The Burlingame Voice

ECR: The Renewal Project Goes off the Rails

This is a tough post for me to write.  That's why it has taken me two weeks to write it since the Caltrans virtual meeting about the El Camino Real Roadway Renewal project on July 14th.  I really want to see some things fixed on ECR as noted here, here here and here.  But sometimes the cure can be worse than the illness and from what I heard, this is one of those times.  The virtual meeting had numerous presenters each with their own piece of the project, but the overarching view was obscured by bureaucracy and over-regulation along with some over-engineering.  We heard about this "once in a generation project" which is an understatement--a generation is 20-30 years--and while the project may take half of that to complete (certainly more than the 2 years stated), we will be living with the results for much longer---if it happens.

Caltrans presented three options:  the No Build alternative, the Roadway rehab without undergrounding the utilities and the Roadway rehab with undergrounding.  At least the horrendous "road diet" option reducing regular users to one lane in each direction with a center turn lane and all sorts of other goodies for people who don't actually drive on ECR is "not viable".  The good news ends there, because once the anti-eucalyptus forces start drooling over the two Roadway rehab options, we are headed for a dramatic changes that will take years to recover.  PG&E and the city council want the utilities underground.  I'm still not sure why when you consider the historic, nationally-registered eucalyptus grove will be a casualty of that move.  The renderings of what a denuded ECR would look like were all "20 years post-build" and even after 20 years still looked like a sad shell of the canopy we have now.  One astute questioner noted that they drive south on ECR every weekday morning and there are several months of the year when the sun is directly in the eyes of drivers.  Only the towering eucs make for a partial sun shield that surely makes for safer driving and pedestrian crossings.  Been there, experienced that.  And it's not just sun blindness--remember this incident?

Given how long it took to take out just one eucalyptus at Howard Ave. a couple years ago (about a week), we could be faced with a year or more of horrific traffic closures as there are 390 of them in the tree rows.  The claim is that only 3% of them are in "good condition".  And yet they go on year after year with minimal incidents.  It seems like selective replacement as we have been doing is better than a wholesale removal and replacement with 7 to 14' trees.

As for the rough sidewalks pushed up by tree roots, one of the Caltrans personnel finally said what I have been thinking for years-- why not just "bridge over slightly raised roots".  It is apparently allowed and would work in the places that are not too bad.  Throw in some serious digging at the 4 or 5 known flooding areas to clear roots and debris and rebuild the drains and you have what I would call a "Light Build alternative".  Public comment can be made at www.ElCaminoRealProject.com until next Monday, August 2nd.  I'm not sure it will do much good at this point, but a light build is all we need.

The Burlingame Voice is Now Legal

Happy 18th birthday to the Voice.  Being 18 years old used to be the adult demarcation--the draft, marriage, legal alcohol purchases and the like.  With the juvenilization of society you could argue that 21 is now the demarcation, but let's go with 18 for now.  As I was thinking about what to highlight that is different from last year's 17th anniversary, I was stumped.  Then I read today's SF Comicle Pink section article about some lame Netflix show that has been in their top-watched list for a week or more.  People are apparently "hate-watching" it.  According to the Pink

“Hate-watching could be seen as an act of active critical viewing — viewers want to actively participate and have a say, rather than simply absorbing,” said Jeffrey Skoller, associate professor at the film and media department at UC Berkeley.  “I think viewers these days are more sophisticated than the media that’s been given to them,” Skoller said. “They understand that certain narrative elements are cliché, and there’s a pleasure in picking up on that.” Camacho adds that while media professionals like herself can give a detailed explanation about why a show doesn’t work, everyday viewers, too, have become adept in finding narratives that “don’t make sense” or spotting directorial decisions that are lazy and annoying.  Unlike the genre of camp, which assumes a degree of irony and self-awareness, hate-watched shows normally take themselves seriously, which only adds to the fun.

That pretty much sums up why I still pay the SF Comicle money to land in my driveway every morning.  It's "hate-reading".  It's fodder for the Voice.  I use critical reading skills rather than simply absorbing their drivel.  More sophisticated than the lightweights writing the drivel?  Check.  Narratives that are cliché?  Check.  Take pleasure in picking up on that (i.e. picking it apart)?  Check.  Finding "narratives that don't make sense"?  Check.  Spotting "directorial decisions" -- meaning editorial decisions -- that don't make sense?  Check.  Lazy and annoying?  Check.  Does the SF Comicle take itself seriously?  Oh my, double check.

There is a lesser amount of that in our local press.  I give the Daily Post a lot of credit in this regard, I just wish they would actually put the paper in the empty blue boxes that have been all over town for years.  The Daily Journal is good too--not as critical when it could be, but good.  In the meantime, visit here for free.  Enjoy it, hate it, laugh at it, think about it.  What evah.

B'game Jazz Mecca

The full moon bracketed by Saturn and Jupiter was not the only awesome sight in B'game last night.  One of the coolest dudes in B'game did it again last night.  Andrew Speight had his House of Bop swinging in a tribute concert to Cannonball Adderley and Nancy Wilson who recorded a seminal LP together back in 1961.  Andrew is "chief cook and bottle washer" at his events--he's promoting them, setting up the sound and video for streaming on his Facebook page, delivering in-depth backgrounds on the songs and artists and.....and playing the alto sax like a pro.  He let everyone know that the LP being featured was the first female vocalist fronting a small combo that made it to vinyl.  Just awesome to see and there were a couple of B'game restaurant owners in the small audience last night which might lead to some public gigs.  One can only hope.

As Andrew noted last night, a great way to build a great jazz combo is to start with the drummer.  It's the loudest instrument and if the drummer doesn't like you he can drown you out!  We were graced with a true legend on drums last night.  As Roy McCurdy's web page notes

McCurdy worked with the Mangione Brothers group (Chuck and Gap Mangione) in the early 60’s and later joined the Art Farmer Jazztet and then went with Sonny Rollins. Following Sonny Rollins he became a full time member of the Cannonball Adderley Quintet from the mid-60’s, traveling internationally with the group, including a particularly successful tour of South America in 1972.

Who better to set the beat for two hours of Cannonball's music?  With David Wong as the other half of the rhythm section and  Terrell Stafford blowing hard on trumpet, and Matthew Clark on the piano all that was needed was the vocalist who could deliver the Nancy Wilson feel.  Tiffany Austin was on it and added the fine feel and tone that was needed.  Here's McCurdy and Stafford.

  

Koonin - Part 2 Some definitions

After introducing Steven Koonin's new book here in Part 1, let's start the overview of it with some of the key definitions one needs to understand to even begin getting a grip on The Science.  Starting back in college stats class:

Every measurement of the physical world has an associated uncertainty interval (usually denoted by the Greek letter sigma: σ).  We can't say what the measurement's true value is precisely, only that it is likely to be within a range specified by σ.  Thus we might say the global mean surface temperature in 2016 was 14.85^o C with a σ of o.o7^o C.  That is there is a two-thirds chance that the true value is between 14.78 and 14.92^o C.  The measured annual increase of 0.04^o C between 2015 (14.81 +/- 0.07^o C) and 2016 is insignificant since it is smaller than the uncertainties--about half as large.  The media might well still scream "Temperatures Continue to Rise, either out of ignorance or to capture readers' attention.

Next, "weather" does not equal "climate".  A location's climate is the average of its weather over decades.  The UN's World Meteorological Organization defines climate as a thirty-year average, although some climate researchers will sometimes discuss averages over a period as short as ten years.  So changes in the weather from one year to the another do not constitute changes in the climate.

Alas, it isn't easy to measure the surface temperature over the whole earth, particularly when you are looking for changes of a fraction of a degree over decades.  You have to worry  about variations in the thermometers themselves, how they're housed, and exactly where they're located.  And even if a station hasn't been move over the years, urbanization around a site is a concern, since buildings, roads, and concentrated human activity make cities a few degrees warmer than their rural surroundings.

The global temperature anomaly is the deviation of the average daily temperature from its expected value, averaged over each day of the year and over the whole globe.  The rate of rise was twice as large as our 0.09^o C/decade long-term average during the forty years from 1980 to 2020 (0.02^o C) while it was negative during the forty years from 1910 to 1940 (-0.05^o C/decade).

That is just a little warm-up to the types of details, Koonin adds to the discussion.  The bit about measurement uncertainty is something I have known for years, but he really crystalizes it with the numbers.  As he looks at the models that are the source of the forecasts, we have to keep the uncertainty intervals in mind.

My Gubernatorial Pipe Dream

Today was the last day to file papers to replace Gavin Newsom as governor of California.  I did not get my paperwork in as planned.  Ever since Arnold bested a field of 135 candidates to replace Gray Davis in 2003, I have regretted not throwing my hat in the ring.  But I was busy back then.  What could be more fun than a "gadfly" run at the governor's mansion?  More importantly, for $4,200 anyone could have their candidate's statement printed in the voter guide and mailed to all 20.9 million registered voters in the state.  That is a bargain!

I didn't get around to filing today, but I did write my candidate's statement.  Here you go:

Day 1:  I will kill the High-speed rail project saving California taxpayers $100+ billion.  Newsom knows it is the right thing to do, but cannot buck Big Labor.

Day 2:  I will redirect all available infrastructure funding to our water systems and new storage.  We cannot address housing until we have sufficient water security for the population and businesses that are already here.  Our best defense against climate change is a lot more trees that need water.

Day 3:  I will quadruple our wildfire firefighting capabilities by redirecting much of our $105 billion budget surplus to personnel and equipment.  There is no excuse for being surprised 5 years in a row and we need those trees, not the pollution from the wildfires.  It's a no-brainer.

Day 4:  I will sign an executive order guaranteeing Californians easy, cost-effective access to all sources of energy including natural gas, gas for cars, propane and nuclear power without limitation.  Existing local restrictions will be invalidated, and the existing solar credits and net metering will continue.

Day 5:  I will clear the way for single-family residential zoning to stay single-family residential zoning.  These neighborhoods are the backbone of our communities and need to be safeguarded.  There is plenty of R2 and R3 zoning to meet our near term housing needs.

Day 6:  I will issue a series of RFPs to upgrade the primitive computer systems at the EDD, the DMV, the court system and the voter registration system while recouping the $30+ billion of EDD fraud that Newsom seems to have forgotten about.

Day 7:  I will issue an executive order that reinforces cities’ and town’s rights to have at-large city council and school board elections when they have less than 100,000 residents.  Postage stamp-sized governance is not good governance.

Then I will have dinner at the French Laundry. I will pay for my own dinner and no lobbyists will be invited.  Breakfast at Alana's the next morning and then back to work.  There is plenty more to be done.  When you read that voter's guide before September 14, you know what to look for!  I appreciate the people who previewed my agenda and offered to host a coffee for me.  That and $30 million would have done the trick :-)

Visiting Hawk: Calm, Cool and Collected

I was surprised when this hawk swooped in and landed on my patio umbrella last night.  He was calm, cool and collected as he surveyed the yard for dinner for about five minutes.  A true bird of prey.  Even when I walked out the door and stood about 20 feet away, he just stared me down for more than a minute.  I kept the Dachshund inside while I snapped the photo!

Koonin - Part 1 "Unsettled" is Required Reading

I've just finished reading the most important climate change book available today.  Steven Koonin's Unsettled addresses "what climate science tells us, what it doesn't, and why it matters".  Koonin was a professor at CalTech for 30 years, provost for 10 of those years, chief scientist at BP focused on renewable energy technologies, Undersecretary for Science at the Department of Energy in the Obama Administration and is now a professor at NYU.

His book uses available data from many government and academic sources and applies his cross-functional knowledge in physics, computer modelling, statistics, climate science, etc to understand what the data tells us--and more importantly, what it doesn't tell us.  Over 14 chapters, his analysis is devastating to "The Science" that our politicians and climate activists claim is all settled.  By eliminating the cherry picking of data that occurs via selecting narrow windows of time or geography, adding the statistical confidence intervals to measurements that get headlines and noting the counterbalancing effects of some forms of emissions Koonin shows that the media (and some unscrupulous academics and government agencies) are misleading the public.

The book is technical as it must be, but he has written it for the general public so it's very readable if you have some basic knowledge of chemistry, physics and math--mostly statistics.  I've listed this post as Part 1 because I plan to serialize some parts of the book.  Here in B'game we have banned natural gas in new construction, begun worrying about sea level rise, promoted electric cars and issued warnings about all sorts of natural disasters supposedly related to climate change.  Before we get too far into these restrictions and expenses wouldn't it be good to know more about how human activity is really affecting the climate.

Avenue Parking Tightens Up

I'm lucky that I seldom park on or around the Avenew.  I just walk over and walk back when I need something and I end up doing that almost everyday.  I have noticed that with the parklets taking up a ton of spaces (60 to 70 was the original estimate) and the big parking garage yet to open that aggressive driving maneuvers are on the uptick.  A friend mentioned that while he ate on the Ave in one of the parklets, he saw four cars pull U-turns or left turns to park on the opposite side (which is illegal too) to grab a space.  Add in the 10 minute pick-up-only spaces on the Ave and B'way and it's a "goat rodeo" out there during peak times.  The 10 minute spaces can't possibly be monitored very closely, but I have seen regular parking enforcement return.

 

Living the Jazz Dream in B'game

I recently met one of the coolest cats in town.  He's an accomplished alto sax player, the artistic director of the Manly Jazz Festival in Australia and a live/streaming promoter.  And he's doing it all from B'game!  Andrew Speight is a whirlwind of energy and what people like to call resilience these days.  Persistence fits his passion for jazz. He's turned his living room into a little jazz club complete with a grand piano, lighting, amps, and everything one needs to stream shows on his Facebook page which he has done every Sunday afternoon for more than a year.

A few people get to see the shows live and I was lucky enough to fall into an invitation.  Andrew has the connections to bring in name artists (Vince Lateano, Smith Dobson, Sylvia Cuenca were all there playing) and they are chomping at the bit to play just like many of us are chomping at the bit to listen--since April as shown here.  We lost the Savannah Jazz club in San Carlos to the lockdown, but Andrew has created a private version that feels about the same.  Check out his Facebook page for the streams every Sunday at 5pm and a special Saturday night gig on July 24th at 8pm.

Now that the Covid restrictions are off we have the opportunity to start seeing more live music in town.  That has been a challenge for B'game well before the pandemic, but it feels like the appetite is there now and the city entertainment permits can start being issued again, so I'm thrilled to know we have a professional in town with similar hopes and dreams.  I wish my living room looked like this sometime.

Porch Pirates: How Many and How Often?

Like many people in B'game I am getting tired of the porch pirates taking packages at will as shown on Ring videos.  The Ring video from last night that spurred this post noted that it was the third such incident--all stolen shoes.  I guess the homeowner's size matched that of the pirate.  They were probably a ladies' size 7.

Unlike the decoy police cruisers outside of the Apple store that are starting to feel like a good place to rest your Peet's coffee cup, the "bait boxes" that BPD has used have met with some success.  Pre-pandemic I believe they were mainly applied on the Bayfront in hotel parking lots--but that is just my guess.  I think it's past time to implement some "porch pies" in the neighborhoods.  We seem to have plenty of resources to add goofy traffic excitement features and  worry about how much non-existent rainwater we can recapture on city streets; so how about we catch a few petty thieves and ignore Prop. 47 and its $950 limit to really prosecute?

This is not to fault BPD, they follow direction, it is a matter of prioritization by the city council.  Get on it, please.

Saving History One Building at a Time

The city is slowly working its way towards more protections and incentives for preserving local buildings and homes that add to the amazing character of our neighborhoods.  Recently I was talking to a PG&E guy from Menlo Park who came to fix the outage on our street.  He looked up and down the street and was amazed that it was so nice since "they're tearing everything down in Menlo Park".  I said "Yep" and left it at that while feeling sorry for him.  The Draft "Chapter 25.35 - Historic Resources" is winding its way through the process and would represent an upgrade to the existing, limited code just for the central downtown Ave area found on the City website here.

We definitely need this--now more than ever as various local and state-wide forces seek to shred local character with the mistaken idea that it would help "affordability" and would come with no unintended consequences.  Wrong.

The Historic Register has eleven criteria for inclusion and "shall only occur upon request of the property owner" and if officially designated "are eligible for incentives detailed in Section 25.35.080 Preservation Incentives."  Those are the "carrots".  The Planning Commission study session last week focused on the "sticks" as described by the Daily Journal

The Burlingame Planning Commission weighed Monday, June 14, proposals which would punish any homeowner who destroyed a structure identified on the city’s historic registry.  Forcing a property owner to rebuild a replica of the destroyed historic structure or feature then ban any further construction at the site for 20 years was among the repercussions considered. No decision was made at the meeting and the issue will return for more deliberation later.

While the Planning Commission and ultimately the City Council will weigh the sticks, I like to focus on the carrots; like more flexible parking requirements when adding floor space and an extra 25% lot coverage allowance.  In addition, the 1972 Mills Act, named for former state senator James Mills of San Diego who passed away in March, offers the real carrot for regular homeowners looking to save a bit of property tax.  Realty Times notes that it "provides a way whereby owners of designated historic properties may receive significant property tax relief in return for restoring and maintaining their property."  You can click through for some of the details, but the bottom line is it is an incentive that the draft B'game code says "is often a benefit to the community as a whole and the owners of surrounding properties".  We've been in short supply of that kind of thinking lately with the onslaught of ADUs, SB 9, short-term rentals, etc. 

Panther Basketball AND Baseball go....all...the...way!

Watching live local sports is finally coming back as the pandemic-driven closings and rescheduling abates.  Rescheduling delays are what put basketball on the sports page in June.  And the BHS Panthers have made the most of it by winning the CCS championship in dramatic fashion.  The Daily Journal has the story

The seventh time was the charm for Jeff Dowd.  In his second stint as head coach of the Burlingame Panthers, the architect of one of the most consistently dominant public school programs in the Bay Area finally earned a section championship on Saturday night as his team downed the previously unbeaten Santa Cruz Cardinals, 43-39, in the CCS Division III Championship Game.

No matter how big or small Dowd’s teams are, no matter whether they’re underclassmen or seniors, defense has been a constant for the Panthers, and it showed up in a big way on Saturday. Second-seeded Burlingame (11-4) held the Cardinals 22 points lower than their season average, only allowing double-digit points in one quarter.

This is quite a feather for Coach Dowd's cap given that the team is mostly underclassmen.  With a bevy of juniors returning next season, this run could go on for quite some time.  Congrats all around, Panthers.  That banner will look sweet in the gym!

.......and now the update about the CCS Champ Panther baseball team.........best Voice post update ever!  From the Daily Journal piece

There are generally only two reasons baseball players get dirty. One, because they play hard. Two, because they’re running the bases a lot. The No. 6-seed Panthers (18-9) did both to the max to stun No. 4 Los Altos in claiming their first CCS title since 2010, their third all-time, and the first in (Coach Shawn) Scott’s 11 years at the helm.  While starting pitcher Max Alvira went the distance — allowing single runs in the first and third before closing the championship run with goose eggs through the final four frames — the Panthers’ offense was circling the bases with abandon.

And these two Panthers are cut from the Neon Deion Sanders two-sport mold

“We didn’t have the biggest guys, we didn’t have the most skilled team, but we grinded every pitch,” Burlingame junior Lou Martineau said.  Martineau has bragging rights over any player involved in Saturday’s game. Having also played Burlingame hoops for a team that captured the CCS Division III boys’ basketball crown June 12, the junior is the only Panther to have started on two CCS champions this season. Junior Sean Richardson, a basketball starter and baseball reserve, also celebrated both titles.

Kudos to Coach Scott and Coach Dowd--this will be a year to remember and that pair of banners will look great in the gym.  Click through to the DJ piece to see the dogpile victory photo that is just like this one.  The 2021 win even had a similar outfield-infield DP!