The Burlingame Voice

Bay Area Exodus? How Big? How Long?

A lot of the fire, heat and policy-making on the Peninsula lately has  been driven by the belief that we will be adding more of...well, everything.  Except perhaps affordable, local entertainment.  Rent control.  Affordable housing.  Mass transit.  High density.  Subsidized X, Y, Z and back to A.  ADU's.  UBI.  Free lunch.  What if it's all just BeeEss?

You can find polls and surveys to support or contradict any position you choose.  But you can't deny the fact of open market pricing.  Not the engineered, subsidized, hidden-cost stuff like renewable energy.  I'm talking the "walk into a place of business and get a price quote" response.

Here's the "walk-in" price that caught my eye this week.  A friend of a friend is moving to Portland.  I know, I know--really? Now?  He's got remote work status until..... who knows when.  She can transplant her practice anywhere.  All that aside, the cost to rent a truck to move your stuff yourself to Portland today is $2,500.  The price to rent the same truck in Portland to drive to the Bay Area is.......wait for it, $300.  If I gave you my special 20 minute How-to-Negotiate class, I'll bet you could get them to pay you $300 to bring the truck back for them.  It would cover gas, lunch and the Golden Gate bridge toll.

Will the exodus continue?  Yes.  Will it last more than a couple years?  Maybe.  Will it reverse within the next five?  Doubtful.  I'm glad I'm not all-in on a high-density, all-electric$$, bird cage with a minuscule courtyard, 6' x 6' elevators and no balcony that I will need to sell for $650,000 to break even.  The old saying "don't fight the Fed" only applies if you have to get in the ring.

The Voice Blog at 17

Today is the 17th anniversary of the Burlingame Voice blog.  Our original paper editions were hand-delivered to front porches a few times per year, but the move on-line in 2003 brought more immediacy and added interactivity--attributes we take for granted today.

The list of Categories (found on the right hand frame) has expanded as a means of tracking the conversations on specific topics and, of course, there is always Google or Duck Duck Go if you want to go way back in time.  That degree of referentiality and the back-linking it enables is a clear differentiation from other on-line resources.  When coupled with our laser focus on Burlingame issues, only crossing the border when the local impact might be felt, and the option of anonymity we allow makes for an informative and fun forum.  At least we hope so.  The rising readership numbers (particularly as the pandemic has increased everyone's screen time) would seem to support that view.

So blog on, we'll be here.  Happy 17th Anniversary.

BPD Use of Force Townhall: A Summary

Last night's Zoom Townhall on the Police Department's "Use of Force" policies, its track record and its responses to residents' concerns was somewhat enlightening.  But not in the way you might have expected.  If you were expecting to learn that this is an actual problem in B'game and that major changes are needed, you were disappointed.  It's not and they aren't.  But if you wanted to see how much some people need to learn about how the City is organized, how it operates, or how it interoperates with the County and other entities then this was the place to be.

First, what has been the extent of Use of Force in B'game?  Chief Mike Matteucci saved the statistics until near the end.  I was writing as fast as I could but missed a couple of numbers that I will add when the recording becomes available.  From 2016 to present there have been 2,643 arrests in B'game.  I missed the 2019 figure for uses of force, but all the other years totaled 35 and I believe all but 3 were "empty handed" use of force.  Tasers accounted for 3 in five years, if I heard right.  Hospitalizations totaled....zero, except for a few officers.  After the Chief noted that BPD policy doesn't allow choke holds and now "carotid holds" are newly off the table, the elephant in the room is how exactly empty-hand force will work?  Only my first two questions in the post below were addressed, but I am really anxious to get the answer to the fourth question.  I wrestled in high school and a bit in college.  I know what a challenge it is to just get a guy down on a mat who weighs exactly the same as me; with both of us wearing tights and a referee to prevent eye-gouging, head slaps, etc.  It ain't easy.

The Q&A took up about an hour of the 90 minutes.  Attendees were informed that the City doesn't have mental health professionals (it's a County function and BPD works with them if they have advance notice), the Taser policy is one-time-only except in rare cases where a second might be needed, and MOST IMPORTANTLY that there is NO SUCH THING as routine call or routine stop.  City manager Lisa Goldman's shining moment in an overall excellent performance last night was when she pushed back completely on the idea of some officers going unarmed.  Thinly-veiled, leading questions about the use of a private company (Lexipol) for legal updates, officer "impunity" (it's qualified immunity), and the police unions were deftly handled by the Chief and the City attorney Kathleen Kane. 

There was more on the education front and I'll link to the recording when it comes out.  This webinar was billed as the first step with more to come, but I really don't see why we should bother.  Maybe provide written or video'ed answers to the rest of questions in the hopper and let staff get back to work.  I took this photo during the Avenue shut-down for potential rioting and I like its nuanced message.

BPD Use of Force Townhall Questions

Next week the City and the B'game Police Department will be holding a Zoom Townhall meeting on the "use of force" and will be responding to questions from the public.  While it's tempting to question if this topic should be our first priority for BPD community outreach, I decided to go ahead and submit my questions.  Here they are:

• What are BPD’s responsibilities for mutual aid to neighboring cities that “defund” their police when we are fully funding ours?  Have we notified those city councils of the potential for reduced aid?
• If the city allocated 10% more funding to BPD today, how would it utilize the funds?
• What evidence exists to support Councilman Brownrigg’s public assertion that “so many of our neighbors and friends and residents fear the police”? (Daily Journal, June 19, 2020)
• Please describe in detail what the City Council would like to see happen when:

    -A 6’2” 220 lb. male reacts physically to a 5’6” 145 lb. female BPD officer?

    -A driver with fully opaque windows refuses to lower all windows?

• What is the risk of senior, tenured officers taking early retirement or filing for disability due to the demonization of police nationally, in the Bay Area, and in Burlingame?
• How many slots will there be in the training program for new officers in the next three years?
• What are our current capabilities to repel a violent outbreak in Burlingame?  What Police PPE, vehicles, canine support, etc. is fully operational?
• In the event of a natural disaster or violent outbreak, how many hours or days will it take to have at least 80% of the entire police force in town and on duty?
• How many of Burlingame’s 23,000 adult residents have been issued active concealed permits (CCW) today?  What are the requirements for a Burlingame resident to obtain a concealed carry permit today?  Does the city offer training classes to provide the skills required to be granted a concealed carry permit?

The meeting is on July 23 at 6:30 pm and the City is requesting questions by 4 pm the day before at [email protected].  We'll see how many questions can be addressed in the 90 minutes allocated.  If you want to ask the council why they sold the Measure I sales tax as a new BPD funding source for two more uniformed officers if they were unhappy with the force, now would be a good time to do so.  The times they are a'changing especially for those with short memories.

B'game School Days? Uncertainty Abounds

What happens in the Fall at the elementary schools, BIS, BHS, and Mills is pretty up in the air right now.  It's a convoluted picture of the science, kids' behavior, risk management and facilities.  "Groundskeeper Willie" made this comment on another school post, but the reopening question deserves its own thread.

What do you think is going to happen when the public finds out that an entire building at BHS has no operational HVAC system? The metal schools have classrooms without any windows and the buildings are enclosed. These compounds are petri dishes ready to be filled with teenage hosts passing the virus along. If the kids can't wear a mask on the Ave, what makes you think they are going to do it when no one is looking at school, or on the way to school, or home from school, or at the home of a "friend" where the virus already exists. Corona Virus likes this :}

That caught me attention more than usual because of a piece in the WSJ on Wednesday about reopening offices.

Modifications from equipment manufacturers such as Trane Technologies PLC, Carrier Global Corp. and Johnson Controls International PLC include filtering indoor air more thoroughly, drawing more outdoor air into buildings and deploying ultraviolet light against the virus inside ventilation systems.

Recirculated air should include about 20% outdoor air to effectively dilute coronavirus particles, the Atlanta-based engineers’ society says. Many buildings’ air handlers were set up to draw less outdoor air, to maximize energy efficiency.

“The past few years there was a lot of emphasis on energy saving and there was less outside air in buildings,” said Seth Ferriell, chief executive of SSC Services for Education, a Tennessee-based company that manages ventilation systems for schools and universities.

So aside from another "green" policy falling by the wayside (think reusable bags), school officials will have to consider which buildings are the lowest risk to use.  I see this pointing to more limited, shift-based schedules.  The website noted on the other post for SMUHSD paents is quite useful for following this big issue.  It's https://reopensmuhsd.com/.

Tweaking The BAAZ, Creating The BRAZ

Tomorrow night the City Council will consider making some changes to the Burlingame Ave Autonomous Zone (the BAAZ).  We're just finishing the third weekend of the BAAZ so Council will be looking to extend it to the end of September and add parklets on the side streets.  Back in May when the original plan surfaced, I had several concerns: impact on non-restaurant businesses, non-BAAZ restaurants, parking, handicap access and the cost.  It appears I was prescient since the proposed tweaks start to address some of these, especially the fairness issue. Non-BAAZ restaurants that want a parklet on Primrose, Park, Lorton, Howard, and Chapin would get permanent ones (meaning seven days a week) since they are too expensive to put in and take out often.  The parklets would be created using heavy duty industrial plastic hydro-barriers -- the ugly orange blocks.  San Mateo went the parklet route but only uses the hydro-barriers on the on-coming traffic side as shown below (upper right).  I hope we do the same.

To further address fairness to our "other" downtown, the one that often feels under appreciated by the City, the BRAZ is under consideration -- the BRoadway Autonomous Zone.  It involves Saturday-Sunday closure of Broadway between Chula Vista and Capuchino -- the three middle blocks; attempting to leave some traffic circulation since, you know, it's a 101 exit.  Anecdotally, the Broadway restaurants took a bit of a beating the last two weekends--akin to the non-BAAZ restaurants.  One non-BAAZer used the word "disaster" when I asked how it went the first weekend.

As to parking, the Staff Report notes

In addition to the previously estimated loss of parking on Burlingame Avenue of approximately 150 to 160 parking spaces when the street is closed on the weekends, the creation of parklets will result in a parking loss of up to approximately 60 to 70 spaces on side streets in the downtown area on both weekdays and weekends.

Approximately 50 to 60 parking spaces would become unavailable on weekends if the City Council approves the temporary weekend closure of Broadway. As with the Burlingame Avenue commercial district, there are nearby parking facilities on either side of Broadway, but parking will become tight on busy weekends.

I might suggest putting a cover over most of the EV charging stations in Lot Y so GV's (gas vehicles) can use them because we know EV usage has been quite low. 

Now the costs:

Staff estimates the cost of setting up and removing the street closure on Broadway to be similar to Burlingame Avenue, which is estimated at approximately $10,000 to $12,000 per month. Additionally, staff estimates the cost of renting and setting up barriers to create parklets is $20,000 to $30,000 per month. Regarding loss of parking revenue, staff estimates the overall loss is approximately $20,000 to $30,000 per month. The overall total fiscal impact of the pilot program is estimated to range from $60,000 to $80,000 per month. The actual figure may vary and will be determined after the completion of the pilot program.

We may have our very own Summer of Love.  Like the original one in '67, it would be fun but comes with a price.

Peninsula Hospital: Risky Place to Be

Unfortunately I needed to go to the ER at Peninsula hospital last week.  Fortunately the care I received once I got in to see the doc and the nurse was great.  But the hour spent in the ER lobby left me feeling very unsettled--and not because of the laceration I was there to get treated.  It was apparently a busy time according to the staff comments.  There were at least a dozen people and sometimes more than 15 waiting.  The chairs (which I did not use) were somewhat haphazardly spaced and easily moved around.  There was no painter's tape on the floor, no plastic sheeting or Plexiglas dividers anywhere.  No bottles of sanitizer and towels for DIY cleaning like the grocery stores have for their carts.  Certainly no one came through to clean in the hour I was there.  Even putting Covid concerns aside (which none of us should do) there were several people who appeared quite sick, coughing and barely masked.

What's up with that?  If any restaurant in town tried that it would be taken to task immediately.  I have asked, via the email feedback form, to talk with someone in a position of authority about it, but no response in three or four days.  If you have to go--be very careful--unlike if you went to the barbershop on Park Rd. acroos from the old Post Office for example.