On September 1, 2026, San Bruno announced that the Posy Park work was done. The plaza by the Caltrain station now has its fountain running again for the first time in years. It also has a restored centennial mosaic and a new sculpture called "Pulse of Connection" by artist Maxwell Emcays. All three arrived together, but they took different routes to get there. At several points the city had an easier option in hand. It could have planted over the fountain, or picked the sculpture that won the public vote. Each time, it stuck with the plan it had already approved.
A fountain that sat dry for most of its life
The fountain came with the Caltrain Grade Separation Project, which started in late 2010. That project raised the tracks over San Bruno Avenue, San Mateo Avenue and Angus Avenue and built the elevated station between San Mateo and Huntington. Posy Park was moved as part of that work. The water feature was designed as a series of pools and steps that follow the pedestrian ramp, with bubblers and uplighting in the lower pool behind the seat wall.
Problems showed up soon after the project was finished. A November 2017 city staff report described rust spots from exposed rebar, cracks in the painted concrete, and waterproofing that was bubbling and peeling. The water was shut off.
The city tried to hire someone to fix it, and nobody bid. The repair was advertised in September 2017, six people came to a site visit, and the bid opening on October 19, 2017 drew zero bids. Staff then went back to Coating Specialties, the contractor that had advised on the coating work. Coating Specialties proposed about $125,000, and the total estimate came to roughly $160,000 with contingency and inspection.
The planter option was already on the record by then. At a June 11, 2013 council meeting, staff presented concept plans showing the water feature replaced with plants. Because the basin is so shallow, those plants would have been limited to groundcovers and other low plants.
Here is how the fountain question played out over the next decade:
- June 2013: Council reviews a plan to turn the water feature into planting.
- October 2017: The public bid for repairs gets no responses.
- April 21, 2021: Council picks a Posy Park concept focused on placemaking, public art and amenities. Staffing changes and funding then stall the project.
- Fall 2023: Staff restart the project and recommend repairing the fountain "in lieu of reuse as a planter."
- October 8, 2024: Council approves the revised scope, including Public Art Fund money for art repair and a new sculpture.
- 2026: The repair is finished, with new pumps, new waterproofing, and work with Caltrain to "truly resolve longstanding system issues."
Caltrain's role in the final fix makes sense given the history. The fountain was built as part of Caltrain's station project, so a lasting repair needed the agency that built it.
The mosaic stayed, and the next round of art changed shape
The tile mural along the plaza is older than most of the new work around it. San Bruno commissioned it in 2014 for its centennial of incorporation, and it was dedicated on April 30, 2016. The Mercury News reported that nearly 80 people came to the dedication.
The mural has five panels. One shows a futuristic San Bruno. One shows the present day with the Posy Parade and SFO. One covers Tanforan's racetrack and aviation history. One shows the railroad and the town forming after the 1906 earthquake. The last covers the city's farming past. The artist, Margarita Soyfertis, described a "time train" running through the panels. She used life-size figures against a mountain backdrop that suggests San Bruno Mountain, and tiles set to look like digital pixels. She trained in Kyiv, moved to the Bay Area in 1992, and founded Tesserae Mosaic Studio in 2004.
Restoration began in March 2026. At the March 19 Culture and Arts Commission meeting, the parks superintendent said work on the mural would start the following Tuesday. The city's September release credits Rita Soyfertis with a full repair and cleaning.
The mural shaped what came next. The original plan called for more mosaic murals. In fall 2023, staff recommended a single freestanding sculpture instead, as a focal point for the park. That decision is where the debate started.
How a scoring formula picked the sculpture
The city's call to artists went out on August 21, 2025, and drew 40 qualified submissions by October 22. A five-person review committee scored every entry. It was made up of Culture and Arts Commissioners Stephen Seymour, Nader Abumuoilish and Jeanne George, longtime San Bruno artist Boris Koodrin, and public arts administrator Collette Murphy Stefanko.
The committee's top ten went to a public survey from December 19, 2025 to January 5, 2026. The city promoted it on social media and in newsletters, and with sandwich boards at the Recreation and Aquatic Center and at Posy Park itself. The survey got 542 responses, and 462 of them came from San Bruno residents.
The rules were set ahead of time. The survey's top three would earn 10, 7 and 4 bonus points, added to each artist's committee score. These are the top five finishers:
| Artist and proposal | Committee score | Survey bonus | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maxwell Emcays, "Pulse of Connection" | 84.2 | 7 | 91.2 |
| Jack Howard-Potter, "The Ride" | 88.2 | none | 88.2 |
| Solomon Bassoff, "Endangered butterflies in San Bruno" | 76.2 | 10 | 86.2 |
| Alex Pentek, "Integrity" | 83 | none | 83 |
| Anastasia Komar, "Jeewanu" | 78.4 | 4 | 82.4 |
The public's favorite was Bassoff's piece honoring three local endangered butterflies: the Bay checkerspot, the callippe silverspot and the Mission blue. It had the highest survey average at 3.36, just ahead of Emcays at 3.30. But it ranked sixth with the review committee. Emcays finished second in both rounds, and under the formula that put him first overall.
What the council actually decided
On January 15, 2026, three of the Culture and Arts Commission's five members met. A staff report says each of the three initially backed a different proposal. The commissioners raised concerns about all of them, including weak local connection, similarity to existing artwork, and questions about how the final piece would be built. In the end they agreed to recommend Bassoff's butterflies. Chair Hanhan pointed out that it had the most support in the survey.
That left the city with two answers, one from the scoring process and one from the commission. The City Council held a special study session on February 10 to address what the staff report called "the divergence." Council agreed to follow the scoring process laid out in the call to artists.
On February 24, the Emcays selection was on the consent calendar along with a contract capped at $75,000. No items were pulled for a separate vote. One member of the public commented, and the consent calendar passed 5-0. Emcays told council that once a contract was signed, he could design, fabricate, deliver and install the piece in 13 to 15 weeks. By March 19 the contract was with the City Attorney's office for review. The same meeting also covered a council study session on merging the Culture and Arts Commission with the Parks and Recreation Commission.
The process also explains why the butterflies are not at Posy Park. The public picked them in the survey, but the survey was set up as a bonus on top of the committee scores, not as the deciding vote.
What you'll see by day and after dark
Emcays describes himself as a full-time artist and art activist with about 15 years of public art work, much of it in Chicago and for underrepresented communities. Earlier pieces include "ASPIRE," made of plasma-cut aluminum, steel and LEDs in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood, and "Our Woven Story" in New Bedford, Massachusetts. His proposal for San Bruno uses the same methods:
"Composed of plasma-cut aluminum with integrated solar-powered LED illumination, the piece rises approximately 9 feet high and 4.5 feet wide, with a sturdy internal stainless-steel armature ensuring long-term durability."
The same proposal packet also lists the piece at 8 feet high and 5 feet wide in its form fields, so the proposal itself puts the height somewhere between 8 and 9 feet. The proposal describes interwoven, wave-like forms meant to show people's paths crossing. By day, sunlight through the cut aluminum is meant to throw moving shadows on the ground. At night, solar-powered LEDs are meant to make the piece glow. That makes two good times to see it: on a sunny afternoon, when you can see how the shadows fall on the plaza, and after dark on your way home from Caltrain.
The rest of the downtown beautification work was finished by June 2026. It added seven new in-ground trees on Jenevein Avenue and at San Mateo Avenue and El Camino Real. It also added three sets of rotating downtown banners, designed with input from business owners, plus irrigation repairs and replanted planters. The funding came from San Mateo County Measure K and the San Bruno Community Foundation. If you walk from the station down to the restaurants we covered in our San Mateo Avenue food guide, you will pass most of it. The San Mateo Daily Journal's report has more on the plaza work, and the city's own announcement lists the full scope.
The fountain is the oldest problem here. It was built in the early 2010s, shut off soon after, unable to draw a single repair bid in 2017, and has been fixed now with Caltrain's help.
We follow San Bruno at the level of a single plaza because that is how neighbors experience it, and it is how we work with clients too. If you are curious how downtown changes like these figure into what your home is worth, Bryan Cruz and Rey Ancheta are happy to walk you through it. You can start with a free estimate here: Get Your Instant Home Valuation.
