In January 2013, a man in work clothes splattered with paint waited to talk to Warren Slocum, freshly elected to a seat representing District 4 on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors.
As the crowd at Slocum’s swearing-in ceremony thinned, he asked if Slocum could address a safety issue: on the way to school, his young daughter confronted an obstacle course of power poles, cracks and garbage cluttering primordial sidewalks.
“I’ve thought about that gentleman every day,” Slocum said recently. “He’s been my North Star, so to speak, that guided my work.”
Nearly a dozen years later, Slocum has achieved much of what he set out to accomplish: delivering the promise of a responsive local government to residents whose main concerns are the health and safety of their families.
The reconstruction of Middlefield Road and its sidewalks – the path the man’s daughter took to school – attests to his commitment to that promise as his third and final supervisorial term closes out.
Slocum took office the same year a nationwide Pew Research survey found, “Public trust in the government, already quite low, has edged even lower.” During that 2013 swearing-in ceremony, he called for a “new era” in government and relentlessly pursued building trust and relationships one resident at a time, in person and online.
“When Mr. Slocum came along, he started to look for me,” recalled Manuel Ramirez, a longtime community activist in North Fair Oaks, an unincorporated community home to roughly 15,000 people. “So we finally were able to sit down, and I gave him my perspective of the things that needed to be done, a long list of things. I said, ‘You know, the illegal dumping that we're having in the area is just a very serious problem. I need that resolved.’ And he said, OK. We'll work on it.’ And we did.”
Always passionate about technology, Slocum launched a series of “Connect” conferences “designed to encourage the leaders of San Mateo County to embrace technology for the purpose of increasing public participation and involvement in government.”
He embraced changing the old (some may say slow) way of doing things, trying to hasten the Peninsula’s transformation into a place friendlier to denser housing as well as pedestrians, cyclists and public transit riders. He advocated for local libraries, led creation of the County's honorary poet laureate position "to elevate poetry into the consciousness of San Mateo County residents," encouraged festive community events to bring people together and governed with relentless enthusiasm.
His official X account (formerly Twitter) reads, “Let’s work collaboratively to create opportunities for a brighter future for everyone.”
Here’s a look at some of his accomplishments:
He made veterans a priority
Slocum’s legacy includes highlighting contributions by military veterans in San Mateo County. It’s personal for him: after graduating high school, Slocum enlisted in the Army and served in Vietnam for one year. He was honorably discharged in 1969.
He helped launch a Veterans Needs Assessment in 2014 (and updated in 2021) to identify and address the needs of the county’s more than 20,000 veterans, most of whom were age 65 and older.
That led to creation of the County’s Veterans Commission, which now sponsors an annual Veterans Recognition Lunch to honor a Veteran of the Year, Patriot of the Year and Enterprise of the Year.
In addition, the Board steers local funds to support the San Mateo County Veterans Services Office, which connects local veterans with the state and federal benefits they earned through their service. And in 2024, the County and its partners broke ground on a project that will provide 18 apartments for veterans experiencing homelessness or who are at-risk of homelessness.
“In a part of the world where there used to be a significant military presence that no longer exists, I think it makes it particularly important that San Mateo County and the Bay Area have people with that lived experience, so they have empathy, they prioritize issues of veterans old and young,” said Emily Beach, a former Army officer.
“The needs are great. The mental health support that’s needed for veterans who are coming back from complicated conflicts across the world are real and Supervisor Slocum has done a fantastic job of prioritizing that here in San Mateo County,” she said.
A mentor who inspired others
Prior to his election to the Board of Supervisors, Slocum served as the elected Chief Elections Officer & Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder of San Mateo County.* That experience provided him with lessons learned, often through adversity, that he has shared with a new generation of leaders.
“Quickly after coming into office, you not only supported me in learning the ropes but you also became my mentor and my friend,” Supervisor Noelia Corzo said at Slocum’s final Board meeting, on Dec. 10.
“From working together on supporting tenants and you making room for me and my priorities in that work to helping me develop the confidence and clarity to lead in my own way…. It’s honestly my hope to one day be able to replicate the kinds of investments and foundations you’ve developed in your own district,” Corzo said.
“And most importantly, for caring about me as a friend and as a human.”
He Encouraged a ‘Home for All’
Slocum came into office as two trends converged to create what many called (and still call) a crisis: between 2010 and 2016, San Mateo County gained 79,000 new jobs (Facebook moved its headquarters to Menlo Park in 2011, for instance), but only built 3,844 new housing units, a jobs-to-housing imbalance of 24 to 1.
That led to Home for All, a countywide initiative to boost housing production, particularly affordable housing, “and make San Mateo County a place everyone can call home,” as Slocum put it.
“Right now, we have over 2,500 units of new housing under construction or recently built in Burlingame. Many of the units are affordable and deed restricted,” Burlingame Mayor Donna Colson said during a recent Board of Supervisors meeting.
“As I walk around my city and our streets, I look at the diverse array of people who have been accommodated through that work and I want to make sure that you (Supervisor Slocum) know that your legacy of housing stands proud in Burlingame.”
240 units of safe, temporary living spaces open in Redwood City
Paul Slager said he had “the American dream”: married, working in the San Francisco shipyards and playing music, mainly in rhythm-and-blues bands. Then things fell apart. He went from homeowner to renting a room to living by the freeway or in a park trying to find “little safe places.”
There’s a myth that people who are homeless don’t want to work, they want to live on the street, they’re dangerous. Then there’s the 71-year-old Slager, who this summer was living at the County’s Navigation Center, which provides 240 units of safe, temporary housing as people who experienced homelessness pull their lives back together.
“A lot of us here, we fell through the cracks,” Slager said. “I don’t know if it was through stupidity, not planning out my old age right. It happened. Here I am.”
The County opened the Navigation Center in 2023 as a key step toward ending homelessness in San Mateo County. Nearly half of the center’s residents – 48 percent at last count – were age 55 or older.
“This could be your mother, your father, an aunt, an uncle. Our incredibly high housing prices leave so many of our residents a paycheck or an unfortunate series of events away from losing their housing,” Slocum said.
“Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect,” Slocum said. “And that’s our goal by building the Navigation Center, a place where people can have a respite from their circumstances and, with a helping hand, hopefully bounce back.”
He championed North Fair Oaks
Never one to manage expectations, Slocum set out in his first days in office to clean up – literally – North Fair Oaks, an unincorporated community of high-density housing and 15,000 mostly lower-income residents between Redwood City, Atherton and Menlo Park.
That meant action on two fronts: organizing community cleanups with brooms and shovels and dumpsters and implementing the North Fair Oaks Community Plan.
For Slocum, it’s about creating a place that’s “a showplace destination for shoppers and diners looking for a unique experience that reflects and celebrates the diversity of the neighborhood.”
Over the past decade the County has steered millions of dollars toward improving circulation and parking as well as improving housing conditions and creating more economic development opportunities.
“He focused himself really into North Fair Oaks and for that we really have to be very appreciative for everything he has done,” Ramirez said.
Standing up for the lives and rights of women
On June 24, 2024, the two-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that overturned the federal right to an abortion, Slocum, as Board president, fired up a crowd supporting women’s rights on the steps of Courthouse Square in Redwood City.
“Today, all across America, there are protests. There are strikes. There are marches all recognizing the loss of freedom and rights for women,” Slocum said.
Slocum, along with Supervisors Dave Pine and Noelia Corzo, presented a $1 million check to Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, which operates three clinics in San Mateo County.
Slocum pledged to continue to fight for women’s health care and reproductive rights by working with advocates and elected officials.
“By unanimously approving a resolution affirming San Mateo County’s commitment to unwavering support for women’s health care freedom and reproductive privacy,” Slocum said, “the Board of Supervisors literally spelled out our values.”
Dreaming big
One vision unfilled has been Slocum’s quest to restore the century-old Dumbarton rail corridor that once ran trains across the southern end of San Francisco Bay. Many transit and environmental advocates have long believed restoring the track and repairing the long-damaged rail bridge could alleviate traffic and cut down on emissions.
When the effort failed, Slocum told the New York Times, “I was heartbroken,” a statement that reveals how much soul he puts into moon-shot ideas.
What will endure as a legacy, however, is the new seat of County government that goes by simply its address: 500 County Center.
Opened in summer 2024, the five-story building features exposed timber columns and ceilings with light-filled lobbies and naturally lit spaces, reflecting the belief that well-designed spaces can bring people together and strengthen a sense of community.
“We wanted to create a space where people feel welcome, where people feel comfortable, where people feel they belong,” Slocum said. “Public spaces are community spaces and should be for everyone.”
Slocum served on the design committee, rejecting more than a half-dozen proposals before agreeing to a modern design that rejects the rigidity of the County’s former headquarters in 400 County Center.
Built with cross-laminate timber rather than relying on traditional steel and concrete, 500 County Center is one of the first net-zero energy, ultra-low-carbon civic buildings constructed with mass timber in the United States.
For Slocum, dreaming big comes with helping to run a county small in geographic size (56th smallest of the California’s 58 counties) yet massive in terms of human capital: San Mateo County’s gross domestic product in 2023 totaled $202 billion, roughly equal to that of the entire state of Nebraska or the nation of Hungary.
“To have a building that is representative of all the innovation that surrounds us, with the architecture, with the materials, the processes, all the climate control, really gives us a nearly 22nd century look at the way buildings should function,” Slocum said.
“It belongs in San Mateo County.”
*Among his notable achievements:
As County Clerk, he was the first in the nation to offer couples the opportunity to broadcast their wedding ceremonies on the internet so that families and friends all over the world could share these special moments.
As the Chief Elections Officer, he introduced accessible voting equipment with language and adaptive features to ensure that all voters could participate in fair, private and secure elections.