The Burlingame Voice

City Council: Brownrigg floats term limits

I'm not sure how widely Mayor Brownrigg sent out the e-mail below.  It's probably fairly widespread, but I spoke to a couple people who are "active" and they have not seen it, so I will go ahead and share it with Voice readers as Michael suggests at the bottom.  My comments below.

Dear friends of Burlingame civic life:

I am writing a heads up note to you about an item I put on the agenda for next Monday, December 4, which happens to be my last substantive meeting as mayor.

And before I explain more, I want to preemptively say that I FULLY understand the irony of my study item!

So my study item is whether Burlingame City Council and/or its commissions ought to have term limits going forward. Here is why I think it merits a conversation now.

When I got on Council I asked about the idea of term limits and I was told that, because the elections are at-large, all the voters get to pick who they think are the best 5 people to lead the city, and often that might be someone with a lot of experience and solid track record. After seeing how hard it was to run for re-election, I completely agreed with this point of view. It is hard to run and each election (until the most recent one), I felt I really had to earn my seat against worthy opponents.

My views changed during the last election, which was our first set of district elections (which I resisted but knew we would have to accept due to state law). In 2022 there were three Burlingame council races without a single competitor; I cannot recall any Burlingame election ever when there was not at least one credible competitor and very often several or even many competitors, creating active debates, giving the voters real choices, and making candidates earn their spot on Council.

I conclude that district elections -- which effectively cut Burlingame down from a city of 30,000 to one of 6,000 for each candidate -- significantly diminish voter choice. In the pre-District days, it usually took at least 2,500 votes to win a seat (depending on the number of candidates) and often 3,000 or more; with districts the top vote getter got 2,000 and the others around 1500 each. Had there been competitors, that number would have been much smaller, perhaps in the hundreds.

So I raise these questions now -- yes, yes, after 4 terms -- do we collectively worry about a candidate sort of "owning" a district such that opponents do not want to take the field? Are we concerned that there might not always being two people in each district who even want to run, let alone two capable people to choose between? 

I do not come into this conversation with a point of view -- I simply wanted to raise the question while I could. And while I was at it, I decided to also put on the table the question of term limits for commissioners because I can see how very hard it is for Council to vote off incumbents and yet I also see how many more applications we get when there is an actual open seat on a commission. The commissions create our city's bench strength, I think, and therefore also worthy of a conversation about term limits.

If you want to weigh in, PLEASE DO. You can send a comment to the City Clerk, you can write to the whole Council, or you can show up; sadly, you cannot call in "live" any more because of the zoom-jerks. And feel free to share with anyone else who cares about how we elect our leaders going forward. Again, I am looking forward to the conversation, I am not advocating an outcome.

If there is sufficient consensus to do something, then staff would be sent away to develop options. If the status quo emerges as the preferred alternative, well, at least I asked!

Very best,

Michael

---------------------------

It strikes me that term limits would confuse cause and effect.  The cause of the scarcity of candidates is the lousy election law Michael refers to and we covered here, here and here creating five tiny districts.  It's voter suppression pure and simple and should have caused a consortium of other small cities (<100,000) throughout the state to beg, plead, cajole or sue for exemptions.  Have Diane Papan and Josh Becker scour the halls of Sacramento for support.  It's actually not too late since we are starting to have early data on the deleterious impact.

Having said that, I go back to my suggestion when this all started.  Instead of five little districts, we could have created two (East side, West side anyone?)  And left 3 seats "at large".  Or cut the city in thirds and leave two "at large".  It's also not too late.  If the SoCal lawyer behind all of this wants to sue, let him.  We wouldn't know how it would play out unless we try.  If someone was put off by a strong district incumbent, they could run at large.  It would be more time consuming and expensive but perhaps easier to actually win.

The main problem with term limits is the loss of institutional knowledge on council.  Even ten years gone from office now, my wife still has insights from her three terms on council that I believe would take a newly elected council member years to acquire.  The de facto term limit we have now is the often-thankless nature of the job.  My sense is the number of people willing to step up to 12, 16 or 20 year stints is diminishing.  Just a guess.  Thoughts, dear readers?

BSD: Caught between two parcel taxes

As the B'game School District trustees look at options for more funding, the same fatigue I wrote about here three-and-a-half years ago is still lingering.  The story gets more complicated by a competing proposal as reported in the DJ.  The first proposal extends the old 2014 Measure L (not the recent SMUSHD L) that you see on the property tax bills that arrived this week.  You see all of four current school-related line items on the bill.  The other proposal is different.

During a meeting Tuesday, Oct. 10, trustees discussed their options for possibly extending and increasing Measure L, a $256 per year per parcel tax passed in 2014. The measure is set to expire by 2030 but the board can decide to ask voters for a renewal ahead of time.

Also up for consideration was whether the board had an interest in endorsing a parent-led movement to pass a citizens’ initiative and whether doing so would be legal. That effort is being led by John Wood and Bryant McLaughlin, parents of Roosevelt Elementary School students, and if passed would charge property owners about 8 cents per square foot per parcel or $80 per vacant parcel, generating about $2 million annually. Someone with a 5,000-square-foot parcel would pay $400 a year.

Per some consultant

While a citizens’ initiative needs a simple majority to pass, the district would have no control over how that citizen measure was crafted. Meanwhile, a district measure would need a two-thirds vote for approval but it would get to use its resources to poll the community before developing ballot language, he said.

The city and district would likely need to develop a memorandum of understanding regarding the citizens’ initiative including a possible reimbursement plan for the city fronting the money for the ballot measure (Ed: $330K-448K) were the citizens’ initiative to be put before voters and other oversight grounds if it were approved.

The moving parts are what sort of tax format to use (rates, sunset clauses, etc) and who manages and oversees the monies (the City or the District).  Back in 2020, the bond Measure O passed with 60.17%, well above the 55% needed, so there is already $25 per $100,000 of assessed (not market) value per year in place.  And then there is the issue of getting it passed

Trustee Florence Wong also suggested the study look into whether the public would support the district’s measure with or without changes if another tax measure was on the ballot. Reflecting on previous failed attempts by the district to pass a tax measure, Wong said incremental or smaller changes appear to be more appealing to voters.

“People still remembered when the parcel taxes they tried to pass didn’t, so that’s a stinger when it doesn’t pass. There’s a lot of thought and anxiety about trying to add more taxes,” Wong said. “I feel very confident people would be supportive of continuing what we have.”

She's right.  When the four flavors of tax already total to two grand per year, there is uncertainty about adding more.

Supervisor Jackie...Again?

I know well the exact sentiment of working a job I love but having to deal with the need to be on the East Coast 10, 15 times a year.  2500 miles out, 2500 miles back, rinse and repeat.  SFO-JFK..gag me with a plastic United Airlines spoon.  U.S. Reps must do that 30+ times a year-- or more.  So the Mark Simon bombshell column in today's DJ struck me differently than most people.  Here's the nub from the column:

Sources close to former U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier confirm she is on the brink of entering the race for San Mateo County Supervisor in District 1.

That would be our district where the Papan-Beach catfight has barely started.

Close associates of Speier, who agreed to speak about her plans if they remained unidentified, said she has decided she will enter the race. This comes less than three scant years after she announced she was leaving Congress, opting out of certain reelection to an eighth term representing the bulk of San Mateo County in Congress.

Speier has been urged to run by longtime friends and allies, who have become alarmed by the seemingly leftward direction of the Board of Supervisors and a loss of civility and decorum among the supervisors, particularly Supervisor David Canepa, according to sources.

How left is too left has to be the question of the year?  If you were paying attention at the time, this bit from Simon's column was not news, but it bears repeating

In the same ICE debate (that is linked above), Canepa also sharply criticized ABC-7 investigative reporter Stephanie Sierra, who had conducted interviews with Canepa in which he seemed under-informed on the issue. Sierra is Speier’s daughter.

The drive down to Redwood City takes about as long as clearing TSA at SFO.  Let's see wait one minute to see if Mark Simon's sources are pseudo-authorized, but the political theater demands a ticket.

Update: Sept. 21   Rather than start a new post or just put this in the comments, I'll add it here.  It's important.  Speier has joined the race and effectively ended the race since Papan and Beach have dropped out.  Mark Simon at the DJ has a column today noting this about Supe collegiality:

Speier clearly was referencing a board debate in April over county cooperation with ICE and an outburst by Supervisor David Canepa in which he attacked Supervisor Ray Mueller as racist. She declined to single out a board member. “We don’t move forward if we start pointing fingers. I worry that’s diminishing,” Speier said.

Speier also said if Mueller were to reintroduce his amendment to the ICE ordinance, which prompted the Canepa comments and which was defeated 4-1, she would support it, and seek to add additional amendments allowing the county to cooperate further with ICE.

And, asked if she thought the board was shifting too far to the left, Speier said, “If I’m basing it on that one decision, I’d say yes. When you’re more left than San Francisco, you’re too left. I think we’ve just got to use a little more common sense.”

Bingo.  I wish I had heard that from either Beach or Papan.  I did not.  If I missed it let me know.  I would rather not wait a year for movement on this, but at least there is hope. 

Papan vs. Beach: Pining for a Supe Seat

News reporters like to report on campaign donations and prominent donors.  It's pretty easy to do given the required filings and it's a lot easier than digging into the issues a couple of layers and comparing candidate responses.  That is especially true when we are early in the race.  Emily Mibach at the Daily Post did just that with the race to replace Dave Pine's seat as a SM County Supervisor representing the district from San Bruno south to B'game.  It's funny in a way since you can only find the Post in about five places in B'game and nowhere north of here.  But I applaud her doing her homework.

The headline is that for the first six months of the year, Emily Beach outraised Gina Papan by about $50,000.  Reporters often overlook what happened prior to the current reporting period (ask me how I know) and where other monies might come from like supportive PAC money.  Often times the donors are more important than the donation amounts.  As the Post piece points out, Papan is drawing from SF and San Mateo County while Beach has a wider small donor network and draws from further south.

A point-in-time difference of $50K isn't really meaningful.  Both candidates will be able to raise what they need to run a visible campaign.  What voters will be looking for is clear positions about undoing some of the harm the last Board did--overtly and by omission.  Telling the Sheriff's Department it cannot cooperate with ICE to deport convicted rapists and child molesters would be a good start.  Where do they stand on things like the La Quinta Inn purchase in Millbrae or, more generally, respecting neighborhood rights?  What ideas do they have to keep the SB9 vultures at bay?  Aside from raising tolls and fees, what is their plan to fix the infrastructure in the County?  Who understands County finances and can suggest how to do more with less?  And which one will leave our gas appliances alone?  That's what I'll be looking for.

San Mateo council chaos as a harbinger

I've had a motivation challenge on making new posts since last week's very difficult post, so here are a couple of simple "just taking notice" posts to get back on track.  Our southern neighbor, San Mateo, is in city council turmoil as noted by the DJ in both the news pieces, a deluge of letters to the editor and Mark Simon's column.  With three new members and an open seat from Diane Papan winning an Assembly seat, the 2-2 tug-of-war over the mayorship is a sight to behold.  Simon notes

Most of the time, the title of mayor rotates between councilmembers and is largely ceremonial — the person presides at council meetings, cuts ribbons, gets to deliver a largely fungible “state of the city” address and is the center of attention for a year. Ah, not this time.

Having been married to a mayor, I can tell you there's a bit more to it than that.  Committee assignments, setting the bi-monthly agenda, certain management tasks and setting the direction of inter-city interactions are some examples.  But all of that aside for the moment, we should ask if the chaos in San Mateo is a harbinger of things to come in B'game?  Back to Simon

There were announcements of recall efforts targeting both Diaz Nash and Lee. Some flatly declared that blocking the election of a mayor violated the city charter, which it does not, and that it ran contrary to published guidelines on how the council is supposed to elect a mayor, which it does. But guidelines are, you know, only guidelines.  Monday night’s (city council meeting) hootenanny laid bare some significant incisions within the body politic.

Not the least of which is that district elections have wrought a profound change on local politics, including an unprecedented political immunity. Opponents can launch a recall effort to oust Diaz Nash, but it is likely she and her views are completely safe in her district.

Tiny little districts (ours average about 6,000 people each and voter turnout is usually around 15-18%) may make for safe seats or they may make recalls easier to qualify--or both.  The time, money and hassle of special elections and spot campaigning of it all is completely predictable.  And sad.

2022 Council non-races are decided. Decidedly concerning.

Very few people seem happy about moving to district-based elections for city council or school boards, but nobody has a plan for changing the state legislation loophole that a SoCal lawyer crawled through to force this on us.  We discussed the 80% voter suppression this generates for the Burlingame city council here.  Last night was the perfect example of the problem.  Incumbents Ricardo Ortiz and Michael Brownrigg walked back into their seats in District 1 and 3 unopposed.  But the oddest thing was the result in District 5 where Rachel Cyr remained on the ballot even though she put out a social media message withdrawing from the race EIGHT WEEKS ago.  (One of the nice things about the Voice is you can go back in time and see these sorts of things--see the Sept. 1 comment on the old post.)  That was too late to get her name off the ballot.

The concerning thing is that after withdrawing, sending out no mailers - snail mail or otherwise--having no lawn signs, knocking on no doors, appearing at no candidates' forums and having a couple of local papers note the withdrawal, 236 people in District 5 still voted for her as of the first 8:10 pm tally last night!  Talk about a "threat to democracy" election.  This is the closest vote to your doorstep you can cast.  C'mon people, let's pay attention.  Please?  This afternoon the total for Cyr is 302.  Just doing the quick math, if this had been the old city-wide election, we might have 5 x 302 = 1510 people not paying attention but voting anyway.  That is a third of the actual voters!

CD15: Peas-in-a-Pod for Free Stuff

We are down to the final days before we know who will replace Jackie Speier in Congress.  The scramble started last November when she announced her retirement. Kevin Mullin is likely to be the winner, but I doubt it makes much difference since their positions are basically clones of each other's.  Since we have the new Free Stuff (Not) category, I'll give you another example from the Daily Post's running Q&A with the two candidates.  Yesterday we learned the two peas-in-a-pod think this 

Notice two things:  The Daily Post constructed the question too narrowly.  First, the people who paid off their loans are being taken advantage of and neither candidate says a word about it. That was the question.  But secondarily, the worse harm is to working folks (taxpayers) who pulled it off without taking a loan in the first place!  The ones who didn't go to college or whose family saved enough to pull it off are being abused by this blatant money grab from taxpayers--to the tune of about $605 billion, with a B.  Sadly, the seat may change, but the mindset will not.

California exodus accelerates in 2022

A year ago, the exodus from our lovely state was news as we discussed here.  The trend has accelerated which should accelerate the review of the state's housing requirement numbers as noted here.  The odd thing about the faulty RHNA numbers is that no one wants to talk about them.  I have mentioned it to several electeds and a watchdog news organization and all I get is crickets.  As a city, try to ignore them and Rob Bonta will be all in your face, but question them and he's silent.  You would think when a state auditor says this about the calculations, someone would go "hold on":

“Overall, our audit determined that HCD does not ensure that its needs assessments are accurate and adequately supported. …This insufficient oversight and lack of support for its considerations risks eroding public confidence that HCD is informing local governments of the appropriate amount of housing they will need.”

If someone is saying "hold on" they are doing it quietly behind closed doors.  But this is what is occurring in California out in the open from the WSJ:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom boasted this week that his state is poised to become the world’s fourth largest economy. Perhaps, thanks to Germany’s economic struggles, but a new Hoover Institution report documents an accelerating business flight from the Golden State.

The report by Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and Spectrum Location Solutions President Joseph Vranich finds that 352 companies moved their headquarters from California between 2018 and 2021. Twice as many businesses left last year (153) than in 2020 and 2019 and three times as many as in 2018. The top destinations: Texas (132), Tennessee (31), Nevada (25), Florida (24) and Arizona (21).

California’s high top marginal income-tax rate (13.3%) punishes small pass-through businesses that pay income taxes at the individual rate as well as managers in C-suites. Manufacturers get slammed by high electricity costs from the state’s climate policies. The Mercatus Center ranks California as the most highly regulated state in the U.S.

Human capital is also becoming more scarce. The report notes that California’s net out-migration to other states increased to 277,000 in 2021 from 34,000 in 2012. Over the last 10 years, California has lost 1.625 million residents to other states—more than the population of Philadelphia. Foreign migration has compensated, but less so in recent years.

Tally that up with the layoffs and hiring slowdowns being reported at the major firms in the Bay Area, and you could say my "confidence is eroded" in the RHNA numbers that drive all of the residential building being jammed down our throats.  And the electoral response?  Raise the top marginal tax rate some more (Prop. 30) under the guise of fighting wildfires and encouraging more electric cars--like we don't already have enough subsidies and browbeating for EVs. 

Business Licenses: X misses the mark

Now that you have your ballot, you see that you have only one B'game-specific vote to cast--to increase (or not) the B'game business license fees.  (District 5ers also have a city council non-race to vote in since Rachel Cyr withdrew, but after the ballots were set.)  I'm of mixed mind on Measure X, and not because of a reflexive dislike of tax/fee increases although I do have that too.  I get that licenses have been $100/yr for every business forever, but I think the city missed the mark at the high-end of the tax schedule.  You won't find it anywhere but on the city site here, so I will retype the proposed schedule:

            Gross receipts of the business                    Annual license fee

           < $250K                                                        $200

            $250K to $1M                                                $300

            > $1M                                                           $750

That's it.   You can gross $1.25M or $125M and you pay the same amount.  Or $1.25B, looking at you Meta/Facebook/Oculus.  Not sure why there isn't a $20M or $40M level with a good-sized number attached to it.  Many cities take a percentage of gross receipts--I'm not in favor of that, but shouldn't some of the big companies adding crushing density and traffic to our town pay more than $750?

The other aspect of the measure that needs mentioning is the last bit of text which reads "....until ended by voters, requiring audits and all funds staying in Burlingame".  Sounds innocuous enough, but the Oct. 10 Daily Post ran a frontpage article titled "Ballot wording called misleading".  It describes a Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury report that calls out several ballot measures' language that may be misleading:

That included phrases such as "until ended by voters," which falsely implies that the measure includes a way for voters to repeal it later, the grand jury said.  The grand jury report, released on Friday, pointed to other deceptive "tricks and tactics" used in ballot questions, such as adding the feel-good phrases like "all funds spent locally".

Whooops.  Measure X is two-for-two.  We shall see if anyone decides to use the Santa Clara findings to challenge the result here in B'game.

No election. No debate. One overview.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted here. I’ve been busy, or maybe nothing has motivated me to put together a post?  But having attended last night’s candidates forum at the Burlingame Woman’s Club featuring candidates Michael Brownrigg, Ricardo Ortiz and Peter Stevenson, I feel the urge to render an opinion. Let me get right to it. I was “disappointed.”

First, I was discouraged at the size of the crowd attending to listen to the candidates. It was a shadow of the size of the crowd that attended such forums in the past. The engagement of the crowd was underwhelming as well. The questions asked were few and not tough enough.

Most importantly, I was let down that all three candidates were running unopposed. This too is a far cry from the crowded fields we’ve seen in the  past here in Burlingame.

Alright, let’s not dwell on the past and focus on the present. I will be naming names here as I believe the readership has a right to know. I will most likely be an equal opportunity offender in this regard.

I’ll try to react to the questions and answers given.

First up, The answer Council member Ortiz gave regarding public safety and growth was weak at best. In short, he 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? Does he not see the increase in petty crime, car break-ins, porch pirates, catalytic converter thefts? Does the council need to be asked to increase staffing? Really? The question was trying to tie growth and development to a need to increase the force. In my opinion, there is a lack of patrol in our neighborhoods, there is no substation on the bayfront where massive development is slated ( and the crime rate is higher due to the transient nature of the area) and both Ortiz and Brownrigg are not concerned? This outlook has me concerned.

Bothered by the comments from both candidate Council member Brownrigg and first-time candidate Stevenson when discussing growth. Both agreed with one another that Burlingame can no longer be a quaint bedroom community to San Francisco, it’s simply no longer possible, according to them. I, for one, want council members that recognize that the beauty of our community has always been its quaint, smalltown community feel. If this notion is disregarded than the fabric of the community is at risk. I want council members to protect this town, not just add and support what seems like unbridled growth. Did I say disappointing?

Brownrigg also said that studies have shown that Burlingame can handle more growth and that we still have capacity for even more density.  Someone asked regarding the issue of growth, “When is enough, enough?” All candidates didn’t really know how to answer this question. To me this is a red flag moment. Isn’t this one of the biggest issues facing Burlingame today? Council member Ortiz made a convoluted comment that more density is actually making our property values even higher. Not sure I understand that logic, so I won’t dwell on this point.

From my perspective, there is much more density in the pipeline than I ever imagined when I moved here over 27 years ago. Reminder there are seven, eight, nine and ten story buildings ready for approval right now. I’ve said it here on The Voice years ago that Burlingame will be unrecognizable and sadly, it is coming true faster than I thought.

Simply put, there didn’t seem to be any real concern over growth from any of the candidates. In fact, there seemed to be a satisfaction that the revenue generated by growth is worth it. This gives me great cause for concern. On the east side of town, District 5, I would have thought candidate Stevenson would have a stronger position as much of the development has a direct effect on District 5. ( District 5 not only represents the residential neighborhoods on the east side of Burlingame, it also encompasses the bayfront.)

There was some justification that growth comes with benefits like open space like what is planned for the massive downtown development that is being constructed at the downtown post office site for example. Concerts, gathering spots, places to play chess were mentioned specifically by Council member Brownrigg. The notion of closing Burlingame Avenue to vehicular traffic was also mentioned. I would suggest that all three candidates talk to experts like those with the Project for Public Spaces to gather bonified expert opinions before rendering their so-called expert opinion on open space and street closures. These are issues have unintended consequences and that again will change the fabric of Burlingame and should be taken seriously before any decisions are made. Covid has made the talk of street closures a popular topic. Perhaps I will opine on this subject in a separate post as it is a complex issue that much of time is oversimplified. Proceed with caution, I say.

Finally, there was a topic upon which I actually agreed with an answer. The topic of Broadway was on the docket and Council member Ortiz eluded to the fact that property owners bore some responsibility for the look and feel of the street having lacked the pride of ownership of their respective storefronts. It’s not simply just a streetscape improvement issue. I would add that no one seems to have the institutional memory that Broadway improvements actually happened well before the improvements to Burlingame Avenue. New bulb outs were built that included seating capacity, the old Magnolia trees were removed and brand-new trees were planted and new sidewalks were poured. Granted those improvements are now about 20 years old, but what is the schedule for wholesale streetscape improvements anyway? Seems to me that based on Burlingame Avenue and nearby downtown’s, infrastructure improvements generally happen about once a century.

One observation. All three candidates seemed to agree with one another on all the issues presented. Where is the independent thinking? Where are the strong perspectives? Where’s the debate? Is this what we have to look forward to—four years of, ”I concur, I agree, good point, well said?” Good lord.

So, there you have it. My take on the forum was disappointment all the way around.

As forum moderator Renaldo Pasquali accurately stated, it was nice to hear from the candidates, but in the end there really is no election. All the candidates are running unopposed. Perhaps there should be a new rule? If there are uncontested district races at the time of final candidate filing, or a candidate who has filed pulls out of the race, the filing deadline should be extended so that candidates who might have been considering running have another moment in time to consider throwing their names into the hat so that elections aren’t a wasted exercise. Just a thought.