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July 8, 2010
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Terry (center) with (left to right) sons Matt (26) and Greg (23), husband Jim and daughter Katie (29).
Terry has been a Burlingame homeowner and active community volunteer for 31 years. She was elected to the Burlingame City Council in 2003 with the highest number of votes in a six-way race. In 2007 she served as mayor and was re-elected to a second four-year year.
She is best known for organizing hundreds of residents in 2002 to protest the city’s frequent power outages. After citizens suffered repeated and prolonged power failures, she formed a citizens’ action group called Burlingamers Unwilling to Live with Blackouts (BULB) and set up two Town Hall Meetings that allowed hundreds of residents to register their complaints with both PG&E and the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates PG&E. BULB persuaded PG&E to spend more than $2.4 million on improvements to circuits in Burlingame. The average Burlingame household’s power outages decreased 85 percent from 2002 to 2003. BULB is continuing to monitor power reliability.
Terry organized Poppy Drive residents in 1996 to battle three “McMansions” that threatened her neighborhood. She convinced the City Council to make the developer downsize and redesign the houses. Her efforts led to the city’s adoption of design review guidelines that have been the model for other cities.
In 2006 Terry was one of 20 elected leaders chosen for the League of California Cities’ California Civic Leadership Institute, a highly selective program that educates future leaders on issues facing the state. She is a 2003 graduate of Coro Center for Civic Leadership’s Community Fellows leadership program, which examines political, social and economic issues pertaining to the Bay Area and teaches techniques for community collaboration.
She started her career as a travel editor and went on to become a staff writer and editor for the original San Mateo Times, where she who learned how local government works by covering hundreds of city council, school board and county meetings. She later worked as an editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, as Assistant Managing Editor of Forbes ASAP magazine, and as Managing Editor of GreatSchools.net, a nonprofit Web site offering free education information for parents. She also founded and managed two online travel forums for Expedia.com devoted to family travel and adventure travel. She experienced the challenges of running a small business while operating an out-of-print book search business in Burlingame for 18 years. From 2003 to 2008, she was Communications Officer for the Skoll Foundation.
She currently works for a nonprofit called Civic Ventures as Managing Editor of the Encore.org Web site, a network for individuals in the second half of life who are seeking "encore careers" doing paid work that is personally fulfilling and serves a social purpose.
Terry and Jim Nagel were married in 1977 and moved to Burlingame the following year. They have three children, Katie, 29, Matt, 26, and Greg, 23, who all attended Burlingame public schools and graduated from Burlingame High School.
She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, cum laude, from the University of Washington in Seattle.
When Terry was elected in 2003 she promised to:
Terry has kept her promises.
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Terry has been an active community volunteer and supporter of education for 31 years. Since being elected in 2003, she has taken her service to the community to a new level, working on regional projects as a member of countywide bodies. In addition, she has mobilized volunteers and started numerous new initiatives that anticipate our needs in the future and make living in Burlingame more rewarding.
She is best known for successfully mobilizing residents to obtain better power service from Pacific Gas & Electric in her role as founder of Burlingamers Unwilling to Live with Blackouts (BULB). She started the Burlingame Pet Parade, now in its sixth year; the Community Wish List, which links donors of goods and services with more than 80 nonprofits in San Mateo County; the city’s Green Ribbon Task Force, which succeeded in getting a citywide Climate Action Plan adopted in 2009; and the Neighborhood Network, which encourages Burlingame neighbors to band together for emergency preparedness and crime prevention. From 2007 to 2009 she helped craft the county’s first energy and sustainability strategy as a member of the San Mateo County Utilities and Sustainability Task Force (now called the Resource Management and Climate Protection Committee). She is currently working on a community consensus process called Context Sensitive Solutions to ensure continue public involvement during the design of the high speed rail line and on a proposal to create a nonprofit center and social innovation incubator in San Mateo County.
Terry is a veteran journalist who learned how local government works by covering hundreds of city council, school board and county meetings for the San Mateo Times. She is a graduate of the highly selective League of California Cities’ California Civic Leadership Institute, which is designed to train leaders for statewide office, and also graduated from the Coro Center for Civic Leadership’s Community Fellows leadership program.