The Burlingame Voice

Scenes of destruction from LA

At this moment I'm sitting in West Maui, in the Kahana-Napili area, looking out at Molokai and Lanai while watching some video of the Pacific Palisades devastation.  A one-minute driving clip on X is eerily reminiscent of a clip from a local friend who was authorized to drive through Lahaina after the August 8, 2023 fire that killed 101 people.  A year and a half later one still cannot go into the center of Lahaina--Front Street.  Another friend got close this week and saw that some rubble is just now being bulldozed and hauled away.  In January of 2025.  Hazmat.  Insurance.  Cell service.  Coastal restrictions.  Equipment.  Cost.  All will be in play in LA, too.

Oakland 1991 comes to mind.  Paradise, CA.  Chico.  Several more in remote parts of the Sierra.  It's on-going and fully predictable.  Joe Rogan relayed an LA firefighter predicting the exact magnitude of the Palisades fire his podcast last July!  I'm really hoping this old Voice post doesn't end up being another predictable concern come true.

And of course there is the air pollution of each blaze.  The Merc notes:

Massive plumes from multiple fires in Los Angeles County are choking the region’s skies and sending air quality to dangerous levels. Thursday morning Los Angeles had an AQI of 182, considered “unhealthy,” and currently among the worst in the world. The smoke was so dense that it was captured in satellite photos.

Current forecasts through Saturday show most of the smoke from the wildfires wafting out into the ocean and making a weak return back to the coast as far north as Monterey.

Tell me again how ripping out a high-efficiency furnace/water heater and a gas stovetop that gets a half hour of use most weeks is really important, but actually planning and executing wildfire prevention just never seems to rise to the top of Big Politicians priority list?

Pain plugging in: Electric rates burn holes in wallets

The Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) is out with details regarding something we all know from paying PG&E every month.  Costs are up, up, up.  Specifically:

California’s electricity rates are among the highest in the country,” the Legislative Analyst’s Office reported. On average, residential electricity rates in California are close to double those in the rest of the nation.  Average residential electricity rates in California have grown faster than inflation in recent years, rising by about 47% over the four-year period from 2019 through 2023 compared to overall growth in prices of about 18%,” according to the report.  Only Hawaii has higher electricity rates than California, the report determined.

The LAO pins this on:

• Increasing stringency of greenhouse gas emission reduction laws for the electricity grid.
• Accommodating more electricity demand from electrification.
• Growing demand for funding to support state climate policies. 
• Wildfire-related costs.

One of the preeminent energy economists in the world, Bjorn Lomborg, who we profiled here is also back with an update in the WSJ titled "Green energy costs a bundle" that notes a study of 70 countries' costs shows:

In a country with little or no solar and wind, the average electricity cost is about 12 cents a kilowatt-hour (in today’s money). For every 10% increase in solar and wind share, the electricity cost increases by more than 5 cents a kilowatt-hour. This isn’t an outlier; these results are substantially similar to 2019, before the effects of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

Germany has installed so much solar and wind that, on sunny and windy days, renewable energy satisfies close to 70% of Germany’s needs—a fact the press eagerly reports. But the press hardly mentions dark and still days, when these renewables deliver almost nothing. Twice in the past two months, when it was cloudy and nearly windless, solar and wind delivered less than 4% of the daily power Germany needed.  Current battery technology is insufficient. Germany’s entire battery storage runs out in about 20 minutes.

The SF Chronicle looked at the other side of the story last week as new buy-back rates from PG&E et al take a bite out of green ambitions in California:

In late 2022, state regulators voted to slash the level of that payment by around 75% to bring it closer to market prices. With the electricity they produce worth far less, rooftop panels suddenly didn’t make as much financial sense.

Beyond the impact on customers’ pocketbooks, the change devastated California’s solar industry when it went into effect in April 2023, prompting a huge drop in home and business panel installations, wiping out thousands of jobs, and forcing local installers to shrink or close up shop altogether.

That would be 17,000 vaporized jobs to be more specific.  Competing studies assert that non-solar customers are subsidizing solar customers--or vice versa.  What is undeniable is that a bunch of people who would have plunked down tens of thousands of dollars of their own money to contribute to green energy generation have changed their minds.  I would attribute it to the Law of Unintended Consequences, but it was so obvious that it has to be intentional.  Does anyone in Sacramento care to listen to the LAO? 

New Year: Same El Camino...or worse

The calendar has turned over to 2025, but things are not improving on El Camino.  I just happened to make the round-trip from the southern edge of B'game to the northern edge and it's a mess.  Due to the New Year's mid-week holiday, the delivery trucks (Amazon, UPS, FedEx, Sysco, etc) are clogging up the traffic flow by taking the right lane away.  Nothing new there.

What is new is how many new potholes have appeared.  Some blame the rains.  Some blame the prior poor patch jobs.  SamTrans buses pounding the pavement?  How about all of the above.  My less-than-scientific wild guess is there are about 400 potholes on our section of the King's Road.  The King should be ashamed of himself.  Maybe Caltrans is thinking why fix anything when we are planning to tear it all up anyway, but the section just south of B'game in San Mateo isn't any better.  Here's a reminder that somewhere on ca.gov you can ask for money to repair damage to your car from the road.  I've never tried it, but I hear it is possible.  In the meantime, we all suffer with the Peasant's Road.  Here is the new emblem of ECR that replaces the Mission bells.

 

Boxes of news or... of nothing

I love the hardcopy Daily Journal and Daily Post.  I search them out so much that my wife makes fun of me for it.  In B'game the DJ is easy to find, the Post not so much.  I won't reveal the few boxes in town where the Post can often be found.  Down in Palo Alto, the powers that be want to get rid of newspaper boxes on University Ave. in an effort to "beautify" the main shopping district.  The Post runs the ad below highlighting the threat to the First Amendment.

The ad notes that Palo Alto already has a municipal code allowing the removal of unused boxes and there in is the rub in Palo Alto; and here in B'game.  I don't know if we have a similar code on the books, but I do know it's not being enforced.  Check out the line-up of boxes on Primrose.  A couple Epoch Times' boxes around town occasionally have the paper, but not this one that has no coin slot.  The beat-up maroon one next to it never has anything but trash and a lonely phone book or two.  It has siblings all over town in the same condition.  The red one might have been an SF Examiner box at one point, but Examiner boxes all over town have been empty for years.  This DJ box is filled daily as are all of them in B'game.  Thank you, guys, gold star!  This Post box hardly ever gets filled.  And there are other Post boxes in B'game that never get papers.  I don't think the City should be responsible for removing them--the companies should, unless they are out of business.  Then the City should take them to the trash heap.  Let's beautify B'game, one boxectomy at a time.  Candidates clutter the sidewalks across from Mints & Honey, in front of the Capuchino post office, along California Dr., and Mollie's sidewalk.  I could go on.

P.S.  How funny is it to have three mailboxes lined up literally across the street from our sad little post office?  I bet they are a vestige of when we had the beautiful post office on Park Rd.  Let's yank two of those as well.

Total Cost of Homeownership: Not just the cost of the house

For all the talk about our "housing crisis", there is little media or politician discussion about what makes housing expensive here or many, many other places.  The build-our-way-out of it people, like the YIMBYs, just focus on the four walls.  As the letter writer below noted, it's tiresome.  It's also myopic.  The WSJ chimes in today with a piece titled "Insurance and Taxes Now Cost More Than Mortgages for Many Homeowners: Ballooning expenses rewrite the math of homeownership".  The piece zeroes in on home insurance, flood/fire insurance, property taxes and home repair costs and shows

These ballooning expenses are rewriting the math of homeownership. In September, 32% of the average single-family mortgage payment went to property taxes and home insurance, the highest rate ever for data going back to 2014, according to Intercontinental Exchange.  For a small but increasing share of households, the burden is far more significant. In five major metro areas—Rochester and Syracuse, N.Y.; Omaha, Neb.; New Orleans and Miami—at least a quarter of borrowers spend more than half their monthly mortgage payment on taxes and insurance, according to ICE. 

These metro areas have high property taxes or pricey home insurance relative to typical home costs, or both.  Nationwide, taxes and insurance make up more than half of the monthly mortgage payment for 9% of single-family mortgages. That is up from less than 4% at the end of 2014. 

Left out of the equation because of how the study gathered data are the other costs--electricity, natural gas, garbage, sewer/water and bond measures for schools and anything else the politicians can dream up (looking at you Caltrain and sea level rise).  A major variable will always be interest rates, but all of these other factors just pile on and increases get waved through regularly.

One could even argue the YIMBY mentality will make it all worse.  More grid, more water, more sewage treatment, more classrooms, more, more, more.  Decarbonize your house in the next 10 years?  That won't be easy or cheap as we noted here.  Looking at all of the costs in total reveals the real story--not the faddish one.

Lot Why: Some parking spots are busier than others

The Broadway business district was humming this afternoon in spite of the overcast and drizzle.  Four days before Christmas and Hanukkah is "peak shopping time".  I made four stops that took about an hour including two trips back to my car, so the scene below wasn't just a single instance anomaly.  The gas guzzler spaces were packed.  You remember how tight the Lot Y lane is between the two parking rows next to Pick of the Litter when both sides are full.  Even in a mid-size sedan, backing out of a space is a two or three-cut process.  Maybe it is the rain, but my meter took my coins, flashed green, but failed to display how much time I just bought.  It's ticket roulette.

Many people were looking longingly at the EV spaces.  I didn't have the heart to look at each charger to see if they were operational--I sort of know the answer already based on this post two weeks ago.  As the "Daylighting" ordinance goes into effect with fines starting Jan 1, parking spots will get incrementally rarer.  Just wait until 19 spaces go EV-only in Lot K between Safeway and Walgreen's.  Perhaps Santa will bring the city a few shrouds to cover broken chargers that read "Open to all vehicles for free".  It's on my list.

The Conductor at work on ECR

Not only is today the Winter Solstice and thankfully the days start to get longer, but I heard on the radio that today is "National Homeless Persons' Memorial Day".  Somber times two one supposes.  It's a time and a season for contemplating one's year, one's home and family, one's accomplishments and how our community evolved this year.  So it was appropriate that I was able to snap this photo today amidst a cloudy, rainy, pothole ridden El Camino trip through town.

I call this guy "The Conductor" because he can be seen often standing on a podium made from a eucalyptus stump waving his arms as if the San Francisco Symphony were seated on the King's Road in front of him.  Only a baton and a tux are missing.  I have no idea if he's actually homeless, but I've heard he gets an occasional wellness check; and yet is still conducting regularly.  I wish him well.  I hope he has a place to get dry and warm and mostly I hope he accepts such an offer when made--if not, there are options.

Pushing back on the YIMBYs

From the "broken clock is right twice a day" file comes this Letter to the Editor of the SF Comicle.  Somehow the editors let this one slip through the cracks and into print.  I don't know the woman or the organization, but she hits pretty much every button right on the nose:

YIMBY housing fantasies won’t work in California. Here’s the reality

Regarding “There’s no protecting California values without building more housing” (Open Forum, SFChronicle.com, Dec 13): The steady drumbeat of op-ed pieces from SPUR and YIMBY housing advocates is tiresome. Many Californians disagree with them.  Urban density and infill housing are supposed to remedy suburban sprawl. But urban density, in practice, simply creates overcrowded streets, with motorists circling in search of rare parking.   Infill comes at the expense of historic buildings and districts, which are often demolished. A classic example is the enormous apartment buildings planned for the former California College of the Arts campus in Oakland.

Transit-oriented development? This fantasy assumes that public transportation is a fixed utility. Many bus lines that once served our communities have been cut.  How many voters will oppose a tax to support BART because of the agency’s plans to put apartments in its parking lots? How many people have quit taking BART because there is no secure place to park near the stations?

The SPUR and YIMBY people want Soviet-style apartment blocks wherever they can be crammed in, extinguishing every vestige of charm from neighborhoods.  It’s time for the state to stop forcing draconian “density bonus” and “builder’s remedy” laws on neighborhoods that want to retain some breathing room.

Amelia Marshall

Board member, Oakland Heritage Alliance

Amen, Amelia.  Look no further than our latest Cellblock at One Adrian Ct.  It may not extinguish any charm in the neighborhood since it sits next to a Public Storage business, but you can bet it will raise traffic thru the Worst Intersection in the State and put pressure on all sorts of public services.  Did the grid get any major upgrade?  School capacity?  Did we hire another police officer for traffic enforcement?  Anything thing else listed here?  Keep up the good work, Ms. Marshall.  You are far from alone.

City Council: Old (i.e. tenured) and New

Last night's city council swearing in and rotation session mimicked those of the past--and I've been to a lot of 'em.  Real locals who are invested in the community show up along with a variety of county pols and their support staffs.  The pols have varying levels of "investment" in B'game.  Speechifying happens--some good, some eh.  I will have a few posts to follow with more specifics about what transpired over the two-plus hours, but this photo I took before the proceedings proceeded says a lot about transitions.

Pictured are the newly elected, first-time city council woman, Desiree Thayer, who was in chambers; standing in front of a screen with our longest serving council member, Michael Brownrigg, who was travelling and attending via video.  Times have changed.  The B'gamer on the street has always been a bit removed from who is on council at the moment, who is the mayor, and who is spearheading which issue.  District elections make it even less clear and convincing.  Desiree wins the seat with 1,259 votes.  I'll bet more than half of B'gamers can't ID their district rep--or even their district.  We have Sacramento Stupidity to thank for this maze, but on a classic night of swearing to the US and State Constitutions-"against all enemies Foreign and Domestic"--the mood was positive and even a bit traditional.  Here are Desiree and Michael "side by side".

 

High Cost Rail - Part 163 The DOGE commeth

There are multiple news reports that relay and expand on Vivek Ramaswamy's tweet about our very own high-cost rail boondoggle.  As co-head of the DOGE, he's got some pull to make things happen--or in this case, hopefully to make things not happen.  Regular Voice readers who are familiar with the first 162 posts on our boondoggle, know the ugly truth.  The project is mired in an expensive quagmire.  It's original questionable value just keeps sinking.  Here is a three-and-a-half-year-old reminder.  The DOGE tweet notes

Late last month Ramaswamy pointed out on X that “This is a wasteful vanity project, burning billions in taxpayer cash, with little prospect for completion in the next decade. President Trump correctly rescinded ~$1BN in federal funds for this boondoggle in 2019, but Biden reversed that & doubled down. Time to end the waste.”

The California Globe digs a bit deeper on the numbers

This led to Thursday when proposed DOGE co-Commissioners Ramaswamy and Elon Musk were in Washington talking to GOP leadership about the proposed DOGE. Potential targets were discussed, with California High Speed rail being one of them, along with Medicare, Social Security and electric vehicle subsidies.

While California lawmakers have yet to publicly respond to a possible cut of all federal funds for the high speed rail project as of Friday afternoon, critics of the high speed rail plan have said that federal cuts of that magnitude would put the project in a real bind, perhaps even delaying opening of it further into the 2030s.

“If DOGE does become reality and they deliver on their promise on getting rid of all federal funding for the project, then the state will have to deal with that shortfall,” transportation industry accountant Derrick Clark told the Globe Friday. “Right now, the project is trying to get $4.7 billion in federal grants to stay at their current spending levels. Biden is likely to get them $200 million of that before leaving office, leaving it up to Trump to approve the other $4.5 billion in grants. And that he is likely not going to do, especially if DOGE highlights that.

High-cost rail is such low-hanging fruit for a early DOGE win that I cannot see any way that another $4.5B gets released.  The next question is how does Newsom react?  He's termed out in 2026, so reputational protection is pretty much his 24-hour raison d'etre at this point.  One lame duck should kill the other.

EV Chargers: On the blink in Lot Y

The bloom is off the EV market for a variety of reasons.  Unit growth is slowing dramatically.  Now that early adopters have made their purchases, the mainstream buyers' reluctance to go all-electric is hitting home hard with car companies, parts suppliers, battery factories and infrastructure players.  A number of EV start-ups will likely go bankrupt by summer according to the WSJ analysis and the big manufacturers are losing their rear bumpers on every sale.  Some to the tune of more than a $100,000 loss per sale!  Ironically, sales of high-end gas pickups and SUVs are propping up companies' EV divisions!

Range anxiety is one of the key causes of EV reluctance--and it is helping the hybrid market accordingly.  My only experience with a Tesla rental drove that anxiety home as I got about half of what the range gauge estimated.  Paying the supercharger rate wasn't dramatically cheaper than gas in the state I rented in.  Heightening range anxiety is charger malfunctions and vandalism (stealing the copper filler wire for scrap value).  Malfunctions are a national problem (estimated to be one in five) and very much a local issue as reported by the DJ this weekend:

In Burlingame’s Broadway District, continued issues with its electric vehicle charging stations are inconveniencing businesses and residents alike, Broadway Burlingame Business Improvement District president John Kevranian said.   A representative for EVgo, which owns and operates the six fast-charging electric vehicle stations located at 1133 Chula Vista Ave., confirmed that five of the six stations have likely been out of operation at times for a couple of months. One has been out of operation for weeks, she said.

Now, however, eight parking spots in the tightly packed Broadway District have become largely nonfunctional.   “This is the holiday season, too. It’s crucial these work during the holiday season. If EVgo is not going to repair them, maybe they can cover the stations, and use them as public parking,” Kevranian said.

John is on-the-money with the idea of covering a charger if it is broken so everyone could see that they can use the space.  Given they don't have meters, it would be a freebie, too. The sad part is that EVgo cannot keep chargers working that only went live in 2019, as we noted here.  The DJ piece notes that EVgo may not be complying with the city contract.  I'd say that is a safe bet, but did we negotiate any performance penalties?  Usage in Lot Y ramped up pretty slowly as we noted here, but random outages are likely to stunt future usage.  Anxiety is bad for business.

The Tsunami that wasn't: Lessons learned

It was an exciting morning.  I just happened to be outside talking to a buddy whose tsunami knowledge was unknown to me when his phone went off about 10:45 am.  I got nothing on my phone, but he started making a plan since he knew a "warning" is the highest level of four notices that are issued.  Listening to him, I was concerned for the coastal areas covered in the warning; from the area of the 7.0 undersea earthquake off Ferndale down to Davenport on the PCH.  I was skeptical that it would be an issue here on the west side of B'game.  Nonetheless it was time to turn on the local TV news station that was in Breaking News mode.  There was a second quake north of Sacramento that registered a 6.0, the BART tube was shut down and SFO was landing flights as normal while noting the runways are only 13 feet above sea level.

The warning was in effect until 11:49 am-- an hour after the quake hit.  My knowledgeable buddy took off--I didn't ask where, but he mumbled something about "uphill".  The TV experts from SFFD, National Weather Service and some quake center were talking Go-Bag and getting up to 100 feet of elevation.  Traffic on eastbound 92 was bumper to bumper.  I was still skeptical of any tsunami squeezing through the Golden Gate, wrapping around the Bay and pushing water past maybe our Bayfront.  There's a reason Laguna Ave. is named Laguna Ave.  After watching the YouTube documentary on the Japan tsunami of 2011 my friend recommended, a second thought or two has crept in.

I have to wonder why the SMC Alert didn't hit my phone until 11:49 am, an hour after the quake and then was deemed not a danger at 12:10 pm?  It turns out that a 7.0 quake, while big in town, isn't considered to be big enough to cause a major tsunami.  Is there such a thing as a minor tsunami?  Let's hope SMC alert and the quake shake apps are working as designed.