The Burlingame Voice

SFO: A Chance to Speak Up

Here at the Voice we don't do a lot of pre-advertising for meetings or events, but big issues like the Lyon-Hoag traffic problems or SFO noise do prompt us to alert you all.  Here is your chance to speak up about SFO noise which has been bad the last couple of nights, again....

Come join a group of local Burlingame and Hillsborough residents at an informational meeting to discuss this issue and learn how we can address this problem. We will be holding 2 meetings at the Burlingame Public Library:

Thursday, June 21 at 11 AM and

Thursday, June 21 at 7 PM

Please RSVP to [email protected] with the time that works best for you. We look forward to working together on a solution for all! Final meeting location details will be provided to folks who have RSVP'd.

Recall we addressed this with the SFOrunwaynoise team back in August of last year here.  You can remind yourselves of the state of the conversation before the June meetings.

High-cost Rail Part 142 Losing Steam

Yesterday's Daily Post recapped a recent LA Times - USC poll that shows high-speed rail losing steam in the court of public opinion.  When asked the question with the context of the costs doubling to $77 billion and the schedule stretched to 2033, 49% said they would halt construction.  "A sizeable 19% did not know what to do about the problems".

The new poll shows Bay Area voters are the train's strongest supporters.  Just 27% of poll respondents in the Bay Area said they would stop the project with 41% in Los Angeles and 56% in San Diego and Orange Counties and 64% in the Central Valley.

9% of respondents had not heard about the high-speed rail project!  I wonder what the percentages would be if they asked even better questions like "If the budget has tripled to $100+ billion and there is still no engineering plan to safely traverse the Tehachapi Mountains and the train is likely to be on-balance damaging to the environment?

Most of you have probably already voted (postmarked by next Tuesday) but if you haven't yet, here is a reminder of where the gubernatorial candidates stand on HSR.

Memorial Day 2018

I do love a parade.  The 9th annual Hillsborough Memorial Day parade rolled up Floribunda this morning under beautiful skies we have not seen much of lately.  The full complement of politicians were on hand-- they outnumbered the veterans by quite a bit, but the Army Jeep with two vets in the front and two Rosie the Riveters in the back was pretty cool.  Also on hand were the San Mateo and BHS bands which always add a bit of local festivity to an occasion.  It was also nice to see the flags out on the Avenew for the weekend.  I hope we all take a few moments today to remember.

Roundabout Round-up

By popular demand, here is a new post on the California Dr. roundabout that is now under construction.  We discussed it 15 months ago here, but a new post is in order since the project is "in the dirt".  Here is the link to the City website for the project description, bid documents including the winning bid from Redgwick Construction that beat out the other four bidders.  If it comes in on budget this will be a $3 million dollar investment ($3,014,305 to be exact), but alas it does not have a cannon to replace the one that sat there until it was reportedly melted down during WWII.  That would have been a nice touch around Memorial Day so if any B'gamers have an extra cannon or know where we can find one, this is the place to let us know!

Just in time for Memorial Day, here is a photo of the cannon that has been provided by the B'game Historical Society.  It was apparently used as part of a promotion for the move Treasure Island showing at the Peninsula Theatre in 1934.

Lyon Hoag and beyond

The City of Burlingame called a meeting last night to talk about the Lyon Hoag neighborhood. Roughly translated that's the hood bounded by Peninsula Avenue, Burlingame Avenue, Anita Avenue and Rollins Rd. By the size of the crowd, more than just Lyon Hoag residents showed to discuss the hood's issues.

I don't like to bash anyone for anything, but there were two flaws in the meeting. The first was that it appeared that the city was coming to the neighborhood with solutions without defining the problem. The second was that they did not anticipate the size of the audience so when the audience was asked to break up into working groups, it was chaotic.

Many in the audience cornered me to express there discontent with how the meeting was organized and that they felt that this was typical government dog and pony.

Clearly things could have been handled better, but the good news is that the city decided to be proactive and at least try to engage the neighborhood. Kudos for that. The other outcome, at least in my little corner, was the recognition that the East side has no representation on the council. Some in the crowd confided that they wanted to find a strong candidate from the East side of Burlingame that could be its representitive. I hope they find someone because in the whole of my existence in Burlingame, some 25 years now, the West side has sen virtually no impacts of growth, except for new McMansion construction. Now is the time for someone to step forward and address the traffic, growth, parking, school capacity, FAR and other issues that plague the east and always will as more and more housing and offices spring up.

We have written here before about the hundreds of units in the pipeline--none are located to the West.

Some suggested solutions included traffic calming measures,i.e. bulb outs, speed bumps, signage, one way streets, etc as well as a Residential Parking Permit Program with residential permits costing on average of $54 each for a two car household per year.

The Peninsula Ave. interchange project still looms and San Mateo will be having even more meetings to discuss--We have been discussing the demise of this project since 2006 and it is still not dead.

Caltrain was not really discussed, but electrification and the advent of High Speed Rail will contribute to gridlock along the trcks if there are no grade separations. And we know there is no $ for that.

The new Rec Center was simply grazed over, but even with adequate parking will bring more congestion to an already congested neighborhood.

Two traffic studies are i the works: one of the Lyon Hoag hood at a cost of $200K and another from San Mateo analyx=zing traffic in regards to the overpass project.

More meetings, more studies. In my opinion, there needs to be more listening to the hood and more analysis of what the root of the problems are...not just throwing some solutions at the wall an seeing what sticks.

 

 

Rent Control Part 15: Please sir, may I cover my costs?

Recall B'game sent the last rent control proposal to a resounding defeat.  You can read about it here.  But that doesn't mean the group that loves to play with OPM  ("Other People's Money") has gone away--and neither has the Voice.  Weekend reading of the SF Comicle yielded this little gem about the Board of Stupervisors taking up yet another rent control issue.  For our purposes, we'll skip the ordinance details--you can click through, but rather highlight the idiotic backdrop

A proposed ordinance to blunt the ability of landlords to raise rents so they may pay down mortgage loans and property taxes is headed to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors after winning unanimous approval from the Rules Committee on Friday.

As in many cities, when the costs of operating and maintaining an apartment building in San Francisco runs higher than the allowable rent increases set by the city’s Rent Board each year, landlords may request to pass on some of those expenses to tenants. Landlords may, for example, request a so-called operational and maintenance “pass-through” to help cover the cost of a new roof, or to keep pace with rising water or garbage-collection rates.

Do you realize how dangerously stupid this sort of thing is?  We dodged the local "Rent Board" bullet which we highlighted here as being rigged from the start.  Can you imagine having to individually go to some Board to raise the rent enough to cover things like water, garbage or maybe school bond costs?  This is the sort of thing that happens in socialist countries.  I'll repeat:  I'm not a landlord and have never been a landlord in Burlingame.  Twenty five years ago, I once rented out my house in Connecticut for a year when the market was really slow and I couldn't sell it, but today's post is driven by simple fairness and a concern for what actually works, not what might make some people feel good.

ECR: SamTrans & Smart Lights

I'm all for smarter technology being applied to our municipal infrastructure, but it has to be a matter of correct priorities.  In a Daily Journal piece today, down at the bottom after the route changes are described, we read

SamTrans has plans to further improve travel time on El Camino Real by 2021 with the Traffic Signal Priority feature, which will allow buses on El Camino Real to more efficiently navigate traffic lights. Buses will be equipped with transponders that interact with traffic signals to extend green lights for buses or move the standard light cycle faster so they spend less time waiting at red lights.

We're pretty lucky in that there should not be a ripple effect on B'game cross streets because there aren't many lights near ECR, but mostly I have to wonder if perhaps CalTrans could focus on the horrible condition of the road surface in B'game before we dive into an Internet of Things experiment?  The ever-present flooding should be fixed first, then a new layer of blacktop is definitely in order.  Michael Brownrigg had the flooding as a campaign intention--I hope it's in the works.  The latter seems like it is hopeless.

Hall of Famer: "Stats" Jamieson

We have some real personalities in town one of whom is being honored for his long stint as the announcer for Bgame Panther baseball.  The Daily Journal noted that Tyler Jamieson is being inducted into the Bgame Athletics HoF at next year's LIttle Big Game.  I know Tyler as "Stats" Jamieson--because he keeps the stats as well as doing the announcing.  He's also the memory of the team in many ways having announced for almost 20 years--last Friday was his 500th game at the mic.

Jamieson has shown the Peninsula that a first-class production can go a long way to making high school players feel special. From announcing the starting lineups for both teams, to between-inning music and even providing the walk-up music for Panthers batters at home games, Jamieson makes sure the players get a taste of big-time baseball.

Tony Brunicardi, a 2003 Burlingame graduate and a current assistant baseball coach at Skyline College, remembers Jamieson as simply a part of the team. Brunicardi said the best was when Jamieson handed out his own postseason awards for the baseball team.

“He had the ‘Tyler Jamieson awards.’ He had his own rookie of the year, his own Cy Young award,” Brunicardi said. “I appreciated it as much back then as I do now.”

Having heard the selections for the Tyler Jamieson awards for several years, including one that was given to my son, I can tell you Stats pays close attention and has a sly sense of humor that makes it all so much more fun.  Congrats, Stats!

Flights Takes Off on the Avenew

The corner of B'game Avenue and California across from the train station is a very visible, very desirable spot for any business.  With Limon on one side and the new Flights on the other, visitors are immediately offered some good choices to eat, drink and socialize as they get into downtown.  Flights follows in the jetstream of Nathan's, Cafe Marimba, Left at Albuquerque and most recently Straits as the corner location of the Ave's dining scene.  It is the third establishment by the owners after a very successful introduction in Campbell and a sister restaurant in Los Gatos.  They also have a signed lease on Castro St. in Mountain View so this concept restaurant will be familiar to some out of towners.

After dining there twice I can imagine it will have a good run on the Avenew with a refreshed bar area (they took down the wall that blocked the view of the train station as shown below--a great move).  There is a cool airplane hanging from the ceiling that has a back story of being Pablo Escobar's drug running plane before it was captured.  With the staff in flight attendant attire and a call button on each table and team service, the scene is set for something a little different.  All food and drink comes in "flights" of three--three sliders, three glasses of sauvignon blanc, three manhattans, three shrimp dishes--you get the idea.  It's not trying to compete with Parc & Howard, for example, on the wine list or Ecco on the food.  It's geared for fun and sharing and watching sports on TV while being in the center of the action.  Welcome to B'game!

Art Weekend in B'game

The yellow signs are up around town to highlight that this is the Open Studio weekend for our area (the first weekend of three throughout the Bay Area).  The big site is the Peninsula Museum of Art up on California Dr. where 28 artists are holding court.  There is another B'gamer open at 1108 Palm Dr. and several in San Mateo.  Hillsborough and Millbrae appear to be unrepresented!  Check the listings of addresses and artists here:  https://svos.org/