The Burlingame Voice

Brutalism in Burlingame

Empty buildings in B'game make me nervous.  I envision the Claw showing up some day and the whole structure being gone in a couple of days.  Many of the replacements are sterile.  It happens all over town in both commercial and residential areas.  That's why I got nervous after seeing our only local Brutalist building appearing to be empty.  It sits at 1825 Magnolia behind The Trousdale and Burlingame Plaza.  Borrowing from Wikipedia, we learn:

Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era.  Brutalist buildings are characterized by minimalist constructions that showcase the bare building materials and structural elements over decorative design. The style commonly makes use of exposed, unpainted concrete or brick, angular geometric shapes and a predominantly monochrome colour palette; other materials, such as steel, timber, and glass, are also featured.

Descending from the modernist movement, brutalism is said to be a reaction against the nostalgia of architecture in the 1940s. Derived from the Swedish phrase nybrutalism, the term "new brutalism" was first used by British architects Alison and Peter Smithson for their pioneering approach to design.  In the United Kingdom, brutalism was featured in the design of utilitarian, low-cost social housing influenced by socialist principles and soon spread to other regions around the world, while being echoed by similar styles like in Eastern Europe.

Brutalism has been polarizing historically; specific buildings, as well as the movement as a whole, have drawn a range of criticism (often being described as "cold"). There are often public-led campaigns to demolish brutalist buildings. Some people are favorable to the style and in the United Kingdom some buildings have been preserved.

I asked around a bit and some think it was built as the Teachers Association headquarters (now a few blocks away) and was later a bank.  The good news is that rather than being empty, an on-line search shows it is owned by the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, also known as "The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, which is based in Ukiah.  The parking lot must be chained when not in use.  I think the building is oddly cool and worth taking a moment or two to appreciate.  Here is it

CEQA in a topsy-turvy world

Lewis Carroll would resonate with current California politics since we are in an Alice in Wonderland upside down world.  Just look at how CEQA - the California Environmental Quality Act-- has become a hindrance that needs to be dodged.  The DJ notes:

Senate Bill 71, sponsored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, would extend exemptions for agencies like Caltrain from the California Environmental Quality Act for a myriad of projects.  CEQA typically necessitates detailed, often time-consuming, environmental reviews and impact reports. The current exemption is set to sunset in 2030.

“The main interest we have in this bill is that it would remove the current sunset date ... for a host of CEQA exemptions for transit projects,” Devon Ryan, officer of government and community affairs at Caltrain, said. “That does implicate a lot of things on the Caltrain-owned corridor, and we would be supportive of the continuation of this exemption.”

They pulled this eleven years ago as covered here.  It's not like the rest of the activities and projects on the Caltrain corridor are running so smoothly regardless of CEQA requirements.  Just look here.  And it's not just Weiner poking at the heretofore revered law.  Newsom is doing the same thing in Pacific Palisades and Altadena.

Who would have thought that the "evil developers" would end up being elected politicians?

DST: Early birds attacking night hawks

I'm a night hawk.  I've always been a night hawk.  Sunlight at 6am, or 7am, or even 8am is just wasted sunlight to me except for what my solar panels catch.  Tonight is the blessed arrival of DST--a day I look forward to after the depressing four months and a week of "Standard time".  I don't know what is so "standard" about it since it is in place for only a third of the year.  Annually we get pronouncements from medical experts about how the change is bad for our health.  The Merc has one such view here noting 

an increase in car accidents, heart attacks, strokes and potential negative effects on blood pressure and, most obviously, sleep. Martin says these effects make mental health symptoms worse for those with depression and anxiety and make things harder even for those without a mood disorder.

It seems to me most of those effects are a result of the change itself, not the "spring forward".  The "fall back" probably does the same.  If we were on DST all year, a lot of that would disappear.  As for the depression and mood disorders, the late afternoon and early evening light is not accounted for by the experts.  Jon Mays at the Daily Journal has weighed in with a preference for standard time all the time, but mostly with a desire to have us just pick one

And it is now more than seven years since 60% of California voters approved a change to permanent daylight-saving time, used in the summer, versus standard time, used in the winter.  Proposition 7 was passed by 60% of California voters in what I would call a solid victory. Around 7 million people voted for the change in November 2018.

Most people think we should stick with daylight saving time year-round, however, I think we should stick with standard time. It’s the actual time and the shift of sunset from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the summer is just being greedy. We already get naturally longer days in the summer so why do we need that extra hour? However, I’d be in favor of either as long I didn’t have to go through another time change.

Greedy?  Guilty as charged.  From longer Spring ski days without flat light on the slopes to the arrival of Music in Parks on weekday evenings to the start of Spring sports for kids, they all benefit from that greedy grab of an hour.  Let's face it.  A lot of people aren't commuting to an 8am start of the workday five days a week.  And if the kids are a little groggy and it doesn't stabilize after permanent DST has been around a while, start the school day 30 or 60 minutes later.  At least they will have more time for after school sports instead of playing videogames indoors.

Crime Stats: 2024 trended in the right direction

B'game PD collates the crime year-in-review annually and we bring it to you with historical context in an easily consumed format.  Last year's post highlighted the decline in catalytic converter theft; a trend that continued in 2024 almost to the point of vanishing.  It just goes to show that when you go after the buyers, the sellers have nowhere to sell.  Vehicle burglaries also declined a lot and a new category--Organized Retail Theft--was blessedly low.

The big news of last year and this month was the two shootings--one fatal and the other luckily not fatal at the H'borough Police station.  Let's hope that trend does not continue to the point where we need to add a category.  The attempted abduction that was foiled by two Good Samaritans and quick police work gave us all pause but verified that license plate readers are valuable.  Chief Matteucci retired late last year after 33 years on the force and he one guy who is able to say that he "went out on a low note"--one of the few jobs where that is a good thing!  Here are the stats for 2024 and a photo of the retirement.

Monthly Average                 2020     2021     2022     2023    2024

Residential Burglaries             2         2         3             2        1

Vehicle Burglaries                 20       25        24           23        13

Thefts from Unlocked Vehicles 14     8          5             6        4

Commercial Burglaries           6         5          5            4        2

Construction site theft           1         1         1             2        <1

Package thefts                       4         2         2             4        3

Catalytic Converter Theft       6         9        11            4        <1

Robberies                              2         2         1             1        <1

Stolen Vehicles                      9         7         8             8         6

Vandalism                             13     13         13           11        11

Organized Retail Theft                                                        <1

 

Podcast: Mark Lucchesi and I talk B'game (#103)

I'm honored that B'game podcaster Mark "Mark at the Mic" Lucchesi asked me back for another episode of Burlingame - It's a Small Town.  Over the course of about an hour we covered numerous topics that will be familiar to regular Voice readers and some new stuff too.  If you want to invest the time, around cocktail hour is recommended, then settle in with your favorite beverage and listen to the "Voice of the Voice".  The link to Episode #103 is here.

Thanks again, Mark.  He has me queued up for another one in a few months since there is always something to talk about in our Small Town^TM.

Hillsborough Shooting: Still at large

I knew something was up yesterday just after 4pm as a helicopter made its fourth circular pass over my house.  There had been some sirens as well and there were many more to follow as police cruisers raced up ECR for the next hour or more.  Around 7:30 I spotted a Mountain View cruiser parked in from of St. Catherine's lying in wait.  The SF Chronicle is reporting

Hillsborough police continued to search Sunday for an assailant they say ambushed and shot an officer in the police department’s rear parking lot Saturday afternoon before fleeing on foot.  The violent incident occurred at 3:49 p.m. Saturday, when an “unknown individual” began firing and struck the officer in the lot at 1600 Floribunda Ave., near Hillsborough Town Hall. The officer returned fire as the assailant took off. Police did not know whether the assailant had been hit.

Paramedics transported the wounded officer — who has not been identified — to San Francisco General Hospital as law enforcement began searching the area and “pursuing active leads'” to make an arrest, according to statements from the police department Saturday night.

That sounds far from random to me and is probably the basis for the "active leads" bit.  I was also reminded of the snafus around the tsunami warnings last December noted here.  Why?  Because the SMC Alert to shelter in place didn't arrive until 9:54pm!  What's up with that?  I checked X, but BPD hasn't posted anything to its account there since August of 2023.

Not wanting to drop into the rabbit holes that are Facebook and Nextdoor, I just kept listening to the chopper, and later a fixed wing plane, circle until well after dark.  I doubt you can see much looking for someone on foot in a neighborhood at 8pm from an airplane.  This makes two shooting in three months (see here), so we really have to get the public alert systems synchronized and operating in a timely fashion.  More to follow.

Update:  An eagle-eyed reader provided this flight view of the Cessna 206 that circled endlessly.  The helicopter is not shown.

City Hall Moving Around the Corner?

We covered the shortcomings of the historic City Hall here last September when the search for alternatives started.  As we noted then, a central downtown location is an intangible that is hard to value and harder to replace. Right on cue, staff is recommending a move around the corner to 1440 Chapin Ave--across the street from Mollie Stone's.  The move would involve two phases--a leased period followed by a purchase of the building and inheriting some of the existing tenants.  Per the Staff Report

Pursuant to the Lease and Purchase Agreements, the City is required to purchase the building by June 30, 2027, for a price of $34,500,000. After the building is purchased, the City plans to retain existing tenants in office suites not occupied by the City, which will serve as a source of revenue for the City and offset some or all of the costs associated with purchasing 1440 Chapin. Revenue is estimated to be $1,656,000 per year from rental income.

The city as a landlord could also extend to "the opportunity to collaborate with other public agencies, if they would like to lease space in the new City Hall."  The plan is up for discussion at tomorrow night's city council meeting and as these things go, I would think the deal is basically done.  Enough ground has been laid and there are enough short-tenured councilmembers that staff's say-so will suffice.  We don't have a Rosalie O'Mahony to issue a caution that would prevail.

The real question is what of the current City Hall property?  The DJ piece raised the question, but the answer is "we'll figure that out later"

Nearly 10 years ago, Burlingame had weighed the possibility of developing housing at the current City Hall site, though (Mayor Peter) Stevenson said conversation around the fate of the old building would be held at a future date.

Engaged locals are already worried about the open space in front of city hall.  The holiday tree lighting is a classic B'game community event.  The pressure to flip it to a developer who would "stack and pack" it with a mix of "affordable housing" will be high.  Is there enough backbone to resist it and make the best use of the aging facility possible?  Are there potential tenants who don't need Class A space?  What about those "other public agencies"?  There is also a decent amount of parking on the site so if a Return to Office move is afoot for city staff, those spaces are a short, healthy walk to 1440 Chapin.  We shall see.  An eagle-eyed reader sent me the Instagram post about tomorrow's meeting.  I didn't know the city was posting there.

 

Wildfires, Insurance rates, Fuel management & Defensible space

A nice heavy rainy day in B'game is the perfect time to reflect on Not Forgetting about our wildfire risk.  Almost three years ago we covered the Emerald Hills fire here.  Then came Pacific Palisades and Altadena which has pushed FAIR into the red and will cost all of us a pretty penny in insurance increases.  It's one thing to write State Farm or Farmer's a bigger check, it's quite another to lose your home.

The risks are multi-dimensional.  How good is our fuel management, particularly up the hill with our neighbors?  The state is updating the high-risk maps as part of Newsom's latest revelation that the 5 foot "Zone 0" area next to dwellings needs to be clear of fuel.  One has to wonder where he's been for the last five or ten years?  You can get a sense of the Hillsborough high-risk area here.  Swapping email with the CCFD Chief, I learned

In Hillsborough, the town conducts fuel management on town owned parcels and we have an extensive Wildland Urban Interface inspection program. Inspections are conducted annually and education and enforcement is applied according to the situation.

I know from friends that there have been non-renewals and big increases in insurance rates up there.  The insurers have reportedly also used drones to find private parcels that are at high-risk from lack of fuel maintenance and some of that information may even be informing their rates for the neighbors.  "It takes a village".

Our water supply is another aspect of preparation.  Swapping email with Public Works, I learned

We tap SFPUC system near Magnolia/Trousdale and use its static head to a point near BIS on Trousdale, and from there it is pumped to the Mills Reservoir.  From there, it gets gravity fed to Sky View Reservoir, which then serves the hillside area below.  On the south side of the City, we pump the water to the Hillside Reservoir located next to the Fire Station 35, which then serves the water to the zone that is above and outside of the SFPUC aqueduct zone.  We have four other SFPUC turnouts that we tap into to serve the remaining parts of the City primarily by gravity.  Hillsborough has a separate system outside of Burlingame, much of their water supply is pumped to their hills and then served to the residents unlike Burlingame.

A bit more research is in order for the layperson to follow the plumbing described above.  It's also a fair question to wonder how up to date the various parts are right now.  I asked about how we go about flushing the hydrants?  It was a pretty common thing to see when I was a kid, but I can't recall seeing it in B'game.  I've must have missed it since Public Works states

Burlingame has proactively invested in a robust capital improvement program to modernize its aging water infrastructure over the past few decades. This includes replacing several miles of water mains and upgrading older fire hydrants with newer models and adding new fire hydrants if needed. These efforts have not only enhanced the City’s water capacity but have also significantly improved fire protection. The hydrant flushing program is active and we rotate the program throughout the City based on water quality parameters.  The public may see more at some times than others as needed based on our water quality requirements.

The bottom line is B'game is not one of the eight cities in San Mateo County at the highest risk as shown here.  We have a lot of infrastructure.  We have maintenance plans.  My discussions with a concerned H'borough resident lead me to continue to believe our biggest risk stems from big private parcels up there that may not be on top of fuel management.  With all of the eucs up there, the effort described in the Merc about the work at East Bay Parks is something to aspire to here.

East Bay Parks has nearly quadrupled its fuel reduction staff in the past five years to take on the Herculean task of bringing the forest back into order, including the addition of Fuels Reduction Coordinator Givonne Law.

“Eucalyptus is notorious for being a very difficult-to-handle tree. Not only is it very heavy, but there’s generally huge accumulations,” Law said. “A lot of machinery operators out there will see a project like this and will just walk away.”

Law’s task was to thin the forest from more than 750 eucalyptus stems per acre to 150 stems per acre. Her aim, she said, was not to eliminate eucalyptus — despite their oily, flammable properties — but to reconstitute the balance of the forest to allow less dangerous trees such as bay and oak to reestablish themselves.

That works out to about one stem per 300 square feet--a 17 x 17 foot area.  A drive through H'borough will easily show areas with more density than that.

Crosswalk Daylighting: Minus 100 spaces and counting

We covered the new "daylighting" law that went into effect last January but is only now starting to be enforced here in B'game and elsewhere.  You can refresh your memory here regarding the 20-foot clearance around all crosswalks.  I have been having email discussions with Public Works and BPD on what the effects will be in our commercial districts, the areas around schools and the Rec Center as well as plain old residential areas.

2024 was the "educational" year when marginal violations would only earn a warning, but BPD does not show that it issued any warnings in town.  I say "educational" because the city is only marking red curb areas in the high traffic-high pedestrian areas.  Both of our commercial districts and the school zones qualify for new or refreshed paint.  Public Works notes "The City has already completed red curbing in the Burlingame Avenue downtown area and is now focusing on Broadway as the next priority" and estimates this will eventually result in a net loss of about 100 spaces city wide.  Some of our existing red zones will have to be extended to 20' like the one shown below in front of Ike's, so I think there maybe a few more than the initial 100 estimate.

Things get more interesting in residential neighborhoods.  There are crosswalks all over the place and plenty of people are accustomed to parking in front of their houses within 20' of such intersections.  I can go for a 15-minute walk in Burlingame Park and regularly count a half dozen.  There are two pocket parks on my walk, one that used to be Pershing School, so that may account for some of the legacy crosswalks.  Very few of these have any red curbing.  Thus, BPD has indicated:

The fine for daylighting is $40.00, the same as most of the City's parking fines. Parking Enforcement Officers won't be actively patrolling residential neighborhoods specifically looking for these violations. However, if they happen to observe one, they are encouraged to take appropriate action, which could be a warning or a citation.

I think good judgement will prevail at least for some educational period.  Six months?  9?  We shall see.  I'll be on the lookout for new red paint and whether or not it improves visibility of pedestrians.  Drivers should remember it is no longer illegal to jaywalk per The Freedom to Walk Act, which was signed into law in January 2023.

Where did civic engagement go?

After several years of Zoom meetings because of Covid, Burlingame City Council meetings have returned to City Hall. The Zoom meetings proved convenient for the public. Simply put, the easier you make local goings on more appealing to the masses, the more the masses will participate. Hold on fellow gadflies.

While council meetings and commission meetings have returned to City Hall, attending these meetings in person is one of the only ways to get your opinion heard by local leaders. If you watch the meetings live on Zoom, that’s all you can do—watch. There is no way to speak during public comments. During Covid you could weigh in. Not anymore.

If you choose to email the council or a commission prior to the meeting, you better get that comment in early or it won’t get into the council’s or commissioner’s packets and it might not get read at all. Until now, the staff would read aloud the late arriving comments to make certain members heard the concerns from the community. No more.

Also gone? City staff will no longer take minutes of the discussions prior to the vote on any particular subject. The notes will only reflect the vote itself. No more record of the rationale behind the decision. The response might be, “Well, you can always go back and listen to the archived meeting.” True. But there will be no written document. A written document can always be retrieved for historical purposes. Who knows what the electronic landscape will look like in the future? Floppy discs, microfiche and VHS tapes were all ways we thought would save items forever. They’re all gone too. Nothing trumps the written word.

There are no town hall meetings or opportunities like “council coffee hours.” True, the council did conduct at least one or two “meet & greets,” It seems there were not more than two of these meetings in the last few years. These meetings, if they were to happen again, need to be regularly scheduled so that public knows when they will be held well into the future. Of note, during Covid at least one former council member held periodic Zoom meetings with the public.

As a matter of full disclosure, I served on Burlingame’s City Council for a blink of an eye, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Back then, I sat at the former Il Picollo Café on Broadway each Tuesday morning and Copenhagen Bakery on Thursdays in order to speak with and listen to my constituents. They came. I listened. Better decisions were made.

I also held several town hall meetings where ideas were floated. Yes, the city council has goal setting sessions once per year that the public can attend. But the goals are well established before the meeting begins. The ensuing discussion will be about the agendized goals. No input from the public regarding what they think the goals ought to be.

Back then, we too had goal setting sessions, I solicited ideas before those meetings, so that I could bring the public’s perspective to the table. There hasn’t been a town hall meeting since then. That was 20 years ago.

In the age of electronic media, we should be able to find ways for the public to participate. After all, how do our local leaders know what we are thinking? How can they represent our best interest?

The city puts out an e-news blast. The “news” doesn’t cover the major land use issues happening throughout our town—and there are many. Sure, it’s helpful for us to know about a poetry slam at the library or that the hours of the dog park have changed, but how do we know about major projects in the pipeline if no one is going to tell us? “Check the city’s website,” they might say. An ”opt in” approach rarely works because there is no feedback loop.

Try logging onto the city website, try to find a phone number or email address for a staff member who might be able to answer your question or relay your concern. Almost impossible.

This is not a criticism of city staff, simply a series of observations. The truth is that in order to gain efficiency and streamline the process of governing, civic engagement has been all but eliminated.

Here's a novel idea: The new downtown Burlingame open space currently under construction could be a space like London’s Hyde Park, where anyone can get upon the soapbox and opine to those who care to listen?

How do our local leaders know how we feel if they don’t ask? Perhaps they don’t want to know?

Mullin Monitor: How Our Congressman Thinks

This is a "bookmark" post.  A bookmark post is a repository for future news items, quotes and press statements that don't tie together topically, but rather form a broad basis for understanding how someone thinks.  It is most useful for tracking elected or appointed officials who make statements on a variety of issues off-the-cuff, verses what goes out in edited press releases.  Our U.S. Rep. Kevin Mullin has been good about communicating what he is doing in D.C.  There have been several mailers, and his website is current.

Offical statements aside, Mullin thankfully responds regularly to local reporters and those are the types of insight that will feed this bookmark post.  I seem to recall he made some ad hoc comments on the La Quinta Inn purchase by the County, and I think he did come out against the sheriff keeping her job.  Rather than go search those out, a quote in the Chronicle this week will kick off the bookmarks.  After two pieces of immigration legislation went to vote in the House and drew some California Democratic "ayes", the Chron wrote this:

The House Democrats who backed both immigration measures — Gray, Josh Harder of Stockton, Mike Levin of Oceanside (San Diego County), Dave Min of Orange County and Whitesides — all represent battleground districts.

“I think there’s a basic political calculation with some of the purple seaters,” said Rep. Kevin Mullin, who represents a solidly blue district on the Peninsula and didn’t support either measure.  “I think immigration is a potent issue, and we’re clearly in need of some kind of comprehensive reform. I’m not going to pretend that immigration wasn’t a potent issue in the campaign, especially in swing districts. I’m in a different district,” Mullin said.

I won't veer off into the specific topic.  Readers can get that coverage anywhere.  I do find it interesting that Rep. Mullin can a) appreciate that some CA reps have purple districts whose constituents they need to consider ("political calculation") and b) he appears to be less inclined to think his constituents might also have varying opinions on certain issues--so less "calculating" is needed.  One might say "look at the last dozen District 15 elections" (or maybe more) and conclude he doesn't ever have to think "purple".  I'm not saying he does or doesn't.  I'm just bookmarking an interesting quote and anticipating more in the future.

KCSM 60th Anniversary: A movie and more music

Last night I was fortunate to attend the premier of a brand-new movie documentary about the 60-year evolution of KCSM into the worldwide jazz destination station it is today.  91.1 FM is a local jewel.  Thanks to streaming off of KSCM.org or just saying "Alexa, play KCSM" that jewel is now listened to around the world.  And it's not just the station playing a highly curated mix of jazz, blues and R&B; the annual concert Jazz on the Hill that returned in 2013 after Covid subsided is one of the best things about summer in the Bay Area as we noted here and here.

Fortunately, Palo Alto Online got an even earlier preview and reporter Peter Canavese was able to take extensive notes, so I don't have to try to summarize the movie.  You can read his lengthy review here.  That leaves me free to share some of the post movie Q&A session with a panel of 15 KCSM announcers (they prefer that to "DJ").  With Chris Cortez asking the questions and vocalist Tiffany Austin sitting in after her participation in the movie, we got a rare survey of how these announcers migrated to KCSM over time, especially after KJAZ folded and donated its huge library to KCSM.  A couple viewed San Mateo as a bit of a bumpkin location to work but came anyway, some came up through the student ranks from the college and others saw the passion of their predecessors and wanted to be a part of it.  The challenges local jazz musicians have getting heard was a theme -- music director Jesse "Chuy" Varela listens to all submissions, but neither he nor the station dictate what gets played.

It was noted that the announcer ranks were a bit long in the tooth as was the audience.  "Keeping Jazz Alive" takes care and feeding.  The internship program could be expanded and the worldwide reach, along with the movie buzz, will hopefully help fundraising and student participation.  I asked the station manager, Dr. Robert Franklin, about the plans for distributing the movie.  It will run at the SF Indiefest in February and the DVD will be a gift during the next pledge drive.  Hopefully Netflix will pick it up as well.  We're lucky to have KCSM as our home station and these globally recognized on-air voices as its curators.