The Burlingame Voice

Brawling on Park Rd.

There's a short piece in the Daily Journal about a big brawl on Saturday night

An off-duty Berkeley police officer was stabbed several times and three others were injured in a brawl involving dozens of people outside a Burlingame bar on Saturday night, a police sergeant said.

Two groups of people confronted each other outside of the Vinyl Room at 221 Park Road, off of Burlingame Avenue, shortly before midnight, Burlingame police Sgt. Don Shepley said.

A group of about 10 people had been denied entry to the bar because a private party was taking place inside, Shepley said. When members of the party exited the building, a fight broke out between the groups, he said.

You need to keep your wits about you even in downtown B'game although this doesn't sound like it is part of a recurring pattern between known combatants.

Knock-Knock Crime

There is a good reminder in this Daily Journal piece about local burglary techniques

Non-violent theft, or larceny, is a crime on the rise locally and police think they know why — the perpetrators, even if caught, risk light punishment.

The latest trend sweeping San Mateo County is the so-called door-knock burglary in which criminals simply canvas neighborhoods and knock on doors to see if anyone is home. If someone is home, they move on, but if not, they find a way into the house through a rear door or window and make off with jewelry, electronic items or other valuables.

As someone who works at home, I can tell you I have experienced this firsthand.  I had a knock on the door from a very cheerful young woman.  When I answered it she wanted to know "if by any chance, my car was for sale".  He boyfriend was idling out in front in his pick-up.  Of course, there was no For Sale sign on the car and she had no reason to think it was for sale.......   anyone else have a similar story?

Skimmers on the Ave

The Daily Journal is reporting on a relatively sophisticated scam that was being run on the Avenue

A card-skimming device attached to an ATM at the U.S. Bank branch at 1423 Burlingame Ave. was confirmed to have compromised the accounts of several Hillsborough and Burlingame residents, Hillsborough police Capt. Doug Davis said.

Though it is sophisticated gear, the installation is apparently pretty easy

A card-skimming device, if done well, can blend in seamlessly with a bank’s ATM machine, according to Davis. The device is placed over the part of the ATM where the card is inserted, and the scammer can later use the information stored on the card to make purchases or steal an identity, he said.

Through a joint police investigation, Hillsborough and Burlingame police detectives confirmed that the skimmer was in place on the ATM on Jan. 26 and 27, as well as Feb. 3, Davis said.

So check your US Bank statements closely.

Related articles

ATM fraud on the rise, analysts say

Stepping up Traffic Enforcement

Today is the first day of the "S.T.E.P." program that BPD describes as

The Burlingame Police Department is pleased to announce the first deployment of the San Mateo County Saturation Traffic Enforcement Program (S.T.E.P.) on Wednesday, January 16^th. S.T.E.P is a collaborative effort, consisting of traffic officers from local law enforcement agencies throughout San Mateo County.  Participating officers are detailed to problem locations in San Mateo County based on collision data, community complaints, and expert officer opinion.  Specifically, officers will be looking for distracted drivers (talking on cell phones and texting), pedestrian right-of way violations, and unsafe speed.

If I get a chance to chat with BPD I'll add some more detail later.  In the meantime, as Sgt. Phil Esterhaus used to say on Hill Street Blues, "be careful out there".

San Francisco Magazine - B'game "Utopia"

I like reading San Francisco magazine.  I especially like that for some reason they mail it to me for free while Mollie Stone's sells it on the rack and they offer annual subscriptions for $24, but a gift horse is always welcome.  The January issue is especially welcome since it has a cover article titled "Project Utopia" where they "polled 200 Bay Areans about the qualities that define their dream neighborhood and selected 10 precincts that match those criteria--no Craigslist trolling required."  And guess what?  Two "precincts" were not in EssEff and one of those is "Burlingame Terrace"!  The description on page 79 reads

Because...maybe Pleasantville isn't lame after all.  Was it the combination of $72 parking tickets and having three bikes swiped in two years?  Or was it the warm summer night you visited friends in Burlingame Terrace and noted, when you pulled up to their sitcom-ready clapboard, that their kid's Trek was just lying in teh driveway, decidedly unstolen?

A decade after the first portents shimmered into view, Burlingame is calling out to disenchanted urbanites. (I guess they missed the '06 earthquake and B'game's subsequent growth spurt)  Its main avenue is proving to be more than a suburban sweet spot, and not with any old coffee-shop tuna melt, either, we're talking tuna conserva with cannellini beans.

Pizzeria Delfina, Blue Line pizza, Sephora and La Boulange get mentions, along with our "smallish lots--a legacy of its roots as a summer colony--pay a nice divident: human-scaled streets with neighborly houses."  Well at least that aspect of B'game looks greener from the other side of the monster house divide.

Here are our "grades":  Affordability  B-, Walkability B, Public transportation B, Weather A, Safety A- ...and "the bummer:  It's a far cry from being culturally diverse".

Recent arrival Soni Obinger notes "The one downside is that there is no nightlife" and I can agree on that one.  All I want for Christmas are a downtown jazz/folk club and a pocket movie theater (with one or two screens).  Heck they could even be in the same establishment on different nights of the week.

Thanks San Francisco magazine.  You pretty much nailed it!

 

Connecticut Service

I was wavering on whether to post about tonight's memorial service for the victims of the Sandy Hook-Newtown, CT attack before the event or after attending it, but decided to give advance notice and then follow-up if I can make it.  Rev. Paul Watermulder at First Presbyterian put out this message

Responding to the murder of school children and adults in Connecticut, area churches have banded together to invite the Burlingame-Hillsborough community to a time of remembrance, prayer, hope and healing.

The service will be Monday evening (i.e. tonight) at 7pm at First Presbyterian Church (El Camino at Easton).  Its leadership will include local pastors and representatives from local school boards.

I have several friends who live in Newtown and one is right in the Sandy Hook section with kids who graduated from Sandy Hook Elementary.  He and his wife have been very involved in their school community.  His emails about the situation are heartbreaking.

UPDATE:  It was a very warm ceremony.  The listing of all of the names of the victims and the lighting of a candle for each (see photo below) was a fitting recognition for all.  Rev. Watermulder's opening comments about the various ways people react to these types of events resonated with me.  So too, did Rev. Dr. Beth Frykberg comments just prior to the closing.  Thanks to all of those who organized and conducted the ceremony.  Here are a couple of updated photos

Weighty Issue with the Trash

I still hear the occasional report about people pilfering recyclables during the night before pick-up.  We blogged about it a year ago here.

On December 11th in B'game, RethinkWaste says it will begin the research to build a "Home Diversion Calculator tool" that will be promoted and used to encourage diversion by providing residential customers the opportunity to accurately calculate their home diversion rate. This will then lead to other promotional opportunities such as highlighting resident's efforts and rewarding high diversion achievers. They

will be conducting a research project to weigh residential carts for approximately 25% of one residential route each day in one Member Agency. We hope to get data for 200 or so households from a Member Agency each day we do this research. We will simply be measuring the weight of all three carts set-out for collection and making note of how full each cart is. (We will not be going through the contents.) However, all 800-900 homes on these routes will be receiving the following robotic phone call ("robo call") from Recology early in the week:

"Hello, this is Recology San Mateo County, your recycling and garbage service provider. In conjunction with Rethink Waste and the Cart Smart program, a one-day research project to weigh carts and observe how full they are is being conducted.  This call  is to notify you that your carts may be picked up at a different time than normal for this week only.   Rest assured that the representatives from RethinkWaste will not be going through the items in the carts, but may open the lids to see how full they are."

We love diversions, so we look forward to finding out who are the biggest diverters in town!  In the meantime, no need to call BPD if someone is peeking in your cans the week after next.

Tweet Along

The Daily Post had an interesting article over the weekend about Palo Alto doing what it calls a "virtual ride-along".  They describe it as

Last night from 5 pm to 1 am, a public information officer hopped into the front seat alongside a patrol officer and live-tweeted all of their calls for service, an event  the department dubbed a virtual ride-along.  The tweets were posted on the police department's official Twitter account, @PaloAltoPolice.

Interested residents asked questions during the ride-along by including the hashtag "PAPDvra" or mentioning the police department's account.

I think this is a great idea.  I did a ride-along with the B'game PD back in 2006 and wrote up my impressions of the night for the Voice.  Here is a small excerpt of that story

My immediate impression was that our cops really know the town’s habits and many of its inhabitants.  Our first call was a mere 10 minutes into my shift.  It would be the easier of two meth-induced problems we would deal with that night.  This contact was the third one with the same individual in less than 24 hours and highlighted to me the need for a little tougher stance at the Psych ward of Peninsula hospital.  The revolving door needs to slow down a bit.  The second meth-driven incident was worse. Later on a fire truck had to get a man off the roof of a commercial building and then an ambulance took him to the County hospital.  He was an expensive problem for the taxpayers.

It was an education for me and I think having BPD do a Tweet-along (a better name than virtual ride-along) would allow more people to get a taste of what goes on in town.  It's sort of a curated, modern version of listening to a police scanner!  And it costs nothing!

Losing the War on Graffiti?

Are we losing the war on graffiti in town?  It feels like it to me.

Hold-up on B'way

The police blotter has not been updated yet to reflect the stick-up of a young B'game woman at an ATM machine on B'way on Monday that was followed by a police chase and the capture of the robber.  The recent discussions at City Council meetings on the benefits of having our own PD verses a merged PD were evident in the quick response time, the effective chase and the prompt ID and arrest of the suspect.

Kudos all around and a sigh of relief that no one was hurt.