The Burlingame Voice

The center of town is set to change

The Post Office located on Park Road is most likely going to be for sale in the near future. Now is your chance to be part of what that future looks like. There will be a City Council study session on this subject this Thursday, July 21 at 5pm at the Lane Community Room at the public library.

Below is the agenda for the meeting:

I.               CALL TO ORDER

II.              ROLL CALL

III.            DISCUSSION OF DOWNTOWN BURLINGAME POST OFFICE SITE

A.             Introduction (Jim Nantell)

B.             Overview of Site and Constraints (William Meeker)

C.             Developer Perspective Regarding Site Potential (Mark Farrar/Millennium Partners and Tom Gilman/DES Architects)

D.             “Brainstorming” Discussion Regarding Potential Uses

1.              Local Architects’ Perspective

2.              Public Perspective

E.             Response from Developer Representative (Mark Farrar/Millennium Partners and Tom Gilman/DES Architects)

F.             Council Discussion

G.            Direction to Staff

 

A Little B'game Essay

Since the local news has been sooo slowww lately, I'm pressed to fall back on my own impressions of life in B'game.  And what better way to crystalize those thoughts than to get away for a few days?  Indeed, hitting the ski slopes for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of July 2011 gives one an entirely different perspective--and a couple of cool T-shirts to wear around town.  The skiing was great and the Tahoe weather was spectacular as well.  Driving through Sacramento at 106 degrees--not so cool.

But returning to B'game is something special.  It was warm this afternoon, but not too warm.  As the sun set and the natural air conditioning kicked in, I had to ask myself "does it get any better than this?"  Squirrels were squirrelling away food, hummingbirds were humming, flowers were blooming, neighbors were walking about---and heck, it was ostensibly a work day!  How did you spend your Fourth and how much did you love it?

Another Happy Fourth....One Hopes

Each one seems more special than the year before.............

BHS Graduation 2011

With very comfortable weather, if a bit changeable at times, and plenty of low-speed trains passing that cause everyone to stop and clap (a BHS tradition for a loooong time), graduation went off without a hitch yesterday.

SMUSHD Trustee Linda Lees Dwyer gave the commencement speech and did a fine job.  LLD, feel free to post it here as a comment if you happen to read this.

Since this might be my last graduation for awhile, allow me to mention the amazing amount of volunteer work that goes into the whole process.  Starting with Prom, moving through Awards Night, Senior Day, the actual graduation and Grad Night (which was a cruise on the bay this year), a lot of parents step in and make B'game proud by upholding traditions and standards.  Kudos to all!!

 
I have probably missed a few activities as well, like "senior sidewalk" and the end of season sports nights.

Classic B'game Interior

Those of us who love the charm of B'game's neighborhoods and classically designed houses, get a thrill out of seeing the insides of houses on Sunday Open House tours.  I saw this prototypical Arts &Crafts inglenook in a house on Howard Ave. recently.  Fabulous!

And check out the detail of this corner moulding

Our Greenest Citizen? Probably

I had a chance to meet the founder and CEO of our locally-based e-waste company, Green Citizen, at the Green Fair today.  James Kao is a B'game resident and member our our Green Ribbon Taskforce who is building a business recycling residential and commercial e-waste.

James and his team took my old electronics and he gave me an overview of his operation located at 801 Mahler Rd, Suite 1 here in B'game.  The firm has other centers in Palo Alto, Berkeley and SF with plans for San Jose, but everything we need is right here in B'game.  They're accepting items six days a week.  Most items are accepted for free and there are some other services offered like PC and cell phone repair for a fee.  We'll add some more detail after we tour the Mahler facility.  Here's James and a hard disk drive they destroyed (another of their services).

 

What is Supertramp?

Jeopardy! has buzzed in our longtime history teacher at BIS.  According to the Daily Journal article, Mr. Tinkham took the online test two years and

The show’s call for Tinkham, who has been teaching at Burlingame Intermediate for 21 years, came during a class. Tinkham, like most contestants, was given about six weeks to prepare. He used the time to brush up on geography and history of various cultures.

He makes his first appearance on TV tonight at 7pm and hopefully will go deep in the two-week Teachers Tournament.  KQED had a nice audio clip of Charley this morning where they asked what his dream category would be.  He said "one word supergroups from the '70's".  That would be totally fun--Boston, Kansas, Styx, maybe Chicago although they might be considered as a '60's group.

Clue:  Commited the Crime of the Century

Answer:  What is Supertramp?

Prom Night in B'game

Local limo and bus traffic was at its peak tonight as BHS Prom Night rolled around again.  As we slide into Spring, with STAR testing this week and cap and gown packages arriving at home, the final college decisions for seniors approach.  Our kids take up a huge amount of our attention for years and when the little birds approach their departure from the nest, the parents' thoughts tend to wander back to '73 or '76 or maybe '79 when it was their turn.  I'm betting we didn't look quite this good

 
But we do have our fun, too.  The After Tax Day party at Behan's was well-attended since local favs, Morty J and the Slipstream were playing at the local's locale.  You have til Monday to send the IRS your federal return or extension, so party away on Saturday for the fiddler must be paid on Monday.

 

Panther Baseball Alumni Return

Last weekend's BHS Baseball Alumni game was another rousing success.  I missed the Friday golf outing at Poplar Creek, but can attest that the dinner at the Lion's Club was very well done.  Kudo's go to the Panther varsity for setting the tone with a win over Hillsdale High, then for serving the alums and parents fine bbq from Old Texas BBQ while rocking out to Jeff Tateosian's DJ delights.

Saturday broke cloudy for the 1950-1970's alums early game, but the weather cleared a bit for the younger alums to play the 2011 varsity.  With kids pitching to their alum Dads, older brothers pitching to current Panther brothers and a triple play delivered 5-5-4, the varsity prevailed over the Old Guys.  Here's one of them swinging for the fences with the rest cooling their heels on the bench.

 

Major Announcement - Burlingame Voice To Merge!

The Editorial Board of the Burlingame Voice is announcing an agreement to merge its intensely local blog with the newly combined AOL/Huffington Post/Patch.com properties.  After the February 7th announcement by AOL and the HuffPo and the subsequent move to put Arianna Huffington in charge of the Patch.com properties, AOL knew that it had to up its game in term of true, experienced local reporting.

The Board has agreed to sell the BurlingameVoice.com property to AOL for $375,000 plus a three year retainer and will immediately donate 50% of the net proceeds to various local charities.  The decisions on which charities will be determined by nominations from long-time Voice bloggers including Ron F., Holyroller, Anne, Scheherazade, Two Cents, A Little Bird, KRN, Fred, JF, Pat G., Jeff, Jennifer, Mr. Slate, Boogeyman, Been Around, Chianglo and Lorne.

AOL spokesman Seymour Argent noted "The Burlingame Voice is an incredible example of what true community interaction can deliver.  As a non-profit blog it has blown away all for-profit competitors and we believe we can commercialize it without losing the flavor that has made it successful."

The deal is expected to close on May Day when the current TypePad platform will be migrated to a union-maintained, TARP-subsidized, LEEDS compliant, platform with frequent spammers like Nike, Coach, Ugg and Supra as inital sponsors.  Blog on!