The Burlingame Voice

Ruth's Tree Gets Its First Lights

If you are going to the Holiday tree lighting, concert, parade event on Friday night, you will see that Ruth Jacob's memorial tree  in front of City Hall has its first decorations as of last night.  The Voice was tipped off to the guerilla decorating that took place under cover of darkness so the photos are a little blurry--think of it as Impressionistic.  I particularly like the "Baby Ruth" decorations.  See you there, Friday!

B'game Colors

As the days get shorter in the City of Trees and we deal with drains and gutters choked with leaves, here is a little something to remember

Even is something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn.

Elizabeth Lawrence

I may just be me, but the yellow foliage in town seems to be doing very well, the orange is OK and the reds are having a very muted year.

Pitching In for a Friend

An article in the SM County Times is highlighting the friendship between two local ladies and the exceptional effort one is going to in helping the other.  Lots of B'gamers know Moe Munroe and the shop she owns with her sister--Morning Glory--which is a staple of the Avenew.  In order to pay her medical bills there will be a Vintage Arts Market at the B'game Woman's Club:

"Although it started as this fundraiser, it's become much more than that," Munroe said. "I have seen people in my community who are so talented that I'm blown away, but they have no venue to show it to the public."

There will be 19 vendors at the market, most of them local, selling everything from jewelry and decorations to assemblage art.

The market will run from 12 to 8pm next Saturday, Dec. 3rd. the day after the Holiday tree lighting and parade.  Best of luck making a dent in the bills!

Virgin Web Glitches

The Wall Street Journal is reporting on B'game-based Virgin America's struggles to move its reservation system to Sabre over the last four weeks.  The reports of Virgin website and airport kiosk problems are sprinkled with quotes from travellers like one who is so upset that "after this experience, I will never do business with them again."

Some customers say that on Virgin America's website they still cannot book flights using frequent-flier miles, select seats or check-in, lengthening lines at airport counters.  And with call centers overwhelmed--despite nearly double the staff to roughly 200--revolving issues have taken some customers hours.

Let's hope this doesn't disrupt Virgin's announced plans to add hundreds of jobs in B'game.

Giving Thanks on Thanksgiving

A very pleasant sense of calm settles over our burg on many holidays and today is no exception even with the drizzle and the flight delays at SFO.  My early jaunt to the new Safeway (pause for thanks) showed I wasn't alone in needing that one last ingredient for the bird's stuffing.  This year's bird (pause for thanks) is from Sonoma and is a free-range guy from a ranch that has been growing them since 1949. 

As we read in Ken Garcia's column in the SF examiner, there will be a lot of folks dining on birds at the Lion's Club today.  We're lucky to have a gathering place that is central and affordable (pause for thanks).  It's one of the beating hearts of B'game.

So as we gather with family (pause again) and celebrate Thanksgiving, don't forget to walk off the meal with a stroll through your neighborhood (last pause) to enjoy the foliage.  Happy T-day from the Voice.

High Cost Rail - Part 65 "HCR" Catching On

Perhaps the Voice should have trademarked the moniker "High Cost Rail" when Part 1 of our series was published back in January of last year.  But it was offered as a public service and may even be catching on.  Here's a link to an article by California State Sen. Doug LaMalfa that captures the essence of the issue and notes

When the Legislature returns to Sacramento, I am introducing a bill to send this project back to the voters. It's their money and they deserve the final say.

Speaking of good suggestions, here is our own John Horgan advising another state Senator (Simitian)

We have a valedictory suggestion for him. As a service to his constituents and to all Californians, Simitian ought to break free from his Democratic Party shackles and say what needs to be said by someone in majority authority: Put the high-speed rail albatross out of its misery ASAP; don't put the state's taxpayers on the hook for endless billions of dollars of debt. We can't afford it. Not now, not ever. Not even if high-speed rail were to use Caltrain's tracks (for awhile) as Simitian has suggested.

Let's skip the re-vote and go straight to killing the High Cost albatross!

Musings From Asia

The further one gets from B'game the more one tells people "I'm from San Francisco" even though you don't really, really mean it.  The good news is the most common reaction is "Oh, that's my favorite city in the US" to which I always smile in a Herb Caen-like, Baghdad by the Bay manner.  I'm thinking of B'game as I visit Singapore for a couple of days.  It's a beautiful blend of the old and new with rich walking tours of two historic districts, perfectly annotated with street signage and plenty of brochures to tell you what you are looking at.  The Raffles Hotel, the Fort Canning Park military history, and the old churches bring a strong sense of an historic city.

But there is plenty of modern development, too.  Here is a photo of the stunning, 57 story Mandarin Bay Sands hotel with the Sky Platform atop like a space ship that has landed and the aluminum science museum blossoming next to it.  Commerce is alive and well in Singapore and yet there is plenty of respect for the less-commercial aspects of the cityscape.  We can and should learn from such an approach.

A rare nip and tuck

Some time back we posted some information regarding a house on Broadway where multiple tenants lived and unsavory activity was taking place, according to BPD. The tenants were evicted and the house closed. At the time we published the post we indicated that we did not have many of the details. We still don't.

However we have heard from one of the tenants to say that because we didn't have the details we may have been premature in calling it a "meth house." That term wasn't "our" term, it was a descriptive phrase that the community used--accurately or not.

We feel poorly about the charactersation and have decided that it best to change the title of the story but not it's content.

For the record, we rarely edit what appears on The Burlingame Voice. We pride ourselves on providing an open forum. Occassionally, as is the case here, we make a few adjustments. And in this case, we are editing ourselves.

Burlingame is Mayberry in so many ways.

Here's proof. There ain't nothin' like the feeling surrounding the "Little Big Game."

 

High Cost Rail - Part 64 Court Says "No"

The lawsuit filed by Atherton, Palo Alto, Menlo Park and some citizens' groups yielded positive results today as the "Program Level EIR" for the Central Valley to SF section was tossed out.  Local watchdog Kathy Hamilton describes the details here.  One of the lawyers who has presented several times in B'game had this to say

Gary Patton, co-counsel, stated that “The court’s decision tells the California High-Speed Rail Authority that it can’t keep ignoring the public’s right to participate.  The court’s decision in the Atherton II case says that the Authority failed in its duty to recirculate the CEQA document to get public comments, and this was a violation of the law.”

Constant vigilance is still the order of the day since the Authority hasn't thrown in the towel even as they acknowledge that the real cost is well above what was sold to the public.