The Burlingame Voice

AI: The County Full Employment Act of 2025?

Here is a classic entry for the Friends with Benefits category.  Our Supes, in their wisdom, have passed a resolution that requires county departments to "suggest new jobs to create" if positions are cut due to the implementation of AI.  Let that settle in for moment...or three.  I suppose one could use AI to suggest the imaginary jobs, but wouldn't that be circular illogic?

Our newest supe, Jackie Speier, is quoted in the Daily Post as saying, "There was an Industrial Revolution, now there's the AI revolution....We're going to have to adapt."  How about "We're going to have to adapt exploit"?  Voila.  Fixed.

If I had told any of my former bosses over 40 years in the Real World that I knew of a way to do the same or more work with less resources, but I wanted to "create" some new positions to make up for the savings, I would have been laughed out of the building.  If you were thinking we might be moving towards Adult Supervision down in RWC, you might want to "create a new sentiment" to replace that old, tired out one.

Fun with economics and the SF Examiner

I pick up the SF Examiner along with the other local papers when it's in the box.  It's a short eight page read in most issues and not a lot different in perspective than the SF Comicle.  So, you wouldn't expect to see some supply-side economics--that of the dismissed "trickle down" or "voodoo" variety-- in the Examiner.  My guess is they didn't even realize it Thursday when writing "Medicaid, SNAP cuts could cost California 140,000 jobs".   The lead reads

The federal budget plan directs the committees that control Medicaid and Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program spending to find a combined $1.1 trillion in cuts over 10 years to help offset trillions in tax cuts — and the report finds the resulting losses would hit California the hardest.

The first bit of fun with economics is to correct the misstatement "to help offset trillions in tax cuts".  Tax rates get cut (or in this case, lower rates simply don't expire and revert upwards).  What happens to tax dollars collected after that depends on many factors, not all negative, but that is a topic for another day.  The article starts down the trickling path thusly

Such businesses would see their revenue shrink, which would trickle down to their employees further in the supply chain, across food production, farming and medical equipment manufacturing.  As firms would have to reduce salaries, staffing, or goods and services to make up for the losses, consumer habits would change too, reducing the amount state and local governments are able to collect in taxes, the report finds.

Additionally, nearly 140,000 California jobs would be lost in directly related fields such as agriculture, food processing, pharmacy and nursing, and indirectly related fields such as retail and manufacturing. The state’s gross domestic product would suffer a projected loss in 2026 of $17 billion.

All of this sounds dire.  One domino falling after another.  The Examiner finds it problematic because it's Federal (i.e. taxpayer) dollars that are disappearing.  But what is the difference if it were private sector dollars declining?  Businesses burdened by over regulation, crazy licensing and labor rules and high tax rates suffer the same consequences, minus the skim at each level of the government trough.  Will the tax-and-spend crowd notice the similarity at some point?

A trillion dollars is a lot of money anyway you look at it--even spread over 10 years.  Will getting some semblance of fiscal stability in the federal budget, deficit and debt be good in the long run?  We don't have a lot of choice given the recent trajectory.

Friends with 3 million e-Benefits

Back in May, just before the new fiscal year started, the AP reported that

Newsom announced on Friday a $26.7 billion deficit, but it’s really closer to $45 billion. That’s because Newsom didn’t include roughly $17.3 billion worth of actions he and lawmakers already agreed on. Those included a cut of $3.6 billion in primarily one-time funding to some school, welfare and climate programs. The plan also delays and defers about $5.2 billion in spending for various programs, including $1 billion to fund rail and public transit systems.

So how do you manage a massive deficit?  The same way you eat an elephant.  One bite at a time.  Here's an easy morsel from the city e-newsletter this week.

The California E-Bike Incentive Project application window is officially open.

During this application period, the program will award up to 1500 vouchers to income-qualified residents for incentives up to $2000 that can be redeemed at numerous participating E-Bike retailers. Additional application windows with more incentives will become available later in 2025.

1500 x $2000 = $3 million.  It's a good thing more "incentive$" are coming.  Perhaps the only way to get quickly through the Broadway interchange in 2026 will be on an e-bike.  In the meantime, what is Spin's incentive to haul away deserted e-bikes? (hat tip:  regular reader)

Badges! Badges! We need stinkin' badges!

The sheriff Corpus soap opera continues apace with near daily updates since the last post 10 days ago.  Much of the drip, drip is due to reporters, editors and columnists sifting through the 400-page report from the retired judge than led to the county Supes moves against the sheriff.  The Daily Post is on the case again today with a photo of Chief of Staff Victor Aenlle wearing a badge that looks just like a deputy's badge.  The article states that he is "likely committing a crime by impersonating a police officer".  But wait, there's more.  Aenlle had other badges made up and was passing them out to friends and colleagues at a local non-profit.  Hence the Daily Post headline "Anyone want a sheriff's badge".  Blazing Saddles and The Treasure of Sierra Madre had it right after all.

I had heard from a couple sources that Aenlle is a Burlingamer, but had not made any effort to verify it.  The Post just did the legwork for me by citing his B'gamer status in today's piece.  The second article on changing the code on a rifle storage locker continues the drip, drip as does editor Dave Price's column about trusting sheriff's departments.  I don't see this drip dripping until a March special election.

Soap Opera at the Sheriff's Office

Some soap operas air weekly, but the one down at the Sheriff's office is running daily at this point and is it ever well-written--if you like soap operas.  Personally, I don't.  Especially when it involves the operation of the largest and perhaps most critical department in the County.  I have had reservations about Sheriff Corpus' management skills from the get-go--two and a half years ago as noted here.  The Daily Post has led the way tracking Corpus' leadership as noted here and in the subsequent comments.  The Daily Journal has focused in on the "chaos" lately here and here as has the SF Chronicle on the front page here.

As various reporters dig into the 400-page investigative report by the retired judge the Supes hired, more details are revealed that caused the Supes to unanimously ask for Corpus' resignation and to abolish her chief of staff's position; right before she showed up at the meeting and promoted him to Assistant Sheriff live during public comment.  As Mark Simon noted in his DJ column opener in the print edition: "It appears that getting rid of a sheriff is going to be a lot more difficult than electing one."  The on-line version relies on poet Dylan Thomas' verse.  There is plenty of nitty-gritty in the column for a civics lesson on the legal wranglings ahead.

One thing that hasn't been noted in the reporting is Corpus' compensation.  Per transparentcalifornia.com, her total pay is $466K per year plus benefits that take total comp to $701K per year.  That is a 42% bump from getting elected sheriff (verses her captain's comp running the Millbrae force that the sheriff's office contracts).  The step up in responsibility and visibility was much higher--as she is now finding out.  With one senior person who was vocal about some of the problems under arrest and two, or is it three, recent resignations, one could question how the ship is being steered at the moment.  It all goes to a key point that a very smart B'game city councilor made years ago when we were considering merging BPD with the San Mateo PD to save money.  She was vehemently opposed to giving up local control and managed to convince the other councilors---a big win for B'game.  It also avoids this mess.

 

A virus circulates at City Hall

We have Elon Musk to thank for the moniker-of-the-year which is Woke Mind Virus.  It's simple to understand, widely applicable these days and gets the point across very efficiently.  It immediately came to my mind when I read the city e-newsletter announcement

CIty Hall Holiday Closure

CIty Hall will be closed Monday, October 14th, in observance of Indigenous Peoples' Day.

It will reopen on Tuesday, October 15th, for normal operating hours.

Yeah, no, sorry.  The second Monday in October is Columbus Day.  Here is some background that I provided four years ago when South San Francisco abolished Columbus Day.  It bears rereading for those with the Woke Mind Virus in B'game.

If we need an Indigenous Peoples' Day, then we should find another day.  How about June 26th--Custer's Last Stand at The Little Bighorn?

Election 2024: The action is in the initiatives

Dan Walters at Calmatters.org has distilled the upcoming election for us noting that the candidate-based voting is a forgone conclusion, but the numerous initiatives is where the action will take place.  I grew up in "Taxachusetts" but my home state has nothing on California.  Squeezing more blood from the middle-class stone is on-going and the question is will this be the election where the backlash arrives?  As Walters writes

The scale of the conflicts is most evident in an initiative, sponsored by the Business Roundtable and anti-tax groups, that would make state and local tax increases markedly more difficult to enact.  It hits Democrats and their allied public employee unions where they live and they have mounted a two-pronged effort to block passage: a lawsuit, now pending in the state Supreme Court, to strike the measure from the ballot, and a competing proposition that would impose a higher and potentially prohibitive vote threshold on the tax measure.

On crime, he notes the ballot will include an "initiative that would modify Proposition 47, a 2014 ballot measure that reduced penalties for many crimes."  I think of it as the "Walgreen's initiative" after hearing multiple instances of people walking out of the store on B'way with a garbage bag full of stuff.  You want shampoo?  Call a clerk to unlock it.  Today's Comicle has a piece about some Safeway taking out the self-check kiosks and it ain't because they want to hire more checkers.  Walters expects the backlash initiative to qualify.  Further down the ballot:

Other high-profile measures either qualified or likely to qualify include a business-sponsored initiative that would repeal the Private Attorneys General Act, a two-decade-old union-sponsored law that makes class action lawsuits against employers relatively easy to file. Others include a third effort to make it easier for local governments to enact rent control, a boost in income taxes on high-income Californians to finance pandemic prevention, and an increase in the state’s minimum wage.

Talk about dumb and dumber.  Let's mess up the rental market, the entry-level job market and kill the Golden Goose all in one fell swoop.  There are five months to go.  We shall see if the voters have had enough or if we get more of the same.  Stay tuned.

Fundraiser-in-chief buzzes B'game

The fundraiser-in-chief has been in town for a couple of days ringing the Silicon Valley cash register.  The caravan of one, two or five V-22 Ospreys makes quite a ruckus overhead since they fly quite low and the chop from the two rotors in the upright position is distinctive.

UC Berkeley: "Cluster hires". What could go wrong?

Let's do one more education-related post to keep the streak running.  The Sunday SF Comicle section titled "Insight" provided a rare sliver of insight this week.  I enjoy watching new words being created and this piece brought wider notice to the term "Pretendianism" to describe the act of faking your ethnic background to take advantage of ethnicity-driven hiring programs.  The piece titled "Pretendianism too common in academia" asks the question: How do so many people with no Native ties get away with using a false heritage to infiltrate some of the most rarefied academic spaces in America?

I'll skip over the details of one Associate professor Elizabeth Hoover's gaming of the system because the article leaked an even more egregious practice at UC Berkeley that probably exists elsewhere in publicly funded academia.  It's hardly news and it's quite profitable as the Other Elizabeth has been proving for more than a decade.

But deep in the article, this tidbit is revealed

Contrary to some reports, Hoover was not a “cluster hire,” the faculty member said, which is when several new faculty members identified as members of a minority or historically disadvantaged groups are brought aboard simultaneously — a method has been championed at UC Berkeley to make “an immediate and substantial impact far greater than a few isolated hires.” 

Yikes!  Is this a "cheaper by the dozen" approach?  Let's not spend time and effort examining individuals' skill sets.  We'll just hire a handful all at once that look the right way.  One wonders if that tactic would survive the "shoe on the other foot" test?  Is it any wonder that campuses are a mess?  California taxpayers are not getting their money's worth, and the faculty lounge is the first place where the shades should be lifted and sunlight should shine.  "Rarefied spaces" indeed.

Squatter zoning restrictions being studied for B'game

In a proactive effort to get ahead of the burgeoning trend of squatters taking over uninhabited residences, the Burlingame City Council has asked staff to quickly assess which sections of town should be zoned for squatting.  Staff has been asked to assess whether the zones should be patterned after the new city council districts, the elementary school districts or the zones for legal leaf blowing on a particular day of the week.  There are legal guidelines for squatters to follow as shown here:

Squatters’ rights, also known as “adverse possession”, refers to laws that allow a person to gain legal ownership of a property they have occupied without permission from the legal owner. In California, squatters can make a legal claim to own the property they are occupying after residing there continuously for 5 years. 

Squatters differ from trespassers, in that trespassers occupy a property illegally but make no claim of ownership or legal right to live there. Squatters, on the other hand, occupy the property without permission but may be able to gain legal rights if they meet the criteria for adverse possession.

With the recent arrest of a squatter at the Burlingame train station master's quarters after flying below the radar for several years, the city council felt some urgency to codify which sections of town should and should not welcome squatters.  Enhanced surveillance of the no-squat zones would preclude the 5-year window from opening.

State Senator Scott Weiner immediately attacked the proposed ordinance as "knee jerk NIMBYism of the first degree" and promised to introduce legislation in Sacramento to prevent local governments from reducing the squat-friendly housing supply in the name of fairness and equity.  Weiner did not rule out including affordable squatting requirements based on income and reduced gas and electric rates for young, first-time squatters.