The Burlingame Voice

Bay Area "Labor market malaise" to continue?

It's best to take the long view when watching the economic dynamics of the Bay Area.  Point in time measures can't tell the whole story but do provide some sense of the state of things.  $12 billion dollar state budget deficit?  Check.  Transit "fiscal cliff" that sends politicians running for more taxes?  Check.  Massive Bay Area employers backing off of paying for huge residential housing projects?  Check.  Employment down? Check as the Merc is reporting today:

The Bay Area lost 14,700 total nonfarm payroll jobs in all categories over the first four months of 2025. Over the same time, California lost 32,300 total payroll jobs, official reports from the state Employment Development Department show.

“There is little doubt that federal government job losses will be an important contributor to the labor market malaise that already appears to be falling over the Bay Area,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist with BMO Capital Markets.  In sharp contrast, state and local government agencies have increased hiring, but that may soon change.

Let's hope so.  The Merc doesn't provide the denominator to the fraction, i.e. how many nonfarm jobs are there?  But a $12 billion deficit is not a chump-change.

Job losses within the federal government could become far worse in the months ahead, some experts warn.  “These numbers are the tip of the iceberg,” Levy said. “The majority of federal job cuts are not reflected in the April data.”

A $2.4 trillion-dollar federal deficit ain't chump-change either so I take issue with the characterization of federal RIFs becoming "far worse".  Right sizing government and bringing some sanity to the Bay Area jobs-housing ratio that might stop the "Wienerization" of the suburbs is to be encouraged.  Want to stop the $inkhole sucking taxpayer cash that is the high-cost rail project?  It's only claim to fame so far is that it "creates" a lot of new jobs.  I'm sure we could put a few to work on the Broadway grade separation for a tiny fraction of what is being wasted in the Central Valley.  Don't hold your breath.

911: An hour of rerouting calls

If you are on the SMC Alert system via text and/or email you got this notice last night at 1:31am:

SMC Alert: The City of Burlingame Phone lines are currently down. 911 lines are being routed and answered by Redwood City Police Dept. For all non-emergency calls, please contact the City of San Bruno's business line # 650-616-7100. San Bruno and Redwood City will be able to forward information to Burlingame Police so officers can be dispatched accordingly. Thank you for your patience while this problem is being worked on.

Thankfully it was followed by the All-clear email about an hour later at 2:27am:

SMC Alert: All Burlingame Police lines are back in service. For non emergency calls, dial 650-777-4100 and for emergency calls dial 911.

I know a bit about how the 911 system and call centers and phone lines work so if I get any details from BPD, I will pass them along.  I like having our own dispatch since the dispatchers know their way around B'game.  There is no substitute for local institutional knowledge.  You should also keep the non-emergency number in your phone.

Gov. Newsom sends The Voice a cell phone

Our governor has been busy trying to polish his record lately by being "out there" talking to people who disagree with him (he likes to call it "dialoging").  He started a second podcast that is offering guest appearances to such people as a sign of openness.  He's doing podcasts with other podcasters as well.  It's almost like the governorship is a part-time job.  His latest sign of "dialoging" came about as reported by the LA Times

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said the governor has been mailing cellphones to chief executives of the top 100 California-based companies with his phone number programmed into the contacts since November in an effort to “connect more directly” with business leaders in the state.

Though many corporate chief executives probably did not need the governor to send a phone in order to reach him, his aides described his outreach as a gesture to get the attention of business leaders and show that he’s interested in their experience in California.

“Some CEOs have been surprised,” Salladay said. “Others we haven’t heard from yet and we’re heard from some who have communicated with the governor. It’s about information gathering about businesses in California and how they’re doing.”

That was last week.  The governor appears to be broadening his outreach again by reaching out directly to smaller media outlets.  Imagine my surprise when FedEx dropped off my very own Newsom burner phone pre-programmed with his number over the weekend!  It's a bare bones phone but it did come with a charger in case our conversations run longer than a cheap battery's life.  I won't get right on the horn with Gavin as I imagine the first 100 CEOs are taking up quite a bit of his time.  It will probably be best to wait a couple of weeks, but the "dialog" should be valuable.  Can you say High Speed Fail?  Reservoir?  What reservoir?  Stay tuned!

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.

Brutalism in Burlingame

Empty buildings in B'game make me nervous.  I envision the Claw showing up some day and the whole structure being gone in a couple of days.  Many of the replacements are sterile.  It happens all over town in both commercial and residential areas.  That's why I got nervous after seeing our only local Brutalist building appearing to be empty.  It sits at 1825 Magnolia behind The Trousdale and Burlingame Plaza.  Borrowing from Wikipedia, we learn:

Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era.  Brutalist buildings are characterized by minimalist constructions that showcase the bare building materials and structural elements over decorative design. The style commonly makes use of exposed, unpainted concrete or brick, angular geometric shapes and a predominantly monochrome colour palette; other materials, such as steel, timber, and glass, are also featured.

Descending from the modernist movement, brutalism is said to be a reaction against the nostalgia of architecture in the 1940s. Derived from the Swedish phrase nybrutalism, the term "new brutalism" was first used by British architects Alison and Peter Smithson for their pioneering approach to design.  In the United Kingdom, brutalism was featured in the design of utilitarian, low-cost social housing influenced by socialist principles and soon spread to other regions around the world, while being echoed by similar styles like in Eastern Europe.

Brutalism has been polarizing historically; specific buildings, as well as the movement as a whole, have drawn a range of criticism (often being described as "cold"). There are often public-led campaigns to demolish brutalist buildings. Some people are favorable to the style and in the United Kingdom some buildings have been preserved.

I asked around a bit and some think it was built as the Teachers Association headquarters (now a few blocks away) and was later a bank.  The good news is that rather than being empty, an on-line search shows it is owned by the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, also known as "The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, which is based in Ukiah.  The parking lot must be chained when not in use.  I think the building is oddly cool and worth taking a moment or two to appreciate.  Here is it

DST: Early birds attacking night hawks

I'm a night hawk.  I've always been a night hawk.  Sunlight at 6am, or 7am, or even 8am is just wasted sunlight to me except for what my solar panels catch.  Tonight is the blessed arrival of DST--a day I look forward to after the depressing four months and a week of "Standard time".  I don't know what is so "standard" about it since it is in place for only a third of the year.  Annually we get pronouncements from medical experts about how the change is bad for our health.  The Merc has one such view here noting 

an increase in car accidents, heart attacks, strokes and potential negative effects on blood pressure and, most obviously, sleep. Martin says these effects make mental health symptoms worse for those with depression and anxiety and make things harder even for those without a mood disorder.

It seems to me most of those effects are a result of the change itself, not the "spring forward".  The "fall back" probably does the same.  If we were on DST all year, a lot of that would disappear.  As for the depression and mood disorders, the late afternoon and early evening light is not accounted for by the experts.  Jon Mays at the Daily Journal has weighed in with a preference for standard time all the time, but mostly with a desire to have us just pick one

And it is now more than seven years since 60% of California voters approved a change to permanent daylight-saving time, used in the summer, versus standard time, used in the winter.  Proposition 7 was passed by 60% of California voters in what I would call a solid victory. Around 7 million people voted for the change in November 2018.

Most people think we should stick with daylight saving time year-round, however, I think we should stick with standard time. It’s the actual time and the shift of sunset from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the summer is just being greedy. We already get naturally longer days in the summer so why do we need that extra hour? However, I’d be in favor of either as long I didn’t have to go through another time change.

Greedy?  Guilty as charged.  From longer Spring ski days without flat light on the slopes to the arrival of Music in Parks on weekday evenings to the start of Spring sports for kids, they all benefit from that greedy grab of an hour.  Let's face it.  A lot of people aren't commuting to an 8am start of the workday five days a week.  And if the kids are a little groggy and it doesn't stabilize after permanent DST has been around a while, start the school day 30 or 60 minutes later.  At least they will have more time for after school sports instead of playing videogames indoors.

Podcast: Mark Lucchesi and I talk B'game (#103)

I'm honored that B'game podcaster Mark "Mark at the Mic" Lucchesi asked me back for another episode of Burlingame - It's a Small Town.  Over the course of about an hour we covered numerous topics that will be familiar to regular Voice readers and some new stuff too.  If you want to invest the time, around cocktail hour is recommended, then settle in with your favorite beverage and listen to the "Voice of the Voice".  The link to Episode #103 is here.

Thanks again, Mark.  He has me queued up for another one in a few months since there is always something to talk about in our Small Town^TM.

Where did civic engagement go?

After several years of Zoom meetings because of Covid, Burlingame City Council meetings have returned to City Hall. The Zoom meetings proved convenient for the public. Simply put, the easier you make local goings on more appealing to the masses, the more the masses will participate. Hold on fellow gadflies.

While council meetings and commission meetings have returned to City Hall, attending these meetings in person is one of the only ways to get your opinion heard by local leaders. If you watch the meetings live on Zoom, that’s all you can do—watch. There is no way to speak during public comments. During Covid you could weigh in. Not anymore.

If you choose to email the council or a commission prior to the meeting, you better get that comment in early or it won’t get into the council’s or commissioner’s packets and it might not get read at all. Until now, the staff would read aloud the late arriving comments to make certain members heard the concerns from the community. No more.

Also gone? City staff will no longer take minutes of the discussions prior to the vote on any particular subject. The notes will only reflect the vote itself. No more record of the rationale behind the decision. The response might be, “Well, you can always go back and listen to the archived meeting.” True. But there will be no written document. A written document can always be retrieved for historical purposes. Who knows what the electronic landscape will look like in the future? Floppy discs, microfiche and VHS tapes were all ways we thought would save items forever. They’re all gone too. Nothing trumps the written word.

There are no town hall meetings or opportunities like “council coffee hours.” True, the council did conduct at least one or two “meet & greets,” It seems there were not more than two of these meetings in the last few years. These meetings, if they were to happen again, need to be regularly scheduled so that public knows when they will be held well into the future. Of note, during Covid at least one former council member held periodic Zoom meetings with the public.

As a matter of full disclosure, I served on Burlingame’s City Council for a blink of an eye, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Back then, I sat at the former Il Picollo Café on Broadway each Tuesday morning and Copenhagen Bakery on Thursdays in order to speak with and listen to my constituents. They came. I listened. Better decisions were made.

I also held several town hall meetings where ideas were floated. Yes, the city council has goal setting sessions once per year that the public can attend. But the goals are well established before the meeting begins. The ensuing discussion will be about the agendized goals. No input from the public regarding what they think the goals ought to be.

Back then, we too had goal setting sessions, I solicited ideas before those meetings, so that I could bring the public’s perspective to the table. There hasn’t been a town hall meeting since then. That was 20 years ago.

In the age of electronic media, we should be able to find ways for the public to participate. After all, how do our local leaders know what we are thinking? How can they represent our best interest?

The city puts out an e-news blast. The “news” doesn’t cover the major land use issues happening throughout our town—and there are many. Sure, it’s helpful for us to know about a poetry slam at the library or that the hours of the dog park have changed, but how do we know about major projects in the pipeline if no one is going to tell us? “Check the city’s website,” they might say. An ”opt in” approach rarely works because there is no feedback loop.

Try logging onto the city website, try to find a phone number or email address for a staff member who might be able to answer your question or relay your concern. Almost impossible.

This is not a criticism of city staff, simply a series of observations. The truth is that in order to gain efficiency and streamline the process of governing, civic engagement has been all but eliminated.

Here's a novel idea: The new downtown Burlingame open space currently under construction could be a space like London’s Hyde Park, where anyone can get upon the soapbox and opine to those who care to listen?

How do our local leaders know how we feel if they don’t ask? Perhaps they don’t want to know?

KCSM 60th Anniversary: A movie and more music

Last night I was fortunate to attend the premier of a brand-new movie documentary about the 60-year evolution of KCSM into the worldwide jazz destination station it is today.  91.1 FM is a local jewel.  Thanks to streaming off of KSCM.org or just saying "Alexa, play KCSM" that jewel is now listened to around the world.  And it's not just the station playing a highly curated mix of jazz, blues and R&B; the annual concert Jazz on the Hill that returned in 2013 after Covid subsided is one of the best things about summer in the Bay Area as we noted here and here.

Fortunately, Palo Alto Online got an even earlier preview and reporter Peter Canavese was able to take extensive notes, so I don't have to try to summarize the movie.  You can read his lengthy review here.  That leaves me free to share some of the post movie Q&A session with a panel of 15 KCSM announcers (they prefer that to "DJ").  With Chris Cortez asking the questions and vocalist Tiffany Austin sitting in after her participation in the movie, we got a rare survey of how these announcers migrated to KCSM over time, especially after KJAZ folded and donated its huge library to KCSM.  A couple viewed San Mateo as a bit of a bumpkin location to work but came anyway, some came up through the student ranks from the college and others saw the passion of their predecessors and wanted to be a part of it.  The challenges local jazz musicians have getting heard was a theme -- music director Jesse "Chuy" Varela listens to all submissions, but neither he nor the station dictate what gets played.

It was noted that the announcer ranks were a bit long in the tooth as was the audience.  "Keeping Jazz Alive" takes care and feeding.  The internship program could be expanded and the worldwide reach, along with the movie buzz, will hopefully help fundraising and student participation.  I asked the station manager, Dr. Robert Franklin, about the plans for distributing the movie.  It will run at the SF Indiefest in February and the DVD will be a gift during the next pledge drive.  Hopefully Netflix will pick it up as well.  We're lucky to have KCSM as our home station and these globally recognized on-air voices as its curators.

Scenes of destruction from LA

At this moment I'm sitting in West Maui, in the Kahana-Napili area, looking out at Molokai and Lanai while watching some video of the Pacific Palisades devastation.  A one-minute driving clip on X is eerily reminiscent of a clip from a local friend who was authorized to drive through Lahaina after the August 8, 2023 fire that killed 101 people.  A year and a half later one still cannot go into the center of Lahaina--Front Street.  Another friend got close this week and saw that some rubble is just now being bulldozed and hauled away.  In January of 2025.  Hazmat.  Insurance.  Cell service.  Coastal restrictions.  Equipment.  Cost.  All will be in play in LA, too.

Oakland 1991 comes to mind.  Paradise, CA.  Chico.  Several more in remote parts of the Sierra.  It's on-going and fully predictable.  Joe Rogan relayed an LA firefighter predicting the exact magnitude of the Palisades fire his podcast last July!  I'm really hoping this old Voice post doesn't end up being another predictable concern come true.

And of course there is the air pollution of each blaze.  The Merc notes:

Massive plumes from multiple fires in Los Angeles County are choking the region’s skies and sending air quality to dangerous levels. Thursday morning Los Angeles had an AQI of 182, considered “unhealthy,” and currently among the worst in the world. The smoke was so dense that it was captured in satellite photos.

Current forecasts through Saturday show most of the smoke from the wildfires wafting out into the ocean and making a weak return back to the coast as far north as Monterey.

Tell me again how ripping out a high-efficiency furnace/water heater and a gas stovetop that gets a half hour of use most weeks is really important, but actually planning and executing wildfire prevention just never seems to rise to the top of Big Politicians priority list?