The Burlingame Voice

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!

Going Solar: And hoping it ends up worth it

Some so-called environmentalists talk the talk, but when it comes to walking the walk they are mostly hot air.  I fall into the category of doing what you can as it makes practical sense.  I've been gauging the practicality of going to rooftop solar on my house for a couple of years and finally decided to get an expert opinion to strengthen the analysis.  By word of mouth, I learned about local Burlingame solar guy Steve Pariani.  He's really local; born and raised here and lives in town.  His company is Solar Pro Energy Systems.  After giving him my electricity usage and having him use satellite imagery to assess my roof's solar capacity, it appears to be a reasonable investment--not great like buying some Reddit-hyped stock, but OK.  Unless the "equity police" in Sacramento and the monopoly utilities misguidedly screw things up.

I have a clear southern exposure--very few trees on that side--and a decent amount of square footage.  There is room for 25 panels that would generate 8.5 KW for a one-year total of 12,871 kWh--the equivalent of driving 10,000 fewer miles per year!  As with any big investment--and this is definitely a big one--there are risks.  Steve has walked me through the technology and I don't find that to be much of a risk.  But with hacks like Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego pushing bills like AB 1139 to make the investment LESS attractive, you never know.  You would think with all of the growing pains on the California grid and the pressure to move to even more electricity usage (banning natural gas, EVs, etc) nobody would mind some Californians putting up major capital investments to generate additional juice, but you would be wrong.  Here is one example that Calmatters published.  AB 1139 died last week at the deadline, but you can bet the woman behind the idea to make Uber and Lyft drivers full-time employees (which many of them didn't even want) will be back next session.  The tougher battle may be with the CPUC.  As the California Solar & Storage Association (CALSSA) writes about the threat to Net Energy Metering

Whether we are talking AB 1139 or the IOU NEM-3 proposals, the utilities are trying to outright kill rooftop solar and storage in California, protect their monopoly, and grab more profits for themselves. It doesn’t matter the forum; the impact of the attack are the same: kill rooftop solar in the country's number one market.
 
The CPUC NEM fight is going to be harder to win politically for several reasons. First, it takes place at a little-known state agency with limited opportunity for public engagement. Second, there are only five decision makers at the CPUC, all political appointees, and, unlike in the state legislature, none have stepped forward (yet) to champion distributed generation. And third, if the utilities "own" the legislature, getting the Speaker, the Chair of Energy Committee, and the Chair of Appropriations Committee to back AB 1139, just think of how much they have captured the CPUC.

I'm going for it and hoping the sun shines brightly and the Legislature and/or the CPUC don't screw it up.  Common sense is in short supply these days which makes my decision much more of a gamble than I would prefer.  So much for real environmentalism.  Here's local small businessman Steve Pariani.

 

Traffic Excitement

Road engineers like to talk about "traffic calming" but some of their ideas appear to encourage just the opposite.  Several of my friends in Lyon-Hoag make a regular cocktail hour sport out of watching cars launch off of the little roundabout islands the city has plunked down in intersections.  They vacillate between being entertained and worrying about the consequences when some driver goes a bit too far.  Personally, I don't see the benefit of these launch pads, but I'm no traffic engineer.

Water Security: Ignore the Elephant in the Room

Our new state senator, Josh Becker, hosted a webinar about water issues in the state on May 27th that reiterated some of the points made during the Burlingame study session I covered here.  Gary Kremen, Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Santa Clara Valley Water District sounded the alarm when he said "we're beyond concerned, we're a little scared".  That was the same day that Santa Clara implemented the latest water restrictions, but Kremen also said "Santa Clara County cannot make it on conservation".  He also noted that recycled water costs 4-5 times as much as water from the usual sources.

There were two speakers from academia, Dr. Newsha Ajami, Director of Urban Water Policy, Stanford's Water in the West Program and Felicia Marcus, Former Chair, State Water Resources Control Board, and fellow at Stanford's Water in the West Program.  Ajami pushed the need for future development to have a "zero water footprint" -- the "net-zero development" that was mentioned during the B'game session.  The idea revolves around recycling on-site (similar to "purple pipe" but on-site) and having developers go find water to buy on long-term contract.  That seems like a stretch to me especially if a developer would need to provide water for 25-40 years or more.  The bureaucratic overhead seems enormous and the costs would be impossible to predict.

Dr. Ajami also made a critical point about reservoir capacity that was news to me.  She said the state "has already built reservoirs where they work best" and that we should be transitioning to groundwater storage going forward.  Couple that with her assertion that desalinization is "not viable now" and you have a recipe for near term turmoil as we go into a serious drought.

The Q&A part of the webinar was the most concerning to me.  Right at the very end of the session, Sen. Becker read a question about adding housing in the face of this scary water scenario.  This is the elephant in the room--a pair of elephants actually--commercial and residential development.  Becker's 10 second "non-answer" was that he was working in Sacramento to get more money.  No mention of what that money would go towards; especially given all of the options mentioned during the session are outrageously expensive, hard to implement and/or so far in the future that they won't remotely help our situation anytime soon.  The little joke about "brown being the new green" referring to lawns did nothing to ease that concern.  When you couple the two sessions together you see we are in for a rough ride and nobody wants to look at the elephant.

Wildfires and Sacramento Grifters

Anyone have a relative who is constantly asking for a "little loan" but drives a nicer car than you do?  I don't--except for my state Assembly, Senate and Governor.  Wildfires are a long-term problem in the state that have been ignored by our electeds for years--maybe decades.  It's easier to blame PG&E and the Feds than to do anything about it.

You might ask "why should we B'gamers care?"  I can think of two reasons.  First, with 20 of my neighboring Tahoe homeowners, I spent the morning clearing brush, pine needles and dead wood from the area around our Tahoe homes.  20 of us filled a 15 yard and a 5 yard dumpster in a couple hours and there is more to be done.  We cleared a space about the size of a single B'game lot--maybe two.  While we were cutting and raking it all up, my thoughts were on Mills Canyon and the vast expanses of Hillsborough that look like a fiery disaster-in-waiting.  It's easy to think about the Oakland Hills or Sonoma and say "it won't happen here" but don't bet on it.

The second reason to care is the grifters from Sacramento are dipping into in our pockets again.  The state has a $75 Billion, with a "B" surplus this year and another $25 Billion with a "B" injection from the Feds for "Covid relief", but get this; as reported in today's Comicle--the grifters are pushing

Among the bills being advocated by the fire-focused senators is SB45, which would place a $5.6 billion bond before voters next year.

Really?  None of these geniuses can figure out that sending "tax rebate" money to Californians who didn't pay any state taxes in the first place while mortgaging the state's future with new bonds that we could easily finance now just out of current "surpluses" is a bad proposition?  Really?  

Housing Prices: By the Numbers

Just in case you thought the Bay Area real estate appreciation was different from the rest of the country, Zillow is here to share the data.  As always, data needs to be taken with some salt as concepts like YoY percentages and medians this or that can hide anomalies.  But the data is still the data as reported by the Comicle

The U.S. is in the middle of a record-setting boom in home values and a massive squeeze in supply. But the Bay Area has been somewhat cushioned from these effects, according to a recent Zillow report.  The report found that in the metropolitan area of San Francisco — which includes Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and Marin counties — home values increased by 7.4% in April 2021 compared to the previous year.  By comparison, home values in the U.S. overall rose 11.6% over the past year. And in some regions, including Phoenix and Austin, Texas, home values soared by more than 20%.

The S.F. and San Jose metropolitan areas actually rank at the very bottom of all major metropolitan areas for home value appreciation, noted Jeff Tucker, a senior economist at Zillow.  But, he said, these trends look very different at the county level.  “The big takeaway that I’m seeing here is, the most expensive parts of the Bay and the most urban parts of the Bay have had the slowest growth rates,” Tucker said.

A lot of that has to do with The Exodus that is a year old now.  The same goes for rentals where the flood of For Rent signs around B'game has abated in months.  But prices are stable according to Zumper

Burlingame ranked as the 7th most expensive city to rent (in the Bay Area).  The price of one bedroom units remained flat at a median of $2,190, while two bedrooms also stayed stable at $3,120.

There isn't really a lot of variation from the fifth highest (Menlo Park) to the 23rd (Concord).  A ton of new units are in progress in B'game so the For Rent signage is likely here for awhile.

B'game Water Security: The "Message is Alarming"

The City Council study session on Monday before the regular council meeting was an eye-opener for some people.  Public Works director Syed Murtuza summed it up by noting that "the message is alarming" and councilman Ricardo Ortiz followed by saying "there is lots to worry about here".  The CEO and General manager of BAWSCA, Nicole Sandkulla, along with consultant Anona Dutton from EKI led the discussion as part of the update to the B'game Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP) that happens every five years.

The update is an attempt to forecast water supply and demand so we can see how secure or "reliable" our water will be.  It is more of a long-term analysis verses the short-term limits like voluntary or prescribed rationing.  One big issue is the fact that SFPUC has expressed serious doubts about the Tuolumne River ecosystem benefits of the State Water Board’s plan to keep rivers flowing enough for the salmon and now feels the need to file a lawsuit about it.  That could take years to resolve.

Here are some key points from the study session:

Total B'game water demands are projected to increase 35% from 2020 to 2045 even if we can manage to reduce per capita demand from 66 to 59 gallons per person per day.

If supplies were reduced by 45 percent, could the City meet this?  Possibly by elimination of outdoor watering and establishing reduced residential water budgets to approximately 40 gallons/person/day.  Outdoor watering is categorized as "discretionary usage", but councilwoman Emily Beach noted that our trees need watering that is far from "discretionary".  The city e-newsletter is already asking residents to water the street trees, especially the young ones.

The city could consider exploring “water-neutral” growth policies.  A "net-zero" or "water-neutral" policy would mean large-scale developments would have to go find/buy enough new water to supply their project and inject it into the system.

The bottom line (for me anyways) is that we do not have enough water right now to get through any serious run of dry years.  I was able to speak with CEO/GM Nicole Sandkulla after the meeting about overall demand for all 26 agencies in BAWSCA.  The current forecasts call for increases between .5% and 1.5% per year over the next 20 years, but do not include any future changes to land-use regulations.  And there in lies the rub.  Here is a chart from the presentation that highlights the possible shortfalls in Burlingame.

Music in the Park: Get Your Reservations

The city e-newsletter has music to my ears with the announcement of this year's new Music in the Park series.  The big change is a move to Friday nights from 6-8pm (5pm check-ins) and  

Registration is $5 per person.  Registration must be made in advance. Only one registration is required per group. Registration provides a dedicated space for you and your group.

I envision chalk line circles for each pod and people making more of a night out effort with more food and drink.  I'm not sure what the rules will be about alcohol in the park.  It has traditionally been OK in San Mateo's Central Park series, but B'game can be more strict sometimes.  Here is the line-up

June 18 - The Sun Kings (Beatles Tribute)

July 9 - The Houserockers (Rock & Soul)

July 23 - New American Villains (Modern & Classic Rock)

August 13 - Pride & Joy (R & B & Soul)

I've seen all of these bands at least once, but I'm still excited.  Keep an eye on www.burlingame.org/rec for more info.  Here is a past Sun Kings show.

Covid Updates: Yellow Tier, Now What?

With the big move to the yellow tier in San Mateo County this week, the Saturday update deserves a fresh post.  You can find our year+ of tracking at this post and the prior one.  Dinner downtown last night was a full-house affair with the conversational noise levels reaching pre-pandemic levels plus a tad.  I went up to the new Outdoor Supply Hardware as well and a few people were wandering the outdoor nursery area sans masks--it felt a little weird, but we will get used to it.  I will still track the numbers for the week which are:

77.4% of the County over age 16 is vaccinated and the age limit to do so dropped to 12 (Pfizer).  That is a small increase from last week.

Total Cases: 41,909 (+162 in the County)

Positivity: .7% (down another tenth)

Burlingame Cases: 1,244 (ONLY ONE new case this week; 34 in the last 30 days).

Now you see how we got to yellow.  Here's what that means:

Dr. Curtis Chan, deputy health officer with San Mateo County, said the change moves the county away from the mentality of strict government restrictions and toward a new era of common courtesy, community agreements and more relaxed mask scenarios.

“We are not emphasizing health officer orders. We want to emphasize caring. For fully vaccinated people, face coverings are not required, but also social agreement and common courtesy could be taken into consideration,” Chan said.  Chan believes there will be a reduced need for mask restrictions in the coming months, and he hopes mask restrictions will be additionally loosened by July 4.  “I would hope that would be around the date when mask social agreements are going to be eased up a little bit,” he said.

"Social agreement".  Got that?

Electric Cars: Not So Fast

Someday I will probably buy an electric vehicle (EV).  Most of us probably will because we will be forced to via government policies--overt and covert.  The overt policies are moves like mandating tight emissions standards, rebates and credits and the like.  The covert policies slip in as dedicated parking spaces or stopping new gas stations from being built.  But the switch over won't happen anytime soon as the AP reported awhile back with this article: America’s gas-fueled vehicles imperil Biden’s climate goals

In a rare display of data analysis the reporter gets to the bottom line conclusion that some of the big headline goals from politicians like Biden and Newsom are just not feasible.

For President Joe Biden to reach his ambitious goal of slashing America’s greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, huge reductions would have to come from somewhere other than one of the worst culprits: auto tailpipes.

That’s because there are just too many gas-powered passenger vehicles in the United States — roughly 279 million — to replace them in less than a decade, experts say. In a typical year, automakers sell about 17 million vehicles nationwide. Even if every one of the new ones were electric, it would take more than 16 years to replace the whole fleet.  What’s more, vehicles now remain on America’s roads for an average of nearly 12 years before they’re scrapped, which means that gas-fueled vehicles will predominate for many years to come.

Last year, fewer than 2% of new vehicles sold in the United States were fully electric.  To increase sales of electric vehicles, the administration plans to spend $15 billion to build a half-million charging stations by 2030, as well as offer unspecified tax credits and rebates to cut the cost.  Swapping the entire fleet of gas burners for electric vehicles could take even longer than 20 years. Todd Campau, associate director of automotive for IHS Markit, estimates that the number of mostly gas-powered vehicles on U.S. roads, will keep growing — to 284 million by 2025.  “If half of new cars sold around the world in 2035 are zero-emission vehicles, 70% of the vehicles on roads will still be burning gasoline or diesel,” the report said.

There are other fun factoids about the real, achievable pace of change to EVs, their batteries and other energy uses for those interested in clicking through to read them.  The other half of the story, that is not part of this article is how gasoline is a by-product of refining petroleum for benzene and other chemicals which will still happen because they are still needed in millions of products, including aspirin and other drugs.  Gas vehicles become a smaller portion of the fleet, but gas is still being produced and that equals a bargain at the pump and a tougher sell for EVs.  

SB9 and YIMBY Carpetbaggers

The irony of the YIMBY movement is that for the most part YIMBY's don't actually have backyards--they're just jealous of other people's backyards.  Couple financial jealousy with a tinge of misplaced racism--what I have termed neo-racism--and you get political pressure to destroy single-family zoning as noted here.  A letter to the Comicle today decries this "home shaming".  I'll add it to the comment section.  But people are waking up to the threat posed by Senate Bill 9 and the YIMBY carpetbaggers.  Regular Voice reader Laura has crafted a call to action for us and asked me to share it:

Please be aware of what Sacramento is doing and how it affects our town.  Burlingame is under siege by Sacramento, large Construction Developers, and affordable housing advocates that seek to disrupt the successful balance of single family and multi-family housing that we have in our town today!  They are showing up in numbers for the Zoom City Council meetings and they are advocating for SB-9. 

SB-9 has the potential to change our town forever. In a nutshell, SB-9 rezones all parcels within single-family residential zones, to allow for the creation of up to 10 units on one residential lot, no matter how small the lot size, with NO parking requirement.  That means that your neighbor's home, could become a 10 unit building and neither you, nor your local Council could do anything about it.  SB-9 is one of dozens of similar bills, all designed to erode local control over land-use. 

Our Burlingame Community supported a General Plan revision in 2019 that allows for reasonable growth that our schools, roads, and water infrastructure can accommodate. This plan meets our State mandated housing goals. Burlingame presently has more multi-family residential units as a percentage of housing (53% compared to 47% for single family) than any other city in San Mateo County except East Palo Alto.  We are doing our part and have accomplished this with local control and balance!  Don’t let the outsiders say otherwise.  It is just not true.  

Please let your representatives know that you support your Council's local control over our city’s zoning and do not want interference from Large developers and outside housing advocates that care nothing for your quality of life, or your town.

Please voice your concern to Burlingame City Council at Council@Burlingame.org 

 

Assembly member Kevin  Mullin                                                 Senator Josh Becker

assemblymember.mullin@assembly.ca.gov 

                                                                          https://sd13.senate.ca.gov/contact

916-319-2022                                                                              (916) 651-4013

650-349-2200                                                                                (650) 212-3313

State Senior Scott Weiner 

 Senator.weiner@senate.ca.gov

916-651-4013

650-212-3313

Bayfront: Hotels or Life Sciences...just not housing

You could argue that the Covid pandemic is drawing to a close as we approach herd immunity and with it we will see a return to business and leisure travel.  With that a return of the hotel TOT that has been one of the Golden Geese keeping B'game flush would be in the cards.  Or not.  Maybe Zoom and work at home will take a serious dent out of travel.  For now though at least one erstwhile hotel developer on the Bayfront wants the freedom to build differently to attract life sciences tenants.  As this piece in the DJ notes, the Planning Commission is somewhat amenable as are some city councilors.

With the pandemic interrupting the travel and hospitality industries, Burlingame officials are considering introducing the life sciences industry into an area historically preserved for hotels and light industry.  But they balanced those perspectives against an expectation that developers proposing life science buildings would be obligated to supplement their plans with an attractive package of community benefits.

Under the proposal, buildings reserved for tenants in the life sciences industries could be allowed to build a floor-area ratio up to 3.0 — a significant spike from the current standard of 0.75 floor-area ratio for every building in the area other than hotels.

And while support for the vision was broad during a challenging time in the travel and hospitality industry, officials also made clear they continued to prefer development of hotels along the Bayshore.

Noting that hotel tax has been one of the city’s primary sources of income when the economy was thriving, Councilman Michael Brownrigg said he favored preserving incentives for future hotel construction.

TOT has traditionally been about 38% of total city revenues in normal times as noted here back in 2016.  Nobody is suggesting tearing down existing hotels to change the usage, meaning that revenue stream should rebound, but may not reach the percentages of the past.  But the most interesting aspect of the proposal didn't make it into the DJ article.  I have it on good authority that life sciences companies need.....wait for it.....natural gas for their labs.  One source at Genentech called it a "deal killer".  Can the green councilors put aside their one-year old ban and grant a variance?   If one gets it, then the next one is entitled as well.  And if a company can get a variance for a big installation, will you be able to get one for a small installation?