The Burlingame Voice

Easton Additions History Lesson

The quarterly meeting of the Burlingame Historical Society was standing room only--even though no current City Council members attended.  The presentation on the history of the Easton Additions  (plural since there were actually seven different additions) was meticulously assembled by Mary Packard and received with rave reviews by about 125 people in the Lane Room at the downtown library.

Ms. Packard started with the first city water records from 1913 and has been researching 110 houses in the Easton Additions that got water service near inception.  Comparing those records with real estate maps, Historical Society archive information, Sanborn fire underwriting maps and good ole-fashioned walks around the neighborhood led to a fascinating view of a dozen houses that could easily be recognized from about 100 years ago.

In addition, the crowd was treated to photos of the B'way train station when it was on the other side of the tracks, a view of the original North B'game Women's Club that became the Easton library extension and a number of commercial buildings on B'way.  This was all peppered with notes on the former residents and owners.  It also led a representative of the San Mateo County Historic Resources Advisory Board who happened to be in the audience to plead with the crowd to push for an Historical Resources Inventory in B'game as 14 of 20 other cities in the county have done.

I particularly liked the discussion of how San Mateo Dr. originally stopped at Oak Grove and resumed a view blocks north of the parcels we see below with the water tower on one.  Getting that right of way to complete what we call California Dr. was an early example of B'game deal-making.

What to Expect With Housing Manipulation

It can be entertaining watching EssEff politics.  Three days after I read this article in the Examiner (titled "Eviction fight takes strange twist" in the print edition) it is still on my mind.  With all the talk at the city, county and state level about so-called "affordable housing" and new fees and new ordinances like item 9a here in B'game, it should not come as a surprise that new lawsuits will follow.

But the City can take the cake as we see here

The Mid-Market buildings, not far from City Hall and Twitter's Market Street headquarters, are zoned commercial but were rented out — in violation of city housing code — to tenants since at least the 1990s.   San Mateo County resident John Gall and his business associates, who bought the building in 2012, served the tenants with eviction notices in late 2013 after receiving a permit from The City to demolish the walls between the units and return the building to commercial use, a move needed to comply with a 2007 notice of violation from The City.

However, that demolition permit was revoked last year under pressure from elected officials. And now (Supervisor Jane) Kim is pushing new temporary zoning controls that would require a landlord to obtain Planning Department approval before commercial buildings converted to residences could be converted back to commercial use. The law only applies to certain parts of Mid-Market and South of Market.

Anyone surprised that this kind of maneuvering will land even a politician in court?  A property owner is precluded from fixing a violation and then subjected to what is often known as "spot re-zoning".  I'm guessing the plaintiffs have a pretty good case here.  And it likely will not be the last one.

Green Power...or Not?

For better or worse, I know a lot more about regulated utilities' business models, accounting practices and competitive responses than most lay persons.  I learned it in the telecom industry, but parts of it are transferable.  My first job out of college was for a telephone company and the first thing my first boss had me do was read all of the tariffs that formed the description and pricing of all the telecom services.  Boring, but quite a learning experience.

When I read that the government wants to help green power competitors compete with PG&E my antennae go up and start to quiver.  This SM County Times article did just that

In the latest sign that a Bay Area renewable energy trend is picking up steam, San Mateo County is taking a close look at buying its own power on the open market, instead of relying on PG&E, in a bid to lower its greenhouse gas emissions.

The county is exploring whether to establish a community choice aggregation program, which allows local governments to create their own energy portfolios that rely more on alternative sources like wind and solar and less on fossil fuels. On Tuesday, the board of supervisors will vote on allocating $300,000 toward a technical study of the proposal.

Digging into the details we find

The county anticipates that the program will lower rates for consumers and generate savings that can be plowed into local renewable energy projects.

Where can I go to take that bet?  Looking further we learn

Marin Clean Energy and Sonoma Clean Power have seen promising results. Marin forecasts that its basic package, which consists of 50 percent renewable energy, will be $80.14 a month for a typical user in 2015, compared to $81.58 a month for PG&E power that is 22 percent renewable.

Marin customers can pay more for premium plans -- $84.77 for power that is 100 percent renewable and $107.92 for energy delivered entirely from local solar farms.

Until battery technology takes a super quantum leap in performance and price, the "100 percent renewable" advertising slogan is really just that.  Neither wind nor rain can stop the postal service, but the lack of one and the presence of the other certainly stops green power sometimes.

Leave it to the IBEW Local to find the flaw

Local 1245, said Marin Clean Energy's approach is flawed, relying too much on renewable energy certificates to meet its alternative energy targets. These certificates, purchased from renewable energy suppliers, allow the group to take credit for renewable energy generation without actually buying it.

We will have to watch this one.  $300K is fine for a technical study, but I have to ask who is doing the "business study" that will cover the taxpayers' interests?  It all smells a little like high-cost rail.

Border Conflict

We've known for sometime that B'game is a sort of "border" community between northern gangs (San Bruno, Daly City, etc) and southern gangs (San Mateo, EPA, etc).  In addition, some of the gang orientation is racially divided (Latino, Pacific Islander, etc).  Here is an excerpt from a notice from the San Mateo police:

On February 5^th, 2015 at about 6:30PM, SMPD responded to a report of possible gunfire in the area of North Idaho Street and Bayswater Avenue.  Officers arrived on scene and located evidence that a handgun had been fired multiple times from the intersection towards the 900 block of North Idaho Street.  SMPD Officers were able to quickly locate and account for the rounds that were fired and confirm that nobody was hit by the gunfire, but determined bullets had struck 3 separate unoccupied vehicles.

We still believe this case to be gang related and not a random act of violence based on the specific location of this incident. SMPD Officers will also continue to conduct high profile patrol of known gang members and their associates and take lawful enforcement action whenever and wherever possible.

SMPD urges anyone in our community with information that may assist in this investigation to please contact SMPD at #(650) 522-7700 or call the Crime Reduction Unit at (650) 522-7784.   Witnesses or persons with information may also contact the SMPD Secret Witness Line, #(650) 522-7676 or report a tip online at http://tinyurl.com/SMPDTips

I've had a quick conversation with the SMPD since the intersection we are talking about is where Nini's Cafe is located and is practically in B'game.  As the notice indicates, SMPD is sure it was neither random nor related to the drive-by shooting on the Peninsula Ave. overpass this week.  They have good leads and are always looking for more.  Please be awake out there.

 

Jaywalking Enforcement

Since "Been Here Forever" posted this as a comment on an unrelated thread, allow us to give it it's own thread for comments.  S/He writes

Strolling down Broadway today around noon and a motorcycle policeman was hiding by one of the planter boxes watching for jaywalkers and I saw him issue more than one ticket.

Are you kidding me? What has happened to Burlingame?  The folks in Broadway Produce were talking about it in disgust too.  Do the police have nothing more to do?  How about monitoring speed on our streets for one?  Ridiculous.

Thoughts?

Update:  Here is a photo of the Paloma Ave. intersection with the solar power receptors on the sign.  You can just make out the stump of the tree that was removed as were the trees on the other three corners (as noted in the comments)

Drought: Slaking the Thirst

I wish groups like ABAG would worry more about our long-term water needs before they force more housing down cities' throats.  Some elected officials seem to get it, but I don't see that kind of thinking on the Peninsula right now.  Instead of spending on high-cost rail in violation of the Proposition that supposedly funded it, I have often wondered whether desalination would be attractive to voters.  Today's Wall Street Journal article sheds some light on the issue.  Here are a couple of factoids about efforts in California:

Santa Barbara may spend up to $40 million to update and reactivate a desalination plant it mothballed after another drought ended about 24 years ago.  With its local reservoirs at less than 30% of capacity, the City Council voted in September to pursue reopening the facility, which can turn seawater into the equal of nearly three-fourths of Santa Barbara's normal demand for drinking water.

Poseidon Water, a Boston company that develops water systems, is using $1 billion in private financing to construct a desalination plant in Carlsbad, CA.  It aims to provide the San Diego County Water Authority with about 8% of its water, at a cost up to twice that of water that the agency imports from northern California.

As of 2013, there were 26 desalination plants in California--up from 18 in 2006, according to most recent data.  Some are operated by government agencies while others are privately funded.

So the cost per gallon is high and the article describes how some marine life can be at risk at the entry point (which can be moderated), but right now what choice do we have?  Shouldn't any and every major proposed development in California have to demonstrate where the water will come from?

Happy Washington's Birthday

I miss the days when the third Monday in February was celebrated as George Washington's birthday.  George's real birthday is February 22nd, so you get two chances to ponder the great man.  I watched the three-part mini-series Sons of Liberty recently and George came off very well.  I am reading David McCullough's biography of John Adams now and GW comes off well there also.  Here are two Washington quotes for the day

    "Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder."

    "It is infinitely better to have a few good men than many indifferent ones>"

You may draw you own conclusions on how those two quotes related to dear ole B'game today.

Whither City Hall?

Sometimes I feel sorry for City officials.  I don't mean the elected ones, I mean the staff.  I especially mean the ones who have to interact with the elected ones on a regular basis.  As a senior staff member sometimes you have to stick your (wet) finger in the air and figure out which way the wind is blowing.  In some cases, it doesn't matter what you know is smart, good for the public fisc or even easier to accomplish.  So when I read the opening paragraph of this Daily Journal article yesterday, I could sort of see a finger in the air.

Burlingame officials are considering moving City Hall, as part of an effort to leverage city-owned property into building more housing and parking, said City Manager Lisa Goldman.

Staff has already issued a request for proposals from developers willing to build more affordable housing on a city-owned parking lot south of Howard Avenue, so long as the company would also be willing to construct more parking spaces on a neighboring lot.

Going forward, Goldman said the city is also considering issuing another request for proposals, which would allow companies to develop housing at the City Hall site, under the agreement that the builder would also construct a new City Hall on another city-owned parking lot elsewhere.

Then last night as I was reading my email a finger of a different sort appeared unprompted.  This time from a very plugged-in local person who knows a thing or two or three about real estate.  That person wrote

Just read the article in the Daily Journal related to our housing discussion vis-a-vis City Hall and the city- owned lot swap ideas.  Has marijuana become legal in Burlingame, or shall I say Burlingbong, because everyone at the City seems to be smoking it (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Where are we going to put City Hall?  It's City Hall for God sake!  Demo the building, move to temporary site and build something phenomenal on the same site.  So it takes 18 months, big deal.  Burlingame's been around a hundred years, are you really going to tell me that City Hall on Howard Ave South or in place of one of our downtown lots makes sense?  Think long term. 

On another topic, you tell me, but when I hear public-private partnership, I think two things: (1) loss of control and (2) leveraging our future for short term cash infusion.  And for the council members to threaten us with a tax if we don't go along with their plan is passive-aggressive at best.

I could not have said it better if I had spent 20 minutes crafting it.  Shall we give out the Fickle-finger of Fate award this early in the year?

Comments Are Back

TypePad has been having technical problems with the Captcha comment verification part of the blogging platform so while they work on it, the requirement to enter the random code has been turned off.  We will turn it back on when they fix it.  Blog on!

Taxpayer Transportation

The Daily Post had an interesting front page article yesterday titled "Mass transit ridership drops:  Despite billions in subsidies".  I'll just retype a couple of factoids that caught my eye:

A new study by the Metropolitan Transportation Committee, or MTC, found that there has been a 3% overall transit ridership increase over the past two decades, but per capita usage of transit has dropped 14% since 1991, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Bay Area residents took 1.35 million trips on public transportation on a typical weekday in 2013, according to the MTC study.  That is an increase over recession numbers, but it is still lower than peak ridership in 2001.

The article points out that even new transit routes "clearly don't match where the jobs are going" and mentions that the campus-style business centers on the Peninsula are not linked to mass transit.  Newsflash:  our $69-100 billion dollar high-cost rail system will not do a thing to solve any of this.