The Burlingame Voice

Minimum Wage: San Mateo backpedals hard

There is plenty of herd mentality in city councils up and down the Peninsula as the hue and cry to "Do Something" drowns out common sense.  The herd mentality can trample on all sorts of issues.  Think back about two years when this happened

On September 21, 2020, the Burlingame City Council adopted an ordinance to establish a minimum wage of $15.00 per hour for all Burlingame businesses beginning January 1, 2021.  On January 1, 2022 and every year thereafter, the minimum wage will be adjusted based on Consumer Price Index (CPI) percentage increases. A negative CPI will not lower the minimum wage. There are no exceptions for tipped employees.

That has led B'game to a planned January 1, 2023 minimum wage of $15.60+ 2022 CPI.  We won't know the final CPI kicker for another 6 months, but figure it will be 7+%.  Now San Mateo is preemptively backpedaling hard on their formula as noted in the DJ

To help small businesses coming out of the pandemic struggling with rising costs, San Mateo’s City Council will cap its current minimum wage amid rising inflation.  At its June 20 meeting, a council majority recommended setting a Consumer Price Index cap at 3.5% for its minimum wage.  The current minimum wage is $16.20 an hour. The council cited the need to help struggling businesses stay afloat, guard against inflation and provide long-term budget stability.  Cities use CPI because it is predictable for employers and workers and keeps pace with the rising cost of living.

Someone should tell Janet Yellen about the CPI's predictability.  Here is the herd mentality on full display in San Mateo

Mayor Rick Bonilla disagreed with the council majority on a 3.5% cap, calling it too low and suggesting higher rates of around 5%. Bonilla noted minimum wage workers are most affected by a CPI cap and have the most challenging time.  “The businesses will take care of themselves. The workers don’t have any other way. There’s nobody else to help them.” Bonilla said. “It’s us. If we don’t, nobody else will.”

Translation:  I get to pick the winners and losers in my city and consequences be damned.  San Mateo's website does not mention if Bonilla has ever signed the front of a paycheck.

Here's the math on a 7% jump in B'game.  $16.70/hr - no ifs, ands, or buts.  Happy Independence Day.

Lessons from Stanford: Get a Generator

As Santayana is credited with saying “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”   So let's learn from Stanford's "100% Green energy" experiment and the impact the nearby Emerald Hills fire has had on the campus.  With new construction happening all over Buildingame that must be all-electric because we have a "reach code", Santayana is in play here.  The bottom line is many B'gamers will be reaching for back-up generators.  The Chronicle is chronicling the mess down on the Farm:

In normal times, Stanford powers its campus with 100% renewable energy — a milestone it achieved this year. Most of it is solar power.  But only a small portion of the solar — less than 10%, according to Stanford civil and environmental engineering Professor Mark Jacobson — is on campus, on building roofs. The rest comes from two massive solar plants in Kern and Kings counties.  Because the power is not produced right on campus, Stanford relies on the state power grid to transport the electricity.

Stanford has been able to turn on some power. It’s using a few hundred diesel generators for key services, Jacobson said.

Wow.  I bet every Home Depot in the Bay Area is sold out of Hondas and Generacs.  That has to be really good for the environment, but there's more

Fixing a transmission line is “delicate work,” noted Michael Wara, an energy expert with Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment. “The standards are very precise for how things have to be done, so it takes time.”  Wara said he would have been even more concerned had damage to the PG&E substation on the edge of the fire occurred, since substation parts can be hard to replace.

Translation:  If a substation is badly damaged, expect it to be down for weeks to months.  But how will we get the horse back in front of the cart?

Wara said that the era of wildfires shows the importance of new thinking about the grid — especially how to get power to somewhere via multiple routes, and also self-sufficiency, though that can be expensive.  Jacobson said that the prolonged outage shows the need for more batteries to store power — and microgrids that can stay powered using the batteries when the main grid is not functioning.

This week Elon Musk was blunt about Tesla's battery problems as they transition from the 2170 lithium-ion battery cells to the new 4680 cells and different packaging.  That is with billions of dollars per month on the line, so don't expect the less-in-demand microgrid batteries to be fast-tracked through design, manufacture, deployment to utilities and finally energized.  I figure we are on at least a ten-year forced march through unreliable grid performance; if PG&E doesn't go bankrupt first.  But at least the Stanford students got a stipend

“Emergency Funds available! Resident students who have been impacted by the power outage may apply for support,” a tweet from Stanford’s vice provost for graduate education said. “$100 stipends will be provided to help with expenses related to food spoilage and eating out.”

Who will issue the B'gamers' stipends?  Those of us with grandfathered gas ranges and barbeques can cook the meat and seafood before it spoils.  C'mon over.

7/3  Update:  Who'd a thunk it?  The Examiner accepted an advertisement for a stinky, polluting, global warming generator.  You get a 7 year warranty by which time they will be illegal.

The "Build our way to affordability" Fantasy

The City makes certain announcements on NextDoor and then responds to some of the comments people add.  I don't know who writes the responses or how they are vetted by other City staff or even if they are vetted.  It's probably time to find out though.  In response to the announcement about Stage 2 water restrictions that we noted here, the comments were very pointed.  People jabbed at overdevelopment leading to crazy traffic, water restrictions and a lack of respect for the people who "worked our nails to the bone" to afford to live here.  The official city response?

These are good points. Our city is in a state with cyclical droughts so once one drought cycle ends the next one is just around the corner. At the same time, California has a housing shortage and state laws require local governments to adequately plan to meet existing and projected housing needs. If housing development were to stop, not only would this be against state mandates, but it would make our city unaffordable in the long-term. We have heard from residents and businesses that they are concerned about their family members, co-workers, and neighbors who can no longer afford to live in the community. We also hear that local businesses, schools, and service providers are struggling to hire and retain people. Building more affordable housing is a solution to these challenges that may be affecting your neighbor down the street. Additionally, while our population has increased steadily our water consumption is lower now than it was ten years ago which shows that conservation and innovations in water efficiency works. For the data, see our 2020 Urban Water Management Plan available at www.burlingame.org/water.

That answer feels tone-deaf to me.  First, it's non-responsive to the water question and raised the additional issue of how much more water we can squeeze from the stone after what has already been done in the last ten years.  The Law of Diminishing Returns is in play and there are consequences to the flora and fauna in town.  Second, the state mandates that drive the building craze have not been vetted properly according to the state auditor or tested in court.  But most disturbing is this fantasy that we can outbuild the global demand for living in the Bay Area, on the mid-Peninsula and especially in Burlingame!  It's a dangerous fantasy and the disregard for the quality of life for those who are already here after "working their nails to the bone" is palpable.  Has the City heard from those residents and businesses as well?

Water restrictions move to Stage 2

Here's the latest addition to the I Told You So file.  B'game is joining the movement to Stage 2 water restrictions while simultaneously approving ever more new construction--residential and commercial.  The DJ reports that

The City Council adopted the restrictions following a call from state water regulators for local suppliers to enact plans preparing for impending water shortages.  The rules, effective June 10, prohibit “residential and commercial landscapes” from being watered more than two days per week, and between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Washing vehicles is also banned, except for with recycled water.

I'm not sure where you are going to get "recycled water" with enough pressure behind it to actually wash a car, but good luck.  Here's the big red flag for future restrictions

Meanwhile, Hetch Hetchy, the reservoir that supplies water to 2.7 million people in San Francisco, Santa Clara, Alameda and San Mateo counties, is expected to be full heading into the dry season next year despite below-average snowpack levels, according to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the agency that owns and operates the system. The question is how much of the water will be available, as negotiations continue that could partially divert it to ecosystems and fisheries in the Bay-Delta, among other uses.

Burlingame Public Works Director Syed Murtuza noted “There will be a lot of staff time dedicated to this effort to conduct inspection, do outreach and respond to complaints.”

It might be good to come up with an answer to the question "Why are we building all this new 'stuff'?" as staff conducts inspections and does outreach.  And we probably should understand why we are going to underwater our trees when the city Urban Water Management Plan tells us there isn't going to be much of a problem even in a five-year drought.

June 17 update.  You probably got a postcard from the city yesterday about the annual water quality report:  www.burlingame.org/waterquality.  Did you notice the license plate on the sweet '68 Camaro?  SAVEH2O   LOL.

District Election Q&A with extra Q's

The day is fast approaching when your say in our city government via our elected city councilmembers will be reduced by 80%.  Deal with it.  We hit most of the high points back in October here.  Now the city clerk is getting in front of some questions via this blurb in the city e-newsletter--several of which you have to admit are sort of funny/sad:

Here is some information to clear up questions that you may have.

When will the City hold district elections?   The City’s first district election will take place on November 8, 2022 for Districts 1, 3, and 5. To review the five districts, go to: https://www.burlingame.org/departments/city_clerk/district_elections/index.php

Do you have to live in the district to run for that Council seat?  Yes, you must live in the district to run for that Council seat. This is verified based on your voter registration.

Do you have to live in the district to vote for that Council seat?  Yes. Beginning with the November 2022 election, registered voters will only vote for the Council seat that is in their district. Therefore, if you live in Districts 2 or 4, you won’t vote for a Councilmember until November 2024.

When does candidate filing open for the three Council seats on the November 2022 ballot?

Candidate filing (when an individual interested in running for Council pulls their nomination papers and files their Declaration of Candidacy) will open for these three seats in mid-July. All necessary paperwork must be filed with the City Clerk’s Office by mid-August. However, some interested candidates may want to start raising money for their race. This is separate from the candidate filing period and is done by opening a campaign committee with the Fair Political Practices Commission. 

Additional questions?  Reach out to City Clerk Meaghan Hassel-Shearer at [email protected] or at (650) 558-7203

You have to admit, the second and third questions call into question some of our fellow voters' grasp on the electoral process.  I'm interested in how a candidates' forum will run--or should it be forums?  If candidates are not running against each other since they are in different districts, should they not have their own candidates' night?  Do we then have three of those in the Fall?  And can we ditch the League of Women Voters as the emcees for these?  They seemed particularly clueless in the last few debates.  Maybe the city clerk could ask the audience's questions?

One thing to watch will be the campaign donations from within and outside of the shiny new districts.  A strong candidate may run in their tiny new district,but raise money from all over town.  Here's some background on the new "rules".  One thing I will be watching is how much moola comes from outside the city.  Recently we saw a carpetbagger, now departed, raise a lot of money from all over the country from people who couldn't find B'game without the map app on their phones.

I hope this giant experiment doesn't unravel in front of our eyes come November.

Smile, your license plate maybe on camera

A comment on the Year in Crime: 2021 post reminded me to double back to the question of whether or not we put in license plate reading cameras in B'game.  According to the DJ article, in a rare split decision, councilors Ortiz, O'Brian and Colson went for the idea while Brownrigg and Beach were opposed.

Burlingame is one of just four cities in the county that has yet to approve the cameras (Ed: that means 16 already have them), according to Police Chief Mike Matteucci, who added he believed they would be beneficial in the city. Others on the Peninsula have turned to the cameras in hopes of stopping auto burglaries near hotels or retail crime. 

Matteucci said implementation in Burlingame would likely consist of two-dozen or more cameras installed at entry and exit points to the city and major intersections. They could also be affixed to police vehicles. 

You will recall from the Year in Crime: 2021 post that vehicle burglaries were up 25% year over year to 25 per month--basically everyday someone gets burgled.  And that number may or may not include the catalytic converter thefts--I've asked BPD for some numbers on that really expensive crime (~$2,800 to replace, keep your insurance current).  At least one reluctant councilmember wants to "see the data".  I would suggest that all council members should be reviewing the data regularly.  Heck, I would make it a regular council agenda item, but that's just me.

Brownrigg, however, said he was unconvinced Burlingame had a need for the cameras and expressed reluctance to increase surveillance or traffic stop frequency in the city.

“Any time we permit greater surveillance, especially using technology, we need to have a use case that justifies it, so I would like to see that data,” he said. “I’m not saying our decision will change the big forces of technology, but this is just one step along the path to facial recognition, it’s one step along the path to cameras everywhere.”

 

I'm not going to give much airtime to the concern about racial profiling--everyone license plate colors are the same.  We shall see if this goes anywhere or if higher political ambitions derail it.

Planning for a Rollicking Rollins Rd.

I’m very excited by the impending housing growth in North Burlingame that will end up bringing “thousands of new homes” to the Rollins Rd. industrial section of town.  The amount of planning that went into this decision by state and county officials, the City Council, the Planning Commission and city staff is impressive.  Here are the details:

Water:   I know the decision makers have a grasp on our dire water situation because they said so back in May  calling it “alarming”.  They also know the SFPUC cannot be trusted to keep the Peninsula’s water interests front-of-mind regardless of whatever “contract” we have with them, so the negotiations with the state to gain access to Bayfront land for our new desalinization plant (instead of a park) are to be complemented.  Desalinized drinking water is about ten times as expensive as water agencies buy now due to the energy costs.  Then there is the cost of getting rid of the brine, but the free land access will help the economics.  The new water tank on Rollins will ensure reliable water for the new neighborhood.

Outflow:  In the spirit of “what goes in, must come out”, the city study on sewage treatment capacity at the Bayfront plant will probably find a need for additional capacity, but we can be sure that raising the sewer rates to pay for it will be easy as we just saw this year.  Burlingame is a welcoming community, so higher rates will be fine with the public.

Power:  The decision makers’ extensive negotiations with PG&E to get it to strengthen the Burlingame grid are to be complemented.  Not only will the grid improvements supply the new desalinization plant’s load, but it will also ensure grid stability for the rest of the city.  Generous state and federal funding for new solar panels on the new construction and some existing Rollins Rd. buildings will help; as will a brand new grid-based battery facility.  Whoever got that big grant should get a promotion.  The natural gas pipes should be fine since there won’t be any natural gas allowed.

Schools:  Given the thousands of new homes coming, it was prescient of the city council to snap up a large parcel on Rollins Rd. and sign a long-term, low-cost lease with the Burlingame School District.  This will enable BSD to build a new school serving North Burlingame Eastside students.  The parcel may be large enough to also build a BIS Annex to cut down on car traffic to BIS.  I expect that the next school bond measure to pay for it all will pass easily as Burlingame is a welcoming community.

Traffic:  As we consider the extensive traffic study conducted as part of the General Plan update, it is gratifying to see that the Broadway grade separation project is now fully funded and we are ready to start The Big B'game Dig in 2022.  As today's SF Comicle notes:

The intersection of Caltrain and Broadway in Burlingame has the ignominious distinction of being the street-level train crossing most in need of fixing in the state, based on a calculation that factors in number of accidents, disruptions to local traffic and other overall safety concerns.  The busy crossing serves demand from trains, vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists, a hectic mix that has resulted in 11 car-train collisions in the past five years, a number of near misses and some fatal accidents. It has also caused considerable traffic backups: The crossing gate is currently down about an hour per day, and the city estimates that will rise to nearly three hours per day by 2040.

The project should go fast as most of them do; and be completed in time to help ease the load on Millbrae Ave. and Rollins Rd. for the new North Burlingame residents.  Luckily, the city’s negotiations with Caltrain were also successful in getting the Broadway station to reopen.  That will make a big difference for local traffic through the B'way intersection over the next 10 years.

Of course, Rollins Rd. isn't the only part of town with strong growth so all of these impending improvements will benefit the whole town.  That's why Burlingame is a welcoming community.

I admit I was initially skeptical about a huge new residential section at the north end of town.  It seemed like many of the growing pains would be intractable problems, but with a lot of diligent work everything appears to be on track.  Many people are to be complemented.

Salt Water Taffy for Politicians

Sea Level Rise is a cynical, ladder-climbing politician's perfect issue.  It is notoriously hard to measure.  It's even harder to predict.  And if anything noticeable happens IRL, the politician will be long out-of-office and probably off the planet.  But they can appear to Care and to Be Doing Something About It.  It's perfect.  There might even be some federal money in it.  The insurance companies love it too since it allows them to raise the risk factor which raises the rates and everybody says "yup".  I just reread Steven Koonin's chapter about it in Unsettled?.  Let me try to "boil it down" for you from his Chapter 8:

The sea level has been rising and falling, and rising and falling, and rising and falling for all of determinable time--more than 400,000 years. 

"Slow cycles--variations in the earth's orbit and the tilt of its axis over tens of thousands of years--change the amount of sunlight absorbed by the Northern and Southern Hemispheres...(this) cases the ice sheets covering the continents to grow or melt, putting more or less water in the oceans....So the question is not whether the sea level is rising--it's been doing that for the past 20,000 years.

Climate scientists use the concept of Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL), which is inferred from measurements over the whole globe; even though "water seeks it's own level," there are variations that are important given the fraction-of-a-millimeter precision required--the GSML is rising today at a rate of only a few millimeters per year.

And it varies all over the globe for a dozen reasons: differences in the earth's gravity from place to place, ocean currents, temperature and salinity of parts of the ocean, air pressure, local land sinking (think pumping ground water) and the vagaries of instruments like the satellites circling at 600 km (370 miles above the earth) detecting fractions of a millimeter in ocean height.  Given all of that, the rise in more recent decades is higher than the average for the 20th century, but similar to the rise from 1920-1950--a period before carbon intensive development.  On May 26, 1927, Henry Ford watched the 15 millionth Model T Ford roll off the assembly line at his factory in Highland Park, Michigan.  There are 289.5 million cars in the US right now.

In fact, the rate of rise between 1925 and 1940--a period almost as long as eighteen-year satellite record now available--was almost the same as the recent satellite value, about 3 mm (0.12 inches) per year.

If the B'game city council wants to put new Bayfront buildings on stilts and build levees because the sea might rise a foot in the next 30 years (333% more than it may have risen over the last 30 years)  and "up to six feet over the next century", go for it.  But boy do I wish they were as worried about having too little fresh water as much as they are worried about facing too much salt water.

March 1 update:  Here is the Greenland chart that is referenced in the comment section.

 

City Council: Five Little Districts

Today each of us has five city councilmembers that are responsible and responsive to each of us.  That is about to end as a lawyer from Malibu is exploiting an arcane state election law to force the city to go to district-based seats.  You will soon have only one city councilmember who has the electoral need to respond to your concerns.  Get over it.  State officials like Kevin Mullin (our assemblyman) are good with criticizing B'game for following state law on campaign donation limits, but apparently can't be bothered to change state law to maintain our individual voting power at the status quo.  That feels like real work.  Get over it.

How to make the best of a terrible situation?  Hire a consultant, of course.  And so we have.  He's come up with three possible maps of districts that attempt to define: 

1. relatively equal population size
2. contiguous - districts should not hop/jump (like gerrymandered ones)
3. maintain "communities of interest"  (these are undefined, but you can assume it is not model-train hobbyists or your yoga classmates)
4. follow city/county/local government lines
5. keeps districts compact in both appearance and function

You can find maps A, B and C at the city sites I have linked to by letter.  Bear in mind there is no indication of which lots are residential (i.e. have voters) and which are commercial, industrial or city or school-owned (i.e. no voters) so the geographic size is not the best indicator.  And yes, B'game owns part of the bay--someday voters may live there too if we keep heading to "Buildingame" (hat tip Rob Adams).  Perhaps Mrs. Winchester and her house boat, The Ark, will return.

There are three proposals with five districts each, so 15 possible districts that range in size from 6,082 to 6,510.  Of course, the long running differences in voter turnout are not considered.  For example, 20 years ago in the 2001 election, we had 23 precincts plus absentee voting that 15% of voters used then.  The voter turnout varied from 12% in Ray Park/Murchison and 15% in Floribunda/Oak Grove to 36% Lincoln School/Devereaux and 38% in Howard/Rollins.  That is a 3:1 swing according to Old Math!  So running in different districts will carry different challenges.

The consultant's work goes to great length to assess the ethnic make-up of each of the 15 possible designs-- Latino, Asian, Black and "Other".  Those Others seem to be everywhere.  You have to wonder what happens if no one wants to run in one of the districts?  That would be funny!

The city is very interested in your comments so have at it here.  The council will be discussing it this Monday, Nov. 1st and probably well beyond that.  We live in interesting times.  December 16th update:  Here is the map that has been selected-- Map D.

City Council: Rai$e A$ Much A$ You Need at $4,900/head

Nobody has watched the city council campaign contributions over the last 20+ years as much as I have, unless maybe they were on the ballot themselves.  Even then, I doubt it.  Back in 2007, B'game-specific limits were imposed.  That was the Dark Ages of fundraising.  These days you can raise a boatload of "outside" money, meaning from outside of B'game, by getting on one or the other social media platforms and begging.  It has already happened here.  So why the archaic limits?  You could ask "why any limits at all?" but let's save that for another day.  In the meantime, as the DJ is reporting:

In a split vote, the Burlingame City Council this week opted to increase campaign contribution limits from $719.93 to $4,900, scrapping the lower citywide limit and defaulting to the state rule allowing larger contributions from individuals and organizations.

The local rule, established in 2007, had set a $500 limit for individuals and $1,000 for organizations, numbers that have been adjusted upward to account for inflation over time. The most recent cap for organizations was $1,439.87. In the beginning of this year, a state rule went into effect limiting contributions to $4,900 from both individuals and organizations in cities or counties that had not previously set stricter rules.

We don't see all that many split-votes unlike the Olde Days in town.  But in this case, I love this logic.  It may be twisted, but B'gamers are not the ones doing the twisting:

“I think people should be able to raise within the limits of the state,” Councilmember Donna Colson said. “The state has told us what to do around housing, the state has told us what to do around transit, sea level rise, lots of things, so why wouldn’t we comply also with the state regarding the elections.”

I will get to the nuances of the soon-to-be-implemented district council elections next week, but in the meantime rai$e what you think you need and maybe a bit more because the dark money from outside B'game is waiting to pounce--particularly the YIMBYs.