The Burlingame Voice

Farmers Market Tasting Approved

Let's complement our dear governor for a change!  The SacBee is reporting that

Gov. Jerry Brown announced Tuesday he has signed an urgency measure allowing winegrowers who bottle their own wine to conduct instructional tastings at California’s numerous farmers markets. Assembly Bill 2488, by Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, was approved by both houses of the Legislature without dissent.

The bill expands a provision of state law allowing the sale of estate-grown wine at farmers markets. Wine industry groups said the inability to offer samples hurt sales in an industry in which customers are accustomed to a taste.

I'm not sure what is so urgent about it, but it should liven things up at our markets.  The tasting spot needs to be roped off from the rest of the market and patrons are limited to three ounces per day which is just a bit more than half a glass.  We've got Fresh Market Thursday and Sunday to choose from. 

Good clean fun.

As the new sidewalks appeared on Burlingame Avenue, so did the complaints about the spills and stains. The city has promised a more aggressive steam-cleaning schedule. I’m afraid that unless there is steam cleaning each day, the spills will appear quicker than the steam cleaner can clean.

Here are three ways we can get ahead of the spills and stains. Not surprisingly, some of the ways I am about to suggest are somewhat untraditional, but sometimes you have to think outside the box to accomplish the goal.

Hang on to your hats, here we go.

a.)   In Downtown Palo Alto, for example, there is a program called The Downtown Streets Team. The folks on the team appear everyday and work in shifts all day to pick up trash, etc. These folks are down on their luck and work in exchange for room and board vouchers. They wear uniforms and even at as downtown ambassadors in a fashion, answering questions of visitor’s etc. They keep the downtown cleaner than it would be without their help. Funded through grants, contributions from the BID and the city. Downtown Streets is a non-profit 501 c 3 organization and is proved a successful model that pother cities are following. Perhaps Burlingame could be one. www.streetsteam.org

b.)   The San Mateo County Sherriff’s Work Furlough Program. This is another program available to SM County cities. It is largely free of charge to the cities and brings folks who have some community service indebtedness because of troubles with the law like DUI, non-payment of alimony, etc. They are certainly not hardened criminals and all participants have to be recommended for the program through the courts. The only obligation from the city is to have a city employee supervise and the participants cannot use power tools. I am not sure if a power washer would fall into the exempt tools category or not but at the very least these folks could help make sure the downtown is tidy on a daily basis. As I understand it, they would work in the early morning hours and be gone before the shops and restaurants open. Most folks would never even know they had been there. Other cities take advantage of this opportunity and I believe the city of Burlingame has in the past used this program to help clean up our creek sides.

c.)   Many folks in Burlingame like to work out. They even join clubs and pay for the privilege to do so. Why not grab a broom or a mop and push it from one end of the avenue to the other? I can assure you the calories will burn and you will get your daily dose of exercise--all while helping the community. How about we create a daily competition? Participants could earn points for downtown discounts. Corporations could assemble teams. Once again, this program could be free of charges to the city. In fact, the city or the downtown association could charge a small fee to participate in the activity and actually make some money. Now there’s a novel concept. How ‘bout the city council form the first team? Why get on an exer-cycle and peddle to nowhere when you could tone up and tune up downtown?

There ya go, three low or no cost ways to keep downtown looking spiffy. 

Memories, Sweet BHS Memories

I'm not one of those people for whom the BHS football field bleachers hold fond memories because I am not a native Panther, but I bet there are more than a few Voice readers that have a wistful thought or two looking at these photos.  Was it that first kiss?  A Pabst Blue Ribbon before the brand was cool?  Do tell.

Here is the current state of the replacement project.  One wonders if they tried to sell off the seat boards or just put the claw to work?  Some will buy almost anything to recapture a bit of their youth!

High Cost Rail - Part 102 Reformed Poobah Speaks

Quentin Kopp has made a steady transition to a critic of the California high-cost rail as it is currently planned.  That is certainly more enlightened than Sue Lempert's perspective.  What is more fun than watching a reformed former poobah (his term) take to task an unreformed former poobah as Kopp has done in this opinion piece? 

A lot of the refuted points relate to the history of BART, the MTC, SamTrans, but the high cost rail part is the best

I add more historical footnotes. SamTrans never operated the BART-to-SFO extension. The Burlingame City Council did not oppose such extension, just as it has opposed the California High-Speed Rail project. But, that project is no longer high speed. As stated by its chairman last February, it now represents a “statewide rail modernization program ...,” not a system which travels at 200 mph in the Central Valley and even up to 125 mph on the Peninsula and in the Los Angeles Basin. That’s the reason, to quote Ms. Lempert, “... today, we have another group of people fighting high-speed rail.” That’s the reason Kings County and two county ranchers filed a thus far winning lawsuit over violations of the 2008 bond measure approved by voters in the amount of $9.95 billion, such as forcing riders from San Francisco to Los Angeles to change trains twice, preventing high-speed trains from operating at five-minute headways during peak hours and not meeting ballot measure-required travel times between San Francisco and Los Angeles and other routes.

and on the cost picture, Kopp appears to have gotten religion

Finally, Lempert’s reliance on the current estimate of just under $68 billion for a high-speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles is misplaced; a year ago, the $98 billion estimate spawned a paroxysm of anxiety in architects of the present bastardization of California High-Speed Rail, including its chairman and all but two other board members. The ballot measure requirement of service from San Francisco to Anaheim (not just Los Angeles) was quickly ignored to reduce the cost estimate to $68 billion, which was then reduced last February to $67.5 billion! (I didn’t know California was experiencing deflation).

He still not a full-convert because even if the plan was fully compliant with the original Proposition it would still have massive flaws in its business plan and operational complexity and impact on cities along the route.  But, all-in-all, welcome aboard!