The Burlingame Voice

Graffiti Musings

I love the walkway between the new Walgreens and the tailor shop on the Avenew.  It's convenient and the brick wall of the tailor shop is quaint--until the graffiti shows up.  It's been painted over a few times, but it is

 
I visited Palo Alto by train today (University Ave.) and was struck by how much wall space there is at the station and the pedestrian tunnel that goes under the tracks.  The walls are not in great shape, but they do not have any graffiti on them either.  It's not because they repaint regularly either since the paint is pretty beat.  Yet in B'game we paint often and still have tags like this one on the train station.

 
What's up with that?

Prop 22 - What's mine is mine and what's your's is.......

As people start to focus on the nine state Propositions and three county measures, number 22 sort of jumps off the election guide page as a no brainer.  Today's Daily Journal article attempts to present a balance view by discussing the state money grab as essential to protecting the public school funding, but that's pretty much a paper tiger given how poorly the state manages its (oops, our) money.

The state "borrowed" about $1.3 million from B'game last year with a hoped-for interest rate around 4%, but I doubt we'll ever see it and I'm pretty sure without 22 they will be back for more every year.  Local decisions on spending are much more considered and less political than state-level decisions--without the overhead, too.

High Cost Rail - Part 33 See the Story Poles

I think the plan to put up "story poles" to show what High Cost Rail will look like in our downtown is brilliant.  The poles will be unveiled at 2pm this Thursday at the B'game Avenew train station.  The city announcement is here.

The poles will only be up for a week, but here is what they look like in case you don't see them before Caltrain makes the City take them down--or at least that was the rumor at the event!

 
 

Old Train Travails

From today's Daily Journal report

Caltrain will cut four weekday trains, eliminate station agents and increase zone fares by 25 cents, if the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board approves the changes at a meeting this morning.

To bridge a $2.3 million deficit, the board will also likely increase the price for employer subsidized Go Passes. The base fare, however, will not increase.

And if Caltrain thinks HSR will solve their problems, they are massively confused.

Weedmart in B'game

KCBS had a small clip about the "Walmart of Weed" planned for Oakland that would be a 60,000 square foot facility offering pot growers' supplies, classes and apparently a garden area.  I thought, "How Berkeley".  But then today's Daily Post reports that the company

announced plans to open 75 franchises, beginning in Burlingame, San Francisco and Sacramento.  The address in Burlingame wasn't released yesterday.  Michael Hunt, a spokesman for WeGrow, said the franchisee in Burlingame got cold feet when the Post asked for the address.

But Hunt said, "I don't think it will be on Broadway or Burlingame Avenue".

Well, that would really spice-up the tonight's City Council conversation about our Downtown Specific Area Plan.  The old Drive-in site has a lot of room.  Good thing the school district bought the old Hoover School site back since it already has the classrooms WeGrow might need and the outdoor amphitheatre in the back has a lot of interesting growing areas around it.  The Post also reported that the B'game location won't be as big as Oakland's and will be open in two months.  I guess they could make the new building where the old Walgreen's is very green.  They could even reuse the sign!

High Cost Rail - Part 32 Simitian's Perspective

Our own local HSR activist David Harris attended Sen. Joe Simitian's Town Hall meeting on Oct. 2nd and has provided this short synopsis.   Thanks, David:

• Simitian believes only a handful of state assemblymen and senators are aware that there is strong opposition to HSR on the Peninsula and in Southern California.  Most of them support it and believe their constituents do too. He believes that only he, Sen. Alan Lowenthal and a few other senators have focused on HSR and all the problems with the High Speed Rail Authority. It's just not on other legislators' radar screens in any significant way. 
   
  He said that the most effective way to make your opposition known is to target members of the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
   
  After the Legislative Analyst Office and Auditor's Reports came out earlier this year, he had to get his subcommittee on Resources, Environmental Protection, Energy and Transportation to support him in forcing the HSR Authority to come back to the subcommittee in Feb 2011 with a viable business plan.  If the Authority doesn't, he has threatened to withhold funding.
• HSR might be able to be stopped either by actions of the Peer Review Committee (still being set up), appointing new HSR Authority directors (he said a couple of seats are up for either reappointment or replacement), or a new Proposition to overturn 1A which he doesn't think is very likely.
• He said litigation is a very legitimate way to get the Authority to listen.

At least one or two elected officials are paying attention to this massive boondoggle!

 

 

Bye Wally

According to the Chamber of Commerce newsletter, the old Walgreen's store demolition is due to start on October 19th.  If they can demo a typical house and cart away the debris in two days, I'm guessing the Walgreens will take six days.  What's your over and under?  I'll be traveling so would one of you bloggers please get a photo?

 

Cobras invade Burlingame

For just about an hour, a group of Cobras--(Shelby Cobras, that is), congregated near the tennis courts in Washington Park. It was informal group that enjoys taking drives around Northern California. members if the group hail from Pleasanton, Livermore, Danville and and other towns nearby. It's nice to see Burlingame as a destination. As the drivers talked, keeping close watch on their vehicles, their traveling companions shopped nearby Downtown Burlingame. Nice to see that they not only stopped by to see our fair city, but to drop a few bucks while they were here.

Then their motors roared in unison and they took off en mass as if a mongoose had arrived to scare all the Cobras away.