The Burlingame Voice

Scott Weiner Comes to Burlingame

Two weeks after state senator Scott Weiner’s visit to Burlingame I am still marveling at how smoothly he can speak out of both sides of his mouth in a single meeting.  Weiner was invited to the Lane Room by Thrive which is a consortium of non-profit organizations.  He was invited to discuss the problems non-profits are having retaining staff as the cost of housing rises.  Weiner’s Senate Bill 50, discussed here and here, appeared to be popular with some in the audience of about 60 people.

In an interview by Samaritan House CEO, Bart Charlow, Weiner comes off as a tall, skinny, somewhat geeky attorney with a heart of gold.  He’s a man on a valiant mission.  Yet I saw in him a streak of progressive fascism interested only in consolidating power in Sacramento by any means necessary.  After describing the “carnage” that is happening in California and is “hollowing out even the middle class”, he excoriated the “No Growth” people for “adopting progressive talking points” such as “we need to build only affordable housing”.  He believes that will never happen without market-rate housing to subsidize it, but others think differently.  To him, it is better to demolish the concept of R1 zoning in the six most populous counties in the state via SB50 thus hurting the middle class homeowners who rely on their single-family homes as their largest investment.  Weiner’s claim that “this is not about getting rid of single-family homes” rang hollow after he said “single-family homes are a ban on affordable housing”.

When asked about SB50 excluding less populous counties, particularly Marin County, Weiner spoke “bluntly” about needing to do that to get the bill through a Senate committee headed by a Marin senator.  So much for principles of “fairness” that one hears so much about from progressives.

When asked about the housing quotas cities have been given (known as the RHNA formula), Weiner complained about how the formula has been gamed by some cities and two-thirds of cities don’t meet their low-income targets.  It didn’t seem to occur to him that perhaps that state-imposed process should be fixed by the state Legislature.  Better to scrap the whole idea of city zoning and let anyone build anything anywhere.  Nice leadership.

Someone other than me asked Weiner where all the water will come from?  He responded that “we have a structural deficiency” on water infrastructure and then made the ridiculous claim that “building housing doesn’t drive population growth” or water consumption.  He really said that.  After the obligatory comments on low-flow toilets and water reuse (“we are way behind Australia and Israel”), one was left to wonder how he would keep the middle-class in California without consuming more water.  It must be nice to live in the fairyland of the state senate and not have to worry about fixing “structural deficiencies” before plunging ahead with massive growth laws.

When asked about the impact that AirBnB and VRBO have on permanent rental housing and whether something should be done to limit those businesses, Weiner magically turned into a private property rights advocate.  He didn’t even seem embarrassed by the switch.  He then proceeded to say that “cities have ample tools to ban or restrict” AirBnB, yet he’s quite comfortable completely overriding these same cities’ zoning ordinances.  I almost had to admire such blatant hypocrisy spilling out in a single meeting.

The most revealing comment of the 90-minute session was buried in one of Weiner’s asides about Area Median Income (AMI) ranges and which income range was most “deserving” of subsidies.  He noted that this was a problem until we tackle “the long-term project to realign our capitalist society and socialize housing”.  There you have it.

SFO Legal Action - Gathering Data and Ideas

I spent two and a half hours at the SFO Noise Abatement Office as a follow-up to the questions I asked at the last Court session about noise data.  My host, David Ong, was very helpful-- cordial, informative and curious to hear about my concerns.  One couldn't ask for more at this point in the proceedings.  We discussed the arrival and departure routes at length, using their system to graph sets of data for specific dates and windows of time including my least favorite-12 am to 4 am.  It turns out that late night departures are not predominantly Asian flights or cargo, but often head to Chicago, Detroit, etc to make early morning connections.  We reviewed the timing around the Runway Safety project that added a new runway surface at the ends of the north-south runways and noted when they reopened August 10, 2014 as you can see from the graph below with the green V-shaped departures reappearing on 1L and 1R.  One theory is after a summer without traffic on those runways the reopening may have sounded louder to residents.  I can't really agree with as a cause of our distress now simply because it was five years ago, but I'm sure it had some short-term effect in 2014.

We also discussed how the international terminal Gate G which has a lot of Boeing 777 "heavy" traffic is situated such that engine-start-up is pointed towards B'game.  If it is determined that 777 start-up is a notable cause of noise, there might be other locations that would work.  I was particularly interested in the noise we experienced on Mother's Day this year.  It was quite bad in my yard, but the peak noise measurements at the two North B'game monitoring stations didn't really show what I know I heard.  SFO has awarded a contract to replace the 15 year old noise monitors with new technology and one can only hope that 15 years of technical advancement brings as much improvement in microphones as it has in other products.  I will be getting a short-term noise monitor installed in my yard in July with better noise correlation that is done by a person using the actual recordings as opposed to the system algorithm and NOAA radar data about take-offs.  It should be interesting although I am under no illusion that it will fix anything other than my curiosity.

Mr. Ong puts a lot of hope on the Airport Roundtable's ground noise subcommittee being able to isolate the main cause(s) of the runway noise so that something innovative can be done to mitigate it.  I hate to conclude with "we shall see", but that is where we're at.

 

SFO Legal Action - Round 3 Summary

The plaintiffs and the defendant (the City of SF) wrapped up their arguments about SFO runway noise in Small Claims court on Tuesday.  You can catch up on the background here and here.  It's quite impressive to see so many residents apply their skills to adding to the complaint.  We had members of the plaintiff group provide detailed noise measurements showing noise as high as 84.7 dB, providing background on the legal cases from around the country that might apply, and offering survey results from 360 people showing that the 49 current plaintiffs are far from the only ones feeling the damage from back blast noise.

At the end of Round 2 the defense tried to avoid having the Noise Abatement Office systems manager even take the stand, but Judge Mazzei ruled that we should be able to ask questions of him about his written declaration and the operations of the Office.  Mr. David Ong was on the stand for about 90 minutes and we learned some interesting, if disappointing, things during that time.  The Noise Abatement office takes about 200,000 complaints (they call them "reports") per month.  That effectively blew a giant hole in their argument that the 49 plaintiffs are just a small group that is not representative of the rest of the Millbrae, B'game and H'borough populace.  The illogic seemed lost on the SFO representatives.

We also learned that the airports Fly Quiet program that has been in effect for 15+ years rates airlines on five criteria that do not include back blast noise and that some of the lower scoring airlines, like Quantas, have been low scoring for a long time and SFO expects them to continue scoring low.  There are small fines in place for when a pilot does a "run-up" in an unapproved area of the taxiways, but Mr. Ong did not know if any fines had been assessed, nor whether they are published to groups like the Community Roundtable (which B'game councilmember Ricardo Ortiz sits on).  He also did not know what happens if an airline does not pay the fine or if there are other actions that merit fines.  We all found that quite odd for a senior member of the Noise Abatement Office.

There are 29 permanent noise monitoring stations sprinkled in the three cities and San Mateo.  They have been there for decades and Mr. Ong believes they do not show any appreciable increase in noise over the last three or four years (a key part of our claim).  I have asked to see the actual data since the group finds that hard to believe given the increased traffic and our collective experiences.  We will see if the data corroborates that, if we ever get it.

As the session came to an end, the judge said she would ordinarily have the Court mail us the verdict in a week or two, but she will be doing it differently for this case. She said she was allowed 90 days to announce her verdict once the case was under submission.  She has "a lot to read over". Then she said we'd all be getting a notice of when her decision would be announced in court with so the plaintiffs could be present.  Lots of people are sitting with their fingers crossed.

Hospitals Are Not Housing Developers

Today's Daily Journal Guest Perspective comes to us from Rebecca Oyama who hails from "Housing For All Burlingame".  She also apparently serves on the San Mateo County Commission on the Status of Women.  Not sure if there is a Commission on the Status of Men, but we will leave that for another day.  Oyama went to a Jackie Speier Townhall about "affordable housing" and had issues with Dennis Zell's comments about the Peninsula Health Care District's mission in life.  Zell is an elected Board member along with a couple of other B'game locals, Frank Pagliaro (former councilmember) and Helen Galligan (married to former councilmember Joe Galligan).  As you can see from the link, there are five Board members--I only know of these three as active, informed locals.

Zell was on a panel with Speier, Sen. Jerry Hill,  Assemblyman Kevin Mullin, and county Supes Don Horsley and B'game supe Dave Pine.  The issue is whether our, emphasis on "our", health care, emphasis on "health care" should build affordable housing on Health Care District land--i.e. the big plot of land that the hospital sits on in North B'game.  Dennis Zell had the temerity to swim against the prevailing tide and assert that the District "is not an affordable housing developer"!  Imagine that?  A Board member who is asserting that a Health Care District is only in the health care business?  Oh my.

My favorite part of Oyama's screed is when she invokes the health care district's taxpayers "that paid for the land, many of whom now clearly need their support".  Well, Rebecca, as one of those taxpayers for 28 years allow me to say You Don't Speak For Me.  Dennis Zell notes the "silver tsunami" that is coming as the Baby Boomers age and what support they will need.  I have first hand experience over the last five years on what seniors need locally and I can assure you that what we have is good, but we are going to need a lot more of it.  You call it "exorbitantly-priced assisted living"--I call if covering the costs of living with dignity in your community as you get old.  Rebecca, you don't get to decide that "affordable housing" displaces what the Health Care District was founded and funded to do.  Sorry.  You are misguided.   

 

Broadway Overpass: A Long Way Away

One of the common questions I hear in town is "When are they going to fix the rest of Broadway?" meaning now that the bridge has been replaced, what about the rail crossing?  My standard response is "There isn't nearly enough money socked away to even start".  That is the bottom line of a piece in today's Daily Journal recapping the discussion at Council on Monday.  Here are my favorite tidbits, but do click through here to get all of the bits.

No decision was made at the meeting, as the issue was only discussed following a presentation from the county Transportation Authority, which allocates Measure A sales tax revenue for transit projects. The project is currently largely unfunded, and is expected to be completed by 2026, according to available financing.  Examining the rising cost of construction, Transportation Authority officials anticipate the price will jump by about 35% over the life of the project, amounting to about $40 million more than the proposed current cost by 2026.

Although it is apparently considered the most-needed project in all of Northern California.  Here's another gem

In a separate presentation, a Caltrain official said future service at Broadway will sap stops from the Burlingame station as well, as the proximity of the two stations will result in one train stop at either station every 30 minutes.

You mean like a real train service?  Discussion of Mike Brownrigg's idea of not having a station at all at B'way (ostensibly to shorten the Giant Wall Dividing The City) raised the other council members' hackles.  With massive residential development at the Anson apartments on Carolan and Facebook coming along with whatever goes in on the State Lands Commission property (see the next post below), one would think we would want more train service at B'way.  Anyway you look at it, there's not enough money floating around to do much of anything for years.

 

Another 9.4 Acres of B'game Bayfront

The State Lands Commission is out with another RFP for one of the last undeveloped bits of B'game Bayfront (about 1,000') that has been idle since the boundaries were settled in 1972.  All you moneybags can access the official State page here.  The Daily Journal has a piece on the history and possibilities for the parcel.  In it, Mayor Donna Colson notes

For her part, Colson said she is intrigued by the opportunity to keep a majority of the land open while occupying some of it with a boutique hotel which could bolster the city’s tourism industry.  “We still think there is enough capacity to handle a small, high-end boutique hotel that would have a restaurant and other amenities that would be nice for the public,” she said.

She noted the city’s current hotel room vacancy rate is extremely low, and that interest in the adjacent area will likely be sparked with construction of the new Facebook building which could accommodate roughly 3,500 workers.

We've watched this piece with some concern for a long time since "nature abhors a vacuum" and in this case the vacuum has been filled by trash as noted here.  The SLC noted

On November 26, 2001, following market exposure to 1,100  prospective developers, the Commission received only one proposal.  Since 1995, the site has remained unleased and has been intermittently maintained as needed. The Commission has expended most of the $200,000 in settlement money received from RTC to market the site, demolish derelict storage buildings, install fencing and concrete barricades, and remove trash, debris, and vegetative overgrowth.

Those days are probably coming to an end with the development pressure and profit potential of a parcel that large.  Getting to and from the lot hasn't gotten any easier and probably won't for a long time, but when has that ever stopped anything?

 

Cow Palace History

Let's keep the local historical thoughts flowing today courtesy of Bob Greene and his Wall Street Journal piece on the Cow Palace.  His main point is how quaint historic arenas are that do not draw the attention of corporate naming sponsors a la Oracle, Chase, AT&T or SAP.  But along the way he gives some nice local history which I will excerpt

Amid the cacophonous cheering at the corporate-arena National Basketball Association Finals, think a kindly thought about the Cow Palace just south of San Francisco.  But the sturdy old Cow Palace, where the Warriors played until 1971, still hosts rodeos and livestock shows.

The Cow Palace represents a lost American age when there was a certain charm to the idiosyncratic localness of hometown sports arenas. It opened its doors in 1941, and its major client was a livestock exposition. Its name was derived from a critical newspaper article, published when its construction was beginning in the midst of the Great Depression, which asked: “Why, when people are starving, should money be spent on a palace for cows?”

Over the years the Cow Palace was stocked with stars—not only the Warriors, but Elvis Presley, the Beatles and Rolling Stones, the 1956 and 1964 Republican National Conventions, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. When the era of glittering corporate-branded arenas commenced later in the 20th century, though, the Cow Palace was left behind.

At least it still stands and has clients. Other grand old big-city arenas are a memory.  As for the Cow Palace, has any thought been given to spiffing up its image by finding a corporate underwriter? Lori Marshall, the venerable arena’s CEO, told me: “I have only been at the facility for four years; however, to my knowledge we have not had any inquiries or inclination to sell naming rights.”  Probably just as well. If there’s anything that cows should be leery of, it’s branding.

I saw my first Sharks game at the Cow Palace as they awaited completion SAP arena.  And it has hosted a number of great rock shows beyond Elvis and the Beatles including U2 and ZZ Top.  As the historical and very local character of the mid-Peninsula gets hollowed out by over-development, we need to cherish the bits that are remaining.  It's hard to look at the new Facebook building crashing onto our bayfront without reminiscing about the drive-in.  Or pondering the demise of the last independent gas station in town with its quirky mannequin sitting in an old British sports car.  What is your favorite lost local landmark?

Herb Caen: Memorial Day 1949

Herb Caen's column helped introduce me to the Bay Area in 1981.  I loved his daily columns and later his book Baghdad-By-The-Bay from 1949.  Here is a excerpt of Chapter 13 for Memorial Day

You think about things like this today.  About the kids who bought a one-way passage to North Africa and Tinian, Normandy and Attu.  Especially the kids from San Francisco, because you're back and they're not, you were lucky, they weren't--and who knows why it was like that?

You can't help thinking about the guy from the Sunset who stopped a sniper's bullet at Saint Lo, and the paisano from North Beach who cashed in at Guam, and the boy from Pacific Heights whose last C-47 mission over the Hump ended in a question mark.

I was thrilled to read about the C-47 that led the D-Day invasion being found, restored and flown to Normandy for the 75th anniversary.  Check it out here.

Nearly 75 years ago, on June 6, 1944, That’s All, Brother led the main airborne invasion of Normandy. Piloted by Lt. Col John Donalson, the plane led over 800 C-47s that dropped over 13,000 paratroopers into a battle that changed the course of mankind. Our mission is to bring this great airplane back to the skies over Normandy for the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

My Dad flew C-47's during the war and pulled gliders full of paratroopers behind.  Here's remembering all of our vets and the other loved ones who have passed on to the other side.

SFO Legal Action - Round 2 Summary

Voice readers can catch up on the effort by 49 Burlingame and Hillsborough residents to get some relief from SFO runway noise here and in the two prior links in that post.  The 49 plaintiffs have filed in Small Claims court and have presented their complaints in four sessions in Redwood City, so Tuesday was the airport's turn to present its defense.  We heard two and a half hours of testimony from an outside noise expert and an airport environmental planner that never really got to the root of the complaints-- that back blast or "run up" noise is damaging our quality of life-- mostly sleep, outdoor activities and doors and windows shaking.

One plaintiff started an on-line survey that now has 205 responses and found substantial concern around the clock.  15% of these residents are disturbed by SFO runway noise all day long and 58% disturbed during regular home hours of either 1-5 or 5-10 hours per day.  More than half of these families suffer between 6pm to midnight;  9pm-midnight is the worst and almost 30% suffer 12-5am and 30% also suffer from 5-8am.  The rest must have some pretty good sleeping pills......

SFO's defense hits on the following points:

• Various ordinances say they only need to mitigate noise where a 24-hour average called CNEL is above 65db.   That is a tight zone according to SFO's computer model and none of the 49 residences are in that very tight zone around each set of runways.  There appears to be minimal actual field measurements and no accounting for the 15-30 second blasts that are the essence of the complaints.
• The FAA, not SFO, controls all airline operations including taxiing and run-up (in contradiction to what some residents have been told elsewhere).
• Runways 1L and 1R were moved south by 450’ and 200’ respectively at around the time that people felt runway noise became worse, but the airport claims that is such a small distance that it has no noise effect.
• The runway safety project that added a "run away plane" section to the runway called EMAS at the ends of the runway has no noise effect.
• No form of noise barrier exists that would address our complaint as the noise source and the hearing parties need to be very close to the barrier (meaning a few yards not the one to five miles of the plaintiffs' homes).
• Prior legal action means anyone who bought their home after Feb 18, 1980 has no ability to file a claim.  This claim ignores the limits put on that ruling that make it inapplicable if airport traffic increases or configurations change--which they have over almost 40 years.

Oddly enough, the next witness to testify for the defense before we ran out of time Tuesday was the head of the Noise Abatement Center.  While the airport tried to slide through without him taking the stand, the judge insisted he at least take plaintiffs questions so he will return to court on June 11th at 9 am.

Here is the court house door with the plaintiffs' roll.

  

Election 2019: Start Yer Engines

The 2019 city council election that has been idling for a couple of months shifted into gear yesterday with councilwoman Emily Beach's campaign kick-off party.  Beach drew a good crowd of locals and neighboring city elected officials along with Assemblyman Kevin Mullin who provided a strong endorsement for our first term councilmember to be re-elected.  Several of Emily's council assignments have given her exposure to neighboring council members and H'borough, Belmont, Redwood City and Foster City were represented--they actually far outnumbered B'game electeds and commissioners.

Beach's speech emphasized quality of life for all Burlingamers which she noted she thinks of as "casting a wide net" that includes teachers, restaurant workers and the like.  The rezoning of areas in the north end and the development of city lots F &N into senior and affordable housing are intended to improve the "quality of life".  Regular Voice readers know I'm skeptical of dense development ever being enough to change the overall macro climate for the housing/jobs ratio and is more likely to exacerbate the traffic, bike and pedestrian danger, school crowding, water shortages, etc.  But with SB50 looming at least B'game can point to some moderating efforts.  The biggest murmurs of approval from the assembled crowd came with the mention of more parking downtown and the need to fix El Camino Real.  The ECR Task Force was invoked and I really look forward to something actually happening to the pavement--it's taking way too long!  There is a message for every candidate here--fixing known problems takes precedence over adding new things.

Recall I endorsed first-timers Emily (and Donna Colson) last election.  Once we see the full slate of candidates, which right now includes those two and Mike Dunham but may expand further, and we get some sense of positions on the key issues of the day, I'll make another set of endorsements--for whatever they are worth.  Here's Emily Beach addressing her supporters.

BNN: Volunteer Appreciation

The many volunteers who helped make last October's Disaster Preparedness drill a success around town were treated to coffee, doughnut holes and reminders of how well Burlingame is doing (compared to many communities) and how much there is still to be done.  The Saturday morning get together at the main fire station featured the chief, the mayor and several BNN leaders celebrating the many neighborhood drills and reminding everyone of additional opportunities like the CERT and ham radio training coming up on June 1st.  It's a word of mouth marketing exercise and some new neighborhood volunteers were in attendance so this year's drill will be even better.

Yours truly was one of three raffle winners of a disaster kit from Earth Shakes which was great.  If you want one too they are found here.  Here's the crowd listening to Mayor Colson.

Living Next to 101 and SFO

I originally missed this big item on the Planning Commission agenda and in the Daily Journal piece.  

Burlingame officials praised the initial designs of a 265-unit, mixed-use project expected to be the first sizable development constructed in a newly-planned neighborhood.  Burlingame planning commissioners shared their support for the residential and commercial proposal by Summerhill Apartment Communities on the corner of Adrian Court and Adrian Road, according to video of the meeting Monday, May 13.

The project comprised of two, seven-story towers is likely to be the first housing development in the area around Rollins Road, where officials are seeking to build a new residential hub a short distance from the Millbrae train station.

For people (like me) steeped in the history of the telecommunications industry, One Adrian Ct. is an historic property being the first "Technical Operating Center" or TOC for the original SP Telecom network that grew out of the Southern Pacific railroad right of way and evolved into Sprint.  The microwave tower is still on site that provided the original transmission facilities that were later replaced by fiber optics.  More importantly, I have to wonder who is looking at the bigger picture.  The DJ goes on to note

Most of the feedback was similarly positive, but some maintained reservations. One nearby property owner said he feared the traffic and congestion likely invited by the development.

The initial design with 333 bedrooms includes 315 parking spaces so it is "under-parked" like most recent designs but that figure gives you some sense of the traffic from the residents.  You have to wonder what the impact will be on the very busy intersection that has the In-and-Out burger shack along with other traffic generators.  Another question that should be addressed is which elementary school will the kids go to?  Franklin or Lincoln?  The residents will also get a front-row seat to the runway noise from SFO--maybe this is the noise barrier the rest of us have been longing for?   Yes, I'm being sarcastic.