The Burlingame Voice

Porch Pirates: How Many and How Often?

Like many people in B'game I am getting tired of the porch pirates taking packages at will as shown on Ring videos.  The Ring video from last night that spurred this post noted that it was the third such incident--all stolen shoes.  I guess the homeowner's size matched that of the pirate.  They were probably a ladies' size 7.

Unlike the decoy police cruisers outside of the Apple store that are starting to feel like a good place to rest your Peet's coffee cup, the "bait boxes" that BPD has used have met with some success.  Pre-pandemic I believe they were mainly applied on the Bayfront in hotel parking lots--but that is just my guess.  I think it's past time to implement some "porch pies" in the neighborhoods.  We seem to have plenty of resources to add goofy traffic excitement features and  worry about how much non-existent rainwater we can recapture on city streets; so how about we catch a few petty thieves and ignore Prop. 47 and its $950 limit to really prosecute?

This is not to fault BPD, they follow direction, it is a matter of prioritization by the city council.  Get on it, please.

Saving History One Building at a Time

The city is slowly working its way towards more protections and incentives for preserving local buildings and homes that add to the amazing character of our neighborhoods.  Recently I was talking to a PG&E guy from Menlo Park who came to fix the outage on our street.  He looked up and down the street and was amazed that it was so nice since "they're tearing everything down in Menlo Park".  I said "Yep" and left it at that while feeling sorry for him.  The Draft "Chapter 25.35 - Historic Resources" is winding its way through the process and would represent an upgrade to the existing, limited code just for the central downtown Ave area found on the City website here.

We definitely need this--now more than ever as various local and state-wide forces seek to shred local character with the mistaken idea that it would help "affordability" and would come with no unintended consequences.  Wrong.

The Historic Register has eleven criteria for inclusion and "shall only occur upon request of the property owner" and if officially designated "are eligible for incentives detailed in Section 25.35.080 Preservation Incentives."  Those are the "carrots".  The Planning Commission study session last week focused on the "sticks" as described by the Daily Journal

The Burlingame Planning Commission weighed Monday, June 14, proposals which would punish any homeowner who destroyed a structure identified on the city’s historic registry.  Forcing a property owner to rebuild a replica of the destroyed historic structure or feature then ban any further construction at the site for 20 years was among the repercussions considered. No decision was made at the meeting and the issue will return for more deliberation later.

While the Planning Commission and ultimately the City Council will weigh the sticks, I like to focus on the carrots; like more flexible parking requirements when adding floor space and an extra 25% lot coverage allowance.  In addition, the 1972 Mills Act, named for former state senator James Mills of San Diego who passed away in March, offers the real carrot for regular homeowners looking to save a bit of property tax.  Realty Times notes that it "provides a way whereby owners of designated historic properties may receive significant property tax relief in return for restoring and maintaining their property."  You can click through for some of the details, but the bottom line is it is an incentive that the draft B'game code says "is often a benefit to the community as a whole and the owners of surrounding properties".  We've been in short supply of that kind of thinking lately with the onslaught of ADUs, SB 9, short-term rentals, etc. 

Panther Basketball AND Baseball go....all...the...way!

Watching live local sports is finally coming back as the pandemic-driven closings and rescheduling abates.  Rescheduling delays are what put basketball on the sports page in June.  And the BHS Panthers have made the most of it by winning the CCS championship in dramatic fashion.  The Daily Journal has the story

The seventh time was the charm for Jeff Dowd.  In his second stint as head coach of the Burlingame Panthers, the architect of one of the most consistently dominant public school programs in the Bay Area finally earned a section championship on Saturday night as his team downed the previously unbeaten Santa Cruz Cardinals, 43-39, in the CCS Division III Championship Game.

No matter how big or small Dowd’s teams are, no matter whether they’re underclassmen or seniors, defense has been a constant for the Panthers, and it showed up in a big way on Saturday. Second-seeded Burlingame (11-4) held the Cardinals 22 points lower than their season average, only allowing double-digit points in one quarter.

This is quite a feather for Coach Dowd's cap given that the team is mostly underclassmen.  With a bevy of juniors returning next season, this run could go on for quite some time.  Congrats all around, Panthers.  That banner will look sweet in the gym!

.......and now the update about the CCS Champ Panther baseball team.........best Voice post update ever!  From the Daily Journal piece

There are generally only two reasons baseball players get dirty. One, because they play hard. Two, because they’re running the bases a lot. The No. 6-seed Panthers (18-9) did both to the max to stun No. 4 Los Altos in claiming their first CCS title since 2010, their third all-time, and the first in (Coach Shawn) Scott’s 11 years at the helm.  While starting pitcher Max Alvira went the distance — allowing single runs in the first and third before closing the championship run with goose eggs through the final four frames — the Panthers’ offense was circling the bases with abandon.

And these two Panthers are cut from the Neon Deion Sanders two-sport mold

“We didn’t have the biggest guys, we didn’t have the most skilled team, but we grinded every pitch,” Burlingame junior Lou Martineau said.  Martineau has bragging rights over any player involved in Saturday’s game. Having also played Burlingame hoops for a team that captured the CCS Division III boys’ basketball crown June 12, the junior is the only Panther to have started on two CCS champions this season. Junior Sean Richardson, a basketball starter and baseball reserve, also celebrated both titles.

Kudos to Coach Scott and Coach Dowd--this will be a year to remember and that pair of banners will look great in the gym.  Click through to the DJ piece to see the dogpile victory photo that is just like this one.  The 2021 win even had a similar outfield-infield DP!

Going Solar: And hoping it ends up worth it

Some so-called environmentalists talk the talk, but when it comes to walking the walk they are mostly hot air.  I fall into the category of doing what you can as it makes practical sense.  I've been gauging the practicality of going to rooftop solar on my house for a couple of years and finally decided to get an expert opinion to strengthen the analysis.  By word of mouth, I learned about local Burlingame solar guy Steve Pariani.  He's really local; born and raised here and lives in town.  His company is Solar Pro Energy Systems.  After giving him my electricity usage and having him use satellite imagery to assess my roof's solar capacity, it appears to be a reasonable investment--not great like buying some Reddit-hyped stock, but OK.  Unless the "equity police" in Sacramento and the monopoly utilities misguidedly screw things up.

I have a clear southern exposure--very few trees on that side--and a decent amount of square footage.  There is room for 25 panels that would generate 8.5 KW for a one-year total of 12,871 kWh--the equivalent of driving 10,000 fewer miles per year!  As with any big investment--and this is definitely a big one--there are risks.  Steve has walked me through the technology and I don't find that to be much of a risk.  But with hacks like Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego pushing bills like AB 1139 to make the investment LESS attractive, you never know.  You would think with all of the growing pains on the California grid and the pressure to move to even more electricity usage (banning natural gas, EVs, etc) nobody would mind some Californians putting up major capital investments to generate additional juice, but you would be wrong.  Here is one example that Calmatters published.  AB 1139 died last week at the deadline, but you can bet the woman behind the idea to make Uber and Lyft drivers full-time employees (which many of them didn't even want) will be back next session.  The tougher battle may be with the CPUC.  As the California Solar & Storage Association (CALSSA) writes about the threat to Net Energy Metering

Whether we are talking AB 1139 or the IOU NEM-3 proposals, the utilities are trying to outright kill rooftop solar and storage in California, protect their monopoly, and grab more profits for themselves. It doesn’t matter the forum; the impact of the attack are the same: kill rooftop solar in the country's number one market.
 
The CPUC NEM fight is going to be harder to win politically for several reasons. First, it takes place at a little-known state agency with limited opportunity for public engagement. Second, there are only five decision makers at the CPUC, all political appointees, and, unlike in the state legislature, none have stepped forward (yet) to champion distributed generation. And third, if the utilities "own" the legislature, getting the Speaker, the Chair of Energy Committee, and the Chair of Appropriations Committee to back AB 1139, just think of how much they have captured the CPUC.

I'm going for it and hoping the sun shines brightly and the Legislature and/or the CPUC don't screw it up.  Common sense is in short supply these days which makes my decision much more of a gamble than I would prefer.  So much for real environmentalism.  Here's local small businessman Steve Pariani.

 

Traffic Excitement

Road engineers like to talk about "traffic calming" but some of their ideas appear to encourage just the opposite.  Several of my friends in Lyon-Hoag make a regular cocktail hour sport out of watching cars launch off of the little roundabout islands the city has plunked down in intersections.  They vacillate between being entertained and worrying about the consequences when some driver goes a bit too far.  Personally, I don't see the benefit of these launch pads, but I'm no traffic engineer.

Water Security: Ignore the Elephant in the Room

Our new state senator, Josh Becker, hosted a webinar about water issues in the state on May 27th that reiterated some of the points made during the Burlingame study session I covered here.  Gary Kremen, Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Santa Clara Valley Water District sounded the alarm when he said "we're beyond concerned, we're a little scared".  That was the same day that Santa Clara implemented the latest water restrictions, but Kremen also said "Santa Clara County cannot make it on conservation".  He also noted that recycled water costs 4-5 times as much as water from the usual sources.

There were two speakers from academia, Dr. Newsha Ajami, Director of Urban Water Policy, Stanford's Water in the West Program and Felicia Marcus, Former Chair, State Water Resources Control Board, and fellow at Stanford's Water in the West Program.  Ajami pushed the need for future development to have a "zero water footprint" -- the "net-zero development" that was mentioned during the B'game session.  The idea revolves around recycling on-site (similar to "purple pipe" but on-site) and having developers go find water to buy on long-term contract.  That seems like a stretch to me especially if a developer would need to provide water for 25-40 years or more.  The bureaucratic overhead seems enormous and the costs would be impossible to predict.

Dr. Ajami also made a critical point about reservoir capacity that was news to me.  She said the state "has already built reservoirs where they work best" and that we should be transitioning to groundwater storage going forward.  Couple that with her assertion that desalinization is "not viable now" and you have a recipe for near term turmoil as we go into a serious drought.

The Q&A part of the webinar was the most concerning to me.  Right at the very end of the session, Sen. Becker read a question about adding housing in the face of this scary water scenario.  This is the elephant in the room--a pair of elephants actually--commercial and residential development.  Becker's 10 second "non-answer" was that he was working in Sacramento to get more money.  No mention of what that money would go towards; especially given all of the options mentioned during the session are outrageously expensive, hard to implement and/or so far in the future that they won't remotely help our situation anytime soon.  The little joke about "brown being the new green" referring to lawns did nothing to ease that concern.  When you couple the two sessions together you see we are in for a rough ride and nobody wants to look at the elephant.