The Burlingame Voice

There is a stop sign in there somewhere

I have a friend who has a full-time job in EssEff driving around logging missing, damaged or obscured street signage.  He's busy.  B'game certainly doesn't need an FTE for this, but an occasional drive through town with this goal is way overdue.  Many of us complain about pedestrian safety and would like more traffic enforcement (verses more speed bumps and little plastic bollards), but Step 1 should be ensuring drivers can actually see stop signs.

If you were not familiar with this intersection, you might be forgiven for not seeing the stop sign.  Can you see it below?  If you happen to be driving a truck, I'll bet it would be completely obscured.  If I took the photo a couple of hours later, we would also be looking right into the setting sun. This problem exists all over town.  Let's get the trimming crew out there.  I'm a tree hugger and I approve this message.

Topgolf: Is the cash cow running low on milk?

We noted the news that Callaway and Topgolf were looking to get a divorce here on the last Topgolf post.  I didn't fully catch that the financial struggles were on the Topgolf side instead of the equipment (Callaway) side, but a WSJ piece lays it all out.  The entertainment center business (i.e. the hi-tech driving range) is good--just not quite as good as it has been.  There are big hopes in City Hall that Topgolf will drive serious tax revenue allowing the city to shoot for the green with a smooth pitch and sink some long putts.  But.....

Serious golfers are reliably showing up on golf courses, spending money on their equipment and golf balls. But recreational players are no longer as keen on shelling out some $70 an hour on a driving range for fun these days.  Lately, the Topgolf business has been hit hard by slowing consumer spending. Same-venue sales fell 8% in the second quarter from a year earlier, the fourth consecutive quarter of declines. The sales drop was even worse for big-group events because of “corporate belt-tightening,” according to the company.  (Ed:  think Westin, Hyatt, Marriott).

The company initially thought that visitors to Topgolf would become newbie golfers who might seek out its products after trying them out at those venues, which carry Callaway equipment. As it turns out, hitting a few balls at a recreational driving range isn’t enough to convert people into Callaway faithful.

The steeper price tag might be one contributor: In its location in Edison, N.J., for example, it costs about $155 to reserve one bay for a two-hour session during peak hours. And that doesn’t include food or drinks. Topgolf is trying out different ways to lure customers, including variable pricing, tweaks to its promotions and adding concerts and live DJ nights.

Here's the bottom line

Topgolf itself isn’t a lousy business—it is profitable and generated a 15.5% margin on the basis of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization last year. Its top line grew at a healthy 27% compound annual growth rate between 2021 and 2023 before the recent slowdown, and it still has a long runway of new locations. (Ed: especially our little B'game location).  It will, however, first need to prove that it can bring customers back after the first handful of visits.

Now, let's chat about those "DJ nights".  I never went to the movie nights at the old driving range during Covid, but I recall they did draw a bit of a crowd to Boringame.  What's the curfew policy these days on the Bayfront?

"Master energy healer" in Mt. View Schools

Perhaps I shouldn't speak too soon, but I'm relieved that we seem to have more sense here in B'game than some of our neighboring towns.  Exhibit A this weekend was in the Daily Post.  Headline "Parents step in after healer".  It's an odd fragment of a headline, but reading on we learn:

Superintendent Ayinde Rudolph is forming a committee with parents and teachers to advise him on the budget after he caught flack for hiring an "energy healer" who gave teachers guided meditations.  The (Mountain View Whisman School District) gave $121,150 to "master energy healer" Alycia Diggs-Chavis to do sessions with 159 employees, district spokeswoman Shelly Hausman said.

Yikes.  It had better be a very good energy healing meditation for $761.95 per session.  One wonders what the teachers' union had to say about this.  Or is the "master energy healer" a union member?

As we ponder Measure GG here in B'game let's hope our teachers are self-energized.  That is the kind of nonsense that turns people off that might otherwise $upport the $chools. I will have more to follow on GG, but you can peruse John Horgan's survey of the tax landscape here.  He starts:

It’s a gamble. Dedicated advocates of adding money for the operation of Burlingame’s public elementary schools believe it’s a risk, a leap of fiscal faith if you will, that must be taken.  In essence, a proposed new property levy, if approved by the electorate (a total of 19,799 voters at last count), would be a new parcel tax on top of an existing parcel tax, a monetary double play.

Community College: More free sh.....stuff

In San Mateo County there apparently is something called a "free lunch".  In fact, there are a bunch of them, but this one from the Community College District Board costs $6.4 million.  If the lesson we want to be teaching is how to sponge off Other People's Money, then mission accomplished.  From the DJ

District officials have spent the past few years working to reduce financial barriers to higher education in part by doing away with some fees and lobbying for Senate Bill 893. The bill took effect last year and allowed the district to waive and use unrestricted funds to cover a state-mandatory $46 per unit enrollment fee for county residents.

Those waivers cost about $6.4 million, according to the policy that was adopted in April 2023. To support continuing the free college program, Chancellor Melissa Moreno was tasked with securing a permanent financial source to support the continued effort to lower barriers to higher education.

No word on how she will go about THAT.  Bake sales won't get there.  Expect another vaguely written Measure on the ballot soon.  People don't value things as much when they are "free" as when they have some skin in the game.

Do we need some AI at Broadway?

I get it.  It's a complicated intersection.  We've got a lot of traffic coming off 101.  We've got a lot of traffic headed to 101.  We've got three big intersections at Rollins, Carolan and California before cars squeeze into an historic retail district.  We've got Caltrains going in both directions and they stop occasionally on the weekends.  We've got the worst designed roadway in the mid-Peninsula at our new and "improved" California Dr. with a too-tight left turn from B'way to southbound California.  There's pedestrians and a few bikers.  There SamTrans busses and big trucks--really big trucks that carry the cars whose sales fund the city quite well.  Some of the drivers from somewhere else and are staying at our other revenue stream--a half dozen Bayfront hotels.  They get to figure out the maze in real time.

Almost everyone wants a grade separation that is a hundred million bucks or so short and losing ground as inflation grinds on.  All the local politicians want it--and some even get kudos from the press for "advocating" for more money.  I can "advocate" for SpaceX to get to Mars sooner, but that ain't gonna make it happen.

In the meantime, perhaps we could chip away at the easiest annoyance.  Coming into the Broadway district from the 101 off-ramps, it's not uncommon to sit through two or even three cycles of the light to turn left onto Carolan.  You think you are a savvy local and will head down towards the high school as a Caltrain rumbles through.  But no.  The light cycles from yellow to red.  Back to yellow, back to red.  No traffic coming towards you (the gates are down).  No northbound traffic turning left onto B'way (no room at the gates).  So you wait.  Informed sources tell me that it's because two old light controllers are joined at the hip when they should be separate.  No one wants to invest to fix it while we wait for the Big Dig.....

What's it going to take?  OpenAI and an awesome code jockey?  A plea to ChatGPT?  A grizzled old Caltrain electrician coming out of retirement to save the day?  How do we Grok this problem?  At the very minimum, let's not replicate the problem at Oak Grove, please!

Smile: Tesla has you on camera

I may have finally found a reason to buy a Tesla....or not.  The Comicle is highlighting how the police use video from nearby Teslas to help solve crimes since in "sentry mode" a parked, locked Tesla will take video all by itself.  Sometimes the owner is around when the police arrive and volunteers the video as evidence.  Other times when no owner appears, the police get a warrant and tow the car to get the USB drive out of it.

In recent years, Tesla camera footage has played a variety of roles in police investigations, most commonly offering evidence after crashes but also documenting crimes perpetrated on a car’s owners or identifying a burglar who enters a car. The use of court orders related to crimes that occur near a Tesla appears to be a newer wrinkle.

“When you have these cars on the roads that are constantly capturing information, even when they’re parked, the police can look to them as a resource,” said Saira Hussain, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who specializes in government surveillance. “That obviously puts third parties — people who are not involved at all — in the crosshairs of investigations.”

Similar issues have come up with self-driving cars now on the road in San Francisco and other cities, which are also equipped with sophisticated video capability, Hussain noted. But in those cases, police subpoena the tech company — typically Waymo — because it owns the cars and the data. Tesla drivers, by contrast, get served individually because they control their own camera footage.

The article implies several murders investigations may have been advanced with TeslaView^TM.  When the long-awaited, cheaper Tesla comes out maybe BPD should buy one so they don't have to park a cruiser in front of the Apple store all the time.  Perhaps Safeway could plant one in the parking lot to look for people poaching a space to have lunch on the Ave.  Or Caltrain could put one in front of the Burlingame station to see who is living in the ADU.  BHS could use it to catch graffitists.  Better yet, they can all chip in to buy one and share!

PG&E: The numbers behind more shut-offs

A year ago, we looked at the evolving strategy PG&E has for reducing wildfires by doing Less Trimming, shut-offs .... and more digging.  Just as last year, the Wall Street Journal is ahead of the local pack on reporting on results to date.  Here are a few snippets:

The California utility company has reported to state regulators 62 ignitions in high-threat fire areas so far this year, compared with 65 for the entirety of 2023, according to company executives. Twenty-nine of them occurred in recent weeks after an early July heat wave that set record temperatures throughout the state and dried out grasses and brush, making them more likely to catch on fire.

Most of the ignitions in recent weeks were caused by vegetation coming into contact with the company’s power lines. Most of the remainder occurred as a result of equipment failure and bird contact. None of the fires spread to become significant.  The company has since been relying more heavily on new power-line settings in areas at high risk of fire. The lines shut off within a 10th of a second when branches or other objects touch them, reducing the risk of sparks.

The task force is now evaluating those settings and the current ignition data to determine whether changes should be made. The company has in recent weeks been installing thousands of pole-mounted devices that detect when animals, objects or trees come into contact with the lines.

And yet it seems like trimming is still a major part of the mitigation plan.

PG&E has also been working to reduce the risk of fires spreading by removing flammable shrubs and brush within 10 feet of utility poles that historically haven’t been cleared. The company has about 190,000 poles that aren’t subject to clearance requirements. Though it isn’t required to, the company is working to clear about 50,000 of those poles in the highest-risk areas by Sept. 1. It has so far performed work on about 22,000 of them.

Having just completed my second day of homeowner defensible space work in Tahoe this summer, it's readily apparent this is a never-ending project.  One can only wish Sacramento would put more priority on this instead of the nonsense that passes for governing these days.

Bumpingame - Part 2 - Non-standard speed bumps hurt

I've recently become aware of a Change.org petition about the speed bumps/humps on Carmelita Ave.  We addressed some of the issues on the first Bumpingame post here.  Three months later the irritation has not lessened.  What we didn't know at the time was the design of the bumps is non-standard because they are too steep.  The petition is more specific stating:

Regrettably, these speed bumps do not follow state and federal standards.  They create vehicle problems, passenger discomfort and negative impacts on ambulance and critical emergency response.  The standard speed hump that abides by state and federal stds is at least 12' long, going up 6' on the first half, and then ramping back down over 6'.  This is similar to the design that is on Hillside Dr in the hills.  Those follow standards.  They are shaped like a parabola.  The ones on Carmelita are shaped like a sharp trapezoid, ramping up sharply over 2' (instead of 6') and then back down 2' on the back end.  That is why you really feel it going over it.

If you want to get into the design flaws in more detail, here are a couple of resources:

• State Dept of Transportation Traffic Calming Guide, p 62
• https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/safety-programs/documents/traffic-calming/final-traffic-calming-guide_v2-a11y.pdf
• CA MUTCD – California Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices
• https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/safety-programs/documents/ca-mutcd/rev8/camutcd2014-chap3-rev8-a11y.pdf

Please read (and sign) the full petition aimed at the City Council and asking for fixing the problem.  It's found here.

"EV Phobia" - Battery anxiety

This story from the WSJ on Wednesday came to mind as I was sitting in front of shiny, new 220 Park building listening to the band at Burlingame on the Ave. this weekend.  Aside from realizing that the Carr McClellan building needs a paint job and something to cover the grimy HVAC system on the roof that we never saw before, I thought back to the big hole for the multi-level parking below 220.  

SEOUL—The uproar over a Mercedes-Benz electric vehicle that burst into flames in South Korea this month wasn’t only about fire safety. Outrage emerged over the lesser-known Chinese battery maker, Farasis Energy.  Now South Korea has a fresh proposal to ease public anxiety: advising carmakers to voluntarily divulge what brand of battery sits inside their EVs.

Such information isn’t generally public knowledge globally, despite the importance EV users place on battery life and driving range. At the same time, lithium-ion batteries—should they catch fire—burn at far higher temperatures than fires in conventional gas-powered cars and are uniquely challenging for firefighters to tackle.

The Aug. 1 blaze unfolded in an underground parking lot, which are common in the densely populated country. It incinerated around 40 nearby cars and scorched around 100 others. Some apartment complexes have considered barring EVs from underground lots. Local governments are exploring whether public charging stations shouldn’t charge EV batteries beyond 80% capacity, to reduce the risk of fires. Local media described the country as undergoing a sudden “EV-phobia.”

The stories about e-bikes bursting into flames are pretty common mostly due to using way off-brand batteries.  But when a $67K Mercedes lights up 140 nearby cars, that is a different problem.  I hope someone is looking at this--whether it's 80% charges or no charging or some other idea.  And one hopes Central County Fire is aware although from what I read there isn't much they can do at the scene besides let it burn out.

Non-Election 2024: School Boards

One of the side effects of "district" elections appears to be a lot fewer contested elections.  For B'game city council, we have races for two out of three seats this time, but at the school board level--Burlingame and SMUSHD--not so much.  The DJ gives the run down

In the Burlingame School District, all trustee races are unopposed. Chaitanya Bhuskuyte is running for Area 2 seat, Katie Jay is running for Area 3, and Nicole Mustafa is running for Area 5.

The San Mateo Union High School District will likely see the same board as it has the past two years, with incumbents Greg Land and Ligia Andrade Zúñiga running again in their respective trustee areas unopposed.

If you are still trying to figure out how two candidates in a town of 31,400 people that live maybe a mile apart differ in skills and abilities because of their addresses, join the club.  Would the races be more crowded without the arbitrary address limits?  There's no way to be sure, but as far as school boards go, you couldn't have less choice.

Election 2024: City Council ballot set

Here at the Voice, we love election season.  The pomp and circumstance of the filings, the mailers, the signs, the debates and the counting on November 5th or perhaps even longer keep everyone engaged.  With our messed-up district election changeover it's not quite as exciting as before and we certainly have each lost 80% of our say in who gets elected.  But you play with the roster you have, not the roster you wish you had (hat tip Donald Rumsfeld).  The filing deadline was last Friday, so the DJ has assembled the roster as follows:

Burlingame Councilmember Andrea Pappajohn, who was appointed earlier this year to replace Ricardo Ortiz in the District 1 seat, is now running to complete the term, which ends November 2026.  (i.e. unopposed, so she is in).

There’s a crowded race for the Burlingame City Council’s District 2 seat: business owners Rachel Ni, Hadia Khoury and Nirmala Idumalla Bandrapalli, as well as scientist and educator Desiree Thayer are all in the mix.

Current Burlingame Mayor Donna Colson is running to hold on to her District 4 seat against senior transportation engineer Tony Paul.

Nirmala ran back in 2015 garnering 20.9% in a four-way race to finish out of the money in third place.  The rest of the challengers are newcomers.  That means we have our work cut out for us vetting the challengers and evaluating Donna Colson's record to date.  Should be fun!

The Daily Journal followed up the next day with a more detailed piece on the candidates that can be found here.

Sunday Sweets

I finally got a taste of Salt & Straw ice cream, but I didn't walk over to the Avenew to get it.  On flights to and from Boston on Alaska Air, it was the dessert in First Class.  Chocolate on the way out was...just chocolate.  Returning with the Meyer Lemon Custard with Blueberry Jam seemed more in line with their claim to artisan ice cream, but it was nothing special.  What say you Voice readers?  I hear the new ownership at Preston's is knocking it out of the park.