The Burlingame Voice

Caltrain: Will the RR Survive?

Big money has jumped into the Caltrain tax measure RR.  We touched on the saga in May here and December here.  The Daily Post reports that the yes side has raised $1.7 million dollars with recent funds from Google, Adobe, the Giants, Amgen and the usual developers and unions.  The television commercials are running fast and furious and the in-fighting between SF, San Mateo County and Santa Clara County officials has moved off the front page.  But the local letters to the editor are running strongly against handing Caltrain more money.  The bike-rail commuters don't like how the bike cars were set up.  The fiscal hawks can't believe management didn't make cuts during the worst days of Covid sheltering.  And the equality folks complain that the passengers are generally more well-off than the general public so why subsidize them.

All this comes with a backdrop of cost of living/affordability concerns that may make the idea of more sales tax a hard sell.  The late start due to the in-fighting may be enough to sink RR this time around.  What a change from the pre-Covid predictions of growth from 65,000 daily riders in 2018, to 243,000 daily riders in 2040.  If the high-cost rail albatross could be killed and plucked there would be more than enough rail money to go around the whole state.

 

Pandemic Politics?

Having tracked the coronavirus spread in San Mateo County on a weekly basis here, I can say the basic trend is a straight line since July.  You can see it graphically as well here.  The fundamentals in our County from last Saturday are:

Cases: 9843 (up 321 this week, so a definite slowdown) - it was running about +450 for awhile

R-eff: .94 (magically dropping a little)

Positivity: 5.7% (exactly flat)

Burlingame Cases: 223 (up 8 for the week)

The County moved into the Red "substantial" tier bring modest reopening including playgrounds (as soon as the city gets signage in place), churches and gyms with tight attendance limits, etc.  So what is next?  According to the Chronicle, we will now need to have "racial equity" in order for small businesses and other endangered enterprises to get the go-ahead that comes with the orange "moderate" tier.

California public health officials Wednesday evening revealed the final metric that counties must meet before they can further reopen their economies. It’s a complicated marker meant to ensure that communities of color no longer bear the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic.  The new metric requires each county to ensure that positive test rates in its most disadvantaged neighborhoods do not significantly lag behind the county’s overall positive rate. In order for a county to move to a less-restrictive tier, the disadvantaged neighborhoods — measured by a variety of social, health and economic factors — must come within 5% of the positive test rate required for that tier.

For example: Most of the Bay Area is in the red tier, and to advance to the less-restrictive orange tier requires a positive test rate between 2% and 4.9%. Under the new metric, each county must also prove that the positive test rate for its most disadvantaged neighborhoods is 5.2% or less.

Not only do we have to somehow shave at least .8% off of the positivity rate that has been stable for a long time, but we also have to do something special in the hotspots.  I pulled the Healthy Places Index (HPI) off the state site and there are 157 census tracts in our county.  Only 4 appear to be in the 4th quintile and none in the bottom.  You have to wonder if this latest move is really the most holistically healthy for everyone and every business--and school-- in the county?  Here's the position of one of the experts

Dr. Bela Matyas, the Solano County health officer, said he had misgivings about the new metric, which he argued would not help counties fix decades of systemic health disparities that are to blame for the disproportionate spread of the virus in this pandemic. He added that the equity metric was hotly contested by many county health officers while state officials tried to work out the details.

“It’s an absurd ask. The metric has nothing to do with things over which we have control,” Matyas said Wednesday. “I am 100% behind trying to achieve health equity, but it’s got to be done in a way that makes sense. Having said that, there was a lot of pushback (from health officers) and what they ended up with is a lot more innocuous than what it could have been.”

So if you are trying to restart a small retail business that doesn't get a parklet or trying to get some of your expensive indoor restaurant space generating revenue, you are faced with the "absurd".

Update: Adding even more absurdity to the mix, check this out!

Au Revoir, City Attorney

The Daily Journal did a quick little blurb on B'game city attorney Kathleen Kane moving on to a new role with MTC-ABAG.  I want to add some context since many people do not realize how important the city attorney is to city operations.  The city council and staff are constantly faced with decisions that have legal implications and municipal law is perhaps more convoluted than "regular" law.  I'm not an attorney--that is just my observation from interacting with past attorneys Larry Anderson and Gus Guinan as well as a little with Kathleen Kane.  Having a steady hand in the attorney's chair is key to balancing lawyers' predisposition towards protectiveness and not going overboard with too much care.

We have benefited from seven years of Kathleen's experience.  As she departs, I hope that having spent so much time guiding our city council in trying to implement some of ABAG's overly aggressive development ideas without ruining our quality of life will allow her to guide ABAG to a better understanding.  She's had a good run here and I wish her well.

Pandemic Tipping Point?

We tracked the Covid-19 numbers for the last six weeks here.  That was entirely in the SIP timeframe, but things are loosening up in multiple directions now.  Restaurants are reopening for dine-in service, non-essential stores are allowing limited numbers of people at a time, and churches are resuming live services; outdoors and with waivers in some cases.  Essential stores are pretty crowded; Lowe's for example.  The county as had several large demonstrations where social distancing was ignored.  It feels like we might be at a tipping point in the coming week or two, so here are the baseline figures today from the county site at SMChealth.org.

In our county of 759,000 people 46,480 have been tested (about 6%).  The positivity rate has been declining and is now 5.4% -- meaning we have either 2,528 or 2,553 cases --both numbers appear on the same data page.  That's about 335 cases per 100,000.  NYC has 2,460 cases per 100,000--more than seven times as many.  The age distribution of cases in San Mateo County has shifted to younger people with 50% being in their 20's, 30's and 40's.

Let's see how things look again in a week.

Tracking the Curve in Context

I've been looking for ways to illustrate the infection case rate in the County since that is most pertinent to us here in B'game (verses the state, the country, New York City or whatever). Try this local comparison on for size.

The County has 766,573 residents.  PacBell-AT&T- now Oracle Park, home of the SF Giants, holds 40,800 people. So if the Giants sold-out 18 games and the 19th game sold three quarters of the seats that would be everyone in the County going to one game. According to Wikipedia, there are "1,500 club seats at the field level behind home plate". If we get around a dozen new cases per day over the next month that the Shelter-in-Place is in effect, the total cases would just fill the Field Club section at Oracle once. That's not once per game--just once. Just some perspective on today's total case count of 1,177.

It also reminds me how much I miss Major League baseball and the local BYBA and BHS games.  As the County relaxes some of the outdoor restrictions we need to keep up the SIP discipline, but it may not be obvious how to balance reopening with the impending economic hardships.

   

Covid-19 Tracking and Planning

It's time to start a new thread on our tracking of the coronavirus.  You can see the prior post from March 24th and the path of the virus' growth in the County here.  Today's County report at SMChealth.org shows 16 new cases in the County for a total of 767.  67 cases are currently in hospital and 7,295 total tests have been done with a 10% positive ratio.  Recall there are about 769,000 people in the County so the testing rate is still minuscule.

There was a great human interest story in the Daily Journal yesterday about Officer Steve Vega.  I've chatted with the officer on the street before (the last time was in front of the Apple store during the on-going patrol there) and I'm thrilled to hear he is better.  He may be down at Stanford right now donating

After recovering from COVID-19, Burlingame police Officer Steve Vega is hoping the antibodies in his blood can be used to treat others infected with the disease.  Vega, 55, is among the first participants in a new effort by Stanford Blood Center to treat COVID-19 patients while the world waits for a vaccine to be developed.

The 22-year Burlingame officer is set to donate his plasma, the liquid in blood, at Stanford this Thursday and however many times is needed after that.

Also in the news is some data on how the work-at-home trend for self-isolating plays out across the economy.  Having worked full-time from home for more than a decade one article about the trials the newbies are discovering was gratifying to read.  On the data side, the Wall Street Journal has a piece titled "The Lucky Stay-at-home 37%"

A newly released study called “How Many Jobs Can Be Done at Home?” reckons that 37% of all U.S. jobs can plausibly be done at home, meaning that nearly two-thirds cannot. The study’s authors, from the University of Chicago’s Becker-Friedman Institute, add that their 37% estimate is at the “upper bound of what might be feasible.”  Along with other studies, this one also finds that those in jobs that can be done from home “typically earn more.” By their calculations, for example, 37% of jobs that can be done at home account for 46% of all wages.

Those who have stressed the need to get our economy up and running again are sometimes criticized for favoring profits over people. But the Becker-Friedman paper underscores that those lower down on the socio-economic scale are most in need of a re-opening for their livelihoods.

That's an important point that can be missed during the high-anxiety zeitgeist we are in.  Here is the Avenew showing that zeitgeist.

 

B'game Town Hall - COVID-19 local updates

The City Council and City staff ran an hour-long Zoom webinar tonight to update about 175 residents on the status of various actions to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.  I thought it was very well done with kudos to the mayor and especially City Manager Lisa Goldman.  The link to the recording is up on the city website here.

If you don't have an hour, here are a few of my takeaways.  The County website SMChealth.org is "information central" for the most current counts of cases and for the status of shelter-in-place restrictions.  It is usually updated mostly in the morning but the FAQs are continuously updated.  The County is taking a number of steps to prepare for the anticipated uptick in cases.  It has rented a number of B'game hotel rooms for non-hospitalization-needed cases; as well as first responders who may not have the ability to do their regular commutes.  The County is also accepting volunteers' contact info and has about 1,000 volunteers already, but there is not yet a clear direction on what they might do.  The same goes for our favorite local preparedness group BNN and its CERT-trained teams.  More info to follow as recommended actions are decided upon.

The County has set up 211 phone service for those that may not know how or where to look on-line.  I have to imagine that is more of a last resort for more complicated questions.

Similarly, if you see things in town that merit some intervention or seem non-essential--like groups of teens congregating in public or gardeners gardening-- you can call the Non-Emergency BPD phone at 650 777-4100.  Officers will educate them and disperse where necessary and they have a flyer to hand out--so you should not do it yourself if you are not comfortable--and who would be?  Note that housing construction and repair has been deemed an "essential service" by the county, so don't call about contractors.

The County has allocated $3M of Measure K funds to "help out" and is soliciting donations to a 501c3 named SMC Strong--more to follow when details emerge but I'm guessing you have several ideas on who needs support directly.  CallPrimrose is accepting monetary donations, but no food, clothing, etc at this time.

Those are my key findings from the one-hour webcast and I believe we will be seeing more of these.  In the future, we need to incorporate slides (graphics/text) so that items like phone numbers and websites don't have to be repeated verbally--people still don't reliably get them that way.  This is standard stuff in the corporate world and can easily scale to meet municipal communication needs.  All in all, good show.  It's worth you going to view it--you probably have the time ;-(

Coping With Quarantine

I really don't want to add to the concerns that people already have about the Covid-19 virus, the actions we all must take or the longer-term effects on society.  But I do think it would be helpful to local businesses if the word got out on what was open, partially open (e.g. take-out only, curbside delivery sorts of things) and any other tips for coping.  So here is sort of an "open thread".  If you have any helpful tips, please feel free to add them.  I wish Safeway had a webcam upfront so I could check the lines before I walk over.  The shortened hours shown below should help the staff keep up.  Molly Stone's was pacing customers' entry yesterday and I have not been up to the North End yet.

Office Growth Drives Housing Demand, Duh.

It's generally fun to poke fun at EssEff politics, but this Election Day brought a rare instance of sanity out of EssEff voters.  As the Chronicle reported

Also winning was Proposition E, which will limit the amount of office space San Francisco can allow each year if the city fails to build enough affordable housing, based on targets set by the state.  The measure, which needed a simple majority to pass, was leading 54.54% to 45.46% — 130,736 to 108,983.

Prop. E was sponsored chiefly by Todco, an organization that operates and advocates for affordable housing in San Francisco, and its executive director, John Elberling.  Jon Jacobo, Todco’s policy director, said in a statement that voters “have shifted the paradigm of San Francisco. They have declared that we prioritize affordable housing before office development, and that is now the new norm in San Francisco.”

This move won't be a panacea nor will its impact be felt immediately.  In fact, a number of other crosswinds like the macro-economy, availability of leading edge skills, and the perception of quality of life in the Bay Area will all drive the influx or exodus of people.  Over the course of the last 20 years of my professional career I hired, or attempted to hire, dozens of professionals and admin staff into the Bay Area.  It's always been expensive and attractive, but re-balancing the availability of commercial space with residential space should help just a bit with the cost.  One wonders why it took a Proposition to do this in SF and why it isn't happening in other hotbeds like Mountain View or RWC instead of the futile rent control measures?

Death...Oops... Trains and Taxes

Since affordability is such a hot topic these days we should examine each and every effort to degrade our affordability.  Gas taxes.  Highway 101 fees.  Natural gas bans in new buildings--or at least so far only new buildings--so we can spend oodles on electricity.  School bonds and parcel taxes.  More bonds for affordable housing.  A sliver for the Rec Center.  I'll bet some of the regular Voice commenters can remember some that I am missing.  So here are the latest two-- a slice for the train and a big bite on commercial property which is to say a big bite on brick and mortar retail.  Amazon must be thrilled.