The Burlingame Voice

What's Your New Year's Resolution?

As 2010 winds down I'm guessing most of us won't miss it much.  If you want to get a jump on 2011, how will you do it?  What's your New Year's resolution?

Mine?  Blogging about High-cost Rail will need to be less than half of my total posts on the Voice.  High-cost burn-out is in effect.  I liked Ken Garcia's finale to his annual "Gaffes and Laughs" round-up

After years of planning, the California High-Speed Rail Authority decided to spend its first $4 billion or so on a connection between Borden and Corcoran, two cities that have a combined population of 25,000. Is it a real train or a Disney ride? At the last minute, it included a stop in Bakersfield. Operators are standing by to, well, stand by.

But clearly there is more work to be done since Time magazine of all pubs--a journalistic Titanic after the iceberg--is highlighting as a postive thing that the HSR strategy is

The master builder Robert Moses had a legendary strategy for ambitious public-works projects: start now, and figure out how to finish later. "Once you sink that first stake," he liked to say, "they'll never make you pull it up."

They can't even publish a magazine at breakeven and they somehow thing they know anything about high-cost rail financials???  OK, OK.  New Year's resolution--less than half the posts.  Got it.  What about yours?

Saving Money?

The City of San Mateo is closed for biz this week.  Is that a smart move?  You could argue that it is a slow week for city business and thus a good time to recoup some salaries/vacation time.  What do the bloggers think?  Should B'game follow their lead?

 

Santa, Will You Bring Me PAC-B'game?

One of the changes that comes with the Mercury News' affiliation with the SM County Times appears to be a bit more editorial support for historic preservation as seen in today's editorial.  Here's hoping the Mercury Times editors and reporters take a bit of the News' point of view in the new year.  They write:

So this year, following our annual holiday tradition of declaring the best civic gift of the past 12 months, we'd like to note two major anniversaries celebrated in 2010 by organizations that have been invaluable to us all over time, although in different ways.

One is PAC-SJ, the Preservation Action Council of San Jose, which 20 years ago began fighting to preserve historic buildings and neighborhoods at a time when architectural transience was in danger of becoming the norm in San Jose.

I like that term "architectural transience" because it has a certain foreboding sound that matches reality.  They go on to note:

But PAC's mission is not just about architecture. Old buildings give us a sense of history and of place. They remind us who we are, where we came from and how our best work can outlive us. A sense of history makes us better at navigating the present and building a future; PAC's work helps us understand that.

Here's the PAC-SJ website and a description of its 20th anniversary celebration.  Clearly B'game is a few years behind San Jose, but perhaps we are catching up as people wake up to the sterile reality of a tear-down, throw-away, McMansion world?

High-Cost Rail - Part 42 Focu$ on the Money

Here is a letter to the editor of the SF Examiner that captures the spirit of the moment:

California has a spending problem. And how California allocates state taxpayer dollars speaks volumes to our priorities as a society and our morals.

Contrast this: California spending $4.5 billion in taxpayer dollars to lay 54 miles of high-speed rail tracks between two tiny cities of Borden and Corcoran (total population 25,000), nonoperational without trains or electrification; or Gov.-elect Jerry Brown being “forced” to make hugely draconian cuts to education for our children and teachers. Brown’s statement to teachers: “Fasten your seat belts!” But the University of California system already raised student tuition 62 percent over three years (with more increases coming), school classrooms are crowded beyond capacity and California already ranks 49th worst in education in the U.S.!

Only a morally bankrupt society and state would waste more than $100 billion in taxpayer dollars on a “Train to Nowhere” by cutting basic educational materials and resources to children. Support Rep. Jerry Lewis’ House Resolution 6403 (American Recovery and Reinvestment Rescission Act) and California Assemblyman Jim Nielsen’s Senate Bill 22. Both laws defund the California High-Speed Rail Authority and will kill California’s boondoggle today.

Mike Brown, Burlingame

As the new budget efforts start to make headlines this massive waste of taxpayer funds will stay in focus.

Disturbing Video - Streets of B'game

This local video posted to YouTube is eye-opening:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MDpp_NHsR0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Someone needs to chill out a LOT!

CalPain Raises - Almost Too Painful to Post

The Mercury News is reporting that Caltrain's labor costs are up almost 40% over the last three years. Ay-yay-yay.  I know plenty of successful private companies whose raises over the last three years have not totaled even 8%.  40% is obscene and the "that's what the national union negotiated" excuse is, well, more obscene.

The average rank-and-file employee who works for Caltrain earned $68,307 in the fiscal year that ended in September, up from $49,862 three years prior, according to salary data provided by Amtrak, which supplies the workers.

For this, the Caltrain muckety-mucks are selling us down the river to High-cost Rail?  Time for a change of administration at Calpain.

Good cheer on the Ave.

Although there was no parade this year as part of the merchants holiday open house evening after the tree lighting ceremony, all is festive down around the Ave. Judging from the crowd last night, many missed a festive musical treat by the West Bay Community Band inside Fox Plaza Mall. (The band features a number of Burlingame musicians.)

Not sure if they will do a repeat performance next Thursday night, but I know many of the merchants will be open late again and have munchies to boot.

 

Lehman Bros. Redux

Today's SF Examiner is reporting on a "rival reorganization plan" filed by the County and others.  I think that is a precursor to another lawsuit.  Here's part of the story.  Read it and weep:

“[Lehman] picked one pocket when they went bankrupt, and now they’re trying to pick our other pocket,” Chief Deputy County Counsel John Beiers said.

The county investment pool — which includes school districts, cities and special districts — held $155 million worth of Lehman securities when the firm declared bankruptcy in September 2008.  The county’s loss was among the largest of any municipality nationwide, with K-12 schools losing a combined $37 million and SamTrans losing $25 million.

Good luck in bankruptcy court in NY.

Safeway - Part 61 Web Cam

Safeway is planning to install a web camera overlooking the sight so we can all watch the progress on the new store.  So far it's been really interesting watching them grind the old buildings into tiny bits and haul them away.  I have this vision of bits of the produce section coming back as a new road surface in six months.  We'll post the link to the webcam as soon as it's available.  In the meantime, here's the grinder at work.

 

Recology Gets Ready to Pick-up

I've been pondering the changes to our garbage collection for sometime.  Last week I was in Bed Bath & Beyond and stumbled across an Oggi "Kitchen pail" for $30.  It seemed like just the thing to separate food scraps from everything else right at the source so I bought it.  One nice feature is a charcoal pad in the lid to keep any errant smells under control.

Then this morning, a little pail appeared on my porch delivered by Recology!  I'm glad they're thinking ahead and helping people get the food scraps into the compost bin, but I think many B'gamers will opt to have something like the Oggi container on their kitchen counters.  Here they are: