The Burlingame Voice

Our own Kardashian: Who knew?

Here at the Voice we cover all things Burlingame--the good, the bad and sometimes the sad.  Yesterday's Daily Post front page article about the passing of a B'game woman who worked as a Kim Kardashian impersonator is in the sad category.  The Post writes:

San Mateo County authorities are extraditing a Florida woman who is accused of injecting silicone into the rear end of Kim Kardashian lookalike from Burlingame who died.  Christina Ashten Gourkani, 34, was a social media influencer and model who was best known for her work as a Kim Kardashian lookalike.

Vivian Gomez traveled to a Burlingame hotel and gave Gourkani "several injections" of what is believed to have been just silicone on April 19, according to DA Steve Wagstaffe.  The coroner's office is still investigating Gourkani's death, Wagstaffe said.  Shortly thereafter, Gourkani began having health issues, according to her family's GoFundMe, she died in the early hours of April 20 from a heart attack.

There are at least a few lessons in this sad tale.  Most of them should be obvious.

B'game Traffic Enforcement - No clear trend

I'm sticking by my assertion from last November made in the post titled "Does the whole County need remedial driving class?" because things do not appear to have improved.  As Sergeant Phil Esterhaus said on Hill Street Blues at the start of every shift "Let's be careful out there".  He was talking to the officers; I refer to the officers and drivers and pedestrians and cyclists.

Back in January we did the annual round-up of crime in town here.  Now BPD has made available the annual traffic enforcement numbers, so here they are:

                                                         2017      2018      2019      2020       2021      2022 

Reported Vehicle Accidents                  317        324        300        200       199        252

Traffic Stops                                      5,003      4,620      5.981    3,413    4,548      3,567 

Moving Citations Issued                      2,615      2,448      3,234    1,421     2,264     1,856

Following one of the principles of the Voice (i.e.  "A numerator without a denominator is useless"), I confirmed with the Chief that officer hours-on-the-street are essentially the same over the seven years.  The only real conclusion I can make from the stats is the Covid lockdown years led to a 30-50% decrease in accidents, stops and citations.  The rebound last year was fairly slow as well.

It would be easy to attribute the numbers to more working-from-home, crazy gas prices, kids postponing getting their licenses, or whatever else you can think of, but they show stability--at least in B'game.  The denominator we don't have is miles-driven in town.  Update:  A reader requested some further breakdown of the types of citations in the total, so BPD has been able to peel the onion a bit.  Here are some key categories:

• Distracted driving (cellphones): 31%
• Speed:  19%
• Stop signs:  13%
• Failure to obey a sign other than a stop sign (i.e. no left turn sign, no right on red sign, etc.):  9%
• Failure to yield to a pedestrian:  2%
• Vehicles driving in bike lanes:  2%
• Failure to yield while turning:  1%

              

Crime numbers in review: 2022

BPD rolls up the prior year in local crime each January and we dutifully report it to you.  All in all, it appears that 2022 was pretty much the same as the last couple of years with the exception of catalytic converter thefts which are on a steep trajectory upwards.  We touched on the topic in March here.  In the comments on that post, you can read about CATGUARD.  I'll check on whether B'game is thinking about it like San Mateo and update this.

My guess is porch pirate thefts are seriously underreported to BPD.  Just looking at the Ring camera footage from nearby neighborhoods, two per month seems low.  Remember that all of these numbers are monthly - so we had 36 residential burglaries reported in 2022, 288 stolen vehicles, and so on down the list.

Monthly Average                        2016    2017    2018    2019      2020    2021    2022

Residential Burglaries                   5        2            3        3          2            2        3

Vehicle Burglaries                      23      25        21       39         20         25       24

     Thefts from Unlocked Vehicles                              -          14            8        5

Commercial Burglaries                  9      4            5        4            6            5        5

     Construction site theft                                             -           1            1        1

     Package thefts                                                        -            4            2        2

Other Thefts                               60      51        56        61          -             -        -

Catalytic Converter Theft                                                          6            9        11

Robberies                                    1        1          1         2           2             2        1       

Stolen Vehicles                            9         6        4            6         9             7        8

Vandalism                                  13    13          11       12          13           13        13

 

Not reported in these statistics is the traffic enforcement trends.  Purely anecdotally, as noted here, we need more traffic enforcement.  Watching people speed up 40 yards from a yellow light and blast through the red is a daily occurrence.  I would love to see BPD be funded to add at least two more officers dedicated to this.  

Does the whole County need remedial driving class?

This post has been on my radar for about two months since I spoke to a man-about-town who lives a half block off of the California Dr. speedway.  He told me about a guy in a new Corvette who blasted down California, but an officer just happened to be nearby for another reason.  One got caught, but he says most don't.  Then last week I was at the ECR-Howard Ave. Safeway intersection when two incidents happened within 10 seconds of each other.  First, someone seems to have forgotten that drivers coming straight at you from across the intersection have right-of-way over you turning left.  Horn blows.  And then someone driving west on Howard decides to do the medium speed "California stop" turning north on ECR.  Except there are three people well into the crosswalk.  The pedestrian closest was fortunately agile and quick and he needed to be to avoid spending a week in the hospital.  This is a regular occurrence there.  Lyon-Hoag has been complaining about this for years.

The stories go on.  A merchant on B'way told me a pedestrian did get clipped there a week ago even with the seizure-inducing crosswalk lights going off.  That's before jaywalking becomes legal statewide in the pursuit of "racial justice".  And of course, there is the absolutely tragic, heart-breaking story from Redwood CIty of a 23-year-old racing a 17-year-old in a BMW M-series at 80-90 mph on ECR at 8pm.  Two parents killed and twin 7-year-girls orphaned.  You can see drivers doing 50+ on ECR in B'game all the time even with the lousy road surface.  Maybe we really don't want it fixed?

Does the whole County need remedial driving class?  Maybe, but for sure we need more traffic enforcement--a lot more.  Recall during the 2020 Townhall on "use of force" when my second question was asked:  "If the city allocated 10% more funding to BPD today, how would it utilize the funds?"  This was during the nationwide idiocy called "defund the police".  Chief Matteucci took about 1.5 seconds to respond, "I would add more traffic enforcement".  Exactly!  But our city council doesn't quite get it yet.  During the non-debate prior to the last non-election, three candidates were asked about public safety.  As Russ wrote in the post

In short, (Ricardo Ortiz) stated that the council has not been asked to increase the number of patrol personnel, so by inference, there is no need to increase the number of individuals on the BPD. Wait? What?

I think it's time we asked for a couple more cops on the street.  I would say "let's get ahead of this curve" but we are already behind the curve so let's just catch-up.  None of the statistics show the near misses, but if you are regularly walking, riding or driving in town you see them.  In the meantime, keep your head on a swivel.

School warning: Get protected

I have a bit of background in the computer security arena--just enough to know it's complicated and hard to defend oneself.  I also have some background advising various levels of government agencies on their technology decisions.  For the most part, they are trailing edge shops with limited budgets and older technology.  So when I read this Calmatters.org piece on schools being unprepared, I was not surprised in the least.

If Los Angeles Unified, the state’s largest school district, can be hit with a ransomware attack, how prepared are California’s public schools for the increasing threat of cyberattacks?  It depends, according to experts working in the field of cybersecurity and information technology in the state’s public schools. Some districts might have a handful of cybersecurity professionals on staff, while others don’t have any. On top of that, there are currently no statewide guidelines for digital security at school districts.

Public schools possess confidential data ranging from Social Security numbers to health records and financial information. While the Los Angeles Unified attack has drawn national attention, Loftus says this prominent case is just the latest example of public education’s vulnerability to cyberattacks.   “Education is a mash-up of multiple different sectors,” he said. “We are transportation providers. We provide food and nutrition services. We have school nurses and so much more.”  And as school districts and the state took steps to close the digital divide during the pandemic, more students online means more blindspots vulnerable to cyberattacks.

The shame of the whole scenario is that BSD, SMUSHD and even the city of B'game and the county spend a lot of energy on things that are far less important.  Some of that is forced upon them like going to district-based elections.  But a lot of it is self-inflicted.  If we put as much effort into hardening our tech as we do forcing the march to an all-electric future we would be a lot safer.  I really hope our misplaced priorities don't end up costing the taxpayers a ton of ransom money.

Crime: "We have no tolerance...." or do we?

I search out the Daily Post to keep an eye on points south of us since events in the larger cities like Palo Alto, Mountain View and RWC not only affect us now, but could be a forerunner of what will happen in the future here.  Yesterday's issue was disturbing.  The two top of front page headlines were "Panhandler arrested after violent spree" and "Woman charged in hijab attack".  The first article noted that a downtown Palo Alto "panhandler" was arrested after threatening or spitting on four people, including a man in his 80's who refused to give her money.  10 minutes later a similar incident and couple minutes later she grabbed a bottle off a table at a nearby cafe and threatened another person.  Then one more after that.  She was previously arrested on Jan. 22, 2021 but that was dismissed on July 1, 2021.  She was arrested this year on June 23 and August 5.

The second article describes a female transient attacking a teenager wearing a hijab in downtown Mountain View.  Two women came to her rescue and the attacker fled on a bicycle but was apprehended.  The attacker already faces a charge of brandishing a dangerous weapon on June 24, 2022.  The Santa Clara DA, Jeff Rosen, declared in the article "We have no tolerance for those whose intolerance crosses the line into criminality and violence".  Excuse me?  It doesn't seem like the actions match the words.

I had a similar sense of impending trouble on Broadway on Monday.  Someone who appeared on the edge of being out of control had taken up residence on the bench in front of Wells Fargo.  And then there is this from yesterday's DJ:

Will we learn that this guy has a history that predates August?  I hope not, but "hope is not a strategy".

PSA: Elder abuse in the County

As a favor to a long-time reader who requested such a post in order to gather ideas on what to do, I'll drift into a new area-- elder abuse, especially financial abuse.  I am also aware of a case years ago that was never pursued by law enforcement even though there was ample evidence, in my opinion.  The long-time reader writes (edited down a bit):

My parents have and are still experiencing Elder Abuse by their Caretakers. As of today, $300,000 and "counting." I have been in contact with APS, DA, Police, and much more. Jackie Speier's office at least inquired.  My Father will (probably die) of skin cancer within two weeks.  My mother is on 24/7 oxygen and has severe mental as well as other "end of life" medical problems.  Did I mention one of their caretakers made a Full Confession to the San Bruno Police- Case # SNB 2201541.  No arrests. This started 6 months ago.

Again, this is coming from a long-time reader and I have not verified any of it, but if anyone has any ideas, I am sure they would be welcome.  The last census showed 17.5% of the population in San Mateo County is over 65 and the median age has been rising just like the rest of the country.

Not all graffiti is all bad

Most of the graffiti around town is ugly and indecipherable.  Here was an example from last month that was both before it was painted over.  While it's all illegal, every once in a while, a real artist drops a bit in a less objectionable location.  This example is on the side of the raised roadbed over by the entrance to Coyote Point as you turn towards the Humane Society.  You can only see it if you are headed out of the park and look down.  It gave me a laugh.

Busy Tuesday night for burglars

When we did the annual crime round-up here the vehicle burglaries (from locked vehicles) were running 25 per month.  It looks like June might be the month that sets a new record if this sort of thing keeps up.

Graffiti Rosetta Stone?

It's been a while since we had a notable (i.e. notably bad) graffiti sighting, but a burst has reappeared on the walkway next to the Walgreens on Burlingame Ave.  Is this a back-and-forth between opposing taggers?  Anyone got a Rosetta Stone on this?  Is it a tribute to Jackson Pollack?  I assume Walgreens itself has been keeping that wall clear and has been doing a great job of it recently.