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  • City Council: At least District 3 will be competitive

    The news that council member Michael Brownrigg will not seek re-election in the Fall was made official this week. Voice readers were not surprised as we wrote that more than a month ago, when Michael told me he would make the announcement at the April 6th city council meeting as noted here on the Town Square post. Apparently, that didn’t happen until now as the Daily Journal picked it up yesterday and is highlighting two candidates who will seek the D3 seat. At least we will have one race. We shall see if anyone files to compete with Andrea Pappajohn (D1) or Peter Stevenson (D5) who are both up for re-election on Nov. 3rd.

    The two D3 candidates, Jen Faber and Howard Wettan, are starting earlier than usual driven by the open seat. I know both candidates having met with both one-on-one for more than an hour to talk over local issues as they explored running. Jen Faber and her work with BCE was profiled here and I didn’t write up Howard after we met. Here are a few early thoughts on an early-starting race:

    The move to Five Little Districts we discussed in 2021 here continue to do city governance no favors. In a small city of a shade over 30,000 people, it makes no sense to carve it up in little pieces. First, it takes away 4 of the 5 votes residents used to have. As we are seeing this time around, it also diminishes good candidates’ opportunities to win a seat. Jen and Howard are both strong candidates and, in my opinion, would be uber competitive in a city-wide race against the incumbents up for re-election. But they are corralled into competing just against each other.

    In the meantime, it is quite possible we will have no competitive election in one or both of D1 and D5. Is there really that much difference in issues between little districts? Does anyone feel better represented? I know locals who kind of pay attention and still don’t know who “their” councilmember is. Having to vote every four years instead of every two doesn’t help voter engagement. Nor does it do much for candidate engagement–nobody is knocking on doors outside of their little district.

    Both D3 candidates are strong. Both are committed to B’game. Both have assembled solid endorsements. Both will be sufficiently funded (about the only benefit of little districts is the savings on postage). We shall see how the candidate forums play out and whether people see a clear issues-based choice or vote on person knowledge. At least we will have one race.

    P.S. Michael was appointed to the Planning Commission in 2001–more like 25 years of service, not 16. 

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Why the “Comicle” is comical

    I am occasionally asked why I call the SF Chronicle the Comicle. The question mostly comes from people who don’t subscribe to the Comicle; or any newspaper for that matter. I didn’t make it up; I stole it from one of my journalistic heroes–Herb Caen. Per the Google AI

    • About “The Comicle”: As a master of wit and wordplay, Caen used “The Comicle” to poke fun at his own employer, often highlighting the sometimes chaotic or amusing nature of local journalism.

    Caen used the term more amusedly than I do. I use it to highlight what passes for journalism at a much-degraded paper. You can see the slippage almost every day, but some days it is so blatant that it’s worth highlighting. Today is one of those days as reporter Aidin Vaziri, no Comicle newbie he, wrote the piece on the mayor of Arcadia, CA pleading guilty to being a Chinese spy and resigning. He gives us 20 column inches of “just the facts, ma’am” but leaves out a ton of facts.

    I figured Vaziri would bury the fact that ex-mayor Eileen Wang is a Democrat near the end of the article. I was wrong. He completely buried it: 86’ed it if you will. If she had been a R, it would have been front and center along with some investigative reporting on her major donors, her endorsers, her policy statements, etc. The piece would have been four times as long and then get more of less repeated next week for good measure.

    We would have learned how she used WeChat to communicate with the CCP. We would be treated to photos of her with big wig R politicians, like the ones you can find elsewhere of her with AG Rob Bonta and Sen. Alex Padilla. We would know to whom and how much she donated to other politicians and there would be some digging on where that money came from. The piece would spiral into comparisons with other spy situations (e.g. Feinstein and Swalwell). But not today, not at the Comicle. Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Sobering up in Burlingame instead of San Mateo

    We have not had a Guest Author on the Voice in quite awhile, but when San Matean David Long asked me why I had not weighed in on the “sobering center” controversy I asked him to pen his perspective for us. I wasn’t really paying attention to the issue when it was in San Mateo and he has, as you will read here. The DJ had a piece two days ago that noted

    San Mateo County will purchase a $13 million Burlingame property to hopefully open up a sobering station as soon as possible, house the Pride Center and provide an option for a treatment facility, with supervisor approval Tuesday. The property of more than 2 acres at 818-828 Mahler Road was the former site of First Chance, a 14-bed sobering center operated by since-closed nonprofit StarVista.

    Since First Chance closed, individuals who get arrested for driving under the influence are brought to county jail, rather than a station that promotes wellness and provides offenders with resources and opportunities to rehabilitate. It costs double the amount to house a DUI offender in a county correctional facility than a sobering center.

    Here is David’s perspective on the switch from central San Mateo to Mahler Rd.:

    San Mateo County’s proposed sobering and treatment center at 101 N. El Camino Real has felt like an experiment in how many bad land-use decisions could be shoe-horned into an already congested corridor. 

    • Dense residential neighborhood? Check. 
    • Multiple schools and daycares nearby? Check. 
    • Dense senior housing within walking distance? Check. 
    • Breakneck traffic at a pockmarked El Camino intersection seemingly designed by bumper-car enthusiasts? Absolutely. 

    And yet somehow, this was presented as the “best” location for a large detox and treatment facility projected to generate up to 17,000 annual client trips with 24/7 intake activity?  Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed.

    On Tuesday, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to purchase the former sobering center property on Mahler Road in Burlingame for $13 million. Only a single speaker opposed the purchase. Even the Burlingame City Council – never mistaken for a drum circle – gave Mahler Road unusually ‘high’ marks at its 4/20 meeting. Why? Because Mahler Road makes sense. 

    At two acres, it’s a large parcel in a light industrial and emerging biotech corridor with sparse nearby housing. It sits just one mile from Highway 101 and three miles from Mills-Peninsula Medical Center. Most importantly, it has a long, proven history as a sobering center serving San Mateo County. The Mahler sobering component is expected to open within six months. By comparison, the 101 ECR proposal likely faced a three-to-five-year runway filled with entitlement battles, lawsuits, redesigns, and enough public hostility to power a small city. 

    Burlingame’s Supervisor Jackie Speier deserves enormous credit for recognizing the broader potential of the Mahler site. In addition to treatment services, discussions have included a future home for the San Mateo County Pride Center – which has been without a permanent location since 2024 – as well as possible housing for essential service workers increasingly priced out of the communities they serve.

    Which makes San Mateo’s Supervisor Noelia Corzo’s continued attachment to the 101 ECR location all the more puzzling. This debacle echoes her divisive performance during COVID while serving as SMFCSD’s school board President, where her stubbornness and delays reopening San Mateo public schools were epic. Her tone-deaf obstinacy has triggered a June primary write-in candidate (Taso Zografos) and a recall effort (you heard it here first). 

    At some point, leadership means recognizing when a better option has emerged. Corzo’s four Supervisor colleagues did exactly that. They listened to residents, looked at operational realities, and pivoted toward a faster, cheaper, and far less divisive solution. 

    These are important services that our families, friends and neighbors need ASAP. The Mahler location delivers services quickly and in a location that is well suited for this use. Only time will tell, but San Mateo County appears to be getting this right. 

    David Long is a San Mateo Park resident who continues to view the failed 1909 Burlingame annexation effort of his neighborhood as one of local history’s great missed opportunities.

    —————

    With all the fuss about commercial properties not turning over and thus never being revalued per Prop. 13, my hope is that even if the County did get a deal at $13 million, I hope they are paying full property taxes on the purchase. We shall see how the Broadway overpass handles another 17,000 trips per year. And yes, San Mateo Park would have made a great addition to South B’game. Thanks, David.  I happened by 818 Mahler and snapped this photo. The building really looks like it needs some love.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • BHS: New principal and vice principal arrive

    We like to keep track of who’s who at BHS (and SMUSHD) since there has been some controversy over how the high school has been administered in the past. BHS (and Mills) are key elements in the community spirit of our little city. Per the DJ:


    Peter Alvarez and Lauren Kelly were named as the new principals for Aragon and Burlingame high schools, respectively, by the San Mateo Union High School District Board of Trustees at its meeting last week.

    Kelly served as the vice principal of McDonald High School and the principal of Cabrillo Middle School in the Santa Clara Unified School District since 2023. Prior to that she served as the principal at Freedom High School in Oakley from 2021-23; the assistant director of educational services and the K12 pathway coordinator at Eden Area ROP in Hayward from 2018-21; and the principal of Evergreen Valley High School in San Jose from 2013-18. Kelly has also served as the athletic director and PE teacher at Milken Community School in Los Angeles; and as a math and science teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

    The district also recently announced that Chad Slife was named as vice principal of Burlingame High School. He has more than 23 years of experience in public education and currently works at the San Mateo County Office of Education. Born and raised in Riverside, Slife began his career as a Teach For America Corps Member and has since served as a teacher, a founding assistant principal of a charter middle school, and an elementary school principal for seven years.

    Welcome aboard Lauren and Chad. We wish you well in maintaining and improving the school’s reputation.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Josh Becker: Poor judgement in action

    Last Friday was International Socialists Day aka May Day. One would expect some SF politicians to participate in the random protest here or there because, well, that’s what they do. But would one expect them to protest themselves? Isn’t that peak stupidity/hypocrisy? Apparently understanding that the City and County of SF own and operate SFO airport was above their pay grade. The Chronicle reports

    A May Day protest by airport service workers briefly shut down the departure-level roadway at San Francisco International Airport’s international terminal Friday, diverting traffic as demonstrators rallied over a wage dispute and broader labor concerns.

    Several San Francisco elected officials were arrested after demonstrators blocked the roadway to the international terminal, including Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, Supervisor Connie Chan and former Supervisor Jane Kim. State Sen. Josh Becker, who represents San Mateo County and part of Santa Clara County, was also arrested.

    “San Francisco airport is the people’s airport,” Chan told supporters before her arrest. “We know our workers deserve fair pay, a fair contract, health care and benefits. We’re demanding that the workers get that benefits and fair pay right now.”

    Like I said, plenty of things are apparently above Connie Chan’s pay grade even as she runs for Congress, but what about our own state senator Josh Becker? What exactly caused him to feel it was a good idea to disrupt traffic at SFO while his constituents were trying to catch a flight? Has he taken care of the insurance crisis, the energy and gas prices, water security, and the state’s budget crisis so airport salaries move to the top of the list?

    And in the ultimate finger to her constituents, SF Supe Jackie Fielder who is supposedly on “medical leave” and has not been doing her job as a supervisor for several months was photographed at the protest. You are judged by the company you keep, senator.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Sam’s replacement coming soon

    Word on the street is that after several stunted attempts by the city to lease the old Sam’s Sandwich space in the old Greyhound Depot, a tenant has secured the lease. It’s a small space but having it sit empty for several years has been depressing. Anything we can do to keep our small-town feel is progress.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • High-cost rail – Part 168 Billions more

    The steady drumbeat of bad news just keeps getting worse. This week a new, worst-case number KTLA is reporting a possible hit of $231 billion! They report

    In a newly proposed business plan released this year, project leaders estimate the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco segment will cost about $126 billion, with service beginning around 2040. In the meantime, the state is focused on getting the Bakersfield-to-Merced section up and running earlier, with a target of no later than 2033. All of this falls under what officials are calling an “optimized plan,” which reduces the scope of the original proposal. Under the updated plan, some segments would share tracks with existing systems such as Metrolink, and the number of tunnels would be scaled back, at least for now. Project leaders say those changes could significantly reduce costs. Without them, officials estimate the full Los Angeles-to-San Francisco buildout could have cost as much as $231 billion.

    You would not be wrong to ask why, at this stage of the game, they are still tweaking the design? It’s the shockingly bad management we have some to expect along with the waste noted in Part 167. The latest circus act was reported in the Comicle this week involving Cesar Chavez of all people and his 187-acre monument. The headline read “Add a $1 billion detour for California high-speed rail to Cesar Chavez’s legacy”:

    Add one more twist to the complicated legacy of disgraced civil rights icon Cesar Chavez: A reroute around his grave site has inflated the cost of California’s high-speed rail project by nearly $1 billion. Ironically, Chavez’s monument already sits on a key rail corridor that carries about 36 freight trains each day through the rugged Tehachapi. A single track loops around the property, creating a constant rumble for anyone walking among the Mission-style buildings and courtyards where Chavez lived and organized grape-field workers. Through letters and stakeholder meetings, the Chavez Center and the Cesar Chavez Foundation successfully lobbied for a bespoke alignment called the “refined Cesar Chavez National Monument design option,” which moved the track about three-quarters of a mile away from the monument boundary.  Board directors for the High-Speed Rail Authority adopted the alternative design in 2021, as part of a final environmental impact report for the 80-mile Bakersfield to Palmdale (Los Angeles County) section. Now, some rail authority staff or board members might call for a do-over.

    Here’s the mindset on the Authority Board:

    “We are constantly reviewing decisions that we’ve made along that alignment,” said board director Henry Perea, pointing to other potential revisions, such as the relocation of a future train stop in Merced. Plans that are really lines and dots on draft paper are always subject to change, Perea noted, particularly if policymakers are seeking to save money, or trying to acknowledge a historical wrong.

    Will any gubernatorial candidate with a D after their name have the guts to say we should just cut bait on this monstrosity? We only have a month to go until the primary.

    Posted by:

    Joe

    1 comment on High-cost rail – Part 168 Billions more

  • How we will remember April 2026

    The month started with a prank and ends with sorrowful tear.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Water Rate$: Feel the tip of the nozzle

    I knew what was coming when I opened this morning’s Comicle and saw the front-page headline: “S.F. water and sewer rates may rise in July.” As an avid water-watcher and a firm believer in the phrase “when EssEff sneezes, B’game gets a cold” I knew it wasn’t just S.F. rates they were talking about. And indeed, going to the Comicle website to grab a couple of snippets delivered a much more accurate headline: “San Francisco is about to hike up water rates — and much of the Bay Area will feel it” And feel it we will.

    San Francisco is planning to sharply raise water and sewer rates over the coming decade, beginning with a nearly 25% projected bump in residential bills over the next two years, as the growing cost of maintaining the city’s waterworks comes due. This summer, the average single-family household bill for combined water and sewer service will increase from $171 a month to $189 a month, and next summer it will rise to $212 a month, according to estimates in the rate-hike proposal scheduled for approval next week. Officials expect that utility rates will continue to climb through at least 2036, though at varying levels.

    We are a wholesale customer of SFPUC and the Hetch Hetchy feed for most of our water which you can read about from my tour last year here. If they go up, we go up.

    The SFPUC’s water, in addition to serving San Francisco, goes to about two dozen wholesalers in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Alameda counties. The water rate for these suppliers is set to increase 7.4% this summer, compared to a 2.3% rise last year. 

    After the Comicle covered the improvements needed in the city, our shared part was revealed

    Smaller, yet significant outlays are going toward water supply projects, including repairs to the 19-mile Mountain Tunnel and replacement of the century-old Moccasin Penstocks, both of which are in the Sierra Nevada and are critical for San Francisco’s long-distance water deliveries.

    All this infrastructure costs money, but some groups think SFPUC is spending too much

    At least two environmental groups are calling on the SFPUC to go further. The Sierra Club’s San Francisco Bay chapter and the Yosemite Rivers Alliance, formerly Tuolumne River Trust, want the agency to re-evaluate its water supply needs, believing the city has long overestimated its demand and consequently overbuilt its infrastructure. The Yosemite Rivers Alliance and Sierra Club have asked the SFPUC to downgrade a worst-case water scenario that it plans for — a severe drought lasting roughly 8 years — arguing that this event is highly improbable and requires amassing too much water.

    But we know from our own Urban Water Management Plan flaws that just because they say they are planning for an 8-year drought doesn’t mean anything real is happening–even over a 5-year scenario. I won’t retype the real story but rather just point you to the infamous Table 7-6 described here. We are creeping up on the deadline for the every-five-years revision, and we have a new Public Works director so we shall see if 7-6 gets a real update. Either way, our checkbooks will be lighter soon for at least the next 10 years……

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • California Dr: From bad to worse

    Now that the El Camino Real project, The Little Big Dig, is in full swing things have gone from bad to worse on the reroute path–California Dr. It was unpopular two years ago as we noted here. But now with the additional volume it’s downright frustrating. The bike lane seldom has even one biker on it. Turning left out of Floribunda or Douglas has become perilous due to the steadier flow of traffic. The cars parked alongside the bike lane all seem to know how to protect their mirrors and doors by parking as close to the bollards as possible. And the mostly empty middle turn lane beckons to drivers like the sirens of Greek mythology calling sailors to the rocks.

    I know it’s hopeless, but I can’t help but wish things would just Go Back To The Way They Were on California. In the meantime, if you must park on the Caltrain side, do as the locals do. Squeeze in.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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