The Burlingame Voice

A Tale of Two Burgers

The Five Guys burger shop has opened with a bang after a long wait.  I cruised by last night and it was bustling.  At the other end of the block, the Burger Joint continues to cause wonderment in town.  Here are two photos taken one minute apart last night (Friday).

Mingalaba had people waiting on the Avenew as usual, Narin was SRO, Coconut Bay was full and Roti was almost full.  B'game loves to eat!

Friends With Benefits - Part 15 Little Rhody's Example

While we have been following the on-going saga of public service pensions and some bloggers have been keeping us apprised of what other cities in the County are doing, here is the Wall Street Journal's quick take on major changes that have happened in Rhode Island

The plan enacted in November cuts $3 billion of the state's $7 billion unfunded liability by raising the retirement age, suspending cost-of-living increases until the pension system is 80% funded, and even moving workers into a hybrid plan that has a smaller guaranteed annuity along with a 401(k)-style defined-contribution plan.

How did they do it, you might ask?  The state treasurer notes that Rhode Island already suffers from the nation's fifth highest tax burden--a full 10.7% of per capita income.  Depending on which study you use California sometimes comes in fifth as well and the 10.7% number alligns well with where Gov. Brown thinks we need to be!  The RI state treasurer goes on to note that education and transparency were key, everyone in the system had to give something and they avoided blame for the mistakes of the past.  Wise words!

R.I.P. Redevelopment Agencies

I had been pondering how to commemorate the demise of local redevelopment agencies in California with last week's state Supreme Court ruling, but today's Wall Street Journal did it for me.  There were about 400 cities and towns in California that had such agencies out of a total of 482.  It was basically a scam to get other cities and towns to pay for their redevelopment projects.  Burlingame never had one.

The decision frees some $1.7 billion to fill big holes in California's budget this year.... In the absence of the kind of viable development that naturally emerges from a dynamic private economy, (local) officials turn to schemes like this to force-feed new real estate into their communities.

So that $1.7 billion goes back to Sacramento.  Normally I would look at that as a bad thing, but in this case it much better than the alternative.  Chalk one up for the responsible cities and towns like ours. 

Leaf Blowers - Part 2

What to do, if anything, about leaf blowers in town is back on Tuesday night.  It was a hot topic back in June on the Voice and was one of Ricardo Ortiz' best zingers during the election.  The council took it off-line back in August to study it and have come up with the following results.  They current proposal is to divide the city into sections and limit each section to a different day of the week per this map.

The study notes

This approach does not distinguish gasoline from electric, nor does it completely prohibit the use of gasoline blowers.  The thinking was that although electric blowers do not add carbon monoxide to the environment they stir up as much dust and allergens and are almost as noisy as gasoline powered blowers.   Given the concerns and cost implications of the switching to electric blowers for the professional gardeners the consensus of the committee was to minimize the hours of the week that residents are exposed to any type of mechanical leaf blower.

Of course, the challenge is "which problem are we trying to solve?" since some want to stop carbon emissions, some want to reduce the ambient dust from any type of blower and some worry only about the noise.  The gardeners have to worry about scheduling not just B'game customers, but the surrounding towns' customers in the same day, along with rain, sick days, holidays and, of course, the cost of going to electric.  Furthermore, they worry that battery-powered blowers won't last for a full day of work so that would require homeowners to add front and back electrical outlets that are estimated to average about $1500 per home.

I happened to be in a San Diego neighborhood back in September and the gardeners were using battery-powered blowers.  I have to admit they were very quiet and appeared to be as efficient.  We will see what comes out of the study session on Jan 3rd, but several well-informed wags in town think the different-day-per-section of town idea is crazy and unenforceable.