The Burlingame Voice

Blood Moon Over B'game

I set my alarm for 5:20 am this morning and went outside to a beautiful clear sky cradling the Super Blue Blood Moon high in the western sky.  It was really something to see and just as interesting an hour and a half later as the eclipse waned and the outline of the full moon was visible, but the brightly lit portion looked just like a normal half moon.  Neither my phone nor my camera did it justice, so I have plucked the Phoenix New Times photo that I think shows the best view to share here.  The middle blood moon was at 5:20 am and the second from the left at 6:45am.

More to the local angle was the noise level at 5:20 am.  The first southbound Caltrain rolls through B'game at 5:22 and the first northbound one rolls through B'game at 5:32.  Gates drop, signals clang, horns sound for longer than really seems necessary.  Several commenters have mentioned the San Mateo pols who travelled to DC to try to get some rail horn relief and expressed their hope that B'game would add its voice to the chorus.  The airport noise is quite loud even on a clear day and you can read up on that problem here.  I remain opposed to 5 am aircraft departures, but that is apparently another thing that needs a major rule change.  I'm not sure when Recology starts picking up trash and recycling, but it sounded like it was before 5:20 am which also seems too early.  Russ has covered the onset of construction noise starting promptly at 8 am here.  The point is B'game could be quieter if we keep demanding that it be.

Growth by the numbers

This Saturday, the Burlingame City Council will hold a study session where discussions regarding Burlingame's housing concerns will be on the table. According to the city's own estimates, housing projects that have been approved and some that are in the pipeline will add more than 500 units to our current housing stock. All of these units are in multi-dwelling buildings. If you have never been to one of these meetings, I guarantee you will find it interesting. It's a bit less formal than a council meeting, but not much, but you will hopefully hear the council opine in a more open environment.

The question imho, is this growth "smart growth" or just "growth to meet the state's mandatory numbers?" Another question is regarding affordable housing. Is this a response to those who claim we need it or is there some science behind it?

The session begins at 9am and will be held in the Lane Room at the Burlingame Library. The agenda is here.

High-Cost Rail - Part 139 Cost Overruns and Commuting via HSR

There was more horrid financial news about high-cost rail today as reported by the LA Times here.  This should be no surprise as most big government project overrun their estimates; usually by a lot of dough.  The Times notes

The estimated cost of building 119 miles of bullet train track in the Central Valley has jumped to $10.6 billion, an increase of $2.8 billion from the current budget and up from about $6 billion originally.

The new estimate was presented Tuesday by Roy Hill, who leads the main consulting firm on the project, WSP (formerly Parson Brinckerhoff). Hill said the cost increases were mainly driven by problems including higher costs for land acquisition, issues in relocating utility systems, the need for safety barriers where the bullet trains would operate near freight lines and demands by stakeholders for the mitigation of myriad issues.

"The worst-case scenario has happened," Hill bluntly told the rail authority's board at its regular monthly meeting.

Some news that was not as widely reported came from someone with his hand reaching for our pockets

The 21 years that it has taken California’s high-speed rail project to move from creation to today’s construction in the Central Valley were largely occupied dealing with political, legal and financial obstacles.

But the head of the German-American consortium that just signed a contract intended as a preamble to a deal to run the railroad said overcoming California’s car culture is the biggest obstacle to high-speed rail’s success.

“On mega-projects all over the world there is a political and financial challenge in there,” said Carsten Puls, president of DB Engineering & Consulting USA, the American arm of Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s rail system and the lead company in the 13-member consortium. “We have the same challenges in Germany on our mega-projects … That’s why they are mega-projects.”

What makes California stand out, he said, is the need “have to have a mind change here from a car-driven society and shifting to more public transportation.”  Connectivity with public transportation is weak in the Central Valley although the state’s draft rail plan, now circulating for comment, calls for improvements. With five other passenger railroads including BART and Caltrain scheduled to connect to high-speed rail at Diridon Station within eight years, San Jose will have the highest level of connectivity for the entire system.

Considering the initial operating segment of the project from San Jose to near Bakersfield, Puls sees high-speed rail’s primary utility at the start as a commuter link to and from Silicon Valley, which is supposed to happen in seven years.

As one highly informed observer noted about Mr. Puls' comment:  Certainly the statement that HSR initially is going to be a commuter train does not fit criteria incorporated into Prop 1A (but that is certainly not a new issue is it?). Lots of luck getting California to give up on cars!!!  Gov. Brown's last day in office cannot come soon enough.  All of the press about his fiscal responsibility in his last budget pales in comparison to his fiscal irresponsibility on high-cost rail. 

Parents Uniting for Nelson - Part 3

Scrolling through five or six pages of comments to get to the most recent ones on the issue of Mr. Nelson's transfer is tedious, so those who are interested in the history of this BHS issue can find the original post here and Part 2 here.  I have captured the essence of the current state from the comment stream in Part 2.  This will save us all a lot of scrolling and continue to give Mr. Nelson a venue to share important information.  As I read it the situation is

Oct. 7, 2017:

The United States Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) is currently conducting its third (3rd) investigation of the SMUHSD surrounding the actions taken in retaliation against me.

The SMUHSD is refusing to produce ANY Public Record Requests surrounding this case.  BHS Principal Di Yim, SMUHSD Director of Special Education/504 Director Gloria Dirkmaat were "retired" over these issues.

The members of the SMUHSD Board promised an investigation of the issues at BHS. They never fulfilled this promise.  This "cover up"is getting expensive. The price tag was already over $100,000 in legal and investigation fees before this current investigation.

And from Jan. 8, 2017: 

The SMUHSD hired a Special Investigator, Chris Reynolds to interview teachers regarding issues at Burlingame High School.  Mr. Reynolds was paid over $10,000 for his services.

Despite the fact that the SMUHSD Administration explained to these teachers that the interviews were private and confidential, the BHS teachers collaborated with one another and coordinated stories to deflect guilt for their actions.

And from May 22, 2017:

The Burlingame English Department sits at the center of this fiasco as it became a "gossip pit," targeted students, and backstabbing those who spoke out against them. There are teachers who know nothing... but those who listened and did nothing are just as guilty. 

Lastly, the assertion was made that upon another teacher's retirement, Mr. Nelson qualifies for a return to BHS.  That is the central issue in my mind.  I manage a lot of people in my day job and I find value in having a few that are not afraid to speak up and point out problems.  One wonders if SMUSHD and the BHS administration feel the same?

 

Biking Around B'game

I finally saw the first LimeBike in use by someone other than a neighborhood kid goofing around on it with his buddies--not that there is anything wrong with that either, but it wasn't really the intent of the program.  Apparently B'game kids often do not have bikes, but they do have phones and apps to get a LimeBike.  The City announced the program a couple week ago

The City of Burlingame is excited to introduce a six month bike sharing pilot in Burlingame. The bike sharing program will be operated by LimeBike, a company headquartered in San Mateo with bike sharing programs nationwide.

The LimeBikes will be available around town. Rides will cost $1 every 30 minutes. To ride, riders need to download the app onto their smartphone, scan the bike number, strap on a helmet, ride, enjoy and park smart.

The secret code "City of Trees" will get you five free rides in the app.  Oddly enough, the rent-a-bikes in San Mateo are blue and have set places to be parked using a stanchion.  The City email about our program seems to predict concern about the Limebikes being parked willy-nilly on sidewalks and such.  I'll be interested to see what kind of demand there is here since the one I see on 25th Ave. in San Mateo seldom moves.  Here's one outside the B'way post office.

March 18th addition:  Lori's post this morning reminded me of how many people are complaining about the "LitterBikes" all over the place.  Then I was in downtown San Mateo and saw a LitterBike on the corner....of San Mateo.  That is interesting because San Mateo uses the Blue bikes that have fixed stations to return to.  I have to wonder how San Mateans feel about our limey showing up on their streets?  Here is is

An "Affordable Village"?

The Daily Journal gave an update to the on-going "affordable" housing saga in B'game late last week.  We've discussed how B'game has been expensive since its very founding here and I'm more convinced than ever that nothing the City tries will make much of a dent in that.  I've had several conversations with SF refugees and Silicon Valley people hoping to move north to follow the companies moving north that cause me to believe we will always be a prime destination.  And if we do something big enough (i.e. more than the 132 units being discussed now) it will have even more of a deleterious effect on the quality of life and education in B'game.

The Burlingame City Council discussed a joint effort with San Mateo County’s Home for All initiative aiming to kick-start community conversations this year regarding ways to make the city more affordable.

The pilot program is slated to launch Saturday, Feb. 10, with an initial discussion regarding affordable housing plans and policies standing to impact Burlingame.

“We will be getting a pulse of the community and seeing what people are thinking about,” Planning Director Kevin Gardiner said of the event to be coordinated by community engagement consulting firm Common Knowledge Plus and Home for All, which is a county program aiming to close the local imbalance of available jobs and homes.

Central to the initial talks will be the city’s vision to build the Village at Burlingame affordable development, slated to include 78 workforce housing units and 54 units set aside for seniors on a surface parking lot at Park Road and Lorton Avenue, south of Howard Avenue.

I'm reminded a bit of the old Boutique & Villager when I hear the working name for this "village", but I'll bet the ethos that existed when the B&V existed would not have looked kindly on this sort of thing.  Those were days when the small scale feel of the town was embedded in the press' mindset.  The results of the rent control vote would seem to say the general public still has some of that ethos, so I hope the Council really does listen to more than the squeaky wheels.  You would think with the building boom that is already going, the Peninsula Ave. overpass and B'way underpass concerns, the drive-in and PAMF projects under full steam and no new Rec Center in sight, there would be enough things to worry about without reducing downtown parking......

 

New Year's Reminder About Your Earthquake Kit

I'm running a little slow this morning after being awakened by the 4.4 magnitude quake last night at 2:39 am.  The Chron is reporting

The quake was centered two miles east-southeast of Berkeley at 2:39 a.m., at a depth of eight miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The quake struck on the Hayward Fault near the Claremont Hotel, USGS seismologists said.

“The shaking was widespread, that’s not unexpected for an earthquake of this magnitude,” Keith Knudsen, a USGS geologist, said during a morning press briefing at the agency’s science center in Menlo Park.  People were awakened from the North Bay to San Jose, and some reported feeling it from as far as Sacramento and Lodi, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

“Nothing that we’ve heard of,” a Berkeley police dispatcher said. “We felt it, but we’re not getting a lot of calls. People are probably asleep.”

I don't know about you but it was loud enough and sharp enough shaking to keep me awake for at least an hour.  At the recent City Council installation ceremony the Neighborhood Network team received commendations for their work.  If you aren't already a part of that effort, now would be a good time to find your neighborhood rep and join.  Police Chief Eric Wollman noted that the department was supplying members with some of the older emergency radios to tie more people together with dispatch, etc.

Do you have at least a three day supply of water and all of the other things that go into a well-stocked crisis kit?  If not, this is your friendly reminder.