The Pied Piper Players presents The Music Man this weekend (April 28-30) and next (May 5-7) at the Bayside Performing Arts Center in San Mateo (2025 Kehoe — east off 101 towards the Bay). Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday each weekend as well as matinees at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday of each weekend. Tickets $15 general; $10 seniors and children under 13.
– Written by Joanne
Daily Journals – Residents irked by lowered speed limit
A recently lowered speed limit on California Drive in Burlingame is taking drivers by surprise and has the city scrambling to make the change official after a former mayor complained. Signs went up on California Drive between Burlingame Avenue and Murchison Drive a few weeks ago, changing the speed limit from 35 mph to 30 mph. Residents upset by the change and drivers who have been stopped by the police are flooding City Hall with calls. Former mayor Joe Galligan noticed the change and immediately called for the removal of the signs until a public hearing is held. He claims the change violates city ordinances and it turns out he's right technically.
City officials claim the change is part of routine traffic monitoring program required by law and follows at least a decade-old protocol. When the city started receiving complaints about the revised speed limit, the city looked into its rule book and noticed it is required to revise a city ordinance before changing speed limits. The city, however, has forgone that technicality for years, said City Manager Jim Nantell.It doesn't sound right to Galligan who has personally seen a number of people pulled over on California Drive, but hasn't himself been stopped by police. If I were mayor and the signs were posted illegally, I'd take them down immediately,? Galligan said. If something's done that shouldn't have been done, that shouldn't require an action by the council.? Mayor Cathy Baylock was caught flat-footed when she started receiving phone calls from the press and Nantell Thursday. It sounds like someone got ahead of themselves on the signs,? Baylock said.
Every five years, the city is required to conduct a speed zone survey on streets with speed limits over 25 mph. The city recently conducted a series of studies on California Drive, Rollins Road and Airport Boulevard. All three studies determined the posted speed limit should be reduced from 35 mph to 30 mph. The surveys were done by a private company hired by the city. Speed limits are changed based on a number of different factors, but rely mostly on speeds people are traveling during the survey. The city must change the limit to the speed traveled by people in the 85th percentile of the study, Nantell said. On California Drive, the 85th percentile represents 30 mph, Nantell said.
The signs were changed and a notice was posted on the city's Web site. After receiving numerous calls, City Attorney Larry Anderson started looking through the city ordinances and realized the council is officially required to amend an ordinance before posting the signs. The council will vote on the change during one of its June meetings, Nantell said. In the meantime, the signs will not be taken down and police will be lenient with tickets, said Police Chief Jack Van Etten. We have been making stops and we have provided warning, but obviously this case is still an issue because it has to go back to the council for any lowering or increasing of the speed limit due to an ordinance,? Van Etten said. Speeders still need to beware. We are still going to stop speeders who are endangering the community and we will cite them for it,? Van Etten said. How people started driving slower on California Drive is still a mystery. Nantell said the idea that people are actually driving slower on California Drive had city employees scratching their heads.? He is also assuring residents that they are not going to get a ticket if they are still doing 35 mph instead of 30 mph. In his 33 years with the city, Van Etten has never seen the speed limit change. However, it could always be tied into increased traffic, more driveways or more pedestrians. The new speed limits will be reviewed by the Traffic Safety Parking Commission before going to the council for its ultimate sign-off in June.
Burlingame residents ticked off that the speed limit on California Drive was lowered will have their chance to give the City Council a piece of their mind at an upcoming meeting.
– Written by Fiona
If you care what our Downtown Economic Study is all about, please come to the following meeting
TIME: 6:30 pm
WHERE: Lane Room, Burlingame Public Library.
Time will be set aside to ask questions.
– Written by Fiona
Jane Jacobs was years ahead of mainstream thinking on city planning issues. She can only be described as an icon. Those of us who were busy doing other things during the fiascos of "urban redevelopment", rampant "suburbanization" and the tear-down-start-over mentality found a voice of logic and reason in her writings. Here is an excerpt of her obit from today's SF Chronicle:
Jane Jacobs, an author and community activist of singular influence whose classic "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" transformed ideas about urban planning, died Tuesday, her publisher said. Jacobs, a longtime resident of Toronto, was 89.
Jacobs, who based her findings on deep, eclectic reading and firsthand observation, challenged assumptions she believed damaged modern cities that neighborhoods should be isolated from each other, that an empty street was safer than a crowded one, that the car represented progress over the pedestrian.
Her priorities were for integrated, manageable communities, for diversity of people, transportation, architecture and commerce. She also believed that economies need to be self-sustaining and self-renewing, relying on local initiative instead of centralized bureaucracies.
"She inspired a kind of quiet revolution," her longtime editor, Jason Epstein, said Tuesday. "Every time you see people rise up and oppose a developer, you think of Jane Jacobs."
If you haven't read The Death and Life of Great American Cities please put it on your summer reading list.
– Written by Joe Baylock
Planning Commmision news from the Daily Journal:
The Burlingame Planning Commission approved a plan to add a two-story addition to the existing two-story brick building at 1427 Chapin Ave., formerly the Burlingame Garden Center, Monday. The proposal seeks to maintain the historical value, as the new building will be set back emphasizing the nearly 100-year-old brick building.
At the same meeting, the commission approved a plan to allow a table tennis club at 1299 Bayshore Highway, Suite 100. When the proposal was first presented to the commission, questions were raised about the planned unisex shower.
And it looks like Botox treatments will be making an appearance in the Burlingame Avenue area. Dermalounge, Inc., a beauty salon with services like facials and Botox treatments, applied for a conditional use permit for health service use. The salon hopes to make a home on 1111 Howard Ave. The commission asked the proposal be brought back on the consent calendar at a future meeting.
– Written by Fiona
New black and yellow banners advertising the City's parking lots have been up for a couple months now. Has there been much feedback as to whether they have been helpful or not?
– Written by Joanne
From Daily Journal – City working toward safer crossing – After the death of a Burlingame teen on the train tracks, city officials are looking for ideas to make crossing the tracks safer. In early May, a Traffic Safety and Parking Commission meeting will be held allowing the public to voice concerns and share ideas in an effort to make the community safer. Discussions started last week after Fatih Kuc, a 13-year-old Burlingame Intermediate School student, was crossing the tracks when a southbound train hit him last week. Kuc became the seventh death on the tracks this year. We really need to find the safest plan possible,? said Councilwoman Ann Keighran.
The commission meets 7 p.m. Thursday, May 11 at City Hall, 521 Primrose Road.
– Written by Fiona
Examiner's article – PG&E pays local group $718,000 in legal expenses
SAN MATEO, Calif. – A Peninsula watchdog group will receive a major payout from Pacific Gas and Electric for costs associated with fighting to reroute the Jefferson-Martin power line connecting two substations in Redwood City and Brisbane. The group, 280 Corridor Concerned Citizens, will receive more than $718,000 in reimbursement for attorneys, experts and consultants that members paid up front starting in August 2004. Two other groups, Women's Energy Matters and Californians for Renewable Energy, will also receive payments of $127,000 and $35,000, respectively. We're pleased with the decision and feel justified for the amount of time and work that we dedicated to the project,? 280 CCC member Lara Lighthouse said. Edward O'Neill, attorney for 280 CCC, originally requested almost $1.07 million, but was awarded the smaller amount by an administrative law judge in proportion to the contribution? the group made to the project, court documents show. The group was successful in influencing the route, environmental review and issues regarding the health and safety risks associated with electromagnetic field radiation, court documents show. 280 Citizens was instrumental in developing the record regarding EMF exposure levels in routing the project, and the need to modify PG&E's proposed EMF Management Plan for the Jefferson-Martin project,? administrative law judge Charlotte TerKeurst wrote.
Burlingame Councilwoman Terry Nagel, who followed the project closely, commended the group for its hard work and called on PG&E to re-establish a fund for such public advocates so that they are not required to risk so much of their personal savings in their bid to influence projects in the future. Pleased that the issue has reached a conclusion, PG&E spokesman Paul Moreno highlighted the estimated $350,000 of the original request that 280 CCC did not receive. PG&E is pleased that the [California Public Utilities] Commission has spared our customers from having to fund time spent by 280 CCC on matters that did not substantially contribute to the commission decision on the Jefferson-Martin transmission line,? Moreno said. The 27-mile 230kV transmission line, which is on schedule to be completely installed by the end of next month, is expected to enhance power reliability to San Francisco, Moreno said.
– Written by Fiona
What a joy it is to see the Burlingame Avenue Train Station peopled again. Ok the ladies waiting for the train are only mannequins but these ladies are very elegantly dressed in vintage costumes from the Victorian era and beyond. There is also a photo of Mrs. Gates taken at the station in 1895 and a mannequin similarly dressed minus the gentlemen and dogs in the photo!
Thanks to the Burlingame Historical Society for bringing our station "alive" with a touch of elegance!
– Written by Fiona
From yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle:
The Marin County District Attorney has charged three people — two 18 year olds and one 25 year old — with a felony charge of conspiring to provide alcohol to minors after two teens who attended the party died on their way home in a drunk driving accident. The person who hosted the party was 18 year old Debra Bauer who was celebrating her 18th birthday. Her parents were on vacation in Iowa at the time.
Bauer invited friends to her party through the Internet community Web site Myspace.com and told them alcohol would be available.
After the party, an intoxicated 18 year old crashed his pick up truck killing himself and one other boy. The third passenger in the truck survived but suffered major injuries.
– Written by Joanne
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