The Burlingame Voice

Crime Update - 5 Year Trends

I had a chance to sit down with Chief Mike Matteucci and Lt. Jay Kiely for an update on police affairs.  I would say that I was meeting with the "new" chief after Chief Wollman, but Chief Matteucci's been in the position for a year already.  Time flies but the Chief move up through the ranks here in town and it appeared to be an easy transition .  Voice readers will recall a three-part series I did five years ago on various department initiatives including the Quality of Life team, the actions to reduce property crimes and technology initiatives.  During our discussion, it was clear that many of the initiatives have come to successful conclusion or are continuing to progress.  The most notable shift in the crime figures came in Vehicle Burglaries (i.e. of locked vehicles) which jumped near the end of the year especially downtown.  BPD has some on-going tactics to fight this trend that I won't go into here.  Here are the monthly averages:

Monthly Average                    2015    2016    2017    2018    2019

Residential Burglaries                5        5        2            3        3

Vehicle Burglaries                    22       23    25        21       39

Commercial Burglaries                8        9        4            5        4

Other Thefts                              56        60      51        56      61

Robberies                                   1        1        1            1        2

Stolen Vehicles                          10        9        6          4         6

Vandalism                                  14       13    13          11       12

 

"Other Thefts" include porch pirate package thefts, shoplifting and stealing items out of unlocked cars.  B'game averaged 127 crimes per month in these seven categories last year.  Having now subscribed to the daily email crime summary for several months, I can also say there are a semi-regular occurrences of other, more serious crimes like assault and sexual assault.  Fraud, scams and DUIs are also represented on a monthly basis.

As the city's population grows with all of the building taking place we should expect to grow the police department budget as well.  It may not have to grow linearly with population, but it will have to grow.                                                           

El Camino "Renewal"

You probably got the glossy mailer announcing the El Camino Real Renewal meeting next Tuesday and it just arrived in the e-newsletter as well.  I can't make it, but I did get a chance to sit down with Mayor Emily Beach and our resident tree expert, Jennifer Pfaff, recently to discuss the project at length.  Here is the official announcement:

Caltrans is hosting an open house to discuss the El Camino Real Roadway Renewal Project on Tuesday, January 28, at the Burlingame Recreation Center from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

The project area stretches three miles, between East Santa Inez Avenue and Millbrae Avenue, and encompasses some of the most challenging pavement, vegetation, sidewalk, utility, drainage, and safety issues. This stretch of El Camino Real is also lined with heritage tree rows that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

Caltrans will share information about potential improvements to drainage, landscaping, sidewalk safety, ADA compliance, and rehabilitation of pavement. Learn more about the project by visiting www.elcaminorealproject.com.

During my meeting with the mayor we discussed things like the amount of money held in reserve for this major project ($110 million), the downward trend in the replacement rate of the trees (there were 750 in the 1970's and we are down to about 500 now) and the various CalTrans construction standards that may or may not be required for this project.  There are some trade-offs that will have to be made since full-CalTrans specifications can be in conflict with the Blue Gum Euc grove's historic status.  Things like the distance from street corners and poles, the distance between trees and the irrigation plans have to be negotiable.  The types of trees that would replace the Eucs is also on the table.

I'll leave the details to the experts like Jennifer and to those who conduct this first public meeting.  Let's just say it will be a controversial and yet hopefully collegial meeting. 

Arrivederci Fattoria e Mare

For some in town the Fattoria e Mare property will always be the "Velvet Turtle".  Visitors often ask me "What was the name of that restaurant right by the freeway and Broadway"?  But those days are long gone as will be Fattoria e Mare after a six year run -- another relic that provided memories, music and comraderie.  In it's place:

The Hanover Company is proposing a six-story building replacing the restaurant and adjacent parking garage and tennis court. The development would include 35 studio apartments, 74 one-bedroom apartments, 38 two-bedroom units and three three-bedroom units. Of the 150 units, 15 would be set aside at a moderate rate.

The project would also provide 195 parking spaces, 175 of which would be accommodated through a stacking system while six would be provided in tandem spaces and 14 would be standard spots. Most of the parking would be in an underground garage.

Parking concerns were raised at the Planning Commission session along with neighborhood compatibility of a six-story building.  But it passed 4-2.  There's no indication of discussion about where the kids from Anson Apartments (Summerhill), the Adrian Rd. development and now this Hanover project will go.  Hanover adds 194 bedrooms to the mix.

I'm also wondering which of these Big Four projects (counting the delayed Howard Ave. at Bayswater project) will trigger any major additions to the projected water deficit in town for a three-year drought.  The five year old Urban Water Management Study predicted on page 72  that supply available to Burlingame in multiple dry years is estimated to be reduced to 1,628 MG (year 1) and 1,376 MG (years 2 and 3).  I'm still hunting for why is a third consecutive year is estimated to be the same as the second consecutive year.  Table 6-4 shows demand exceeding supply in such a multi-year drought situation by 21% in 2020 and 30% if it occurs in 2040.  But these estimates predate the latest building boom here and in the rest of the SFPUC water service area.  And that is only for a three year drought.  At least the revision to these plans that is due this year includes a new 8 1/2 year drought scenario.  I'm betting the numbers will be scary to environmentalists and people who drink water.

Josh Becker: Prop. 13 in Danger...All of it

I had an opportunity to hear State Senate candidate Josh Becker speak this week at a neighborhood meet and greet.  These are always interesting grass roots events and the Q&A can be enlightening beyond what one can read about a candidate in the papers.  I got just that sort of insight about Becker regarding Prop. 13 and what is known as the "split roll".  The split roll initiative would remove the tax protections on commercial properties in an effort to address the fact that they do not sell as often as residential properties and hence do not get reassessed as often.  Back in August, the proponents of split roll reworked their initial proposal:

The Schools and Communities First campaign, backed by the state's largest public labor unions and civil rights groups, will formally announce plans to refile the initiative later today. The changes include “improvements to implementation dates, expansive new small business tax relief, clarified education financing and stronger zoning language to ensure large corporations cannot avoid reassessment,’’ Tyler Law, a spokesperson for the campaign, told POLITICO.

Becker noted he backs the revised split roll initiative while noting he had not reviewed the final revisions to the text.  If those revisions offer some protections to "the corner grocery store" he would support it.  But Mr. Becker did not stop there.  Without being asked, he felt the need to go even further and suggest that the residential protections might also be reduced.  After noting that the original intent of Prop. 13 was to protect seniors, those on fixed incomes and lower income homeowners from escalating property taxes, he suggested that a move to remove those protections could be supplemented by "some sort of escrow account" that would hold the higher tax liabilities until the property changed hands at which point the seller would use some of the proceeds to pay the deferred taxes.

This is exactly the sort of stealth attack on Prop. 13 that groups like the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association warn about with the split roll initiative.  The complexity of it all, especially for seniors, boggles the mind.  Who sets these escrow accounts up, figures out the balances every year, applies some sort of interest rate to the balances, and adds the paperwork to an already endless pile of paperwork one gets during closings?  For me the real kicker was that Becker said all of this after earlier thanking those of us in the room who were paying the top 14% California income tax rate............

 

School Funding: Newsom's Next Budget

There is a group called Govern For California (GFC) that keeps an eagle eye on where state monies go--and suffice it to say they often point out poor trade-offs and poor policies regarding expenditures.  I like the group a lot and rely on their assessments of various buckets of spending.  School funding is going to be a hot topic in B'game over the next two months as Measure O is on the ballot hoping to raise $97 million in bond money for school facilities and teacher housing.  Before we get into that, here is GFC's latest comments on the Gavinor's 2020-2021 budget proposal

K-12. At $84 billion, Proposition 98 spending is nearly 70 percent greater than ten years ago and total K-12 spending will exceed $100 billion this year on nearly six million students but student performance has not materially improved and many school districts are in fiscal distress despite record revenues. The causes predate Governor Newsom's tenure but still we are disappointed the governor proposes only to modify bureaucratic Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) forms and to boost training dollars rather than to enact bold reforms that would enable school districts to manage workforces and budgets for the benefit of students.

90 percent of California's public schools are operated by public employees under an Education Code written by elected officials who have been heavily influenced by public employee unions since 1975. When combined with the centralization of school funding in Sacramento following the passages of Proposition 13 in 1978 and Proposition 98 in 1988, one result has been central control that runs schools chiefly for the benefit of those unions instead of students.

Also, the Governor's Budget doesn't address easily fixable fiscal distress in school districts such as Sacramento City where, despite record revenues, young teachers are currently being laid off in part because -- believe it or not -- that district is unnecessarily diverting money from classrooms to subsidize out-of-pocket health costs for retired employees, including retirees covered by Medicare or eligible for Obamacare or new state subsidies for middle-class Californians enacted last year.

The rough numbers of $100 billion divided by 6 million means spending is about $16,600 per student.  There are multiple sources for state-by-state spending and they vary quite a bit from source to source, so I wouldn't take any of them to the bank for comparison purposes, but they mostly show California in the middle of the pack.  The last Superintendent election didn't go as I had hoped so I'm not sure there will be any progress on most of these allocation issues any time soon.  In the meantime, we can ponder the best way forward for our excellent Burlingame schools, especially with all of the residential construction going on.

David Chiu: Robbing Hood Rides Again

From today's SF Chronicle article, here is the latest proposal from my second least-favorite Progressive Fascist:

SACRAMENTO — California homeowners with big home loans and vacation properties would owe higher taxes under new legislation to raise money for programs to get the state’s homelessness crisis under control.

The bill by Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, would cap a state tax break for mortgages to the interest paid on the first $750,000 of a loan for a primary home. It would eliminate the deduction altogether for mortgage interest on second homes.  Chiu’s office estimates the changes would bring in $400 million to $500 million per year, which would be set aside as dedicated funding for shelters, permanent supportive housing and other homelessness services.

“These are the individuals who own the most expensive homes in California,” Chiu said. “It’s a small price to pay among a small number of wealthier homeowners to establish a permanent fund for homelessness prevention.”

I'll bet Chiu was at the front of the line to criticize Trump for limiting the State and Local Tax deduction on one's Federal taxes to $10,000 per year, but that won't stop Robbing Hood from doing far worse damage to California taxpayers.  "It's a small price to pay" especially if he doesn't have to pay it.

Crime Doesn't Take a Holiday

Happy New Year?  I've been getting the daily email from our centralized crime mapping tool that the City has enabled on its website.  It can be eye-opening some days and I would encourage you to subscribe at least for a couple of weeks to get a sense of what is happening on an on-going basis in town.  You can go here:  https://brm.crimegraphics.com/2013/default.aspx  and look on the lower left side to sign-up.  Here is the crime report for the first three days of 2020 courtesy

Case #	Date of Crime	Date Reported	Crime Type	Crime	Classification	Location	Map
19-4074	12/19/2019 20:28-20:28	12/19/2019 20:28	Assault	Battery On Person	Misdemeanor	1400 Block of OLD BAYSHORE BL, Burlingame	(View)
20-10	1/1/2020 21:30-08:30	1/2/2020 08:32	Burglary	Burglary:second Degree	Felony	3100 Block of FRONTERA WY, Burlingame	(View)
20-11	1/2/2020 08:45-09:57	1/2/2020 09:57	Burglary	Burglary:first Degree	Felony	1400 Block of BALBOA AV, Burlingame	(View)
20-13	12/23/2019 14:12-11:52	1/2/2020 11:52	Stolen Vehicle	Vehicle Theft	Felony	1400 Block of ROLLINS RD, Burlingame	(View)
20-14	1/1/2020 19:00-12:00	1/2/2020 12:34	Attempted Burglary	Attempted Burglary	Felony	800 Block of WALNUT AV, Burlingame	(View)
20-23	1/3/2020 13:47-13:47	1/3/2020 13:47	Warrant	Outside Warrant Arrest Misdemeanor	Misdemeanor	1400 Block of BURLINGAME AV, Burlingame	(View)
20-24	12/25/2019	1/3/2020 15:41	Assault	Attempted Sexual Battery-Misd	Misdemeanor	1500 Block of NEWLANDS AV, Burlingame	(View)
20-28	1/3/2020 19:30-21:30	1/3/2020 21:30	Burglary	Burglary:second Degree	Felony	HOWARD AV/HIGHLAND AV, Burlingame	(View)
20-37	1/5/2020 01:23-01:23	1/5/2020 01:23	DUI Driving	Driving Under Infl Alcohol	Misdemeanor	CALIFORNIA DR/HOWARD AV, Burlingame	(View)
20-38	1/5/2020 04:31-04:31	1/5/2020 04:31	Assault	Battery W/Serious Injury Felony	Felony	1400 Block of HOWARD AV, Burlingame	(View)

PG&E: The Revolving Door & Climbing Rates

One of the biggest stories of the last 5+ years has been the power outages, blackouts, wildfires, and the San Bruno gas explosion that have plagued Northern California and PG&E.  Here in B'game, we have had outage issues over the years that lead to the founding of Burlingamers Unwilling to Live with Blackouts (BULB) that appeared to get PG&E to do some equipment upgrades that improved uptime.  We have been lucky in not having any wildfires, but anything can happen--there is plenty of fuel in Mills Canyon and throughout our City of Trees and in our up-the-hill neighbor H'borough.  Keep your fingers crossed.

The Wall Street Journal published a three and a half full page investigative piece on PG&E on December 28th.  If you have access and missed it, go back and read it.  Otherwise I will be taking a few excerpts from it to illustrate not only the PG&E failings, but those of the CPUC and Gov. Brown and Newsom.  There is plenty of blame to go around.  This first installment starts with the revolving door at the top.  It's never easy to turnaround a huge operation like PG&E and heavily regulated utilities are even harder than a regular large company.  It takes strong leadership, methodological and patient strategy and execution and good relations with the regulator and investors.  Stability helps too and we have not had that in the CEO's office.

The Journal article starts with Peter Darbee taking over from 35-year veteran Gordon Smith in 2005.  Known as the "Green CEO" who arrived with a plan for "business transformation" using Accenture as a major consultant and a mission to move towards more green power, Darbee fell far short on the earnings front and resigned in the wake of the San Bruno explosion.  There was an interim CEO, Lee Cox, until Tony Earley was hired from DTE Energy in Detoit on a "back to basics" theme.  Infrastructure investment went up

PG&E traditionally had spent $5 to maintain its far bigger electrical transmission and distribution system for every dollar it spent maintaining its gas network each year. The furor over the San Bruno explosion skewed spending toward gas.

In 2011, the company spent $237.8 million to maintain its gas network, more than twice the amount in 2010, according to federal filings. That spending kept rising, hitting $658.3 million in 2016, when it topped the spending on electric upkeep by $60 million.

Then came the power failure at Candlestick during Monday Night Football.  Earnings suffered for a number of reasons and Early was gone in 2011 and

In his final year, PG&E’s average cost of electricity for residential customers had risen an inflation-adjusted 10% to 20 cents per kilowatt hour, among the most expensive of any large utility in the country.  Mr. Earley, who had touted his practical-minded, back-to-basics approach, returned to Detroit, never having tamed PG&E.

“We are coming back to Michigan when this adventure is over,” he had promised the Detroit Economic Club two years earlier. “One of the reasons is someone once summed up San Francisco absolutely perfectly. They described the city as 49 square miles surrounded by reality.”

The next CEO, Geisha Williams, had been the PR face of PG&E during the San Bruno aftermath and was elevated to CEO with an emphasis on "affordability" of rates.  Then the major fires started and continued

While its service area burned, PG&E’s residential electricity rates averaged 21 cents a kilowatt hour in 2017, rising to 22 cents the next year. Only New York’s Consolidated Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric charged more among the nation’s largest utilities.

She lasted 14 months, followed by another interim CEO, John Simon, until another industry vet, Bill Johnson, was brought in from Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in April of last year.  In addition to all of the operational issues, Johnson has competing bankruptcy plans to shepherd, an ever climbing green energy mandate to satisfy and hundreds of wildfire and blackout-related claims to work through.  That is a lot of change - people and strategy - at the top for any organization to digest while keeping the lights on.

Happy New Year: 2020 Vision

Every New Year's Eve and New Year's Day represents a new beginning.  I read an article today that sought to burst the idea that special days were all that special for resolutions.  The author thinks you can start anew on any given day.  That may be true especially if one has a strong sense of self-discipline to start, but special days are easier for reflection and renewal.  So let's do that--renew--sort of like your old library card.  I'll commit to celebrate all that makes our little burg special.  I'll also commit to fight all that tries to make it just another faceless, joyless patch of earth with no sense of history or livability or neighborliness.  It won't be easy because the joyless, faceless advocates can be desperate and often act desperate, but we have public opinion on our side as shown by elections and by the chats you have on your sidewalk, in the grocery store aisle, in the baseball stands or just reading the comments on the Voice.  Happy New Year.  No need for new glasses--we have 2020 vision.