The Burlingame Voice

Police and Trust: How to Mess it Up

Last week I noted that City Council candidates' public positions on issues mattered even if they did not win a seat.  That goes double--or maybe triple-- for sitting City Council members.  Candidate Mike Dunham had some disappointing positions on policing tactics that I noted here.  This week I am even more disappointed, appalled even, at councilman Michael Brownrigg's statements as reported in the Daily Journal on Friday.  Read for yourself

We have a sitting City Council member advocating for discriminatory hiring practices based on sex.  Let that settle in for a moment.  Perhaps in his failed foray into state politics, Brownrigg spent an excessive amount of time in the company of so-called progressives.  Or perhaps Zoom council meetings that don't have the benefit of a television camera in one's face cause the proceeding to be more casual.  It doesn't matter.  In any case, the public record now shows at least some movement towards hiring discrimination.  I hope the city attorney interjected to correct this and if not, it's not too late.  The future legal problems as a result of letting this sit could be substantial.

Additionally last Friday, the front page headline in the Daily Post read "Police chief abruptly resigns" noting "Menlo Park Police Chief Dave Bertini unexpectedly announced yesterday that he was retiring during an online town hall meeting regarding policing, saying he has lost the trust of the City Council."  These are perilous times and City leaders need to be more careful about their statements.  Brownrigg should retract his statement and apologize.

Plenty of SF Office Space Available

If you are like me, B'game is the center of your universe.  It's also pretty much the geographic center of the "Bay Area".  I use the quotation marks because "Bay Area" sometimes refers to some pretty distant places--all the way to the Delta.  But from where we sit, the two biggest commercial centers-  EssEff and Silicon Valley--bookend us precisely.  The Wall Street Journal is keeping an eye on commercial space in both places and the headline is San Francisco's Office Market Cools as Startups Retreat.  Here are a couple of data points

For the past decade, San Francisco has outshined Silicon Valley in attracting new technology firms, entrepreneurs and younger employees, who tend to prefer the city’s lifestyle and attractions to the suburbs.  (Note:  we shall see how long that lasts)

Now, that trend shows signs of reversing. Office demand has been falling in both markets, as the coronavirus pandemic, slowing economy and the early success of work from home have caused firms to reconsider office use. But San Francisco landlords have suffered more than their Silicon Valley counterparts in nearby cities such as Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Santa Clara.

Commercial real-estate firm CBRE Group Inc. said the volume of tenants looking for space has fallen about 56% in San Francisco, compared with about 32% in Silicon Valley, between the end of February and the end of May.  San Francisco now has the highest sublease availability in the country, with about 30% of the available space in the city being listed by tenants, according to data firm CoStar Inc.  “It’s likely sublease space will continue to flood the market in the year ahead,” CoStar said in a report.

The piece goes on to make the point that Silicon Valley is more stable due to less reliance on startups and more on larger companies with better balance sheets.  My limited chats with people working for Valley companies jives with the market chatter that says "Hey, this working at home thing is pretty good".  I think the trend is solid and will result in some changes to the B'game residential profile.  More on that in the coming week. 

Staking Out a Position on Police

The issue of police procedures and use of force got exactly zero discussion in the last City Council election.  The next election is about a year and a half away, but it's never too soon to take note of a candidate's or incumbent's public position on important issues.  The losing candidate in the last election, Mike Dunham, did fairly well last year garnering almost 2,700 votes (25.5%) so what he thinks matters.  In a letter to the Daily Journal this week, Mr. Dunham objects to police "displaying riot guns and batons" at one of the demonstrations while simultaneously noting that "witnesses spotted gun-toting individuals who were not part of the protest".

I'd like to meet an officer who is willing to provide on-the-ground support at a demonstration of highly-incensed people without a baton and at least a few fellow officers carrying (not "displaying", sorry) something more accurate at distance than a sidearm.  That is a job description of a position that will be open for a long, long time.  Dunham ends by broaching the subject of police funding.  Elsewhere in the DJ another B'game resident, Arne Hurty, starts the discussion of "defunding" our police and bringing on people trained to deal with mental illness, sex workers and even traffic violations.  He doesn't mean in a clinic or center after the fact--he means on the street in real time; as the stuff is hitting the fan.  I'd like to meet one of those pro's and review their credentials.  I'll let Willie Brown's comments in today's Chronicle respond:

The call to “defund the police” as part of the anti-racism, anti-police-brutality movement is either one of the dumbest ideas of all time or the hands-down winner of the worst slogan ever.  I shouldn’t have to explain that actually defunding police is a nonstarter as a practical matter, let alone as a political one.

I'm all for more mental health counselors, but it has to come from net-new funds and there are going to be precious few of those for the next couple of years.  And they have to be backed up by a judicial system that functions better than the one we have now; as seen in the comments on the Social Media and City Government post.  Now there is a problem I'd like to hear elected and future candidates weigh in on.

 

Pandemic Tipping Point?

We tracked the Covid-19 numbers for the last six weeks here.  That was entirely in the SIP timeframe, but things are loosening up in multiple directions now.  Restaurants are reopening for dine-in service, non-essential stores are allowing limited numbers of people at a time, and churches are resuming live services; outdoors and with waivers in some cases.  Essential stores are pretty crowded; Lowe's for example.  The county as had several large demonstrations where social distancing was ignored.  It feels like we might be at a tipping point in the coming week or two, so here are the baseline figures today from the county site at SMChealth.org.

In our county of 759,000 people 46,480 have been tested (about 6%).  The positivity rate has been declining and is now 5.4% -- meaning we have either 2,528 or 2,553 cases --both numbers appear on the same data page.  That's about 335 cases per 100,000.  NYC has 2,460 cases per 100,000--more than seven times as many.  The age distribution of cases in San Mateo County has shifted to younger people with 50% being in their 20's, 30's and 40's.

Let's see how things look again in a week.

Hungry Mouths

What better way to lighten things up for a bit here at the Voice than a photo of three hungry baby robins taken in my yard.  We thought it was an old nest since it was empty for awhile, but Mom filled it up with these three hungry kids.  The nest is somewhat hidden in a rose bush, but I still worry about the hawks taking notice.

Prop. 13 - Who's Getting the Shaft?

News reports indicate that the "split roll" initiative to split commercial Prop. 13 tax policy from residential policy has submitted enough signatures to be on the November ballot.  I guess we should be thankful that California law about new taxes says it has to go to a vote of...the people instead of just the politicians.   The whole Proposition proposition is a mess, but that is a discussion for another day.  This day we have to assess whether reevaluating the market value of commercial property on a frequent interval and taxing it accordingly is a good thing or not.

I touched on this after hearing our assumed new state senator, Josh Becker, throw his weight behind the idea here.  But is there more to the story?  And does the hidden story involve the Law of Unintended Consequences?  Care to guess?  Well, the Law of Unintended Consequences is a bit like the Law of Gravity.  The SacBee, no enemy of new taxes, just reported this interesting consequence:

County tax collectors are reiterating their opposition to a proposed “split roll” initiative that could raise tax revenue from commercial and industrial property, calling the measure “problematic” and difficult it to implement.  The California Assessor’s Association in a letter to lawmakers says tax collectors don’t have the resources to execute the plan, which calls on them to more frequently assess commercial properties worth $3 million or more.

“In my opinion, the property tax measure as written will be impossible for assessors to implement — not just difficult but impossible,” Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone said.

Assessors project the changes would cost just over $1 billion to put in place over three years, and would “overwhelm” county assessors’ capabilities.  For example, according to an attached analysis commissioned by the Association, Santa Clara County would experience a 12-fold increase in the number of commercial and industrial properties it reassesses annually.   “It is expected that similar increases would result in all counties,” the analysis states.

While we might have sympathy for all the tax collectors having to massively grow their empires to implement the law, what about the people paying these new taxes?  Most people who have never rented a commercial space or run a small business don't know how that world works.  That apparently includes our next state senator.  The term to learn is a "triple net lease".  I'll let Wikipedia explain it here.  If you don't know what it is, you have no business voting for this initiative.  Suffice it to say the very same shop owners and restaurants that I have been fretting about (more than usual) for the last two months are the ones who would get shafted by this ballot initiative.

You are going to hear a lot about the budget shortfall, the evil commercial landlords who have been skating by for years, the school budget cuts and whatever else gets thrown against the wall in hopes it sticks.  Now is the time to understand who will actually be hurt by the latest tax grab.   Full disclosure:  I do not now, nor have I ever owned commercial property.  That doesn't mean I don't recognize a train wreck in the making.

Arson at the Library, War Zone on the Ave.

Just as things were reverting to a highly-modified normal (an oxymoron if ever there was one) we get hit with the triple whammy of an arson event at the main library and a warning from BPD to shop owners to take necessary precautions against vandalism and looting.  Then a two-night county-wide curfew went into effect.  When the Ring Neighborhood alert came in yesterday about a fire in the 400 block of Primrose, I got worried.  Fortunately, as you see below, the fire appears to be just umbrellas in front of the library, not the library itself.  BPD made an arrest of a 45 year old, white male and I'm sure there will be more information to follow.

The scene on the Avenue is really disappointing.  Many shops were just reopening or announced that they will in the coming week.  The precautionary boarding up of windows certainly won't induce people to return soon and the restaurants that have been barely eking by on take-out will have to absorb even more stress.  Anyone who thinks this will somehow cure what ails our society is mistaken.