The Burlingame Voice

Poll: 70% say Bay Area quality of life has declined

When I read headlines like 7 in 10 residents say the region’s quality of life is getting worse, I think about how bad the roads have become (looking at you, El Camino), how poorly many government agencies are being run, how much traffic there is, how we are losing control of our local voting and zoning, and public safety.  School quality, water security, utility costs---the list is long.  Having spent years in market research, I know a poll can be tweaked in any number of ways from who gets polled to how the questions and multiple-choice answers are phrased to who does the analysis of the results.  The Merc reported on the latest public sentiment here.  It notes

According to the poll, 70% of registered voters said the Bay Area’s quality of life has worsened over the past five years, while just 13% said it has improved. Seventeen percent said it’s stayed the same.

A whopping 46% of respondents said they were likely to leave the Bay Area in the next few years, with two-thirds of those citing high housing costs as the main reason to consider a move. During the pandemic, people fleeing the region contributed to a 3% population drop, though that exodus has since slowed.  When asked to select ways the region might best be improved, respondents’ top choice at 39% was building more affordable housing.

Of course, that means 61% chose something other than to jam more people into the Bay Area.  See how the reporting can spin the story?  If the other choices had overlap to split the responses, 39% starts to look big.

Homeowners in the poll (note, that percentage is not revealed) also said the state’s home insurance meltdown is hitting their finances. Fifty-two percent said their home insurance premiums have increased significantly, 22% said they have avoided using their home insurance policy out of fear of cancellation or rising rates, 12% said they’ve had a difficult time finding an insurer to write them a policy and 8% said an insurer had canceled a policy.

Insurance has been slipping down a slippery slope for years with no real solution from the state. And many renters don't realize their rent is tied to the insurance on their apartment.  Then there is this bit of Sacramental hand-waving following on the heels of even more restrictions on drilling.  When you leave the state the gas prices are almost unreal---unreal low.

To prevent spikes in gas prices, state lawmakers are now considering a plan from Gov. Gavin Newsom to force oil refiners to keep minimum fuel reserves, though doing so likely wouldn’t lower overall prices at the pump.

The piece finishes off by describing some people who think Silicon Valley giants are "villains" who have "lost their moral compass".  I can't understand where that is coming from or what it has to do with the quality of life in the Bay Area.  At least the piece noted huge support for Prop. 36 to get the organized theft back under control and remove the locked plastic doors protecting shampoo and deodorant.  The big question remains how many people we should jam into the Peninsula?  The RHNA requirements are nonsense, but they are driving down the quality of life for long-time residents who look at things like this on the north end and wonder "why"?  That's the B'game police building in the front.

Daily Journal goes with Colson and Thayer

Way back in the day we had two three local papers:  The Boutique & Villager-Independent, the San Mateo County Times and the Daily Journal.  They often endorsed different candidates providing fodder for the mailers to say "Endorsed by _____".  The last rag standing is the DJ, so voters who rely on their local editor and reporters for guidance now look only to the Daily Journal.  The DJ's endorsements this cycle are a bit light on detail but seem directionally sound.  Endorsing Donna Colson for D4 is a no-brainer.  I would go so far as to say the write-up understates her value to the council.  Beyond the "she listens to everyone with a smile" and " is not trying to please everyone" lies impressive energy--being out and about all the time--and "hard skills" in finance, regulation, electric service with PCE, labor relations, etc. etc.  The fact that she has token opposition gave her a chance to hit the streets and campaign hard anyway.

District 2 is a real race with four candidates.  Nirmala is somewhat of a known quantity having run before, but the other three are newcomers.  I have interviewed Desiree Thayer and found her to be intelligent and dedicated--she claims to have attended every city council meeting for the last two years.  That alone is a big plus.  Her work experience resonated with me as showing skills that would benefit the council as well.  I would have liked to interview the others, but time is running out.  If it happens, I'll let you know.  In the meantime, some election information can be found on the city site here.  I'm also hunting around for the recording of the D2 candidates' forum from Wednesday night.  If you have the link, please post it in comments.

Plastic bags: "Thank you for your service"

The Sacramento Stupidity was on full display this week as Newsom signed yet another law aimed at restricting use of plastic.  The last plastic grocery bag ban had a "loophole" that still allowed the heavier "reusable" bags but, guess what, not enough people are reusing them so they must be outlawed.  Who could possibly have foreseen that?  "Once plastic bags are outlawed, only outlaws will have plastic bags".  Coupled with Bonta's idiotic suit against ExxonMobil for making something that is a necessity in life.  As the WSJ notes:

The company’s alleged deception supposedly caused California lawmakers in 1989 to pass legislation forcing cities to set up recycling programs “that required mandatory participation by all residents.”

In other words, it is Exxon’s fault that Californians must place plastic waste into separate trash containers even though most of it doesn’t actually get recycled. Mr. Bonta claims that Exxon has “wrongly convinced consumers that plastics separated for recycling would actually be recycled,” though, notably, the state hasn’t repealed that law.

Nor has Sacramento repealed the CRV.  Duping lawmakers seems pretty easy. 
The memorial to thicker plastic bags will live on in my car's trunk for years.  "Thank you for your service".

RIP Bearcat Kris Kristofferson (1936-2024)

Our neighbor to the south is three and a half times as populous as we are here in B'game.  That gives them a bit of a leg up in having famous former residents.  Springsteen's parents lived in SM and Merv Griffin went to SMHS.  I won't even get into the Serra grads who went big in pro sports.  There are many, even without the artificial help from BALCO of B'game.  Furthermore, I don't rate "Country" in my Top Ten musical genres, but Kris Kristofferson was one guy who could tug at my heartstrings.  He wrote "Me and Bobby McGee" which Janis Joplin recorded just a few days before she died.  His acting in A Star is Born surpasses that of his female lead.  So, here's to a guy who trod our streets as a kid:

Kristofferson was born on June 22, 1936, in Brownsville, Texas, to Mary Ann (née Ashbrook) and Lars Henry Kristofferson — a first-generation Swedish immigrant and U.S. Army Air Corps officer and Air Force general. His love for country music began at a young age, and, according to a 2013 interview with NPR, Kristofferson penned his first song, "I Hate Your Ugly Face," at only 11 years old. A military brat, he moved often throughout his childhood until his family landed in San Mateo, Calif., when he was a teenager.  He graduated from San Mateo High School in 1954.

Any '54 Bearcats out there who can tell us what Kris was like in high school?

City Hall: Assessing the structure

We touched on the move to replace our City Hall four months ago here and since then more details have been released on the state of the building.  Here are some of the key points from a presentation to the city council on Sept. 3rd.:

• City Hall was built to the seismic standards of the time (1969) - Estimate is $10M
• Mechanicals are beyond their useful life and parts availability is challenging (related asbestos issues estimated at $600K)
• ADA accessibility is an issue
• No fire sprinklers and inadequate fire alarm system
• Lighting and electrical upgrades to current standards - estimated at $1.5M
• The original roof is still on and being patched - replacement estimate $500K plus asbestos work

All of that is compounded by an estimated 20% growth in the space needed plus some better meeting room space although this could be handled by a satellite, leased office.  The five-year total is $16M and grows to $35M over the next decade.  The idea square footage would be between 6,000 and 14,000 ft² larger than the current space.

Should the city choose to do the repairs and upgrades, it estimates about three years of temporary employee relocation.  That sounds like an optimistic guess to me looking at how long everything takes.  The real challenge is how to pay for either approach (fix vs. lease vs. build).  The current central location is excellent which is an intangible that is hard to value--and harder to replace.  There's no easy answer here even if one has a fix-it mindset.

Election 2024: Signs of inexperience

Lawn signs are the most visible part of election season.  I've planted (and picked up) hundreds of them in legal places.  The old saying "Signs don't vote" is partially true.  They have some value and give some sense of where a property owner's sentiments lay.  They can get out of hand especially when a property owner decides to have some fun by posting a lot of them including for competing candidates like here.

But illegally placed signs in the street tree median strips (city property) and, say, the Caltrans right of way just demonstrate inexperience.  One would think a Caltrans employee would know where the right of way is and not plant his signs on it.  Gotta love the Caltrans hard hat in the photo.

B'game Train Station: Museum coming soon

Our extra special correspondent to the Daily Journal, local author Joanne Garrison, has penned a history of our historic train station at Burlingame Ave. as part of the run-up to reopening the Historical Society Museum in the station.  The DJ piece notes

Members of the Burlingame Country Club lobbied for the train station, selected its location, and chose its architects. The members also insisted that the station stop be named “Burlingame” after their club.  The Southern Pacific Railroad was involved, of course, but it contributed less than half the cost of the station — the country club members picking up the bulk of the tab. As architects, the BCC selected George H. Howard, a club member and a scion of the family who owned the property on which the station would sit, and Joachim B. Mathisen, a Norwegian immigrant who had been a draftsman in the office of A. Page Brown at the time Brown designed the California Pavilion for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Commissioned to reflect the uniqueness of California, Brown designed the temporary Chicago structure to resemble a California mission.

More than half a century after it was built, the Burlingame Train Station was awarded both California landmark status and a listing on the National Register of Historic Places because of its architecture. It is the first permanent structure that employs all the elements of what came to be called the Mission Revival-style.

There was a nice event with several hundred people at the station to celebrate the electrification of Caltrain with e-trains offering free hops down to San Mateo where a larger event was held.  There will be more to follow as we get closer to the reopening of the museum.  We should enjoy the train while we can since its financial status is shaky at best.  As one wag said at the event, Waymo is going to give Caltrain more fiscal heartburn as people get used to driverless, door-to-door service for a good price.

 

Bonta: Recycling misdirection

Our Attorney General is really a piece of work.  His latest gambit to attack oil and gas companies is to sue ExxonMobil for deceptive recycling practices.  You heard right.  Apparently, we are all being deceived about recycling by ExxonMobil.  Oddly enough, I have never heard one thing from ExxonMobil about plastics or recycling, but per the Merc piece today:

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a coalition of environmental nonprofits sued Exxon Mobil on Monday morning alleging the gas giant enacted a “decades-long campaign of deception” that fueled a global plastic pollution crisis.  The lawsuits will seek civil damages from ExxonMobil for environmental destruction, public health harms, and an end to its “deceptive practices” that they argue have led to plastic being found from the depths of the ocean to the peak of Mt. Everest.

The converging lawsuits against ExxonMobil will attempt to prove the corporation systematically led the public to believe that plastic waste is safely disposable through recycling and failed to share information about toxic “forever” chemicals and plastics’ lasting environmental harms. If successful, the lawsuits would compel ExxonMobil to end its “deceptive” practices and could secure hundreds of millions to support climate change solutions.

There is definitely some misinformation or deception going on in the recycling world.  We noted it in April 2021 here.  Recall from that post that "More than 90% of plastics generated in the U.S. each year winds up in landfills or incinerators, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.  Only about 9% is recycled."

We are paying a nickel or a dime extra for every container in CRV, but 9 out of 10 just go to the landfill.  If any organization is fooling people about recyling it's the state via the CRV mandate.  Maybe Bonta should be suing the State of California for deceptive practices and public theft?  Don't hold your breath.

Peninsula Ave. interchange "scrapped" for good?

I can hear the cheers from the Lyon-Hoag neighborhood from here on my perch on the west side.  The "upgrade" to Peninsula Ave. at 101 has been bandied about for almost 20 years.  The neighborhood concerns voiced in public go back more than 10 years as shown in this post from 2015.  Now the weight of the project--cost, eminent domain, and community opposition have apparently caused it to collapse.  I'm guessing this council decision pre-dates the weekend pedestrian fatality on Peninsula.  While I feel happy for Lyon-Hoag, caution and observation remain the best course.  These things can be like zombies.  And the pressure from over-development on the Bayfront is ever growing.  The Daily Journal notes

A long-standing effort to move the Highway 101 southbound off-ramps from East Poplar Avenue north to Peninsula Avenue has been officially scrapped, though plans to address congestion and mitigate collisions in the area are still being finalized.

For years, the city (Ed: San Mateo) has looked into relocating the (Poplar Ave.) ramps to Peninsula Avenue because, east of Idaho Street, it has two lanes in each direction, no parking or driveways and has shoulders and bike lanes, all advantages over East Poplar Avenue. The total project cost estimate ranges from $169 million to $227 million, and while some funding could be secured from regional or state agencies, the majority would have to come from the city.

Moving forward would also require the city to acquire dozens of private properties along North Amphlett Boulevard via eminent domain, another financial burden for the city. Councilmember Rich Hedges said, at this point, many of the affected residents just want to know which direction the city is going so they can plan accordingly.

A lot of B'gamers are having sighs of relief.  As one local noted "No, it's not April 1st".  Let's keep it that way.

Sac Stupidity: Let's distract drivers right as they are avoiding something

I could add a Sacramento Stupidity post pretty much every week.  The authoritarian streak that runs through supposed "progressives" is strong and unrelenting.  Take Scott Weiner's latest ham-fisted approach to "traffic safety" as reported in the DJ

A bill that would make California the first state in the nation to mandate speed warning systems in all manufactured or sold car models, beginning in 2030, is awaiting the governor’s signature.

San Mateo County residents, policymakers and researchers reflected on the possible impacts of the technology. Authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, it would warn drivers with an “audible and visual signal” every time they exceeded speed limits by more than 10 miles per hour. 

They dredge up some associate prof of civil engineering to assert this is a good idea instead of someone with practical knowledge and research on how drivers actually react to things around them.  Or an automotive human factors engineer.  How much this will add to the cost of car is apparently of no importance.  They even found a guy who thinks a speed limiter will just be programmed right into EV software.  Another authoritarian thinks there should be sky-high penalties for disabling the system.  This is the watered down version of the bill.  Weiner wanted to hardwire the limit +10.  And you thought it was your car.

I can think of dozens of times I have "stepped on it" to avoid a collision or obstruction on the road.  I vaguely remember my Drivers Ed instructor telling 16-year-old me that there are many times when speeding up is safer than slowing down.  Do we want bells, whistles and dashboard lights going off while in the midst of an evasive move?  No thanks.  Will Newsom continue to be guided by his presidential ambitions and veto this?

There is a stop sign in there somewhere

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

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

Topgolf: Is the cash cow running low on milk?

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

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

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

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

Here's the bottom line

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

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