The Burlingame Voice

Taxes: Thinking About November

You can read about the governor's State of the Union speech in any number of places.  You can also read about his plan to ask for higher tax rates in some places.  But you don't see the state-by-state comparisons too often, so today's Wall Street Journal piece is helpful.  The Tax Foundation calculates state tax burdens using multiple components including income, property, sales and public utility taxes.  We have landed at number six out of the 50 states:

1    New Jersey            12.2%

2    New York                12.1%

3    Connecticut            12.0%

4    Wisconsin                11.0%

5    Rhode Island            10.7%

6    California                10.6%

Dan Walters at the SacBee puts the tax rate increase proposal's risk in perspective here.  It's worth a read between now and November.

Monsters continue to invade Burlingame

Approximately two years back, it seems, both the Burlingame City Council and the Planning Commission agreed to take another look at Burlingame's floor area ratio ( FAR.) As far as I know, that has yet to happen. Will they? Should they? (Photo above is an example from my neighborhood taken just days ago.)

Renewal Around the Avenew?

The San Mateo Daily Journal gives a quick snapshot of the on-going discussion about fostering development in the B'game Avenue downtown area.

Nineteen development companies submitted plans for turning parking lots in downtown Burlingame into revenue producers. Although not yet made public, plans were discussed by city staff and a subcommittee of the council and ranked.

On Tuesday, the council is expected to have property negotiations with two companies — Equity Residential, a real estate investment trust based in Chicago, and Grosvenor, an international property development, investment and fund — regarding three downtown parking lots: E, F and N.

Similar to the leafblower controversy, the first question is really "What problem are we trying to solve?"  In this case there are a couple of options but not everyone agrees on which get priority.  Is it more sort-of-transit-oriented housing that counts on Caltrain still being around?  Is it a larger tax base?  Is it being proactive for when, or really "if", the Post Office goes up for sale?  A bit of clarity may come during the public part of this discussion.

High Cost Rail - Part 68 Ship Sinking????

I'm no sailor but I know there are two ways for a ship to sink.  It can slide slowly into the watery depths succumbing to some slow leak or it can go BANG and sink like a rock.  It's still not clear if, or how, High-Cost Rail will sink into the Sacramento morass, but today's revelations about various rats departing the poop deck point in that direction.  Apparently, in addition to the resignation of the CEO of the High-Cost Rail Authority, a deputy director, the press secretary and a board member have resigned according to a Fresno Bee reporter's tweets.  The SacBee reporting on the CEO's scamper notes:

His resignation, announced at a board meeting in Los Angeles and effective in two months, comes at a critical point for the project, with rail officials bidding for Legislative approval to start construction in the Central Valley this fall. Public opinion about the project has fallen sharply, according to a recent Field Poll, and the Legislature is highly skeptical.

Minutes after van Ark's announcement, Tom Umberg announced that he is stepping down as chairman of the rail board, though he will remain a member of the board. Umberg is to be replaced next month by Dan Richard, an adviser Gov. Jerry Brown appointed to the board last year.

One sure way to get any capital project to come in way higher than budget (which is now $98 Billion with a "B") is to have constant turnover in the ranks of the planners.  Bear in mind also that the $98 Billion still offers no provision for any earthquake warning system interface to the train control system nor does it account for floorspace for TSA-like screening at the stations.  Good work, Roelof!

A Tale of Two Burgers

The Five Guys burger shop has opened with a bang after a long wait.  I cruised by last night and it was bustling.  At the other end of the block, the Burger Joint continues to cause wonderment in town.  Here are two photos taken one minute apart last night (Friday).

Mingalaba had people waiting on the Avenew as usual, Narin was SRO, Coconut Bay was full and Roti was almost full.  B'game loves to eat!

Friends With Benefits - Part 15 Little Rhody's Example

While we have been following the on-going saga of public service pensions and some bloggers have been keeping us apprised of what other cities in the County are doing, here is the Wall Street Journal's quick take on major changes that have happened in Rhode Island

The plan enacted in November cuts $3 billion of the state's $7 billion unfunded liability by raising the retirement age, suspending cost-of-living increases until the pension system is 80% funded, and even moving workers into a hybrid plan that has a smaller guaranteed annuity along with a 401(k)-style defined-contribution plan.

How did they do it, you might ask?  The state treasurer notes that Rhode Island already suffers from the nation's fifth highest tax burden--a full 10.7% of per capita income.  Depending on which study you use California sometimes comes in fifth as well and the 10.7% number alligns well with where Gov. Brown thinks we need to be!  The RI state treasurer goes on to note that education and transparency were key, everyone in the system had to give something and they avoided blame for the mistakes of the past.  Wise words!

R.I.P. Redevelopment Agencies

I had been pondering how to commemorate the demise of local redevelopment agencies in California with last week's state Supreme Court ruling, but today's Wall Street Journal did it for me.  There were about 400 cities and towns in California that had such agencies out of a total of 482.  It was basically a scam to get other cities and towns to pay for their redevelopment projects.  Burlingame never had one.

The decision frees some $1.7 billion to fill big holes in California's budget this year.... In the absence of the kind of viable development that naturally emerges from a dynamic private economy, (local) officials turn to schemes like this to force-feed new real estate into their communities.

So that $1.7 billion goes back to Sacramento.  Normally I would look at that as a bad thing, but in this case it much better than the alternative.  Chalk one up for the responsible cities and towns like ours. 

Leaf Blowers - Part 2

What to do, if anything, about leaf blowers in town is back on Tuesday night.  It was a hot topic back in June on the Voice and was one of Ricardo Ortiz' best zingers during the election.  The council took it off-line back in August to study it and have come up with the following results.  They current proposal is to divide the city into sections and limit each section to a different day of the week per this map.

The study notes

This approach does not distinguish gasoline from electric, nor does it completely prohibit the use of gasoline blowers.  The thinking was that although electric blowers do not add carbon monoxide to the environment they stir up as much dust and allergens and are almost as noisy as gasoline powered blowers.   Given the concerns and cost implications of the switching to electric blowers for the professional gardeners the consensus of the committee was to minimize the hours of the week that residents are exposed to any type of mechanical leaf blower.

Of course, the challenge is "which problem are we trying to solve?" since some want to stop carbon emissions, some want to reduce the ambient dust from any type of blower and some worry only about the noise.  The gardeners have to worry about scheduling not just B'game customers, but the surrounding towns' customers in the same day, along with rain, sick days, holidays and, of course, the cost of going to electric.  Furthermore, they worry that battery-powered blowers won't last for a full day of work so that would require homeowners to add front and back electrical outlets that are estimated to average about $1500 per home.

I happened to be in a San Diego neighborhood back in September and the gardeners were using battery-powered blowers.  I have to admit they were very quiet and appeared to be as efficient.  We will see what comes out of the study session on Jan 3rd, but several well-informed wags in town think the different-day-per-section of town idea is crazy and unenforceable.

City Manager to Retire...Almost

City Manager Jim Nantell has decided to retire after nearly 40 years in the public sector.  At the January 3rd Council meeting, the Council will vote on a proposal to retain Jim on an hourly basis in order to get priority projects completed and to help recruit the next city manager.  According to the Staff Report on the hourly service proposal

As of January 2012 employees retiring from a council appointed position are now limited to a maximum of 960 hours in a given fiscal year and a maximum of one year (over two different fiscal years) or post employment with the agency from which they retired.

In discussions with the City Council it has been a priority to ensure that any post retirement employment option would not increase the costs and hopefully allow the City to realize some significant savings.  The proposed contract would reduce the City Manager hourly rate by 21%.  That reduction and the savings from paid benefits means the budgeted cost for the City Manager for the next 12 months would be reduced by 38% (over $100,000).

Normally we would wish Jim well now, but let's hold off on that just a bit since it appears the council has plans to wring the last bit of work out of him before he goes to de facto retirement!  In the meantime, kudos on an approach to staying involved in the on-going work while getting some flexibility to do some other things in life once in awhile.  Here's a reminder for you bloggers on some of the council priorities for this past year and another and another reminder.  And here's a photo of Jim presiding over a range of city staff at one of the public meetings at the library (he's on the right).

High Cost Rail - Part 67 A Million Misteaks

It gets harder and harder to criticize the California High Cost Rail Authority because its public pronouncements get more ridiculous by the month.  In some ways it seems like picking on a defenseless person, but unfortunately for all of us when you line-up supporters like President Obama, Governor Brown, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and other lesser big wigs, they are still a threat to our neighborhoods, budget, schools and peace of mind.

So the fiasco of publicizing One Million Jobs from the high-cost rail project only to backtrack a day later and say that they meant one million man-years of work where two-thirds would be "spin-off jobs" at restaurants and retailers played out just before Christmas.  The San Mateo Mercury Times had some fun reporting on it here and then here.

The pull-out quote from Nancy Pelosi in the printed edition was the best

"The facts are clear:  Over 1 million good-paying jobs will be created"

Nevermind that a prediction can not be a "fact" until it happens, one wonders if Pelosi can really even comprehend "1 million" of anything.  As the Times wrote "One million people--more than the combined workforce of San Jose and San Francisco--would have to cram shoulder-to-shoulder just to fit along the rail line between San Francisco and Anaheim."  A real fact would be that if the people where all on the same side of the 520 mile track they would each have 2 3/4 feet of room to work and that would probably be an OSHA violation.

One sane voice appeared in print this week as the following Letter to the Editor ran on Dec. 24

Contrary to Roger Rudick's recent Op-Ed (Opinion, Dec. 11), California's high-speed rail project will do little, if anything, to alleviate local traffic congestion in the Bay Area or the Los Angeles basin. Worse, HSR will soak up public funds that would be better used to improve public transit.

Nor will HSR significantly reduce air traffic. In September, San Francisco International Airport released a thorough analysis of projected air traffic at Bay Area airports through 2035. It concluded that air traffic at SFO would be reduced by only 3.7 percent as a result of the proposed HSR system. And that was based on the inflated ridership projections of HSR's 2009 business plan. The lower ridership projections of the 2012 business plan would result in an even lower impact on future air traffic at SFO.

James R. Janz

President, Community Coalition on High Speed Rail

 Atherton

Well said, Mr. Janz.  Keep up the good work.  Same for Mike Rosenberg at the Times.