The Burlingame Voice

Watching the new sheriff in town--or trying to

The editor at the Daily Post, Dave Price, has taken a good amount of interest in local police departments and county sheriffs' departments over time.  He's covered the move to encrypted police radios, the general crime beat and whatever else pops up including sheriff elections and the funding for said.  Since we just elected a new San Mateo County sheriff, Cristina Corpus, Price is still on the beat.  He's also apparently a cartoonist--who knew?  Next to his column this week was this cartoon.

The adjacent editorial didn't mention anything about the sheriff's department, so this looks more like an early warning signal.  One thing is for sure; once Dave Price grasps a thread he doesn't let go easily.

Living in Burlingame is a special privilege, really

Living in Burlingame is a special privilege.  That is obvious to most of us.  There is even a great video titled "The problem with spending time in Burlingame is you don't want to go anywhere else".  It wasn't particularly controversial either until some library employees tried to make it so.  John Horgan at the Daily Journal first brought this to the public's attention a couple of weeks ago here.  He has done us all a great service by shining light on the absurd and insulting move by the library to cover up the caption on the mural with a shroud that now says "Living in Burlingame is for everyone".  Here's one long-time resident's take on it in a letter to the DJ

I recently learned in your newspaper that a folk art mural from the early 1960s that has hung in the library reading room for years has been altered. The mural depicts various buildings, churches and streets from that era.  According to Burlingame City Librarian Brad McCulley, some members of his staff took issue with the slogan at the bottom, which said “it’s a privilege to live in Burlingame.”  The library created their own slogan, which states “Living in Burlingame is for everyone.”  Their new slogan now covers up the original slogan from the 1960s. In other words, they have desecrated a work of art.

Apparently, the staff took issue with the word “privilege.” Here is another instance of cancel culture and censorship. People rewriting history. It’s easy these days to summon groups to condemn words. But it takes guts to stand up to the rhetoric. I have a pin that the Burlingame Library gave out last year. It says “I read banned books.” Kind of ironic.  Over the years, I have heard countless people say “it’s a privilege to live in the United States.” I guess we can’t say that anymore, according to the standards of our city librarian.

Constance Quirk

Burlingame

Covering the mural caption is the kind of nonsense one would expect from San Francisco (e.g. the Washington High School shenanigans that helped get some school board members recalled).  Covering it with a ridiculous motto that is patently untrue is a sign of managerial incompetence.  John Horgan concluded his piece thusly:

Ironically, even that attractive sentiment has a ring of inaccuracy and false hope since housing prices in the city are extremely high and only some people can afford to dwell there. But at least the new motto cannot be viewed as elitist.  On further review, however, maybe a more accurate sentence would be: “Living in Burlingame is for everyone who can afford it.”

John's being polite with the "ring of inaccuracy".  People have earned the special privilege of living here.  Some few may have inherited the privilege, but that just means their parents or grandparents earned it.  If we have city employees (employees we pay!) who think differently, we need some new employees.  Any library trustee who went along with this needs to rethink their responsibilities and priorities.  I've also heard the library foundation paid for the shroud.  If that is the case, donors may choose to find a more worthy charity--there are lots to choose from.  I've been told this issue did not come before the city council, but it should.  The Voice blog will turn 20 years old in a couple of months and until now I didn't think we needed a specific category for the library.  We do now and so one has been added.  It's time for more oversight and it's time to take down this insulting shroud.

Recycling Scam Spreads

Two years ago I addressed the idea that our recycling program has problems because of the economics of recycling the various categories of items.  You can see the 2021 market prices here.  90% of what you and I think is being recycled isn't.  It ends up in landfill.  Now it is a bigger concern because another burden has been laid on top of our small and medium-sized businesses by the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle).  Any "dealer" which includes, but is not limited to, supermarkets, community markets, gas marts, convenience stores, liquor stores, membership bulk stores and health food stores that are more than a mile from a "convenience zone" now has to accept used bottles and cans or else.  What's the "or else"?  All dealers in an unserved zone must redeem empty beverage containers and provide consumers with California Refund Value (CRV) in-store or pay a $100 per day fee.  That 36 grand a year!

Guess which B'game business district is full of smaller retailers that sell a few bottles of water, soda or beer per day and now get the pleasure of dedicating floor space, staff time and record keeping for refunding the CRV regardless of where people bought the containers?  Yep, good old Broadway.  It's more than a mile from Mollie Stone's or the Millbrae Safeway.  There's a reason why the old pre-Covid standalone recycling center operated in the parking lot near the Millbrae Safeway.  The bottles and cans are used, dirty and attract flies, etc. so it's naturally an outdoors or separate operation.  Sorry.  The state doesn't care.  You have to wonder how long a lot of small businesses can stay afloat.

1874: Vin de Hillsborough

Every post can't be about the Doom Loops of EssEff and San Mateo County.  Well maybe they all could be, but let's not.  Instead, how about something historical and tipsy today?  This weekend I plucked a booklet called San Mateo,USA: The Golden Years at an estate sale in San Mateo.  It was published in 1975 by Donald P. Ringler and credits the San Mateo County Historical Society for a lot of the info and photos.  Sprinkled in with the pieces about town lot sales and the SF to SJ Railroad, subsequently purchased by Southern Pacific, was a tidbit close to my neighborhood, my heart...and my liver.

Out in the hills beyond the W.H. Clark property Gustave Mahe's Gold Wine hobby was sure to turn commercial any year.  In 1874 Wisnom had build the 34 x 150 foot wine house, and already Byrnes and Mahe were talking about a warehouse on the Byrnes' property across from the depot.

As shown below

Further on (in the present vicinity of Brewer Avenue in Hillsborough), nestled among the foothills of and protected from the strong winds is the vineyard of G. Mahe.  The vineyard consists of 60,000 vines, forty-five acres, of different ages and varieties, the oldest vines being seven years of age.....

Imagine 2 million square feet of vines just up Barriolet Ave "protected from the strong winds".  It is a special privilege to live in B'game, H'borough and San Mateo.  If you don't think so, you probably need counseling.

Electricity "Equity": A Shocking Proposal

We have another "Dr. Zhivago Moment" on our hands according to the Mercury News today-- you know the point in the film where the socialist government drone says "It's more fair this way".  "Fair" might be the most mis-used word of this century so far and it is looking like it can hold onto that title quite easily.  Check this out from the Merc article:

PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric, the three major California utilities whose services include electricity, have filed a joint proposal with the state Public Utilities Commission that sketches out proposed changes in monthly bills.

Here’s how the fixed charges would work in the PG&E service territory. The numbers are based on a four-person household:

• Households earning less than $28,000 a year would pay a fixed charge of $15 a month on their electric bills.
• Households with annual income from $28,000 to $69,000 would pay $30 a month.
• Households earning from $69,000 to $180,000 would pay $51 a month.
• Those with incomes above $180,000 would pay $92 a month.

“These are not new charges, but a restructuring of the components of providing and delivering power,” PG&E stated in a post in the Currents section of the utility’s website.

Yeah, right.  Funny I don't recall PG&E or "a qualified, independent state agency or third party responsible for verifying customers’ total household incomes" asking for my household income before.  It would probably cost them more to administer the snooping program than it would bring in.

Biking in B'game: How many lanes are enough?

I'm a biker.  Sorry, I mean I'm a bicyclist.  I love my route past the country club, up Cortez or Cabrillo, through Ray Park, around the hospital, across ECR at Ray, down California on the bike lane, cross at Broadway and over the Rosalie O'Mahony foot/bike bridge (never saw Rosalie on a bike), through Bayside Park, south along Sanchez Lagoon, through Meta/Facebook and Coyote Point to the harbor and back along Bayswater.  That means less than 5% of my ride is on an official bike lane and I'm fine with that.  I choose Bayswater over Peninsula Ave. for obvious reasons, and I'm fine with that too.

The DJ had an article about the impending bike lane extension and loss of a car lane south of B'way 

The California Drive Bicycle Facility Project — once complete this October — will create a continuous bike lane through the city from Murchison Drive to Peninsula Avenue. The current phase will build bicycle lanes on a 0.8-mile portion of California Drive between Broadway and Oak Grove Avenue, continuing the current bike route that links Murchison Drive to Broadway.  However, five of the businesses and property owners on California Drive between Carmelita Avenue and Broadway have said they never received any notification about the project.

One of those businesses is Kerwin Galleries, which specializes in art sales. Gallery employee Mary Matsunaga said they didn’t know about the project. Had the city given the surrounding businesses proper notification, Matsunaga said they would have spoken up earlier.   “Those metered spaces are precious to us. California Drive is a busy street and by eliminating that it could severely impact our business,” Matsunaga said.

Another concerned business owner, Robert Vernazza, has owned Lou’s Auto Repair for 30 years and said California Drive is very rarely used by cyclists, but the parking spaces are always being used.

The reaction around town has been pretty negative.  I don't know Ms. Hallen, but her letter to the DJ rings of authentic understanding of the local flow

I can’t understand why the Burlingame City Council wants to put bike lanes on California Drive from Broadway south to Burlingame Avenue.

On Carolan Avenue maybe 50 yards to the east of California Drive on the other side of the railroad tracks there are excellent bike lands with very little traffic going from Broadway to Oak Grove during most of the day. And further south going from Oak Grove to Burlingame Avenue is a stretch in front of the Burlingame High School where there is hardly any traffic except when school is about to start or just getting out.

If bike lanes were put on California Avenue, I doubt that any bicyclist would want to use them since they would be biking alongside one lane of very heavy traffic where there were once two lanes of medium traffic. It would be a lot more helpful if bike lane signs were put on California Avenue at Broadway, Oak Grove Avenue and Burlingame Avenue saying that excellent bike lanes were just to the east on the other side of the train tracks.

Lois Hallen

Burlingame

I can't improve on that statement of the situation except to add that BART ridership is sinking like a rock and bicyclist access ain't gonna change that.  And the idea that all of this is temporary until we find another quarter of a billion dollars to do the Broadway grade separation--and actually do it--seems unlikely.

Euc Watch: Another One Bites the Dust, Another One....

Another one bit the dust today.  I was awakened by the grinding of the giant shredding machine.  No "High Winds or Downed Trees" on this beautiful Spring Day in B'game.  We are indeed "privileged" by our hard work to live here.  One has to wonder if Caltrans' plan is to kill the Euc grove via "death by a thousand cuts"?  I doubt it since that would imply Caltrans has a plan.  But nonetheless, one of the "Big Boys" was levelled this morning.  If you are crossing ECR from the West Side to go to St. Catherine's (first stop) or walking downtown, the Big Boy who was your sentinel at the corner is gone.

I got an SMC Alert about something in San Bruno, but the closing of both lanes, both directions of El Camino in B'game apparently didn't qualify for an alert.  Nothing to see here.  The deployment of forces--giant crane, grinder, multiple dump trucks, trailers, etc felt just a tiny bit like they were building a section of high-cost rail in the Central Valley and didn't want anyone to notice.  ECR was fully closed for about 5-6 hours.  One down, 390 to go.  Here's the scene and the healthy stump--at least it looks healthy to me.

High-speed Rail that works

LOS ANGELES, CA — When U-Haul announced an investment in a massive project in California, the state leadership's panic over continued population loss subsided. The relief was short-lived, however, as it turned out U-Haul's big project was just building a bullet train to accommodate the moving needs of everyone fleeing California for Texas.

"We were initially ecstatic when we saw the U-Haul corporation begin construction on this bullet train in our city – until we saw it was pointed East, towards Texas, rather than North towards Sacramento." Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass broke the bad news to California Governor Gavin Newsom, say sources familiar with the situation, and apologized for her premature call to the Governor bragging that she had finally attracted people to her crime-ridden city in the expensive state.

It has since become clear that U-Haul was just helping more people and businesses leave the state more efficiently, to reduce the burden on U-Haul's truck fleet, which has been buckling under the strain of all the Californian refugees.