Below please find a chronological listing of Conservancy news and short articles:

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Founding the Claremont Canyon Conservancy, Part I, by Marilyn Goldhaber

Eight of the original 12 founders of the Claremont Canyon Conservancy gathering in Tim’s yard in 2003 (left to right) Klaus Burmeister, Marilyn Goldhaber, Tim Wallace, Tamia Marg, Bill McClung, Joan Collignon, Barry Miller, and Joe Engbeck. Nancy Mueller, also one of the founders, took the picture.

November of 2026 marked the 25th anniversary of the Claremont Canyon Conservancy, a quarter of the way through the life of our volunteer-run organization, which was as founder Bill McClung once quipped “meant to last 100 years.”

Since November of 2001, when Bill, Tim Wallace, and ten other local residents filed with the California Secretary of State as a 501(c)(3) charity, volunteerism has remained a shining feature of the Conservancy. After 10 years as an all volunteer task force, we were ready to spread the idea that ordinary people could educate themselves about how to live more safely along the steep slopes of the Oakland and Berkeley Hills.

Neighbors were invited to step forward and become stewards “of a place where the city intermixes with nature, where most of the open land is public, and where all can help shape the future.” To establish the Conservancy, two hundred families joined, committing to donate $1,000 over 10 years. With promised donations and a small capacity-building grant from the federal government, the Claremont Canyon Conservancy was born.

Our outreach to neighbors was called our Founding Sponsor Program. Founding Sponsors would help wake up the landowners, both public and private, to the importance of wildfire safety. Early joiners were mostly people who had experienced firsthand the devastating Oakland Tunnel Fire of October 1991. Many had lost their homes in that fire. Others trembled as flames rushed toward their properties, only to swirl away in other directions. Virtually all of our Founding Sponsors witnessed the horrific aftermath of a fire that destroyed over 3,000 structures in two hours and took the lives of 25 people.

Our two main leaders were former logger and UC professor of agriculture Tim Wallace and Berkeley bookstore owner and local entrepreneur Bill McClung. Both men were known for their extraordinary “way with people” and “just do it” attitudes. Both passed away within months of each other in 2020-2021.

Other strong Conservancy leaders included the late Jerry Kent, a 41-year veteran of the East Bay Regional Park District, and the late Joe Engbeck, a naturalist writer, publisher, and the force behind The Friends of Claremont Canyon. Together, Jerry and Joe crafted a comprehensive Advocate Plan to guide the major landowners on what to do in 27 “polygons” of Claremont Canyon.

At first, our fledgling organization was unaware that the older group, The Friends of Claremont Canyon, existed. The Friends had advocated for public access to undeveloped lots in Claremont Canyon in the late 1970s. They successfully convinced the Park District to purchase the lots—including many small parcels drawn on a “paper map” a century before and given away to subscribers of the Examiner newspaper! The Park District needed to track down the parcel owners and make deals. This formidable task was given to Ralph Samuel, who tells the story in our Fall 2023 Newsletter of how the Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve was created in 1982 through the purchase of 208 acres for approximately $3 million.

The Friends and the Conservancy founders soon discovered that they had much in common and merged, resulting in a roster of experienced, environmentally attuned individuals capable of building good relationships with the canyon’s stakeholders. Stakeholders included the Park District, UC Berkeley’s “Hill Campus,” EBMUD, the City of Oakland, and several hundred residential households.

While talks were underway, many Conservancy members set out to experience the pleasure of hard work outdoors in the fresh air. We scoured old fire trails throughout Claremont Canyon and began to participate in their upkeep and repair. By working with other nonprofits, such as the California Native Plant Society and the Sierra Club, we learned that native vegetation was more resilient and generally more fire-safe than exotic vegetation. Thus began a strategy of favoring native plants over exotics wherever possible.

Our volunteers returned most often to Oakland’s 14-acre Garber Park at the base of Claremont Canyon and to UC’s 150-acre “Hill Campus” at the canyon’s upper reaches. Occasionally, we made forays into the 208-acre Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve to attack invading French broom. Our biggest volunteer project was the planting of hundreds of redwood seedlings in 2006 on UC land after the university cut and chipped thousands of eucalyptus trees onsite.

Around the same time, the largest landowner, the East Bay Regional Park District, embarked on a more modest program of cutting down eucs from the ridgelines to the north and east of the canyon and thinning the old eucalyptus plantation at the Stonewall entrance to the Preserve. They were able to remove additional eucs near homes and along roadsides, through a 2006 federal grant the Conservancy had obtained which was supplemented by Conservancy members living on Stonewall Road.

In addition to a focus on public lands, the Conservancy turned an eye to the residential population by organizing lectures and tours in the canyon. We became an early promoter of home hardening and defensible space at a time when such terms were unfamiliar to just about everyone. Fast-forward twenty-five years, and these terms and concepts have made their way into the policies of city governments and insurance providers.

The work of guiding homeowners and neighborhoods is now carried forward by other organizations, such as the Oakland Firesafe Council, the Berkeley Firesafe Council, our state and local governments and coalitions, and the insurance industry itself. We did our part in establishing the need to modify our homes and properties, and we are grateful to others now taking on the sometimes uncomfortable positions and tough decisions that homeowners must make.

Part II of the History of the Claremont Canyon Conservancy is slated for publication in 2027.

Remembering Jerry Kent, by Jon Kaufman and Marilyn Goldhaber

The Claremont Canyon Conservancy lost a treasure. Our board member Jerry Kent, a former assistant general manager of the East Bay Regional Park District, died unexpectedly on July 14, 2026 at the age of 88. Many of us knew Jerry as the person who could tell you what the East Bay Hills looked like 25, 35, and 100 years ago, why the landscape burned the way it did, and what we ought to do about it.

What made Jerry special was not only what he knew but how generously he shared it. Anyone who asked a question got an answer, often with a good story attached.

Jerry Kent at the Trudeau Center in 2026.

Jerry joined the Park District in 1962 as a groundsman, with a degree in park management. By the following year he was foreman at Tilden. Over his 41-year career he became assistant general manager for operations and served twice as acting general manager, guiding the District through Proposition 13, labor disputes, and the 1991 firestorm that so many of our members remember all too well.

After Jerry’s retirement in 2003 he simply kept working, remaining in touch with colleagues and reaching out to local groups who cared about the environment. When invited to join our board in 2008, he accepted, intrigued to discover what the people wanted and how he could help.

Once on our board, Jerry set out to visit every hilltop and downslope of Claremont Canyon. Even after many years in the East Bay, Jerry said he never realized how steep the slopes of our canyon were. In 2010, Jerry and fellow board member Joe Engbeck crafted a plan of what the large land- owners needed to do to manage veg- etation, create safe evacuation routes, and stage areas for firefighting.

Jerry was the first person to realize that all five significant 20th century wildfires in the Oakland/Berkeley hills came through or started in the upper reaches of Claremont Canyon—yes, including the 1923 fire we associate entirely with Tilden and the City of Berkeley. Jerry explained that in 1923 there was little develop- ment in Claremont Canyon other than a few scattered dairy farms and cattle ranches. “Those people knew how to take care of themselves and not make a fuss,” he said.

During his productive retirement, Jerry wrote histories of the Park District, campaigned for park bonds, and participated in committees and meetings of organizations such as the Sierra Club, the Native Plant Society, and the Regional Parks Foundation, as well as the Claremont Canyon Conservancy. As recently as August 2025, Jerry gave an illus- trated talk at the Berkeley City Club on the history of Claremont Canyon and the Conservancy’s work. Our president, Jon Kaufman, said that no one knew better how vegetation, topography, weather, development, and climate together affect those of us who live in the East Bay Hills. Many of Jerry’s photo essays on wilfire and how the East Bay Hills vegetation changed over the years are on our website and worth viewing.

Perhaps Jerry’s most lasting gift was creating the Park District Archives. His steady persistence led the District to create a permanent program growing out of years of volunteer efforts. We heard all about that program from Brenda Montano at our annual meeting on November 8, 2026 . We continue to move forward with initiatives in Claremont Canyon and Jerry’s research and good sense go with us. We miss him dearly.

The Safer Canyon Initiative: An opportunity to do more by Greg Call

In late 2025, the Conservancy board created the Safer Canyon Initiative, a multi-year campaign to remove hazardous trees from Claremont Canyon. We aim to raise $100,000 by the end of 2025, beyond our normal operating expenses, and begin by addressing dangerous trees in Garber Park. We have already received several very generous donations and secured money to match individual donations that go beyond members’ 2024 levels to reach our $100,00 goal. Click here to donate.

Events throughout California in 2025 underscore the need to do more, as urban wildfires destroyed lives and property and made fire insurance unavailable or extremely expensive. Because of you, we are confident the Conservancy can do more.

From its inception in 2001, the Conservancy has addressed wildfire risk. Through boots-on-the-ground efforts we’ve reduced fuel loads, removed dangerous invasive species, and nurtured native species. We’ve also taken an active role in organizing regional efforts to reduce wildfire risk. 

Our President, Jon Kaufman, assumed a founding role in creating and organizing the East Bay Wildfire Coalition of Governments. Today, Board Member Elizabeth Stage sits on the Oakland commission overseeing Measure MM, which funds the reduction of wildfire risk in Oakland’s parks.

In Claremont Canyon, that means Garber Park. We do not want to wait until funds from Measure MM come to fruition. That could be ten years from now. Let’s start by removing selected hazardous trees in and around Garber Park and trim back large branches overhanging Claremont Avenue.

We ask you to participate by increasing your donations in 2025 and 2026.