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  • Of Caltrain, consultants and transit taxes

    I know a bit about premium priced consulting services that I learned over 30 years including some engagements with government agencies. When the Daily Journal headline screamed “High pay for Caltrain consultant”, I thought “How high?” Luckily the subhead read “Transit agency pays $1.4M for deputy leader, amount over three times top-paid executive director’s salary”. Wow. Is that for a one person, one year extension, not a contract with a firm staffing three or four or more consultants? That’s premium with a capital P. But it gets worse. That front page piece on July 6th came out the same day the purported million-dollar consultant, Sherry Bullock, was scheduled to present the state of the B’way grade separation to our city council.

    Thanks to a tipster, I got the word that the presentation didn’t go so well. The video is not streaming smoothly for me, but around 1:05 on this link you can start to feel the confusion and maybe a bit of desperation from the 20-year Caltrain veteran! When asked to spell out some of the arcane acronyms (and there are many) lower-priced staff had to jump in with an assist. The $1.4 mil was looming large given the newspaper was probably still in the box outside city hall. The piece is a little convoluted, but according to a later LTTE from Jeff Gee (Caltrain board and RWC councilmember) “That was a max authority to a consulting firm. Caltrain paid a quarter of that and is closing out the contract.” So perhaps we are down to $350K–that still some “max authority” for someone who is also charging overtime.

    And yet we know, because Caltrain told us, that it is on the brink of disaster. Per the DJ

    After adopting a $270 million operating budget, Caltrain is reiterating short- and long-term plans to narrow its deficit with a state loan and upcoming sales tax ballot measure — or else it could shut down entirely, leaders say.

    Cue the DJ two days later discussing the formation of some opposition to the “Connect Bay Area” 14-year duration sales tax increase.

    The measure would be the sixth transportation-dedicated sales tax in San Mateo County. Measures A, W, RR and the San Mateo County Transit District tax are administered by the county, with a portion of the state-mandated 7.25% sales tax going to local transportation efforts as well. They’re thinking, ‘well we’re getting bailed out by the government,’” said Peninsula resident Gregg Dieguez, a member of the Committee for Affordable Bay Area Transit. “They are used to spending our money, rather than reforming what they’re doing.”

    This ain’t rocket science, kids. The primary Caltrain commuter rail line spans 77.2 miles between San Francisco and Gilroy. The core corridor between San Francisco and San Jose Diridon Station is approximately 48 miles long. We not running Amtrack or the TGV here. And this is going to be a very tough election for new taxes, bond measures, and whatever else got thrown against the wall by anyone other than the Howard Jarvis people. Couple that with the fact that the B’way grade separation (remember that?) is still not close to being fully funded. The question is “are we getting what we are paying for?”

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Gas Water Heaters: Common sense missing

    We are officially in the last half of the year, and the burning question is are we also in the last six months for gas water heaters? It was more than six years ago when I first analyzed here what a stupid, expensive, complicated mandate this would be when B’game looked at it. I elaborated on more nitty-gritty problems in May here. More issues come to mind as I look at my water heater especially how much time and money it will take to patch the ceiling and roof where the deleted vent exits. Do the retired gas pipes under my house just lay there for eternity like a desiccated rodent’s skeleton? This ban is a plumber, electrician, roofer, and painter’s dream. More people are waking up to the impending implosion, and the San Mateo County Supes will be looking at it during their August 11th meeting. Will common sense make an appearance? The supes should memorize this letter to the Comicle.

    The Bay Area Air District’s plan to prohibit gas water heaters and furnaces needs to be scrapped.  Everyone is in favor of cleaner air, but how we get there needs thoughtfulness. Arguing that incentives for property owners and future higher costs for gas will ease the pain of conversion isn’t going to cut it.

    Converting from gas to electricity is not a simple process. One can’t just unplug the old unit and plug in the new. Designing the new systems, obtaining the appropriate permits, and coordinating with PG&E, if an upgraded electrical panel is needed, will take time.  Modifying the building to accept the new water heater and furnace takes money, budgeting and careful planning, especially if people are living in the building.

    Hardly anyone replaces a water heater or furnace before it breaks. When one does need to be replaced, the situation is tantamount to an emergency because the home becomes uninhabitable without hot water or heat. Mandating the replacement of the gas units with electric add to the cost and complexity. This flat-out ban on gas water heaters and furnaces will bring nightmares to many.

    Frank Lee, San Francisco

    Lost in all of this is just how much time a homeowner will need to spend to comply. I value my time pretty highly, but I don’t get a sense that our elected officials do.

    Posted by:

    Joe

    4 comments on Gas Water Heaters: Common sense missing

  • Happy 250th Fourth of July

    This is a really nice touch. City Hall looks nice too. Happy Fourth, y’all.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Neighborhoods see respite throughout the Peninsula

    Whoops. It’s July 1st, not April 1st. I am just wishfully rewriting the Daily Journal’s Monday headline that read “New housing sees decline throughout the Peninsula“. In the online edition, the angst gets turned up a notch with the headline “New housing on the Peninsula has plummeted“. Readers are treated to some data about completed unit numbers declining in San Mateo, Redwood City and South San Francisco. Same in Foster City and EPA. No mention of B’game probably because we keep building, building, building. Some pithy quotes follow:

    “No one wants to do ground-up multifamily right now,” said Stephen Couig, founder of Center Street Lending, which provides financing to projects throughout the country, including the Bay Area. “It’s pure economics. The cost to build has completely outrun what it will bear in rent and what it will bear in sales,” Mounir Kardosh, owner and founder of San Mateo-based Nazareth Enterprises, said.

    Between May 2025 to May 2026, countywide rents increased by 6% to $3,368 across all unit types, according to data from Zumper and Apartment List. That’s still not enough growth for lenders to underwrite loans for multiunit housing due to stubbornly high inflation, keeping interest rates and 10-year treasury yields elevated.

    A recent report from the San Francisco Controllers Office analyzed costs for different development scenarios. The findings showed that none of them would be financially feasible if they adhered to the city’s inclusionary zoning policies — rules requiring market-rate projects to have a certain amount of affordable units — which are also in place throughout the Peninsula. Each model was “significantly worse than the same models in the 2023 study,” the April 2026 report said.

    Well, “worse” is a value judgement, but more immediately perhaps this respite will lead to the realization that the premise is wrong and getting “wronger” each year. Trying to jam “stack and pack” housing as in-fill on super desirable, pricy land with the “inclusionary” handcuffs and insufficient parking on developers won’t fly. Oddly enough, the same DJ front page has a Calmatters piece about California Forever–the billionaire-funded shiny new city targeted for Suisun City. Going back to the Nazareth guy:

    “From the bank’s perspective, why would they lend to me?” Kardosh said. “They could lend to someone in Waco, Texas, instead. They’re not chasing for projects.”

    Or at least Suisun City. How about the Sacramento crowd green lights California Forever and retires the fake RHNA numbers that are at the root of the disconnect between economic reality, neighborhood security and planners trying to maintain some sense of a city or town’s character? That would be a fair deal.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Parking: On the clock or not?

    A guy pulls into a parking space on Broadway. It’s at one end of a block with an odd number of spaces so it has one of the new meters that does not have a A and B side like the one shown below. He hops out with some change but first checks the time remaining. It’s a little difficult to see because it’s a sunny day, but he gets lucky– there’s 1:35 left on the meter which should be enough. He sets the alarm on his phone to 1:30 for a five-minute buffer and goes about his business. Business takes about an hour. Returning to his car, he checks his phone, cancels the alarm and decides to check the time on the meter. The meter shows an hour left, not 35 minutes! Guys scratches head, wonders if a) some Good Samaritan walked by and kicked in a quarter or two or b) it’s all messed up and he will get a ticket in the mail…..

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Crime: This burns me up

    For a while I have been meaning to create a post to record the on-going sad state of affairs in our judicial system. Between the DJ and mainly the Daily Post, we get a weekly barrage of news pieces that cause one to ask, “what the heck was the judge thinking?” This one finally lit my fuse enough to create it.

    The Daily Post is reporting a 50-year-old guy from Berkeley was arrested in Palo Alto for setting fire to St. Frank Coffee Shop’s awning at 1:45 am. A review of security footage spotted him and then he returned to the scene about 40 minutes later chanting “burn, burn let it burn”. Here’s the kicker:

    He as a recent arson conviction in Contra Costa County according to the DA. He remains in jail on felony arson with bail at $2,500!

    Why was he out in the first place? What was that first judge thinking? And what is the second judge thinking setting bail at $2,500? What’s next? He pleads poverty and they go to “no cash bail”? We have had crazies like this in B’game. Ten years ago, we almost lost our historic train station to one as you can read here. That was before the Caltrain employee decided to turn that space into his own personal apartment on our nickel.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • BSD: $100 million ask goes to voters

    I’m not sure the best way to sell a new bond measure to the B’game taxpayers is highlighting the Big Number, but that was the approach taken in official comments for the DJ article. Back in April, the decision to jump from $89M to $100M was seen as not having any red or yellow flags as we noted here. Phrasing it as $16 per $100K of assessed property value makes it seem small, but these days of “affordability” concerns and whatever else lands on the November ballot create uncertainty. Recent buyers in particular can do the math since assessed value equals purchase price, e.g. a recent $2.5M purchase would come with a $400/year school tax–small compared to the $25K property tax but it all adds up. The DJ notes

    The Burlingame School District Board of Trustees unanimously approved placing a $100 million bond measure on Nov. 3 ballots at its board meeting June 9. Some of the school sites in the district are over 100 years old, Superintendent Marla Silversmith said, and one trustee coined a pitch for the bond as the “$100 million bond for the 100-year-old schools,” Silversmith said.

    Improvements included on a project list further detail the modernization that would take place, the replacement of antiquated portable classrooms with permanent facilities, the installment of energy efficient systems and infrastructure, improving school site parking and traffic circulation, and more.

    This as-yet-unnamed General Obligation bond for CapEx is separate from Measure GG passed in November 2024. That is an 8-year parcel tax that provides approximately $3.6 million annually exclusively for academic programs, smaller class sizes, and teacher retention.

    You probably already got the mail piece and should expect at least a couple more in the next five and a half months. The primary we just had did not bode well for new taxes and it’s hard to see how that will change in a couple of months.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • High-Cost Rail – Part 169 Peak hubris?

    We may be approaching the point of peak hubris at the High-Speed Rail Authority. They are more than $100 billion short of what they need so their latest gambit is to lease out land on “their right of way” that they took by eminent domain to AI data center operators. Talk about “mission creep” from people who can’t even get the most basic part of their mission off the ground. The SF Comicle has a couple good quips on this from Central Valley politicians whose constituents are appalled at the idea:

    To pave the way for potential leases of land, fiber or electric transmission along the corridor, the rail authority has signed a co-development agreement with a consortium of infrastructure investors. They would act as a kind of intermediary for the rail line, helping match assets in the rail right-of-way with companies that would pay to use them. Within a few months CEO Ian Choudri expects to finalize a second agreement with another group of investors, this one focused on generating revenue from the solar arrays, wind farms, substations or batteries that will power the trains.

    That is called “spreading it around” in some circles. But not everyone is buying the idea:

    “Ian’s got big ideas,” Merced Mayor Matthew Serratto said, referring to Choudri. “He’s very plugged in with the Silicon Valley types. He’s a move-fast, visionary kind of guy, and he wants this project to pay for itself.” Serratto managed a dry laugh. “But really,” he said, “just build the train, dude.”

    Questions abound, at least in my mind. How can an agency take private property by eminent domain for one purpose and then start adding other, ostensibly profitable, uses without going back and compensating the original owner? If anyone is going to get a cut it should be the ranchers and farmer in the Central Valley who have had their lives disrupted. How much land would have to be leased to even put a small dent in the $100+ billion shortfall? Are the telecom carriers and electric utilities going to sit silently while some new competitor gets handed a sweetheart deal to undercut their decades of investment? Or the ratepayers? And there is the perennial question of where the water will come from? The Comicle notes all this needs to come together pronto if Newsom is going to try to claim some sort of successful exit from this disaster on the presidential campaign trail. Peak hubris.

    Posted by:

    Joe

    1 comment on High-Cost Rail – Part 169 Peak hubris?

  • Newsom: At least pay for your own lawyers

    We won’t get too far into the nitty gritty of the possible things that the FBI is investigating regarding the governor. The SF Comicle did its usual surface level piece when covering one of their favorites, but at least it landed on the front page and not A8. The words “behested payments” do not even make an appearance in the piece. Same goes for the Associated Press piece that the DJ ran above the fold yesterday. When a journalist spends five time more column inches on the denial and deflection than on the possible charges or what is publicly known about past dealings, it’s easy to invoke the “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” rule.

    What should get fellow California taxpayers’ goat is using government staff to handle personal legal issues. Here is one David Sapp, Legal Affairs Secretary in the governor’s office, shooting off a FOIA request on government letterhead and posted on a government website here.

    This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. § 552). I request all documents and records including but not limited to memoranda, emails, text messages, and Signal messages, from, to, or copying (“cc’ing”) any member of the executive leadership of the U.S. Department of Justice, including but not limited to former Attorney General Pam Bondi, former acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, and former Deputy Attorney General and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, that use the terms: “Gavin Newsom” or “Jennifer Siebel Newsom” or “Newsom” between January 20, 2025 and the present.

    Perhaps the “first partner” is a bit too much of a “first business partner”, but she’s not a government employee so she has even less claim to government staff time than the guv. Gemini provides some insight into who should be looking at this (besides the FBI).

    The California State Auditor investigates whistleblower allegations regarding the misuse of state resources, including employee time theft and the waste of state funds.

    For criminal matters involving public corruption, bribery, or misappropriation of public funds, the California Department of Justice (DOJ)—specifically its Special Investigations Team (SIT) and White Collar Investigation Teams—serves as the primary law enforcement investigative body.

    The whole thing reeks of backroom dealing and special treatment. We will tag this to the “Friends with benefits” and “Sacramento Stupidity” category, but it really should go to “Sacramento Shrewdness”.

    Posted by:

    Joe

    6 comments on Newsom: At least pay for your own lawyers

  • History Lesson: The origins of Flag Day

    Here at the Voice, we have long noted the presence or absence of the Stars and Stripes around town. Whether it be when the Boy Scouts plant dozens on B’way or someone forgets to raise a flag on an important day. But where did the date of June 14th come from? That is today’s history lesson courtesy of ChatGPT:

    On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress voted to establish the Continental Army. This occurred nearly a year before the Declaration of Independence. The decision came in response to the battles of Battles of Lexington and Concord, where colonial militia forces had already begun fighting British troops. The next day, June 15, 1775, Congress selected George Washington as commander-in-chief.

    The 1775 date is why the big 250th anniversary military parade happened last year. It commemorated the founding of the Continental Army. But that’s not the whole story:

    On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress passed the first official Flag Resolution:

    “Resolved, That the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”

    Notably, the resolution did not specify the arrangement of the stars. The familiar “Betsy Ross circle” design became popular later, but there is little contemporary evidence proving that Betsy Ross designed the first national flag.

    So that 250th anniversary will happen next June 14th. The day was formalized over the years:

    • In the late 1800s, schools and patriotic organizations began celebrating June 14 as Flag Day.
    • Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation in 1916 establishing June 14 as Flag Day nationally.
    • In 1949, Harry S. Truman signed legislation officially designating June 14 as National Flag Day.

    This year’s Flag Day will be at least as high profile as last year and as Paul Harvey used to say “”and now you know the rest of the story”.

    Until recently, the Old Post Office flagpole had been barren, but things are looking up lately.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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