The Burlingame Voice

Oh that wacky high speed rail project

Let's face it, the subject of high speed rail has been discussed at nauseam for more years than we can remember. Here at the B Voice we've run our share of stories on the subject and our position is in clear opposition to it. But here are a few ways of looking at the project ( through images rather than words) that might give you a different perspective and some food for thought. And of course today, Senator Diane Harley's HSR Lemon bill hit the floor for review.

Drive Less. Do More.

Take the 2012 Drive Less Challenge!

**April 22 – May 5th, 2012**

You can cut pollution by incorporating these new habits in your life:

• reduce your solo driving trips

• bike, walk, carpool or use mass transit to your destinations

• shop locally, shop-pool for friends and neighbors

• challenge friends, neighbors and co-workers to match your efforts

• log on to www.drivelesschallenge.com to record your achievements and become eligible for prizes

BHS Renovation: Something Old & New

Tonight's Open House at BHS to highlight the Measure M-funded remodel and upgrade was lightly attended mostly because key areas like the auditorium have been back in service for months.  Not being a BHS parent anymore, I had not seen the results yet.  We got an hour tour of the auditorium, backstage, control room, ceramics shop, design classroom, Computer-Aided Machinery shop, and the computer lab.  Most of these are in the new Industrial & Fine Arts building near the pool.

Tour attendees were particularly taken with the restoration of the seats and floor in the auditorium.  Grads--recent and distant--were adamant about saving the original 1923 mahogany seats and they came out unbelievably well as you can see

The CAM lab was also impressive as it moves from the traditional "shop" to a 21st century, instrumented facility handling 100 students per semester in four periods.

There is a bit more work to be done finishing the video control room, demolishing the portable structures in the quad and bringing the quad back to its original graceful design.  Kudo's to Quattrochi Kwok Architects who were on hand for the tour and everyone else involved.  It may have been expensive and long, but the asset is a value to everyone who lives and owns property in B'game.  Now if we can just keep high-cost rail from chewing up the right-of-way 40 feet from campus everything will be fine.

Renters Scrambling

There is an interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal (Bay Area section, page A9B) about the spiraling rents in San Francisco, driven by the resurgent tech industry.  We've talked about how B'game is seeing some of that resurgence here.

The article profiles a Derek Kohn who moved from Orlando to S.F. to take a job at a "local tech start-up."  At the end of the piece we discover the start-up is CarWoo, Inc., a Burlingame-based online-shopping service for new cars.  Very appropriate!

The piece notes

During the first three months of the year, the average asking price for San Francisco rentals was $2,663 a month, a 15.8% jump from...first quarter of 2011, according to RealFacts, a Novato market-data firm....And more young tech workers are now opting to live in San Francisco rather than Silicon Valley, driving up rental demand in neighborhoods such as the Mission, Noe Valley, South of Market and other spots with easy freeway access.

Mr. Kohn ended up renting in the newer development

sandwiched between Highway 101 and Candlestick park--not exactly the hip S.F. neighborhood he wanted.  Mr. Kohn says he plans to stick with his "middle of nowhere" apartment for a year and then test the rental market again.  In the meantime, he says, "I'm pretty much going to have to drive if I'm going to do anything".

I'll say, that is definitely no man's land up there and weather-wise, walkability-wise, restaurant-wise he would be better off here.  One wonders if B'game rentals are rising fast in reaction to the City?

Selling the Post Office - Part 2

I had a couple more thoughts about last Monday's meeting this week.  What troubled me the most was that it was supposed to be a federally mandated public comment meeting.  That's all well and good and the public did comment.  In fact, the James Wigdel from the Postal Service noted it was the most heavily attended such meeting they have held.  And the comments and some of the responses were great (see the next post).

The troubling part was the only notes or minutes taken were handwritten by one of the four postal employees.  There was no podium, no microphone, no audio recording and, I'm guessing, we won't see the notes he took any time soon.  So did the meeting really satisfy the spirit of a public comment meeting?  Is there a good record of the meeting?  Not so sure.

Selling the Post Office - Mixed Signals

Tonight four representatives of the U.S. Postal Service held the mandatory meeting, per the Code of Federal Regulations, but it was way more interesting than that sounds.  The Postal Services' business peaked in 2006 and has "fallen off a cliff since then" resulting in the main, downtown Post Office at 220 Park being viewed as a golden egg that is ready for sale.  The building is three times larger than the PO thinks it needs downtown and we are on the short list of "high value" real estate holdings to be liquidated along with Menlo Park, Palo Alto, La Jolla, Venice, etc.  But during the meeting the four reps, lead by Diana Alvarado from Facilities, were adamant that our building was historic!

Here are four direct quotes from them at the meeting:

"we recognize that it's a historic building"

"it cannot be destroyed"

"we will treat it as historic"

"we're not looking to have it torn down"

But there were mixed signals.  Another quote was "nothing is carved in stone" and "a suitable buyer is one who has the money".  So the essence of the exercise is to have the USPS Historical Consultant examine the property and make recommendations to the State Historic Preservation Officer who may then recommend that covenants be added to the title on the property to preserve some or all of it post-sale.  Of course, that could screw up some plans to screw up downtown.

So we are six to nine months from any kind of formal action, but the realtors and potential buyers were there listening and checking their wallets.  The USPS has a nationwide contract with CBRE for this kind of deal and a Foster City broker named Hernan Santos was pointed out in the crowd as the contact for buyers.  Here he is talking with Ms. Alvarado of the USPS after the meeting.

Sam's Sandwiches @ 40

We previously covered Sam's Sandwiches' own 40th anniversary celebration here.  Tonight at the City Council meeting, proprietors Rino and June were joined by Gary Doss as a giant Sam's hot dog as they collected the City commendation for 40 years of feeding BHS students...and the rest of us.  Various good deeds were noted and the assembled crowd showed its appreciation!  Congrats, one more time.  40 years--that's a lotta sandwiches!

Post Office Decision Time

It's not news that the U.S. Postal Service is struggling to keep up with the modern pace and technologies.  They have added some innovation with "managed service points" that allow them to track the mailpersons' schedules by having them scan stickers at certain addresses and record the times.  But if you talk to someone who uses FedEx regularly they note the longer business hours (i.e.not closing at 5pm), the wider array of services and the level of service offered.

But nonetheless, next Monday's meeting about the future of the downtown Post Office is on people's minds and calendars.  The Postal Service is required to hold a meeting and take public comment before they sell the property, but will they really be listening?  I had time to chat with some residents while I waited in a line that reached the door yesterday (and it's not even Tax Day yet).  Popular questions are where will they find this much space to rent downtown that is affordable (just ask Hola!)?  Will the City let them rent ground floor space without a parking requirement?  What will happen to the building?  Why don't they close the Broadway office instead?  And plenty of questions about how the place operates overall.  If you have comments, put this meeting on your calendar:

Monday, April 16

6:00 PM in the Library Lane Room

It certainly was busy yesterday at 3pm!

High Cost Rail - Part 72 High-speed Joke

Following the governor's magic wand "savings" of $30B in the "revised business plan" various pundits nationwide have been poking fun at the ridiculousness of the proposal.  My favorite so far is from Lisa Benson at the Washington Post as run in the Sunday Mercury Times.  Enjoy

It's a little bit of a take-off on "throwing Grandma under the bus".

Dodging Drought

With the recent rainfall, it would appear that we have dodged the dreaded drought once again.  I don't think we have reached our long-term average yet, but this photo of one of the seven B'game creeks shows we are making progress.

As the commenters on the original post noted, you still need to water your trees a bit.