The Burlingame Voice

Election Issues: Pot Dispensaries; Yea or Nay?

At the City Council candidates' forum that Russ reminisced about here, there were 20 questions asked of all three candidates.  One benefit of having a small slate is that every candidate responded to every question.  I'm working through the themes of the night with an eye toward the questions that illuminated differences between the candidates.  That is not as easy as it might sound.  One question that elicited a different response from the incumbents and the challenger was #9 about having marijuana dispensaries in town (specifically at the Bayfront) although I think the questioner really meant the industrial section of Rollins Rd rather than the Bayfront.  The potential city revenue was also mentioned in the question.

Both incumbents, Emily Beach and Donna Colson, put pot dispensaries pretty far down their list of priorities and thought we should "go slow".  Mayor Colson noted the use of pot among high school students already and that Rollins/Bayshore is soon to be a new, residential neighborhood.  The challenger, Mike Dunham, took a different approach.  He noted that he didn't think of it as a revenue issue, but rather that since 63% of B'gamers had voted to legalize it then it should be allowed to be dispensed.  He also noted the preponderance of 40-60 year olds using it for chronic pain.  Since the forum, Mike Dunham and I have had a one-to-one interview and the issue came up again--this time in the context of the eternal question "What do we do about Broadway?"  Mike's thinking is that a dispensary on B'way would drive traffic and benefit all of the merchants and restaurants on the street.

As luck would have it, the day before my interview with Mike Dunham I was a guest of the CEO and the Chief Strategy Officer of Caliva for a tour of the San Jose facility where they grow, package and sell/distribute all sorts of THC and CBD products.  I worked with both individuals in the tech industry for years and now they are onto something entirely different that I found eye-opening.  I'll just mention a couple of points pertinent to the Burlingame question of allowing or disallowing a dispensary.  First, it very well could be a revenue issue.  Caliva is one of the very top sales tax payers in San Jose--and SJ is big town.  At the candidate forum, question 19 asked about "affordability" and the continually escalating sales taxes (like Measure I that we addressed here).  There are more taxes coming from the state, the county and the schools on every ballot.  So the money does matter.

The foot traffic into Caliva was continuous while I was there at midday.  The CEO indicated they get between up to 1000 walk-ins per day even though they make more than 1,000 deliveries per day.  That last point is also pertinent to the B'game decision.  B'gamers already have delivery options from Caliva or Eaze among others, but a retail space allows for an informed sales staff to help particularly with the CBD wellness, pain relief, anxiety relief side of the story.  CVS was offering some CBD oils in store, but that relationship was quelled by the feds and CVS customers did not have the benefit of an informed sales staff there anyway.  The issue of a dispensary in town, yea or nay?, probably isn't enough to swing one's city council vote either way, but it does show some of the thinking of the three candidates.  Here is the Caliva location in an industrial section next to a recycling facility in San Jose.

 

Feeling Jealous of "Menlo Dark"

I had never heard Menlo Park referred to as "Menlo Dark" until an article in today's Chronicle quoted someone calling it that.  But I have heard our own little burg called "Boringame" since 1983.  So the Chron piece about three investors buying the Guild movie theater, doing a "substantial renovation" and reopening it as a live music venue operated by a non-profit just made me green with envy.  Here are a couple of bits of the article

When the theater opens, it will still be called the Guild and will have either the same or similar marquee to announce rock, jazz, country and comedy acts three to five nights a week in an open-floor configuration Drew Dunlevie said.  “It’s a Silicon Valley impetus. We need more culture here,” said Dunlevie. “We are doing this because we are all tired of having to go to the city to see shows.”

The sleepy downtown, which Mueller said has earned the nickname “Menlo Dark,” has never had a stand-alone music venue. The closest it came was in the 1960s when there was live music at Magoo’s Pizza on Santa Cruz Avenue. This is where an Atherton kid named Bobby Weir joined together with a Palo Alto guitar teacher named Jerry Garcia and a recruited bassist named Phil Lesh to first perform as the Warlocks on May 5, 1965, before later becoming the Grateful Dead.

Where else does that sound like?  Yep, Boringame.  And a little historical factoid is that Phil Lesh was living in Burlingame around that time while attending college nearby.  There are a few buildings in B'game that might work for this sort of thing and there are plenty of B'gamers who are also tired of going to the ever-dirtier city to see shows.  We just need the benefactors--and some city leaders with vision and willingness to encourage such a venue to come to be.  With all of the development going on one can hope that 10 or 15 thousand square feet could go for such a spot.

Update, Sunday 9/29:  At least Broadway was alive last night with a solo guitar player at Il Piccolo and council woman Emily Beach playing with some guest performers for her annual BCE charity show.  Sure felt nice to be able to hear music in two places on B'way.  Il Piccolo is planning for Friday and Saturday music to be a regular event!  Here is Rebbesoul playing last night.

Earthquakes: Early Warning in Mexico

We do it all here at the Voice.  Topics galore that go from intensely local to lessons learned from afar.  Today's WSJ has an article about the early warning systems - plural - serving Mexico City.  They have three.  We Californians have a half of a system and nothing that reaches regular residents.  Here's the lessons that I drew from the piece:

-A non-profit called Center for Seismic Instrumentation and Registry (CIRES) has the government stamp of approval, but two tech start-ups, Grillo and SkyAlert are taking a different, more digital approach.

-CIRES has 96 sensors on the Pacific Coast that feed a system that makes public announcements on TV, radio and public places with the idea of a one-minute warning.

-Grillo and SkyAlert want to send alerts via wireless networks to phones, Twitter and in-home alarms--in other words more immediate and personal.

-The choice of sensors is important to avoid false alarms with a choice between cheap Asian sensors and better Japanese sensors (I know, both are Asian, but Japan has been working on this problem for years.

The Local Angle:  First, here is you reminder that the BNN Emergency Drill Day is coming up on October 12th.  Last year's is described here.  Find the closest one to you and join it.  Second, if we are to be burdened with high-cost, high-speed rail, the least the Authority can do is spend a little of the $100+ billion on an early-warning system and interface the trains to it.  You could argue Caltrain and Amtrak should also do that and they should, but they aren't doing 110 mph through densely populated areas.

Reminiscencing running.

Seeing the campaign lawn sign sprouting and having attended the recent Burlingame City Council Debates, my thoughts turn nostalgic.

A few differences between council races of the past 15 years or so and this one were the noticeable lack of candidates, the lack of audience members and the lack of any media covering the event.

Why only three candidates for two open seats? (Two of whom are incumbents.) In the past, there have been 6-9 candidates vying for two open seats. Perhaps it's the lack of issues? The questions the candidates fielded were almost exclusively centered around one subject—housing.

Back in the day, (hey I’m waxing nostalgic here) there were all kinds of questions on a great variety of topics. During my multiple runs for a seat on the dais, I can recall having a stack of 3 x 5 cards with bullet points and notes outlining issues that I anticipated might be asked that were important to Burlingame. One of my fellow candidates saw my notes and leaned over and whispered, “Hey, do you already know what’s going to be asked?” My reply was, “No, but I can sure make a pretty good guess.” The questions ranged from what was the council going to do about the constant filth on Burlingame Avenue to why Burlingame didn’t have free Wi-Fi to why the city wasn't going to pay for sidewalk repair anymore to bay front development to of course the architectural plan for a massive 63,000 square foot downtown Safeway. ( Simply look at the Burlingame Voice categories in the sidebar to get a sense of the issues that have been bantered about.) There were lots of concerns the residents wanted council candidates to address, more than the aforementioned short list. There were lots of residents who showed up to hear what the answers might be. Standing room only as I recall. Not to mention that if they could not attend the debate at City Hall, they could attend the debate at Burlingame High or the one at Burlingame Intermediate or the one at First Presbyterian Church. Once we even had a debate at the Atria Senior Center.

There were no reporters in attendance—at least none that I knew about. I know the media can watch a recording of the meeting, but that doesn't give a reporter the opportunity to “carpe diem” and ask follow-up questions of the candidates on the spot. In fact, it’s been a few days now and I have not seen a single article about the differences between what one candidate said and what the others said. Wait, aren't they called “debates?”

In the spirit of nostalgia, the debates I participated in were truly that—a variety of candidates with a variety of perspectives. They were lively affairs; some might even say, “Heated.” A debate could make or break a candidate. The aftermath and local media coverage, from several local newspapers, were important litmus tests. Gone are the days when the local newspaper, The San Mateo Daily Journal sponsored and ran the debate. Apparently they aren’t even covering it anymore. Thank goodness for The Burlingame Voice!

Also gone are the days when local races were won and lost by a few votes, (for example, I lost once by only 8 votes! Another candidate lost by only 21.)

Maybe all the concerns from the past have been addressed? Maybe the only questions left are where to build, how much to build and how high to build. At least that was my impression.

Here’s to the good old days.

 

High-Cost Rail - Part 148 More Delays: More Dollars

The reason I call it "High-cost rail" is because no one really has any idea what this boondoggle will eventually cost if it isn't killed or amputated down to a Central Valley white elephant.  No one who is paying attention could think it will be less than $100 billion and with the way things are going $150-175 billion is not out of the question.  If all you read are the local papers, you don't get the picture of the extreme sucking sound coming from the Central Valley.  But the LA Times remains on the case and provides us with these disturbing observations

Seven years after its land buying program began, the California High-Speed Rail Authority has yet to acquire hundreds of parcels, even though the state has the power to condemn property in the way of its future tracks.  At the same time, the rail authority has become landlord to surplus acreage that serves no purpose in furthering high-speed rail but still must be managed by the state. It owns toxic waste sites, vacant lots and rental homes.  The California High-Speed Rail Authority is now a player in the agriculture industry with at least 466 acres of land under cultivation, a side effect of having to purchase entire fields just to acquire a corner for the rail route.  So far, it has yet to secure roughly one-sixth of the 1,859 parcels it needs for the 119 miles between Madera and Wasco.

Even while it has fallen behind schedule in buying property for its future tracks, rail authority managers have underestimated the footprint they need to relocate utilities — including gas transmission pipes, communication cables, electrical wires, water mains and sewers — that sit in the route of the bullet train. 

A June contract amendment the rail authority signed with utility giant PG&E reveals some of the costs involved.  The new five-year deal, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, adds $27 million to the bill for just PG&E’s equipment. Other big operators requiring so-called third party relocations include AT&T, Kinder Morgan, Southern California Edison, Union Pacific Railroad, BNSF and various irrigation districts.

If you click through to the whole piece you will get a slimy feeling up your leg about land buys in downtown Fresno that make you wonder what is really going on here.  But wait, there's more

The new land requirements complicate efforts by rail authority leaders to turn around years of delays, cost overruns and technical problems that are threatening political support for the project. The need for the additional parcels is coming as legislators, frustrated by a decade of slow progress, are considering shifting some of the bullet train funding from the Central Valley to project segments in Southern California and the Bay Area.

Here is the quote of the week:

Another middle manager said more delays are inevitable, lamenting, “I am going to ride this train, but I am afraid it is going to be my ashes in an urn. I told my kids to take my ashes on the bullet train.”

Kudos to the Times.  If I could give them a Pulitzer I would.

Apple Heists: What is to be done?

Almost exactly a year ago, we posted about the Apple store heists getting out of control.  There were some unarmed sort-of-security guards standing around outside on the Avenue for awhile, but that mostly ceased about six months ago and was a for-show-only response anyway.  As the local multi-person, grab and go thefts continue, other merchants on the Avenue are growing concerned as are many local residents.  It seems like just a matter of time before someone gets hurt--most likely not in the store itself, but on the street as the getaway car or cars zoom off down the Avenue.  BPD has placed a decoy cruiser outside on occasion and I would guess some patrol has been upped, but it seems incumbent on Apple to do more.  Here's the decoy in place a couple nights ago.

Rent Control: +5% Sends a Message

The Law of Unintended Consequences is often not understood in Sacramento.  In fact much of what emanates from the Legislature and the Gavinor appears to reinforce the Law of Totally Expected Consequences.  OK, I just made that last Law up, but that doesn't mean it's not accurate.  The LA Times describes the latest instance

“We are pleased to announce we have come to an agreement on a series of amendments to AB 1482 that would create strong renter protections,” said a statement from Newsom, Senate leader Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) and bill author Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco). “The bill will protect millions of renters from rent-gouging and evictions and build on the Legislature’s work this year to address our broader housing crisis.”

Applying the KISS principle to analyzing AB 1482, one can only conclude that the bill guarantees 5% + inflation rent increases for a huge majority of renters every year for the foreseeable future.  Why would any landlord do anything else after being told that is the limit of what is acceptable (and legal)?  As someone who is neither landlord nor renter, but an interested observer this is a totally expected consequence--as will be the calls for more taxpayer dollars to go to state-subsidized, "affordable" housing.  Bet on it.

Slicing Up the PG&E Pie

The city of San Francisco is ready to offer PG&E $2.5 billion to buy the utility's lines within the city.  Let's just leave aside the question of whether a city that can't keep its streets clean, stop 30,000 car burglaries per year, build a subway line or Van Ness Avenue remotely on time, or run a bus system properly should be in the electricity business.  Those are great questions, but here we ask "What about Burlingame?"  The Wall Street Journal posits a bad answer to that question:

The removal of San Francisco from PG&E’s 70,000-square-mile service territory would likely affect rates and service for those in rural and suburban areas outside of the city by reducing the number of customers paying for the operation and maintenance of the grid.

Michael Wara, head of the climate- and energy-policy program at Stanford University’s Woods Institute, said it is incumbent upon California to examine how San Francisco’s takeover bid would affect those customers.  “In order for this to happen, the state of California would have to be amenable,” he said. “There is reason to suspect it might have some negative consequences for the people left behind.”

We've already got cost and reliability issues with the electricity we are getting and the wildfire liability that PG&E faces certainly isn't going to make the cost issues any better.  Let's just hope our neighbor to the north doesn't stick it to us even more by taking a bigger slice of the pie.

Floppy Signs Multiply

It seems like the yellow floppy Yield to Pedestrians in Crosswalk signs are multiplying like rabbits around town.  Also known as "Ped pop-up" signs or "In-Street Ped warning" signs, they were originally designed for mid-block crossings. Gradually they’ve been expanded to be used even at intersections and sometimes even on both sides of the same intersection.  One intrepid Voice reader notes  

Most cities have already figured out they don’t work and are knocked down a lot (see photo below on California Ave.). They are a maintenance nightmare as we’ve seen, and in the worst case, they actually impede a regular car driver from safely completing a left turn from a side street.  This makes the driver navigate the turn slowly and be more exposed to getting broadsided by a car on the major street.  It’s our city continuing to throw money down the drain in the hopes of virtue signaling that it cares about pedestrian safety.

I have also seen drivers slow to a crawl when there is no pedestrian anywhere near the crosswalk-- so-called "traffic calming" gone awry.  Let's hope the city is evaluating the cost-benefit of these signs.

 

 

Lot Y - Electric Field of Dreams

The new EV charging station parking spaces are open at Lot Y.  You can read about the start of the project from April here.  I've been by about five times since they got finished and am waiting to see my first car use one.  I'm sure it will happen soon, but you have to wonder if it was a good idea to give up ten spaces for eight EV spaces.  The day after I took this photo of the empty spaces a regular Voice reader/contributor sent me the exact same photo with the same concern.  He was also kind enough to send an overhead, marked-up photo of the lost spaces memorialized here now.  Thanks BMW, nice work.