The Burlingame Voice

H'borough Water Rate$

The Merc is covering a favorite topic here at the Voice--water, water usage, water rates, water.

In a case that could have statewide ramifications, a group of multimillionaire Hillsborough residents, including an early funder of Microsoft, has sued the town claiming that its drought rules and penalties intended to keep people from over-watering big lawns are illegal.

The nine residents who are taking the town to court say that by imposing tiered water rates, and a $30 penalty for each unit of water used over the allotted amount, Hillsborough water officials violated Proposition 218, a state law that makes it illegal for government to charge more for a service than it costs to provide.

The counterpoint is

“We’re in a drought,” said Paul Saffo, a Hillsborough resident, noted technology forecaster and engineer. “We have a short reprieve, but the fact is that this problem is only going to get worse, long term, and everybody has to pull together.”

And here are the numbers

Hillsborough clearly violated the law, the lawsuit says, because the city buys all of its water from the San Francisco Public Utilities District’s Hetch Hetchy system, and pays $1,633 per acre foot of water. That works out to be $3.75 per 100 cubic feet, or unit. But Hillsborough charges its residents $8.74 per unit for using up to 10 units a month, and gradually higher rates peaking at $17.36 a unit for usage over 100 units a month.

Broadway Progress

The driver antics caused by the interim traffic pattern at Broadway might merit an interim traffic camera.  We saw BPD up the enforcement around the railroad crossing a few months ago, but that seems to have tapered off.  On the bright side, there is a good sized construction workforce out there on a daily basis and the final design is starting to come to light.  It's been awhile.  Here's what the new configuration looked like this morning right around rush hour.

Red Light Mania in Millbrae

There is a bit of delay posting this--pun intended.  If you have ever wondered why a flash goes off for no reason at the BART station intersection on Millbrae Ave. here is the answer.

Drivers in Millbrae should proceed with extreme caution as red light cameras monitoring traffic lights and intersections have issued the most tickets ever, according to an expert who tracks the citations.

The 2,059 tickets issued to drivers in July are the most in a single month since the system was installed a decade ago, according to Jim Lissner, the operator of HighwayRobbery.net who projects the trend to continue through the end of the year.

The cameras have photographed 34,687 drivers this year who may have violated traffic laws at a stop light, according to the website, resulting in 13,607 tickets issued through September. Lissner projects more than 20,000 tickets will be issued before the end of the year. The amount issued this year is already more than the 11,964 issued last year, which was the previous record high. Some of the tickets can be as expensive as $500.

With the jump, Lissner said he believes Millbrae has one of the most active traffic camera systems in the state.

Here is the best--or worst--part:

“We don’t make money off of the traffic cameras,” he said. “We just make enough money to pay back the contractors.” 

I think the DJ article is misleading here in that the "he" who is talking about "we" must be Millbrae Councilman Wayne Lee.  If that is true the whole bunch of them should resign out of embarrassment over incompetent procurement practices.  If a city issues 13,000+ traffic tickets and doesn't clear a profit it's no wonder they need the County Sheriff to step in and patrol for them.  Very sad. 

102 Million Trees

The SF Comicle (and probably every other paper in the state) ran this yesterday, but we'll just link to the Daily Journal piece

The California drought has killed more than 102 million trees in a die-off of forests that increases the risk of catastrophic wildfires and other threats to humans, officials said Friday.

The latest aerial survey by the U.S. Forest Service shows there are 36 million more dead trees since May in the state and there has been a 100 percent increase since 2015.

This part is a head scratcher to me

People assume the tally amounts to too many dead trees, but fire suppression has created unnaturally green forests with far too little wildfire and dead trees, said Chad Hanson, a forest ecologist at Earth Island Institute’s John Muir Project.

“We don’t want too much and we don’t want too little,” he said. “This is not too much.”

How is that possible?

Humane Society Conflict

I won't get too deep into this because I am not close to the Peninsula Humane Society operations and the Daily Journal article today has a bit of a he-said-she said feel to it; in my opinion.  With substantial operations in B'game-San Mateo including Coyote Point, Rollins Road and Pick of the Litter near B'way, it is of local interest.  Here's the allegation first

More allegations that animals are abused at the Peninsula Humane Society, as well as complaints about the high salaries of the nonprofit’s top executives, prompted former workers to come forward Thursday.

The small group of donors, past volunteers and prior employees asked the PHS Board of Directors to make changes by reallocating funds toward its true mission of caring for the animals under its care. They estimated nearly $1.5 million is spent each year on salaries and benefits for just six of the nonprofit’s executives.

and for balance, a bit of the recent accomplishments

The humane society, which has a nearly $13 million annual budget, contracts with San Mateo County for animal control services and operates the county-owned Coyote Point Shelter — which all have agreed is grossly out of date and officials are in the midst of planning a $22 million remodel. The nonprofit was also able to form a stronghold of donors to raise $26 million to build the Tom and Annette Lantos Campus of Compassion on Rollins Road in Burlingame. Adoptions and wildlife rehabilitation are conducted out of the nonprofit-owned facility opened in 2011.

I know some volunteers are Voice readers, so if you have a first-hand perspective this is the place to voice it.  Here is the Rollins Rd facility that is now five years old!

Poplar Ave Saga Continues

The long saga described here and 67 comments here about the Poplar Ave interchange is in the news again and the Daily Journal has it partly accurate

As communities along Highway 101 consider how to improve congestion as well as safety at some of their outdated on-ramps, the cities of Burlingame and San Mateo will again consider whether to embark on multi-million dollar interchange project that could require eminent domain.

But this part was written by someone who has not driven through there lately

Currently, the five-way intersection at Poplar Avenue and Highway 101 has unregulated traffic coming off the freeway with drivers from three other directions trying to cross or enter the highway.

They should know that the barriers have gone up to preclude most of the options that used to exist for the five-ways in and out--especially the straight across the frontage road that was the most unexpected and hence dangerous.  So we really haven't seen the effect of the recent changes yet.

Currently, two design alternatives include aligning southbound on- and off-ramps on the east side of Highway 101 along Amphlett Boulevard. Alternative 1 is estimated to cost $61.5 million and would have a smaller footprint by keeping the ramps tighter against the highway, therefore potentially requiring less right-of-way acquisition. However, that option may require Caltrans to provide exemptions to its design guidelines. Alternative 2 would involve spreading the ramps out a bit further from the highway, but would meet more of Caltrans’ standards and could potentially add capacity for more cars. That option also includes potentially widening the overpass bridge and could cost $76.4 million, according to city staff and consultants.

Sounds like it will be on the Dec 5th Bgame Council agenda.

Update: To save you the trouble of driving to see it in the rain, here is the construction as of the day of the original post

Rent Control - Part 14 Just Said NO

B'game has spoken - rather shouted - NO to rent control.  Here is the Shape the Future results from tonight's election which we have followed from the start and you can read about here:

CITY OF BURLINGAME MEASURE R (MAJORITY APPROVAL REQUIRED)

Complete Precincts: 13 of 13

YES 2,988             32.56%

NO 6,188              67.44%

That is a 70/30 butt kicking.  San Mateo's Measure Q was 10% closer but still a 60/40 whooping.  Q had slightly less obnoxious regulation but still not modest enough to pass.  The losers will whine about the money raised in opposition, but when the results are this lopsided you have to look in the mirror and ask "what did we do wrong?"  Answer:  "We wrote a horrible ordinance that would eventually hurt the people we thought we were helping and would hurt pretty much everyone else in town as well".

Indoor Pot Only

The Daily Post is highlighting separate votes tomorrow night by the San Mateo and Burlingame City Councils to prohibit growing marijuana outdoors.  With Prop. 64 likely to pass, cities are trying to get ahead of the growing trend.  That's up to them to decide, but I did get a hacking cough out of some of the reasoning given

San Mateo City Attorney Mason supports the proposed ordinance, saying in his report that the passage of Proposition 64 could "lead to serious community problems".  Mason cites the nuisance of odors, safety concerns and the large amount of water it takes to cultivate marijuana, saying that "commercial marijuana cultivation may adversely impact the community's sustainability goals".

Give me a break, Mr. Mason.  San Mateo has been overbuilding every square foot of land it can possibly approve.  Rack 'em and Stack 'em development is going in all along the Caltrain right of way.  The massive development north of Hillsdale Blvd. has been packing in the density for a decade and I'll bet the new Hillsdale Mall ends up being massive.  This is "greenwashing" at its worst. If you click through to the actual verbiage of the law you find  

(3) Possess, plant, cultivate, harvest, dry, or process not more than six living marijuana plants and possess the marijuana produced by the plants;

There are probably some good reasons to ban some types and sizes of outdoor pot growing, but saving water in San Mateo ain't one of them.

Neither Snow Nor Rain...Nor Gloom

I like getting tips and pointers from regular Voice readers.  I've gotten three in the last two days including one about our mail delivery here in B'game.  According to Wikipedia, the unoffical motto of the US Postal Service

The inspiring words "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" - while by no means an official creed or motto of the United States Postal Service - have long been associated with the American postman. The motto is inscribed on New York's James Farley Post Office, but it has no official status.

That "gloom of night" bit seems very appropriate since our local tipster reports that he is regularly getting his mail delivered after 10 PM!  While that might seem meritorious on the part of the postman, I would be more worried about leaving mail outside overnight.  The USPS cut the price of a forever stamp at the beginning of the year by .02 but maybe it should have stayed at .49 and we hire another carrier or two to keep deliveries in daylight or close to it.  Change your clocks tonight!  

Dangerous Flooding

El Camino is a state highway.  That is why you see the older Hwy 82 signs on the King's Road.  As such it would be good if Caltrans maintained it better.  Instead of trying to spend millions cutting down protected eucalyptus trees and adding turn lanes, how about just getting the drainage fixed as a first safety step.  I posted a similar photo years ago, but nothing has changed since.

While we wait for the next rain (due Saturday it appears) here is one of several dangerous flooded sections.  This photo was taken more than four hours after the rain stopped!