The Burlingame Voice

Dividing Up the High School Board

An activist lawyer out of Malibu is causing all sorts of disruption to a multitude of city councils--to no useful end, in my opinion, and perhaps even to the detriment of residents' representation.  That seems to be the consensus among the people I have spoken to in town.  We discussed it last year here.  Now the "trend" is moving towards the high school boards of trustees.  The Daily Journal notes:

Acknowledging the legal challenges associated with defending the status quo, school board President Robert Griffin said it appears as if the shift to district elections is inevitable.  “It seems to be the direction that everyone is going,” he said. “And we are going to abide by the law. We have to.”

As it stands, candidates who receive the most votes in a districtwide election are awarded seats on the school board. Under the by-district system, officials would approve an electoral map dividing the districts into wards, where candidates must live and seek support from voters within those borders.

Critics of the by-district system often claim it promotes balkanization and encourages elected officials to only defend the interest of their constituency, rather than the entire community.

In some ways I think this district approach makes more sense for a sprawling multi-city school district even if all of the negatives are still present.  It's just plain stupid in a city of 28,000 people.  As one commenter noted on the city council post, this seems like a consultant and attorney full-employment move.  Where are the state legislators who can do something about the state election law?  Too busy with saving the globe and being woke?

If You Like Your House, You Can Keep It.....

I have been mulling over this post for a couple of months.  That is because it is so distressing.  But some things just need to be said.  When Paloma Ave. made a comment on the natural gas ban post today, it was the match that lit the fire.  Here is his/her/their comment:

I just read in the SF Comicle that Berkeley is now discussing banning single family neighborhoods.  Didn't Berkeley start the trend to ban natural gas, which our City Council decided they should also ban?  Question to the City Council: Will you also try to ban Single Family Homes in Burlingame? After all, wouldn't that be the woke thing to do?

I'm struck by the follow-the-lemming aspect of it all.  Jon Mays at the Daily Journal had an editorial about the follower mindset among city councils here.  Jon let these councils off easy by noting "To be clear, the following is not a judgment, but rather an observation."  Another observation, mine, would be that city councils need to stand up for their communities even if it means slinging a stone at Goliath.  Nowhere is that more important than in the protection of the neighborhoods.  Let's face it.  The housing thugs in Sacramento are Goliath and they have it in for single family housing.  It has been in the works for awhile as I noted here.  Personally, I think it is an unhealthy sign of envy, but that is a topic for another day.

What they have already done is today's topic--Accessory Dwelling Units, or ADUs are coming to a lot near you.  The first one in my neighborhood just got into the planning queue.  But it's not a restrictive queue.  I have it from multiple informed sources that the city has minimal control over ADUs.  Sure they can dither over whether 16' or 20" height limits should be imposed, but the bottom line is Sacramento has turned the whole state into R2 zoning with no input from the public.

Some predictions have a very high probability.  Here's one.  If your residential street has a parking problem now, expect it to get worse in five years.  City councils will have to get very smart quickly.  Maybe the ADU "granny unit", as they used to be called, really is for granny.  Maybe it's a perfect Work From Home office.  But maybe it's the AirBnB ticket that helps pay the mortgage and has no effect on local affordability.  Maybe your kid will live in it.  Maybe all of the above.  Anyway you look at it, it's more density and that has ramifications that will reveal themselves as we go.

  

 

"The Problem With Spending Time in Burlingame is....

....you just don't want to go anywhere else."

So says Nate Pfaff who has created the best video tribute to life in our little burg you are likely to ever see.  Find it here on YouTube.  Exceptional work!

High-Cost Rail- Part 153 Bait and Railroad Switch

The never ending saga of high-cost rail cash bleeding away in stunning amounts continues unabated.  But there is new news on a bait and switch on the actual construction as reported by the Fresno Bee yesterday.  Here are the lowlights

The authority, (Rail Authority CFO Brian) Annis said, has already exhausted most of its other sources of money for the Madera-to-Shafter work, for which the cost is now estimated at about $13.8 billion. That new estimate is about $1.3 billion more than what was forecast a year ago by the agency.

The quarterly cap-and-trade auctions have generally amounted to an average of about $180 million for the high-speed rail authority, Annis said. But the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic knocked the May 2020 auction down to only about $6 million. That auction, and two subsequent auctions in August and November, cost the agency about $288 million in projected cap-and-trade income, officials estimate.

You have to love the use of the verb "cost" here.  The quote of the year so far is

“Hoping that the federal government will come in and save your asses is not a business plan,” said David Schonbrunn, president of the nonprofit Transportation Solutions Defence and Education Fund, or TRANSDEF.

But here is the bait and switch on construction

Additionally, the business plan now calls for building a single set of tracks, instead of two, along most of the 119-mile stretch. (CEO Brian) Kelly said one set of tracks would allow for the testing of train sets and other systems before early passenger operations commence between Bakersfield and Merced in about 2029.

Kelly said building only one set of tracks as an initial phase reflects the agency’s ability to construct what it has money to achieve, and could persist even into passenger operations along the route. “We believe we can meet all the operating requirements” with one set of tracks along with sections of passing tracks, Kelly told board members Tuesday.

Imagine if Caltrain only had one track end-to-end with some passing track sections along the way and was supposed to run four or five times as many trains as it does now.  And was supposed to run them at 120 mph.

Post Office Approval: Done Deal

Back in February of 2012 we asked "Whither the Post Office?" when USPS announced plans to sell the main post office.  A lot of water has since flowed "under the bridge" and through the underground culvert that runs next to the old post office.  It sold, then sold again, and the latest owner, Sares Regis, has worked diligently on plans with the city to get to the approval it just received.  The DJ reports

The Burlingame City Council unanimously voted in favor Monday, Feb. 1, of a development agreement with Sares Regis to convert the shuttered facility at 220 Park Road into a six-story commercial tower, expected to become the city’s tallest building.  The office building is proposed to be six stories, with five floors of office space built over a ground floor of retail and dining space.

The site is adjacent to city property where a surface parking lot is expected to be reconstructed into a new community gathering hub officials imagine to be similar to Courthouse Square in Redwood City.

We've worried about the building itself tucked behind fencing for nine years with potential maintenance issues that inevitably accrue to any building of any age.  The marble-clad lobby seen here is a gem and will make for a great retail or restaurant space.  And the "town square" will be a welcome addition particularly if it can successfully host some much-needed entertainment in town.  It will certainly get more use than the lawn ever did.

Parking should be OK given the giant new parking structure that many residents are gazing up at--some shaking their heads at the size and the shadow it casts.  Along with the Village at Burlingame, 220 California, the Bayswater development at the old Hower Auto site and now the Saris Regis project, one wonders if it is time to take a breather?  Perhaps we should see how this all plays out for awhile?

P.S. I kind of like the juxtaposition of the approval headline with the San Mateo downtown vacancy headline

2020: The Year in Crime

We took a comprehensive look at the five year crime statistics in B'game last year--you can find it here.  I find it important to do this annually because reading the daily [email protected] email can cause a forest-for-the-trees effect to kick in.  In checking with BPD for the 2020 update, some of the categories have been called out more specifically--Thefts from Vehicles (i.e. unlocked cars) is now called out in addition to Vehicle Burglaries (from locked cars).  A lot of car burglaries used to happen at the Bayfront hotels, but my guess is that dropped off substantially with some moving into the neighborhoods, but overall the sum of the two is lower than 2019.  Still 34 vehicles broken into per month is more than 400 for the year.

Two other new break-outs are Construction site theft and Package thefts.  Package thefts are the big surprise for me--only 4 per month--just watching the incidents on the Ring camera site would seem to indicate more than that--maybe people just don't bother to report them.  The "Other thefts" total from past years has been discontinued so we cannot compare 2020 totals with the 127 crimes per month of 2019.  The new tracking totals to 71 per month or about 850 of these crimes per year.  Here are the totals

 

Monthly Average                        2016    2017    2018    2019      2020

Residential Burglaries                   5        2            3        3          2

Vehicle Burglaries                      23      25        21       39         20

     Thefts from Vehicles                                               -          14

Commercial Burglaries                  9      4            5        4            6

     Construction site theft                                             -           1

     Package thefts                                                        -            4

Other Thefts                               60      51        56        61          -

Robberies                                    1        1            1        2          2

Stolen Vehicles                            9        6          4         6           9

Vandalism                                  13    13          11       12          13

As I noted last year, there are other crimes not included here especially the really serious ones, but this is a good Quality of Life baseline.