day gone by,” says Paula, “that Mary and I haven’t discussed the theater.”

That closeness is apparent each time they finish each others’ sentences, or simultaneously express the same thought. Paula acts, directs and manages the finances; Mary also directs, paints signs, builds sets, designs the programs, writes press releases, and handles the marketing and social media.

“It’s very time consuming, says Paula. “We started this theater when we were 50 and now its 21-and-a-half years later; and that’s on top of us both having full time jobs—it’s a lot of time and no break.” “You don’t get a weekend,” echoes Mary.

“Our original plan,” says Paula, “was to have a permanent company of theater people who would act, direct, run the lights, and do everything; but, you have more people who want act more than anything else. We can audition actors. Finding the people to set up the lights and run the booth has been the challenge.” “We’ve had a lot of high school kids through here,” says Mary, but they do it for a couple of years then they move on.”

Running the business has been surprisingly drama-free. “The only hiccup we had,” recalls Paula, “was when we were doing ‘Born Yesterday,’ and right in the middle of rehearsal the City decided to retrofit the building; it was three weeks before the opening and the place was a catastrophe. You’d think a bomb went off. I remember walking in and the director was sitting in the middle of the floor, muttering ‘it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok.’”

Broadway West is unique, with a great reputation—why close it?

“Money,” says Paula. “Our only problem has been money and making sure we can pay the bills.” But two years ago, “we started to get behind,” says Mary.

“That’s why we are closing—at least the main reason,” Paula says. “Mary and I have had to subsidize the theater the last two years.When the rent was a thousand dollars lower it was tight but it was doable; at least we broke even.”

Royalties cost money, and of course everyone who gets hired has to be paid. There’s the director, the lighting designer, sound designer, set director, technicians, and pretty soon, “It’s about six to eight thousand dollars cost for each show,” says Paula

And what of the actors? “We give the actors, you know—it’s not much,” says Mary,"a little gas money.”

“The second reason,” says Paula, “is that we are tired. The wonderful part is when we’re here and the show is up and going, and the audience is enjoying it—that’s the great part, it’s the heartwarming part; but the bad part is when we’re getting ready and we can’t pay the bills and I’m getting phone calls from this person and that person; that’s too much stress.”

“In the early days,” recalls Mary, “I just loved working on sets. A couple of times there were birds chirping outside and I’d been here all night! Now by the time its six o’clock I’m tired.” “You just don’t have the same energy,” adds Paula.

The theater’s closing brought emotional outpouring. Most of the season ticket holders have been with Broadway West since the beginning, and when Mary recently greeted them with the news, some of them “started crying and hugging me, and just breaking down,” says Mary.

Would you do it again? “Oh yeah,” says Mary, “if I was fifty again, you better believe it.” “And won the lottery,” laughs Paula.

The current production of the prize-winning ‘All in the Timing,’ by David Ives runs through June 9.

All in the Timing

Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays

8 p.m.

Sunday, Jun 3

3 p.m.

Broadway West

4000 Bay St, Fremont

For more information: http://www.broadwaywest.org/ or (510) 683-9218

$20 – $27

Monarchs Get the Royal Treatment

A peaceful plot of land stretches south from the corner of West Estudillo Avenue along San Leandro Blvd, opposite BART, between the sidewalk and a massive mural depicting the migration of the Monarch Butterfly. The larger-than-life images invite their fluttering counterparts to take a rest below in the San Leandro Butterfly Garden.

In the fall and spring, migrating monarchs (Danaus plexippus) avail themselves of this beneficent gift, a respite they rightly deserve. Although scientists estimated the Western United States monarch population at a healthy 247,000 at the end of 2021, that number had dipped precipitously low to an estimated 2,000 only as far back as 2020. This astonishing and inexplicable rebound testifies to nature’s resilience, yet for all that, the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has observed a steady decline in monarchs since 2000 and is currently scheduled to list the species as endangered in 2024.

Butterfly Garden volunteers Douglas
Spaulding, Stefanie Pregel,
 and designer, Lary Huls.

Some people are trying to help. “About six years ago,” says retired landscape architect and designer of the Garden, Lary Huls, “a guy from the breakfast club I attend saw the unkempt plot while waiting for BART one day and asked me if there was something we could do. I drew up the design, and he found the money.” Huls had centered his landscape business on native plants and saw the opportunity to provide a habitat that would support not only migrating monarchs, but other important pollinators, including numerous other butterflies, moths, birds, and bees.

Monarchs cannot fly in temperatures below 55 degrees Fahrenheit, so every October as temperatures drop, they leave their homes in the Rockies of Canada and the U.S. to wend their way south on thermals and air currents. Western US populations travel to eucalyptus, pine, and cypress groves along the California coast from Mendocino south to San Diego, while Eastern US monarchs travel various routes through Texas into Central Mexico. Though the butterflies complete the southern journey in a single generation, the trip back in the spring requires three to four generations. In a miracle of nature, the knowledge of the way back is passed on from parent to caterpillar. The parents do not make the entire journey back; rather they lay eggs along the route. The resulting caterpillars rely entirely on chemical messages received at birth. Astonishingly, these instructions survive the pupation process in which caterpillars turn into mere drops of liquid in the chrysalis before emerging as adults.

Crucial, then, to the monarchs’ survival is the availability of safe breeding environments, a resource under pressure. Threats include changes in breeding habitat due to conversion of grasslands to agriculture, urban development, widespread use of herbicides, logging, drought, and changing seasonal cues due to climate change.

While the majority of migrating populations can be found stopping over elsewhere than the East Bay (such as Natural Bridges in Santa Cruz), the garden does draw visitors. In San Leandro, Huls planted native California species such as milkweed, sunflower, and coyote mint. The milkweed is crucial as the females lay their eggs upon them alone. When emerged, the caterpillars eat the milkweed, ingesting the plant toxins. Though harmless to the caterpillars, these chemicals impart to them a taste that hungry birds avoid. The selection of plants, for Huls, has another purpose, as well. “It’s a demonstration,” he says, “that water-saving and habitat-supporting gardens can be beautiful.” Having evolved in the drought-prone Mediterranean climate of Northern California, such natives not only need less water than many non-natives but have also evolved alongside many animal and insect species as part of their life support systems.

Such gardens may be the future of pollinator conservation. Dr. Doug Tallamy’s 2020 book Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in your Yard discusses the benefits of a network of conservation minded gardens with the health of local wildlife as its prime mission. An estimated 20 million acres could act as “corridors of habitat” that would collectively comprise what Tallamy calls the Homegrown National Park.

Though the butterfly problem garners broad support from the Fish and Wildlife Service and the US Department of Agriculture has a stake in the success of pollinators, given their extreme importance to the majority of our food crops, the efforts of private citizens and non-profit organizations are crucial. Citizen scientists are volunteering their time across the US to collect the data organized research requires. The Monarch Larvae Monitoring Project, for example, at the University of Minnesota monitors larval monarch populations and the milkweed they feed on. Volunteers can get involved at https://monarchjointventure.org/mlmp. You can also report your butterfly sightings at Journey North  https://journeynorth.org/sightings/.

The garden is open year-round, but if you’d like to help tend and keep it clean, volunteers are welcome on the first Saturday of every month.

San Leandro Butterfly Garden Monthly Work Day

West Estudillo and San Leandro Blvd (opposite BART)

First Saturday of every month (summer and fall)

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

https://www.sanleandro.org/Calendar.aspx?EID=1281

Artist and Educator Oscar Barragan to Present MAIZ at Studio 11

Opening on September 17, Studio 11 in Union City hosts MAIZ, an art exhibit dedicated to the role of corn in the Americas. Curating the exhibit is 30-year-old artist, Oscar Barragan.

Barragan teaches art and Spanish at St. Clement Middle School in Hayward. “Art has always been in my blood,” says Barragan. “My teachers always told me to follow my passion,” which he did. While a student at James Logan, Barragan took Advanced Placement classes in art and painting. After graduating, he attended the California College of Fine Arts. He acknowledges the generosity of his community. “It was difficult, but they helped me a lot; if I hadn’t taken part in community events and participated in service organizations, [such as PUENTE, a program for first generation children of immigrants] I wouldn’t have been able to afford a private institution.”

Though the future of many art graduates isn’t guaranteed, Barragan was fortunate. “Within a month of graduating, I was lucky enough to get a job as a teacher; first at Our Lady of the Rosary, until they closed, and then here at St. Clement for the last seven years.”

Initially simply grateful to be earning a living, he soon realized he had more to give than just his art. As a mentor he could provide a platform upon which young artists could build.

“You can see, even at an early age, natural talent,” he says. But, art education for Barragan is more than developing talent through the introduction of skills and processes, “it’s deeper than that, it’s about problem solving and teaching young artists how to communicate with the world.”

Learning to work with our hands is still important. “Technology is a really helpful tool but using it a lot could discourage kids from using their own ingenuity to solve manual problems. What once seemed common sense for an older generation is being lost when we let technology do it for us; the techniques of art are dependent on dexterity and problem-solving.”

Then, there’s art as history. Barragan believes that with the right education, students will be inspired to connect what they are doing and feeling to artists past and present and their roles as translators of communal experience.

From his youth, Barragan related to the surrealists Salvador Dali and Juan De Chirico, known for their realistic depiction of unreal subjects. His own work displays a spectrum of content and technique, from finely detailed pen and ink representational work to wide swashes of muted color in an abstract expressionist mood. For Barragan, technique serves the message. “I started out being very crafted, it had to be very clean and precise, but it got to the point where I got tired of it. When I was at school, we got competitive with each other, and the message got lost many times because we were so into the craft and being perfectionists; since then, I’ve gone my own way. Today, mistakes can become the focal point. Getting dirty and messy has become my thing.”

National Hispanic Heritage Month begins September 15 and Barragan was chosen by Susana Peinado of Union City’s Youth and Family Services to come up with a theme for an installation. A recent trip to Oaxaca had impressed Barragan with that community’s veneration of and creativity with corn. For him, this was the unifying element linking the indigenous communities of the Americas: maize, the native grain, ancestor of today’s corn. Not only was its development by Mesoamericans a testament to their ingenuity and resourcefulness, but today corn is also the focus of important discussions, from the state of native lands to the controversies surrounding GMOs and the health effects of corn syrup in thousands of consumer products. “Corn is what connects everyone with roots on this side of the world,” says Barragan, “it’s flowing through our blood, our veins.”

What does the future hold?

“I see myself as still teaching, and I think it’s important we teach the all the arts. I’ll be an advocate for that because we need it, especially in lower income communities. I think it’s a unique and irreplaceable outlet for young students to express themselves.”

MAIZ Art Exhibit and Community Festival

Saturday, September 17, 2022

11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Exhibit runs through Mid-October

Studio 11

34626 11th Street

Union City

Street and paid parking.

Free entry

For more information: https://www.unioncity.org/589/Arts-Culture-Studio-11

Coyote Hills a treasure and teacher for 50 years

“I think our theme is basically a story of connection between wildlife and humans.” That’s from Dino Labiste, a naturalist at Coyote Hills Regional Park. Supervising Naturalist Sonja Gomez thinks about how the rich diversity of this land supported people for thousands of years, and even though it’s now a park, there is still a reciprocal relationship. “When we care for our parks,” says Gomes, “our parks care for us.”

The park is turning fifty this year and it’s a good time to reflect on the history, the mission, and the future of the 1300-acre wildlife oasis.

Visitors to the park today traverse an area inhabited by humans for more than 2000 years. For millennia the land was home to Tuibun Ohlone villages, supporting them with a diversity of wildlife and plants. With the arrival of the first non-natives in 1769, changes happened rapidly as farming, cattle ranching, and eventually salt harvesting changed the face of the land.

In 1883, the abundant waterfowl gave rise to a duck-hunting club on the marshes. The University of California at Berkeley took an Archaeological interest in 1935, and the first excavations began.  Impelled by cold war politics the Army established a Nike missile base in the hills in 1955 because of the area’s strategic location. Remnants of the outbuildings can still be seen. Following the base’s decommissioning, the Stanford Research Institute occupied the area and used the marshlands as facilities for sonar research. Cal State Hayward led archaeological investigations at the site in 1966.

In 1967 the East Bay Regional Park District and Alameda County Flood Control District purchased the property on Coyote Hills and adjacent marshlands from the descendants of George Washington Patterson (whose home can be seen at Ardenwood Regional Preserve). The park was dedicated on May 23, 1968.

In the 50 years since the park’s dedication, millions of people have walked the trails, watched wildlife, and enjoyed one of the most unspoiled habitats in the Bay Area. The plants and animal populations that people come to experience, however, have changed drastically as the population of the surrounding area has grown, a trend that has not abated since the Gold Rush.

One of the lessons naturalists at the park hope to teach is the impact of humans on the natural environment. One of the greatest pressures on the land is the problem of maintaining a balance between enjoyment and conservation. “There are so many people that come here, and that’s a wonderful thing,” Says Gomez. “but, obviously, the more people, the more impact. All the little things that people do add up.”

The little things can also add up on the positive side. For instance, creating natural gardens with native plants is a good way to support some of our wild neighbors. Every additional garden helps keep butterfly populations healthy and encourages wild populations to thrive. Most importantly, gardens attract pollinators such as bees, which are a vital link in the production of many food crops.

People can come and learn how to make a nature garden in their backyard (or balcony) at the upcoming Bird and Butterfly Festival taking place Sunday, June 3. There will also be special talks, nature crafts for the kids, and a celebration of the park’s 50th anniversary with special exhibits and cake.

Tule elk once roamed Coyote hills. Condors soared and the abundant bay was home to plentiful fish, and even sea otters. Those populations will likely never return, but the park is looking to the future and finding ways to provide a rich environment for the current wild residents, such as muskrats, grey foxes, and numerous water birds (272 species of birds have been recorded!). One example is the park’s installation of dozens of nest boxes designed to attract Tree Swallows: every spring the boxes are full of new chicks. The parks ability to expand on similar programs was recently augmented with a grant of 300 acres.

In 2014 the heirs of the Patterson family donated nearly 300 acres of land valued at $10M. The land was the largest remaining parcel of developable open space within Fremont. Earlier this year, East Bay Regional Parks District invited the public to give it’s input on the future of the site. “Some people want more trails,” says Labiste, “but others want to keep it a natural habitat and buffer between the developments on the west side of Paseo Padre.” The park district “wants to get community input so the land can be used effectively. “After all,” says Labiste, “a lot of that funding comes from tax dollars.”

A conceptual site plan for the expansion approved in February includes habitat restoration, urban agriculture, and public access improvements, such as relocating the park entrance closer to Paseo Padre Parkway to develop a more prominent entry point to the park.

Whatever the final result of the expansion, it is heartening to note that the emphasis is on enjoyment of the natural environment, a point of view that contrasts greatly with attitudes of 50 years ago. In her research of the park’s history, Gomez came across plans submitted by an outside developer back in the 1960s. “It had a golf course, a boat launch, a swimming lagoon, and all sorts of built amenities. Even in the dedication of the park, there was a mention—almost an apology—that the park is ‘virtually useless marshland’ whose value will rise as it gets developed.”

Fortunately, the public today appreciates the value of the natural habitat as a respite from our busy lives and an important piece of a healthy environment. It is still a place where natural wonders abound, full of life, right down to the smallest wonders. One of Labiste’s favorite moments as a park naturalist came during a tour of the Nectar Garden. “A butterfly emerged from a chrysalis right in front of a class of school kids. It was a miracle,” he says.

In addition to the Butterfly & Bird Festival on June 3, there will be a Memorial Day Celebration May 26 through May 28. “We’re giving a little history mini-series,” says Gomez. “We’re talking about salt harvesting on Saturday. Sunday is all about wildlife stewardship at the park over the years, with one of the district’s wildlife biologists, Dave “Doc Quack” Riensche, and on Monday Bev Ortiz, cultural services coordinator and founder of the Ohlone Gathering (itself celebrating 25 years) and a panel of Ohlone will talk about their involvement with park.”

Memorial Day Celebration

Saturday, May 26 through Monday May 28

1 p.m. – 4 p.m.

Butterfly & Bird Festival

Sunday, Jun 3

10:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Coyote Hills Regional Park

8000 Patterson Ranch Rd, Fremont

http://www.ebparks.org/parks/coyote_hills/

(510) 544-3220

Free. $5 parking