The Burlingame Voice

Information Wanted!

Police investigate string of robberies - Three Burlingame homes hit in one day (by Mark Abramson, Daily News)

Burlingame police are investigating three daytime burglaries that occurred within a mile of each other last Tuesday.

The burglaries were reported in the 1100 block of Oxford Road, the 1000 block of Laguna Avenue and the 1200 block of Bernal Avenue, police said. The suspect in two of the incidents got into the residences through unlocked doors. The items taken included jewelry, laptop computers and other electronics.

It is unclear whether the burglaries are related, and police have not arrested any suspects.

Anyone with more information is asked to call the Burlingame Police Department at

650-777-4100.

- Written by Fiona

Howard Avenue Closure

Howard Avenue Closure this Weekend (e-newsletter)

From Monday to Friday, Nov. 26-30, crews will replace worn asphalt, rails, ties and ballast on the tracks. Neighbors may hear construction noise and back-up alarms on equipment. For more information about the types of routine maintenance that Caltrain does, click here.

From Friday to Monday, Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, Howard Avenue will be closed in order to continue the reconstruction and realignment of the track from North Lane to Howard Avenue, as part of the Burlingame station project. The closure will take place from approximately 8 p.m. on Friday and continue through approximately 5 a.m. Monday morning. Drivers are encouraged to detour around the road closure at Bayswater Avenue.

Construction will begin Friday evening to and continue through early Monday morning, as crews remove and replace worn rails, ties and ballast. Neighbors may hear construction noise and backup alarms on equipment. Two portable light towers, powered by a diesel generator, will be used for night work as well. Construction crews will make efforts to work as quickly and quietly as possible to minimize any disturbance to neighbors.

Train schedules will not be affected, however, trains through the construction area will run on a single track in both directions. As a result, between 8 p.m. on Friday, through the last train Sunday evening, passengers at the Broadway, Burlingame and San Mateo stations will board all trains from the southbound platform. Announcements about this will be made by conductors on board trains and at stations.

- Written by Fiona

A Burlingame-Only Facebook Group

A place on the Web for neighbors (Examiner)

Burlingame, Calif. (Map, News) - A pair of Burlingame Web developers launched a mission to connect locals last week by creating a smaller localized version of social-networking Web site Facebook that they hope will spread throughout the Peninsula.

Monti Majthoub and Marwan Shureih were walking around downtown Burlingame loved by many residents for its small-town? atmosphere when they realized how easy it was for everyone in the small community to get lost in online networks such as MySpace and Craigslist. They created a Burlingame-only Facebook group, but it did not yield much interest because everyone has so many friends and groups on expansive social-networking sites, Majthoub said. Two weeks ago, the duo, who run a file-conversion site, came up with the idea for burlingamesocial.com as a side project for people looking to meet up at a bar or find a tennis partner. One week later, they launched the site. My friend has 500 friends on MySpace, but he doesn't know any of them,? Majthoub said. I don't want it to be like MySpace.?

To create the exclusive club,? the pair will limit the site to 200 users while screening to ensure that contributors live or work in Burlingame. Only regular users can avoid being booted off the site. Everyone on the site is connected and can create their own page, network with businesses and post comments, photos, videos, events and forum discussions.

If you have nothing to do this week, you can go on [the site] and see what other people are doing,? Shureih said. You can find a party and some cool people.? They coined the slogan Hold hands, not keyboards? to illustrate their desire to connect people in real life, as opposed to chatting online.

Angela Vereau, a Palo Alto teacher who lives in Burlingame, posted on the site to meet some locals at Nectar Wine Lounge for happy hour next weekend. The most attractive part of the whole thing is that they're limiting it to Burlingame residents? and workers, Vereau said. It's kind of serendipitous because I was just thinking that I wanted to connect with more people who live locally.?

If the experiment proves successful, Majthoub and Shureih envision adding small, closed networks to other Peninsula cities and possibly even San Francisco and San Jose. Regardless of how big the site gets, however, the creators said the key is to maintain tiny online communities.

(link to Burlingame Social added to lefthandside panel on Burlingame Voice, F)

- Written by Fiona

Ray Park Softball

From the Burlingame Daily News-San Mateo County Times

Softball group wants to play in park

Residents concerned about noise and traffic

By Mark Abramson / Daily News Staff Writer

Burlingame Girls Softball officials say they are worried their proposal to play and practice at Ray Park on Sundays won't be a hit with the city and the park's neighbors.

The league needs the three fields at Ray Park, near Devereaux Drive and Mills Creek, on Sundays to make up rained-out Saturday games and to add a batting cage for the league's 350 players, said Gary Bell, an assistant coach with the league.

"Residents are concerned with the noise," Parks and Recreation Director Randy Schwartz said. "The parks and recreation commission over the past 10-plus years has held several meetings between the residents and Girls Softball to lessen the impacts on the neighborhood."

The Burlingame Parks and Recreation Commission plans to study the issue by watching a team workout at Ray Park on Dec. 2 and measuring the noise with a decibel meter. The commission could discuss the matter at its Jan. 20 meeting or call a special meeting before then, Schwartz said.

Residents are also concerned about traffic congestion from practices and games, and they have indicated they would like at least one day a week on which the fields aren't used, Schwartz said. League officials previously agreed not to play or practice at the park on Sundays.

League officials said they have taken steps to minimize the impact on residents and plan on expanding their efforts.

"The batting cage would have a pitching machine that uses a rubberized softball that is hit into a net," Bell said. "The only noise is the bat contact with the ball."

Girls Softball has already added padding to the backstops at Ray Park to reduce noise, Bell added.

Bell said he thinks it is unfair that the girls cannot use Ray Park on Sundays, when boys baseball has access to other fields.

City officials said they have received e-mails, phone calls and other correspondence from people who are in favor of and against letting the girls use Ray Park on Sundays.

Parks and Recreation Commissioner and former league president Joe LaMariana said letting the girls use the field for practice would not be a year-round issue, since it would only be in use between early March and early August. The league needs another batting cage, he noted.

LaMariana said he has not made up his mind whether the girls should be allowed to use Ray Park on Sundays.

"I think it is a public space, and I think they have the right to use the space," he said, "but I think we have a challenge in balancing the needs of the neighborhood as well."

- Written by Joe

Burlingame Avenue's Loss, Broadway's Gain

Longtime Burlingame retailers' futures uncertain (by Tim Simmers /MediaNews)

After 25 years of operating her All That Glitters jewelry store, Isabelle de Paz is having a hard time thinking straight. With the lucrative Christmas shopping season under way, she has been told she has to move from her longtime storefront in downtown Burlingame because the building has been sold. Normally, she would be designing one of her eye-catching holiday window displays, but now she is hanging up "leaving sale" signs.

A number of other hair salons and skin-care retailers in the Primrose Road building are also in limbo. Their leases have expired, and they're paying month-to-month rents with no word on how long they can stay. Half of the 20 shop owners who occupied the building have already moved.

"They're throwing a landmark out, and I'm really upset," said an emotional de Paz. Her colorful jewelry store has been a shining star in the downtown Burlingame retail scene. Her flamboyant windows stood out for years, and her lively personality also added color to the local landscape. Now, de Paz is scrambling to gather her merchandise, put it on sale and move what is left to a new location at 1454 Broadway in Burlingame after the first of the year.

The handsome, 60-year-old Tudor-style building she occupies now was sold last year to Kirk C. Syme, owner of Woodstock development in Burlingame, by longtime owner G.W. Williams Co. Syme has submitted plans to the city of Burlingame to reconfigure the building, but the plans are on hold, according to Burlingame city planners. Syme noted that he is still in the process of planning the space. "It's an iconic, signature building, and I'm delighted to own it," said Syme, adding that he plans to remake the ground floor into one space and lease it to a single retailer. The ground floor has been home to a half dozen retailers. He prefers to lease the floor to a local retailer, but if a national tenant wants to look, "that's all right, too," he said. He'll move his company upstairs in the two-story building, where a handful of small businesses have been left in the lurch but are still operating.

The shop owners are convinced the reworked ground floor will go to a chain store, further boosting rents that are squeezing small retailers in the downtown area. Burlingame already has its share of large national retail chains, including The Gap, Baby Gap, Sharper Image, Pottery Barn and Bebe's women's clothing store.

The shop owners who are left are playing a waiting game, looking for new digs in their spare time. Denise Spanek, owner of the makeup and skin-care studio Visage, is in the process of moving after 24 years in business. She grew up in Burlingame and started her business when she was 23. But Spanek said she could see the writing on the wall as downtown rents climbed. She realized she could no longer afford to stay in the city and is moving to San Francisco near the Potrero Hill district - she got nearly twice the space for less than she pays now. "Burlingame's turned into a corporate, high-end mall without ceilings," Spanek said. "That's not what my business is about or what I want to compete with."

Syme would not reveal how much he paid for the building, but the shop owners believe it's about $6 million. Syme founded Woodside Development in 1996 and owns buildings in San Mateo, Redwood City and Foster City. The shop owners know he'll need to charge higher rents to pay for his Burlingame acquisition, and they don't figure they're in his plans.

William Boudreau runs a hair salon in the building with his partner. His lease expired, after 10 years and he has been put on a month-to-month basis. "We don't feel secure here anymore, and we've got to keep looking," Boudreau said. "It's not easy picking a place, because most aren't set up for what we want."

- Written by Fiona

BHS - Arsenic Clean Up

Arsenic cleanup set to begin at high school - After delays, workers expect to finish in May (by Mark Abramson, Daily News)

After months of delays, the arsenic cleanup at Burlingame High School is slated to start next week and is expected to cause some parking headaches, San Mateo Union High School District officials said Tuesday. The cleanup at seven locations around the campus at 1 Mangini Way, including the front lawn off of Carolan Avenue, should be done by late April or early May, depending on the weather, said Todd Lee, construction manager for Greystone West. Co., the Sonoma-based consulting firm the district hired to oversee the work.

Last spring, district officials said they expected the entire $4.2 million cleanup of polychlorinated biphenyls, oil, arsenic and other toxins to be completed in August. But funding problems and other obstacles delayed the project. Now that the district has received a $2.6 million state grant and the approval of various state agencies, it is ready to proceed with the work.

The arsenic cleanup entails removing and replacing about 3,000 cubic yards of soil at a cost of $1.2 million. Another $976,000 will be spent on replacing one field near Oak Grove Avenue with artificial turf. The field has been and will continue to be used as a practice area for the lacrosse teams. "We have been anticipating for it to be done for months now," said Linda Carlton, a parent who helped start the lacrosse program last year. "The field should be completed by the end of February or early March. It will affect our practices, however, for the month of February. We have made arrangements to use Murray Field."

One of the challenges of the work has been finding a way to save the Redwood, Monterey cypress and other trees on the front lawn, Lee said. "This is an extraordinarily complex matter," said Elizabeth McManus, the district's associate superintendent for business services. "If (the lawn) didn't have those trees, it would lose its charm."

The California Department of Toxic Substances Control and other agencies approved a plan for the school to use a steel mesh barrier below the surface of the front lawn, which will protect the trees there by decreasing the amount of excavation that needs to be done and should prevent arsenic from resurfacing, Lee said.

One unavoidable impact of the arsenic cleanup, however, will be on parking, McManus said. Parking will have to be reduced along Carolan Avenue, Oak Grove Avenue and in other areas because of the truck traffic related to the work. "It's going to be a nuisance for us students who drive," said senior Stephen Merchant, 17. He said he thinks students will have to park behind the school, but that it should be easier for seniors to deal with because they have their own lot. Merchant says he hasn't been inconvenienced by the clean-up efforts at the school so far. "The only real noticeable thing about the cleanup is there is a chain-link fence around the front lawn," Stephen said. "It's kind of an eyesore."

Merchant's mother, Pamela Merchant, who is the president of the BHS Parents Group, said parents are concerned about how the arsenic cleanup will affect the school's aesthetics, because the plan calls for dirt to be piled up in the front lawn before it is hauled away. She also has a freshman son, Greg, 14, at BHS, and her daughter Caroline, 16, is a junior. "The school has been very good about keeping us posted," Merchant said. "I think their hands have been tied because it's being taken care of by the state, and there have been a holdups and delays."

- Written by Fiona

Tuesday Meeting on Caltrain Expanding Service

Caltrain plans to expand schedule (by Will Oremus, Daily News)

Caltrain plans to fill gaps in its evening service by adding two routes and shuffling its schedule. The extra trains, one northbound and one southbound, would run after 7 p.m. on weekdays. With the new schedule, trains would leave San Francisco and San Jose every hour on the half-hour between 7:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.

Caltrain will seek public comment on the changes before making a decision at a board meeting on Dec. 6. If approved, the new schedule would go into effect in March 2008.

The added routes would represent a rare expansion of capacity by the cash-strapped line. More and more people are riding Caltrain, but its funding is barely enough to support the present service level. Spokesman Jonah Weinberg said the expansion from 96 to 98 trains per day is made possible by the efficiency of Caltrain's new maintenance yard in San Jose. Between that and the extra ticket sales, the agency is hoping to break even on the added routes. They come at times when Caltrain occasionally has to run extra trains anyway to shuttle people home from ballgames and other events.

The schedule additions could be the agency's last until it switches to electric trains, a move tentatively planned for 2014, Weinberg said. At that point it hopes to begin running trains at least every half-hour.

As of September, Caltrain's average weekday ridership this fiscal year was 39,090, up 7.9 percent from last year. At peak commute hours, its cars are becoming quite crowded, but Weinberg said the line is already running as many trains as it can during those times.

Caltrain will hold three public input sessions on the proposed schedule changes on Tuesday from 5:30 to 7 p.m. They'll be in San Francisco at the Caltrain Station on Fourth and King streets; San Carlos at the Caltrain Administrative Offices at 1250 San Carlos Ave.; and San Jose at Diridon station at 65 Cahill Street.

Details of the proposed schedule changes are online at http://www.caltrain. com/timetable.

- Written by Fiona

Neighborhood Watch

This email from an Oxford Road resident whose home was robbed at lunch time on Tuesday, November 20 has been circulating throughout Burlingame today. It has been posted by request.

Hello Friends & Neighbors,
I am sickened to tell you all that today between 11:30 & 12:30 in the afternoon our home was robbed. This was the only time frame that the house was empty. All of my jewelry was stolen. They took nothing else but my jewelry and my daughters jewelry. Today, in addition to our home, there were 3 other robberies in Burlingame. 1 on Laguna, 1 on Bernal and I can't remember where they said the 4th one was. These robberies all took place during the mid-day hours. Neighbors, please lock your doors and let's keep an extra observant watch in our neighborhood. If anyone saw anything during this time frame around my house please let me know. At 11:30 there were 3 men seen in an extra long white truck parked between my house and 1150 Oxford on the curve. One of the men was standing by my driveway. We are checking with all the neighbors to see if they are someones gardeners as they were not seen working. The truck had gardening equipment in it. A white truck was also spotted at the Bernal robbery.

We are thankful that everyone is safe. God knows it could have been a lot worse. Please pass this information on to your Burlingame friends and neighbors. We are apparently a target in this family friendly city where we all tend to keep our doors unlocked. Be safe and be aware!

- Written by admin

Our New Mayor

O'Mahony to become mayor for fifth time - Burlingame council member will lead city into its second century (by Mark in the Daily News)

Burlingame will be in good hands when Rosalie O'Mahony takes over as mayor Monday for a fifth time, one of her fellow council members said. O'Mahony, who was elected to the council in 1989, served one-year terms as mayor in 1994, 1997, 2000 and 2004. She will replace Terry Nagel as the top elected official.

While it is standard procedure for council members to take turns as mayor and vice mayor - Council Member Ann Keighran will take the latter post - only three other people besides O'Mahony have served as mayor five times in the city's history, City Clerk Doris Mortensen said. Dave Martin was the last person to serve as mayor five times. He held the post in 1964, 1969, 1973, 1980 and 1985. Irving Amstrup served as Burlingame's mayor a fifth time in 1984 and William Crosby did so in 1983. O'Mahony's experience will be an asset as she takes the helm once again, said Council Member Cathy Baylock, mayor in 2005-06. "She (O'Mahony) is a very fair mayor," Baylock said. "She listens to both sides of the issues from the public and from her colleagues. I think it will be pretty easy for her."

Although every time as mayor has been special, the fifth time has a certain charm because 2008 is the city's centennial year, O'Mahony said. "I'm hoping I will (help) keep Burlingame the gem of the Peninsula and I will be able to launch it into its second century with flair," she said.

O'Mahony - a Burlingame resident since 1965, when she started teaching mathematics at the College of San Mateo - said something significant has occurred in the city each time she has held the post.

She was mayor when the city opened the renovated and expanded library in 1997 and during some tough financial times in 2004. She also was mayor when the city dedicated Murray Field in 1997. And in 2000, Burlingame was riding the dot-com swell. "Now it is a whole new ballgame because Sacramento is still in (financial) trouble and they are not going to bail us out, so we really need to find our own way," O'Mahony said.

O'Mahony put fixing the city's aging flood control system at the top of her to-do list, as well as continuing to invest in one of her favorite places - Broadway. In the 1990s, she played a pivotal role in helping spur the street's renovation.

"I'm going to be working very hard to get more money for pedestrian and bicycle safety," she said. O'Mahony has already done a lot for transportation on the Peninsula, said Richard Napier, executive director of the City/County Association of Governments. He credited her for supporting transit-oriented residential development and getting the state to add auxiliary lanes on Highway 101 to improve traffic flow as a C/CAG board member. She continues to represent the city on the C/CAG board, and serves on or has served on the boards of several other organizations, agencies and charities.

In addition to mathematics, O'Mahony also likes to hit golf balls at the city's driving range. She is single and has no children. When asked how long she wants to be on the council, O'Mahony said, "I will serve Burlingame as long as I feel I can give my best to it."

- Written by Fiona

$375 Fine for McConnell

Traffic reporter pays fine for stealing sign

By Michelle Durand (San Mateo Daily Journal)

The traffic reporter videotaped stealing two campaign lawn signs for an unsuccessful Burlingame City Council candidate prior to Election Day pleaded no contest Friday to one petty theft infraction and paid $375.75.

In return for the plea, prosecutors dropped a second infraction against KGO radio personality Joe McConnell. McConnell was not required to personally appear in court and was instead represented by attorney Charles Pierpoint. McConnell was sentenced to fines and restitution totaling $375.75.

The settlement spares McConnell the possibility of a second fine if convicted and ends the minor scandal that popped up during campaign season.

In early October, council candidate Gene Condon discovered signs turning up missing and used a friend's surveillance system to capture the culprit. On Monday, Oct. 8, the tape reportedly recorded McConnell moving the sign from Rosedale Avenue and El Camino Real.

McConnell's wife co-chaired candidate and Planning Commissioner Jerry Deal's campaign which on Election Night knocked out incumbent Russ Cohen.

McDonnell told the Daily Journal after news of the theft broke that Condon's sign hid one for Deal and he set it against a fence 50 feet away. He also apologized for offending Condon.

Burlingame police forwarded the matter to the District Attorney's Office which held off an announcement until after the election to avoid making it a political issue.

The law allows a first petty theft offense where the property is less than $50 to be charged as an infraction rather than a misdemeanor. While an infraction is legally lesser than a misdemeanor, the mark can be considered if McConnell ever faces similar charges in the future, District Attorney Jim Fox said when announcing the office's decision to prosecute.

Fox said the choice to move forward was predicated on a need to send a message that political hijinks are not acceptable? and the fact the crime was indisputably recorded on surveillance tape.

Had McConnell opted to challenge the charges, he would not qualify for a court-appointed attorney or a jury trial. A verdict is rendered by a judge.

McConnell could not be reached for comment.

- Written by Joe