The Burlingame Voice

Art & Jazz on (Howard) Avenue

I still cannot get used to the new name for the Art & Jazz on the Avenue (it's ArtzFest) but I look forward to it nonetheless.  With the Avenew redevelopment project going great guns like this

I was thinking the Chamber will have to move it.  Turns out the plan is to use Howard Ave. for the August 10-11 festivities.  That should be interesting since the vibe is quite a bit different on Howard Ave.  Maybe that will focus more of the attention on the vendors and stages than the stores.

 

Bocce Anyone?

It looks like the new bocce courts in Washington Park are coming along well.  Bocce (or boules for Francophiles) adds a great ambiance to a park...much more so than horseshoes--not that I ever saw anyone playing horseshoes on those old pitches.

I certainly hope that is not dog droppings on the right hand court since that will just aggravate an already contentious issue about the Park.

Night Dig on the Avenew

PG&E started phase 1 of the Avenue renewal last week.  The City announced

The City anticipates that PGE will complete their work before the Burlingame Avenue Streetscape contractor begins construction at the end of March, 2013. PGE plans do to all construction work for the gas and electric line relocation project at night. We hope there will be minimal disruption to the downtown during this construction.

Here's what it looked like on Thursday night after the restaurants had all closed

Lessons to be Learned

My whole neighborhood went dark Wed night around 11:30pm and then the sirens started.  The Daily Journal has the story and we have the photo

San Mateo police were called to the scene of a two-vehicle accident at El Camino Real and Peninsula Avenue Wednesday night at about 11:30 p.m. and discovered that two northbound sport utility vehicles, each driven by intoxicated 17-year-old girls, collided in a sideswipe fashion at the intersection, according to police.

No injuries were reported but property damage, including a sheared PG&E pole and a sheared fire hydrant, caused significant impacts and delays in the area, according to police. Police and other agencies worked together to manage traffic closures, power outage and flooding in the area after the accident. The streets were partially reopened after a four-hour closure, but repair crews were working on the damaged intersection well into the daytime hours, according to police.  

The two girls, both from Burlingame, were both found to be under the influence of alcohol and arrested. They were cited and released to parents, according to police.

Aside from the obvious lesson that will be delivered to the two girls, this was a good reminder to me to check flashlight batteries and candle supplies.  The supposedly rechargeable flashlights were not that recharged.  Here's the hydrant spout and you can make out the downed power lines.  It was a huge turnout of SM and B'game police, fire and ambulances.

 

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".

Hoover School Suit

We have been tracking the purchase and reopening of the old Hoover School as it evolves here and here.  The traffic access has resulted in a group calling itself the Alliance for Responsible Neighborhood Planning making good on the threat of a lawsuit per the Daily Journal here.  As a reminder to all, note which body did the approval

In December, the board approved the mitigated negative declaration for the project which included a traffic plan. Many residents who live near the school, however, felt the approval should be postponed to allow for more discussion and possible changes to the traffic plan.

Even long-timers around town often forget that the city has no say over what the school districts do with their properties.  This is different than other parts of the country where the school district is independent of the municipality...for better or worse.  The DJ piece goes on to note

The district’s proposed student drop-off and pick-up was modified after concerns were raised from the town of Hillsborough. As approved, the plan calls for two 8-foot-wide curbside bays to be created for pick-up and drop-off along the west side of Summit Drive adjacent to the school providing enough curb space for 15 cars, according to the staff report. In addition, the existing school site curb would be shifted west to provide for the bays and two 10-foot-wide vehicle travel lanes, which will increase the width of Summit to 17 feet in some areas.

We'll see if the filing is enough to get some further negotiations going or if it does have to go to court.  Here's what the district office on Trousdale looks like in case you have comments.

Next up after the traffic issue is the redistricting of boundary lines which can be contentious.

Historic Euc Casualty

This Christmas Day storm didn't pack that much wind especially compared to the prior couple of storms last week.  But the heavy rainfall (6+ inches or 230% of typical season to date rainfall) can play havoc with some of our historic eucalyptus trees' roots.  The key seems to be how well the drainage is near the trunk and the key to that is sometimes how well Caltrans maintains the drains.

Here's a historic euc casualty being cleared away today just south of Sanchez Ave.  And below that is one of the now common signs on El Camino.

Getting To and From Hoover School

The Daily Journal is tracking the on-going neighborhood concerns (in B'game and H'borough) about the traffic Hoover School's reopening is likely to generate.

Canyon Road and Easton Drive are the primary roads through the neighborhood and serve about 1,000 vehicles on a typical weekday — approximately 80 vehicles in the morning peak hour and 75 during the afternoon peak hours, according to a Nov. 29 study by Feher and Peers. Opening a 250-student school is estimated to generate between 113 to 228 vehicles during the morning peak hour and 70 to 150 vehicles during the afternoon peak hours, according to the study. Given the school’s location, topography and the lack of sidewalks in the nearby neighborhood, the study suggests fewer students will walk to school than would to an average neighborhood school.

As is common in these situations, some of the neighbors are just tuning in while others are more organized and ready to act

Superintendent Maggie MacIsaac said the district met the requirements under CEQA. The topic has been discussed over two years giving the public multiple opportunities to weigh in, she said. The district moved forward in hopes of meeting its goal of opening in 2014.

Steve Epstein, president of the Burlingame Hills Improvement Association, said the residents are disappointed in the process.

“I think they shot themselves in the foot. They had an opportunity to get buy in from the entire community and instead created controversy where it wasn’t needed,” said Epstein.

There should be some middle ground here so we will see if they can find it.  And by the way, the school district is autonomous from the city, so this sits with the California state architect as the overseer.  Here's the access road

We were pounded. But we survived

A little rain here and little wind there. No biggie. The torn banner that was hanging above the entrance to Burlingame Avenue was all the damage I could find in Burlingame that was storm related. Anyone out there suffer any damage?

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.