The Burlingame Voice

Parents Uniting for Nelson

We've had a couple of lengthy threads about the situations at BHS here, here and all the way back to Di Yim's arrival here.  Now I have received a guest-authored piece from Glenn Mendelson who is quite well known around town as noted here.  I'll let Glenn speak for himself, although I did shorten it a bit!

I have lived in this community for over 55 years and worked here since 1977 with my family’s business, Lee Mendelson Film Productions.  Over the years, I have served this community as President of the Burlingame Homeowners’ Association, trustee for the Peninsula Health Care District and President of the Burlingame Lions Club.  I am a former Burlingame High School graduate (class of 1973).

Kevin Nelson, long time teacher at Burlingame High School, may be forced to leave because of conflicts with the administration, specifically with the new principal who has resigned. This is devastating for the students at Burlingame High. For 27 years, Mr. Nelson has been an excellent teacher, innovative administrator, and mentor to hundreds of past and present students. He has taught AP Economics, Government and History, built the Gate program, and inspired so many that it is outrageous to think that anyone would want to transfer him to another school or think that it’s in the best interest of BHS students. Transferring such a beloved and excellent teacher, mentor and student advocate is a tragic disservice to the BHS community and institution.

Mr. Nelson has been such an inspirational force that Uma Krishnan, last year’s valedictorian at BHS and current freshman at UC Berkeley, created an online petition to rally the community to appeal the transfer decision.  With almost 2,500 signatures of unwavering support for Mr. Nelson to remain at BHS, students, parents and alumni are asking themselves why Superintendent Skelly and the SMUHSD Board of Trustees remain silent about their decision to transfer him.  

Although 2,500 signatures should be enough to show how much he is appreciated, support for Mr. Nelson is far greater than the public realizes.  Many students, parents and even teachers have personally told me that they are afraid of retaliation if they speak for Mr. Nelson or against the school administration.

When I attended BHS from 1969-1973, the teachers were excellent.  However, when my children attended BHS several years ago, there were some teachers who shouldn’t have been teaching there at all.  The problem isn’t with Mr. Nelson.  We should be looking somewhere else.  Some students and parents are starting to speak up about those who really hurt the BHS environment and should go instead of Mr. Nelson.  It’s time to speak up and let yourselves be heard!

Glenn is rallying parents to add to the pressure of 2,379 petition signers that you can see here.  One of the ironies I see here is we often hear about teachers who cannot afford to live in Burlingame. Many believe that having teachers who live in town add a lot to the community by being seen at the grocery stores, athletic fields, parades, and other events, yet here we have one perhaps being told to leave the local school.  One can only hope common sense prevails. 

 

Rotisserie Chicken on the Way

For everyone pining for the old Chicken! Chicken! rotisserie fare (which ended up being the cause de feu of the restaurant's demise), the old Kabul location at the corner of the Avenew and California Dr. across from the train station will be the new hangout.  The alcohol license transfer is up indicating that Limon Rotisserie is moving in and their website confirms that a B'game location is coming.  Personally, I'm looking forward to the ceviche since the Safeway chicken is hard to beat for six or seven bucks!

Parking Frustration

Mr. Roadshow at the Merc just ran a piece about the parking issues in certain San Jose neighborhoods.  It is illuminating on a couple of points that could just as easily apply to B'game like:

I understand that the street is public, but this area is getting so crowded that I don't even have room to place my garbage and recycling bins.

There is an apartment a quarter-mile from my house, yet residents in the apartment complex will park down Blossom Hill and overflow onto our street, five to six houses in. Often cars are left for multiple days -- but not long enough to be towed.

As housing and rental costs soar, apartments are filling up and some, maybe many, apartment dwellers are taking in roommates to cope with rents of $3,000 to $4,000 a month. That can lead to hard-to-find parking, which you nearby homeowners are dealing with.

Throw in the AirBnB and VRBO parkers, our proximity to SFO such that air travelers use B'game for "free" parking and all the developers trying to skimp on parking requirements and you get a mess.  My street is so close to the Ave that we went to permit parking, a year after the two closer streets did it, but not everyone has an organized neighbor to apply for it or the desire to pay the $50 per year for the tags.

BHS Teacher Conflict

From what I know (which is all second hand since my last kid left BHS four-plus years ago), this letter to the editor of the Daily Journal encapsulates the conflict pretty well

I am one of 2,300 students and families who are incensed by the announced transfer of Kevin Nelson from Burlingame High School, where he has taught for 27 years. His removal from BHS will negatively impact the school where my older son graduated from in 2015 and my younger son will be a senior next year. 

It is my impression that this is the result of conflicts with the current BHS Principal, P. Di Yim, who is in her third year of service and has announced her resignation after this term. Principal Yim had systematically removed many of the classes and sections that Mr. Nelson developed and taught for years. He started the AP government program at BHS in 1994, wrote the AP economics program for the district in 1997, and ran the district GATE program. All three teaching and coordinator roles have been affected. Within the same week that Mr. Nelson’s transfer to an unnamed district high school was announced, Principal Yim announced her resignation. The linkage of these two events is unclear, but what is very clear is that Nelson is loved and respected by the BHS community and should be allowed to remain teaching there.

You can click through on the link above to read the rest.  I know, from a first hand discussion, that the Trustees view this as a complicated issue and mostly in the supe's hands.  This Daily Journal article the day before the letter notes that it is still in a cloud of uncertainty

Nelson said in an email he has received no further correspondence from the board or Skelly since being told Thursday, Jan. 14, he would be transferred.

No action was taken during the board meeting, as the issue was not on the agenda for consideration, and was only brought up by the community for discussion as part of the public comment period.

From my chats around town, this is the most closely watched issue of all right now.  You can read up on the history of the conflict here.

Entertainment Wish

From today's DJ comes a piece about a conditional use permit for jazz in San Carlos

A jazz club that operated in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District has relocated to San Carlos but its owners currently cannot play live music at the former Clooney’s bar on Laurel Street.  Staff is recommending the commission approve the permit.

“As you all know, jazz is not an income generating medium but it is important to the soul and the aesthetics of our community, thus we should do all that we can to preserve and support America’s only indigenous art form. Jazz as an art form has lifted this nation to the status of cultural super power,” Thiam wrote in a letter to the city.

The music will be acoustic only and performed live until 11 p.m. during the weekend and midnight on weekends and holidays.

If they can't make it work in San Carlos, they are more than welcome in B'game!

Spring Tree Hugger Post

Here is a double shot of tree hugger love for the trees of B'game.  I was not the only person stopping to snap a photo of these two fruitless plum trees up on Easton.  And the magnolia shown below that is not a street tree (used in the curbside strips) but plenty of B'gamers have them on their property and they are having a good year as well.

You can see the impact of the latest dry spell on Hetch Hetchy levels here, but hopefully more rain will arrive this week.

What's it about, the roundabout?

Several months back I attended a meeting held by the City of Burlingame engineering folks along with consultant, Eileen Goodwin of Apex Strategies to talk about the possibility of a roundabout at the intersection of California Drive and Bellevue Avenue, just in front of Stack’s Restaurant. Some might recognize this location as the little triangular piece of land with two palm trees adorning the property. ( For those history buffs out there, it’s officially called Cannon Park. Why? Because up until WWII the park featured a cannon. The cannon was reportedly melted down for the war effort.)

Here is the staff report.

The first question to be asked is, “What problem are we trying to solve?” and the second question is, and it’s one that I asked at the meeting, “Is this a fait accompli?” The reason I asked the question is that this project, as I understand it, barley got a mention at the Traffic, Safety and Parking Commission level and certainly hasn't been front and center in the public realm. The answer was unclear, but there was a promise of more meetings with the community. I don't know of any on the horizon, but watch this space for notification.

Truth be told, there was a call for projects in 2013 and $1million was allocated fro the project in 2014. Might this be a case of use it or lose it?

Back to the problem that the city is trying to solve: according to the engineers, there is southbound confusion. In my opinion, it’s not the intersection that is causing the confusion, it’s the mid-span crosswalk from Stack’s to the bus shelter adjacent to the city parking lot. That combined with the nearby stop-and-go of the Il Fornaio valet parking service, ( which by the way, is not exclusive to Il Fornaio by ordinance but can be used by any patron of downtown if so desired, but is cleverly advertised as Il Fornaio guests only.)

There were a few concerned residents and businesspeople in attendance with concerns about egress for their business along the roundabout. But many were wondering about that first fundamental question. “Do we really need to fix this? Do we really have a problem here?”

What do you think?

Millbrae Madness

Our neighbors to the north are not acting very neighborly.  The massive project guidelines--that would cover several projects--gained slim passage per this DJ article, but even the dissenters were not focused on the best reasons to scale this back 

Following years of thorough planning and months of extensive deliberation, officials approved the policy guidelines laying the groundwork for future development in the 116-acre site near the Millbrae rail station.

Yet despite the substantial amount of the consideration that has gone into shaping the document aiming to regulate construction in the area surrounding the city’s Bay Area Rapid Transit and Caltrain station, the Millbrae City Council narrowly passed the station area plan Tuesday, Feb. 9, by a slender margin of 3-2.

This part is really rich

One of the lingering sticking points during a previous discussion by council was how the new homes and jobs slated to be built in the 116-acre site could cause enrollment growth in the Millbrae Elementary School District.

To address those concerns, city officials amended the plan to require developers proposing projects in the boundary of the station area to discuss with school officials offsetting costs the district could incur through a growing student population.

Good luck with that milque toasty language.  With 116 acres to work with and 800 residential units noted just in the first pass of plans, one would think they would require a school be built right on the parcel.  And I have seen no evidence that there is any design aesthetic alive in Millbrae.  It's also commonly felt that the BART station is out of parking space already.  Of course, there does not appear to be one drop of discussion about where the water will come from.  We still have 2 day per week restrictions on watering, right?  About the best you can say is Millbrae just keeps making B'game look better and better.

Beware the B'game Shrooms

I meant to post something about local mushrooms a couple of weeks ago when a particularly striking one popped up in my front yard.  I got talking to some neighbors and one mentioned his dog eating some of the shrooms in his yard--which cannot be good and did not work out too well for the dog or my neighbor's rug.  The Merc/Times reminded me today with this piece

With our recent wet weather, you probably are seeing mushrooms popping up all around you. Mushrooms are the visible, reproductive structures of fungus, called fruiting bodies. Their job is to house and disseminate reproductive spores.  Most fungi, even those in the lawn, are beneficial. They help decompose organic matter and release nutrients to our plants and soil.

If you click through to the Merc site, you can read about various local varieties, but I happen to know a guy who was a commercial mushroom farmer in the Santa Cruz mountains and he identified the one in my yard as the psychedelic variety amanita muscaria that is apparently related to the Death Cap but different.  Here's the one from my yard so you know what to look out for.

Hear Ye, Here Y'all: New Town Crier

I was just thinking the other day that B'game needed a town crier and lo and behold this DJ article says here he be

Richard Aptekar is following his calling by heeding his need to cry — but maybe not in the fashion most would typically expect.  Aptekar, 72, has been selected by the Burlingame Historical Society as the city’s first and only town crier, who is set to make his debut this weekend.

The Burlingame resident, who has an extensive track record of public performance, is one of only a few in the state recognized by the American Guild of Town Criers.

His initial task will be to announce the opening of the Burlingame Hillsborough History Museum, 290 California Drive, 1 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 7, and will regularly announce the historical society’s meetings, as well as other community events at the city library.

Dressed in era-appropriate decor, featuring a top hat and long jacket, Aptekar’s deep and distinct voice will read out poetic and often humorous declarations, as he rings a bell signifying his prestigious role. To his knowledge, there are no other town criers on the Peninsula, said Aptekar, and the closest other is in Concord.

I love this and perhaps I can intern with Richard--I think it would be my perfect retirement occupation...unless I decide to apply for Code Enforcement officer and go after all the illegal signs in towns!