The Burlingame Voice

High Cost Rail - Part 56 Empty Idiocy!

We have this public agency called the MTC-- the "Empty Idiocy".  Last week they announce to us

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission announced today that it will convene partner transportation agencies and other stakeholders in an attempt to revive stalled planning efforts and forge consensus for high-speed rail in the San Jose-to-San Francisco corridor.

After checking with her labor union bosses, Queen Bee Adrienne Tissier noted

“We need to pluck the low-hanging fruit where consensus can be reached right away, and then work our way up the tree as we build confidence and trust among all the stakeholders involved,” Tissier noted.

You will be excused if you are starting to feel like your wallet is the "low-hanging fruit".  People who have never signed the front of a paycheck in their lives are plucking away at your wallet like it was a cheap banjo.  The best news I can give you is they are starting to sound desperate.  When our President is concerned that Social Security checks may not get issued, it's hard to see why we need a train to LA that cost 150% of what Southwest Airlines charges.  But I'm just talking sense, not political grease.

Safeway - Part 68 Sidewalks

The modifications to the street in front of the heritage oak tree are moving along as well.  The City eNews notes

Between Aug 1st & Aug 5th, new sidewalks, curbs, gutters and driveways will be installed on both Primrose and Howard; between Aug 8th & Aug 12th, the asphalt on Primrose will be excavated out and resurfaced, at that same time, a portion of Parking lot "K" (behind Walgreen's) will also be resurfaced; between Aug 15th & 17th, Howard will be resurfaced. New striping will be installed on all roads Aug 18th.

But the Big News came in a Mercury Times piece yesterday about the Millbrae store being approved.  Right at the end October 14th was announced as the opening date for the B'game store.   So next March, the traffic flow reverses and Millbrites start coming to B'game for groceries.

 

$76 Skool Bond is On

From the Daily Journal piece today, the second game is on:

On Thursday morning, the Board of Trustees approved 4-0-1, with Trustee Liz Gindraux absent, to put a $76 annual tax for four years on the November ballot, which would create about $589,000 yearly for the district, according to a staff report by Chief Business Official Robert Clark. Such a measure requires two-thirds support to pass.

While the district had considered such a measure for months, a push came after the spring when the district faced about $1 million in cuts. The community responded with the Game On! Campaign — a fundraising effort that raised about $500,000 to maintain services.

The Game On! signs have been proliferating nicely, so keep up that good work.  Construction appears to be moving along as well.

Friends with Benefits - Part 13 Just a Baby Step

The Daily Journal is reporting on the latest County Supe vote on public service contracts:

More than 500 county employees have conceded nearly $4.5 million in wages and benefits that span the next five years after negotiating new agreements.

The county sought the savings as it grapples to trim from an ongoing structural deficit that has now passed the $100 million mark.

The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors approved new labor contracts with four unions yesterday that will also save the county millions in long-term health and retirement costs.

Agreements were reached with the California Nurses Association, San Mateo County Council of Engineers, the Building Construction and Trades Council Operating Engineers Local 3 and the Organization of Sheriff’s Sergeants.

So if I can be a bit contrarian here for a moment, while also doing the math that reporter Bill Silverfarb skipped, $4.5 mill over 5 years is $900K per year across 500 employees = $1800 bucks a year each off of raises that were planned.  That's a gross average, but isn't the County in Much Deeper Do Do than that?  When you see reporters leading off with verbs like "conceded", it's time to do the math and ask the questions.  I could be missing something, but would love to hear what it is. 

B'game - Old Tech Hub

Reporter Janis Mara of the San Mateo Mercury Times has seen a trend I am also seeing by perusing B'game listings on Craigslist.  Her front page piece titled "Burlingame becoming new tech hub" sort of ignores the fact that B'game was a tech hub once before--in the '80s.  Back then Sprint and later, GTE Sprint, was headquartered here and was the largest employer in town and one of the largest in the county.  A variety of suppliers to Sprint were also headquartered here.  But no matter, it's still nice to see a new round of tech start-ups coming in.  They note

"Burlingame has great restaurants and it's a good central location," said Michael Weir, vice president of marketing for DataStax, also at 270 East Lane. Weir said his firm liked the building because it was near the Caltrain station, a factor that others mentioned.

"I estimate that one-third of the employees of the companies in my building are taking the train," said Gary Cohn of BR Commercial, owner of 270 East Lane. Cohn got permission this month to convert 8,000 square feet of the building from industrial to office use.

Let's just hope we keep enough Caltrain service to keep commuters happy.  If the B'way station reopened it would help workers going to Old Bayshore and Airport Blvd, too, but don't hold your breath.

Gearing Up for More Radios

Everyone is using more and more wireless capacity both at home and on the move so it's no surprise that the telecom companies need more antennae.  One hot button in town now is how many more antennae.  T-Mobile and a newish company called ExteNet are working on adding quite a few new installations on poles around town.  Here's the list from the City

T-Mobile:

2501 Adeline Drive - Proposed antenna and remote units

2208 Davis Drive - Proposed antenna and remote units

1344 De Soto - Proposed antenna and remote units

1665 Hunt Drive - Proposed antenna and remote units on City owned street light

1613 Ray Drive - Proposed antenna and remote units on City owned street light


ExteNet:

146 Crescent - Proposed anchor

403 Occidental - Proposed anchor

1308 Alvarado - Proposed anchor

1449 Bernal - Proposed anchor

1477 Bernal - Proposed anchor

1505 Drake - Proposed anchor

2017, 2121, 2301, 2316, 2801 Easton - Proposed anchors

2813 Hillside Drive - Proposed anchor

Steps to Alvarado Ave from Easton - Proposed anchor

2521 Hayward Drive - Proposed meter pedestal

2684 Summit Drive - Proposed antenna and remote units

2536 Valdivia Way - Proposed antenna on City owned street light and related equipment

1457 Drake Ave - Proposed antenna and remote units

2517 Easton Drive - Proposed antenna and remote units

1900 Carmelita Ave - Proposed antenna and remote units

1430 Palm Dr - Proposed antenna and remote units

129 Crescent Ave - Proposed antenna and remote units

1824 Barroilet Ave - Proposed antenna and remote units

On Monday night, the Planning Commission will be looking at an Ordinance adding Chapter 25.77 to the Burlingame Municipal Code to regulate location of telecommunications facilities within the City of Burlingame to get some kind of handle on the growth.  Pole attachment rights and the rights of companies to satisfy a "public necessity" can get pretty involved.  It's number 8 on the agenda, so it may be late.

HSR principles did not ring true

This article on burlingame.patch.com sums up why folks who have followed the high speed rail issue in Burlingame were surprised and perplexed by the "statements of principle" the council might have adopted at Monday's council meeting.

Some excerpts:

....many residents saw the document as an affront to their efforts against current high speed rail plans and a dismissal of community opinion regarding the rail. 

“I’m…left wondering if this document was prepared by the same city that took time to assess residents’ opinions for several months last spring,” said resident Jennifer Pfaff. “I wonder what has changed.”

“You already had a very firm, very clear, very no-nonsense statement, and you had a very clear point of view, and that was only to accept an underground solution,” said resident Russ Cohen while addressing the council. “[The omission] will undoubtedly come back to haunt you and haunt this community.”

“It’s pretty clear what the purpose of this document is: to be all things to all parties except our citizens,” said Ted Crocker, Burlingame resident. “The new high speed rail statement of principles can only serve one purpose, and that is to please others.”

Airport Noise

I have been mulling over this piece in the weekend S.F. Examiner about airplane noise, vibrations and the civil grand jury's assertion that SFO's monitoring is inadequate.  At the bottom of the link you can see that in May there were 757 complaints about airplane noise filed, but not a one from B'game.  There were two from Hillsborough, but overall that fits with my perspective--this was a problem years ago, but no longer.

I suppose one grand jury idea is OK:

The recent civil grand jury report on airport noise says the airport should publish data about single noise events — such as one airplane screaming overhead. Currently, the airport only reports the average daily noise level over a three-month period.

But the other one seems like no solution at all

The civil grand jury recommended that the (Airport) roundtable — which brings together airline, city, county and SFO representatives — include state and aeronautics officials, be chaired by an elected official and form a subcommittee exclusively for North County cities, which lie closer to the airport.

The piece goes on to say that new Supe Dave Pine will be attending more Roundtable meetings, but progress has been substantial over the last 5 years and all of these worries should be focussed on how LOUD a 120 mph train would be rolling through the Peninsula!

The center of town is set to change

The Post Office located on Park Road is most likely going to be for sale in the near future. Now is your chance to be part of what that future looks like. There will be a City Council study session on this subject this Thursday, July 21 at 5pm at the Lane Community Room at the public library.

Below is the agenda for the meeting:

I.               CALL TO ORDER

II.              ROLL CALL

III.            DISCUSSION OF DOWNTOWN BURLINGAME POST OFFICE SITE

A.             Introduction (Jim Nantell)

B.             Overview of Site and Constraints (William Meeker)

C.             Developer Perspective Regarding Site Potential (Mark Farrar/Millennium Partners and Tom Gilman/DES Architects)

D.             “Brainstorming” Discussion Regarding Potential Uses

1.              Local Architects’ Perspective

2.              Public Perspective

E.             Response from Developer Representative (Mark Farrar/Millennium Partners and Tom Gilman/DES Architects)

F.             Council Discussion

G.            Direction to Staff

 

High Cost Rail - Part 55 4 Tracks, 2 Tracks, No Tracks!

The Times is rehashing some news that the insiders have known for about a week regarding the Peninsula section of the ridiculous high-cost rail system

CEO Roelof van Ark said he has directed the California High-Speed Rail Authority's planners "to reduce their activities on the Peninsula to a minimum" and cease further work on a draft environmental-impact report. No new work will be started "until clarity is reached on the selected way forward for San Francisco to San Jose," van Ark said in a statement.

That's the least the "Authority" can do given it has no real plan for anything at this point and various State agencies are calling their bluff weekly.  But my favorite description comes from one of the Central Valley critics who is coming up to speed faster than a high-speed engine.  He writes

Would you have voted the same way if you were told in 2008 that the CHSRA never intended to run the rail alignment along I-5 or completely along Hwy-99?

What would you say if they told you that they never did proper studies of those routes?

If they had told the voters these things, Proposition-1A would have read something like:
“We want the tax-payers to borrow unlimited amounts of money to do whatever we want to do, no matter how much damage it will cause and want you to believe us when we tell you whatever polling says will get your vote. Disregard that we can in no way deliver what we say we are going to do because we are missing 75-percent of the money (without any interest payments factored) that we need to give you the completed project.”

That's calling it like it is and the folks in the Central Valley are getting it together more each day!  Welcome to the tussle!