Tri-Valley Hero: Community Spirit, spearheading San Ramon 150

In summer of 2016, about 20 San Ramon leaders gathered together to brainstorm ways to celebrate San Ramon’s 150th anniversary of existence one year later. It was a monumental milestone for the city, and leadership would be a hefty commitment.

Heidi Kenniston-Lee and Gary Alpert, both city commissioners, looked at each other. The two of them, who met in a San Ramon leadership course in 2015, had worked together before and knew they were good collaborators.

“We thought this was something we could work together to spearhead and add value to,” Kenniston-Lee said.

So they volunteered to be co-chairs, and the rest is history.

For the past year, the celebration effort — dubbed San Ramon 150 — has eaten up countless hours of their time, as the two of them planned, fundraised and brought to life the celebration, weaving it into the daily fabric of San Ramon life.

“It was really a full-time job,” Kenniston-Lee said. “With the two of us managing this from before the start of 2017. And we did it happily, because we believe in our community.”

Both are quick to credit the mayor as an essential force in the production of San Ramon 150.

A self-proclaimed history buff, San Ramon Mayor Bill Clarkson has devoted a great deal of his time to learning the history of the San Ramon Valley, and in January 2016, he passed a resolution establishing 1867 as the official founding of the city of San Ramon — in honor of the year the community’s first grammar school opened its doors, after having been constructed through a $2,000 bond.

“There are a lot of milestones in community-building that you can point to,” Kenniston-Lee said. “But this was an especially significant one, especially given the fact that education is so valued in our community.”

Establishing 1867 as the founding year of San Ramon in turn meant 2017 was the sesquicentennial anniversary.

In late 2016, Kenniston-Lee and Alpert started the planning process in earnest.

“We found a bunch of cities that had gone through something similar, whether it’s a centennial or bicentennial or sesquicentennial,” Alpert said. “Some cities do one event. They might do a birthday party or a celebration on this date to commemorate the founding of the city. We took it a different way. We decided that we would just make it the entire year, and we would overlay a 150 flavor on all of the events that happen anyways.”

At Chamber of Commerce mixers, San Ramon 150 would have a booth; at Forest Home Farms activities, San Ramon 150 would have an information table; a 150 exhibit was featured at the Museum of the San Ramon Valley for some time.

“Our approach was really to keep it alive for the entire year,” Alpert said. “That seemed to keep the enthusiasm and excitement up the entire year.”

To make the celebration even more ubiquitous, they created a San Ramon 150 logo, that could be tacked on everywhere, from banners on light poles to event fliers. They featured the logo on pins and car magnets, which they distributed by the hundreds.

“Every police car put one on the back of their car,” Alpert said.

This ubiquity has been a hallmark of the year, Kenniston-Lee said, and something she takes great pride in.

“There’s not a single element of our community that hasn’t been touched by San Ramon 150 … We’ve included everybody in the celebration,” Kenniston-Lee said. “And if you celebrate a community, if nothing else you want to be inclusive.”

Collaboration was a buzzword throughout the process — collaboration with the various city entities, and of course, collaboration with each other through their long hours together.

“We bring some similar perspectives to the table, but also some very distinctly different experiences to the table,” Kenniston-Lee said. “We’ve been very complementary to one another.”

“I couldn’t have done it on my own,” Alpert said, adding that his counterpart would joke that they were like “yin and yang.”

Central to San Ramon 150 were two recent standalone events: October’s Culture in the Community celebration, and the city’s official 150th birthday party held at City Hall on Sept. 9 — the date of the historic schoolhouse’s opening.

Looking back on their year-long efforts, the duo reflect on how honoring San Ramon’s past cannot be separated from celebrations of the city’s present and future, and how the 150th birthday comes at a critical juncture for the community.

“2017, we find ourselves at a pivotal point at our evolution as a city and a community, with City Center,” Kenniston-Lee said, referring to how the City Center at Bishop Ranch will give the city a true downtown area.

“We just renovated the library,” she added. “That was a big thing for the community and a big statement piece. Looking at the (Iron Horse) overcrossing over Bollinger Canyon. There are neat things happening here that I think make the message of a promising future — that part of the spoke of the wheel, even more powerful, because it’s relevant and it’s true.”

Hero FYI

* Gary Alpert is a member of the San Ramon Planning Commission. He’s also on the board of directors of the San Ramon Valley Education Foundation and the San Ramon Arts Foundation.

* Heidi Kenniston-Lee serves on the San Ramon Parks and Community Services Commission.

* San Ramon 150 is sponsored by the San Ramon Chamber of Commerce, Discover San Ramon and the city of San Ramon.

* The duo also have earned the San Ramon Chamber’s Citizens of the Year Award, to be presented at an awards dinner on Dec. 7.

* Though 2017 is nearing a close, the sesquicentennial celebration isn’t yet over. San Ramon 150 will have a booth at the Bishop Ranch Tree Lighting on Dec. 1 and Mayor Bill Clarkson will speak at the library on Dec. 6 about transportation “to and through San Ramon in 1867.”

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