Guardian Angel

Three cheers for Alice Barnes. San Bruno's self-appointed guardian angel has done it again. After weeks of public urging on her part, a protective fence has been erected near a BART construction project.

The fence will keep kids and others from wandering onto the busy site in the Belle Air neighborhood adjacent to Caltrain tracks at the east end of First Avenue. It's in the area where Caltrain located its San Bruno depot, since relocated near the Tanforan Shopping Center.

Barnes is a persistent gadfly in the North County town. She has kept her steely gave on the ongoing BART project for many months, taking photographs, issuing reports and press releases and voicing her concern to any San Bruno and BART authorities who will listen--and even those who won't.

Prickly though she may be, she gets results. Barnes was a prime mover in alerting officials that BART heavy equipment was causing a shift in the Tanforan parking structure last year.

BART remedied the situation as the transit system hastened to continue work on a Tanforan station. Barnes has kept very close tabs on that project.

She misses nothing of importance in the town, especially changes in the flatlands near downtown. She lives in the neighborhood.

Barnes continues to press for assurances that the San Bruno Caltrain station be moved back to its original--and more convenient--address once the BART project is finished.

Barnes may not be universally loved, but she is fast becoming a community conscience of some consequence.