The Burlingame Voice

Poll: 70% say Bay Area quality of life has declined

When I read headlines like 7 in 10 residents say the region’s quality of life is getting worse, I think about how bad the roads have become (looking at you, El Camino), how poorly many government agencies are being run, how much traffic there is, how we are losing control of our local voting and zoning, and public safety.  School quality, water security, utility costs---the list is long.  Having spent years in market research, I know a poll can be tweaked in any number of ways from who gets polled to how the questions and multiple-choice answers are phrased to who does the analysis of the results.  The Merc reported on the latest public sentiment here.  It notes

According to the poll, 70% of registered voters said the Bay Area’s quality of life has worsened over the past five years, while just 13% said it has improved. Seventeen percent said it’s stayed the same.

A whopping 46% of respondents said they were likely to leave the Bay Area in the next few years, with two-thirds of those citing high housing costs as the main reason to consider a move. During the pandemic, people fleeing the region contributed to a 3% population drop, though that exodus has since slowed.  When asked to select ways the region might best be improved, respondents’ top choice at 39% was building more affordable housing.

Of course, that means 61% chose something other than to jam more people into the Bay Area.  See how the reporting can spin the story?  If the other choices had overlap to split the responses, 39% starts to look big.

Homeowners in the poll (note, that percentage is not revealed) also said the state’s home insurance meltdown is hitting their finances. Fifty-two percent said their home insurance premiums have increased significantly, 22% said they have avoided using their home insurance policy out of fear of cancellation or rising rates, 12% said they’ve had a difficult time finding an insurer to write them a policy and 8% said an insurer had canceled a policy.

Insurance has been slipping down a slippery slope for years with no real solution from the state. And many renters don't realize their rent is tied to the insurance on their apartment.  Then there is this bit of Sacramental hand-waving following on the heels of even more restrictions on drilling.  When you leave the state the gas prices are almost unreal---unreal low.

To prevent spikes in gas prices, state lawmakers are now considering a plan from Gov. Gavin Newsom to force oil refiners to keep minimum fuel reserves, though doing so likely wouldn’t lower overall prices at the pump.

The piece finishes off by describing some people who think Silicon Valley giants are "villains" who have "lost their moral compass".  I can't understand where that is coming from or what it has to do with the quality of life in the Bay Area.  At least the piece noted huge support for Prop. 36 to get the organized theft back under control and remove the locked plastic doors protecting shampoo and deodorant.  The big question remains how many people we should jam into the Peninsula?  The RHNA requirements are nonsense, but they are driving down the quality of life for long-time residents who look at things like this on the north end and wonder "why"?  That's the B'game police building in the front.

Plastic bags: "Thank you for your service"

The Sacramento Stupidity was on full display this week as Newsom signed yet another law aimed at restricting use of plastic.  The last plastic grocery bag ban had a "loophole" that still allowed the heavier "reusable" bags but, guess what, not enough people are reusing them so they must be outlawed.  Who could possibly have foreseen that?  "Once plastic bags are outlawed, only outlaws will have plastic bags".  Coupled with Bonta's idiotic suit against ExxonMobil for making something that is a necessity in life.  As the WSJ notes:

The company’s alleged deception supposedly caused California lawmakers in 1989 to pass legislation forcing cities to set up recycling programs “that required mandatory participation by all residents.”

In other words, it is Exxon’s fault that Californians must place plastic waste into separate trash containers even though most of it doesn’t actually get recycled. Mr. Bonta claims that Exxon has “wrongly convinced consumers that plastics separated for recycling would actually be recycled,” though, notably, the state hasn’t repealed that law.

Nor has Sacramento repealed the CRV.  Duping lawmakers seems pretty easy. 
The memorial to thicker plastic bags will live on in my car's trunk for years.  "Thank you for your service".

Sac Stupidity: Let's distract drivers right as they are avoiding something

I could add a Sacramento Stupidity post pretty much every week.  The authoritarian streak that runs through supposed "progressives" is strong and unrelenting.  Take Scott Weiner's latest ham-fisted approach to "traffic safety" as reported in the DJ

A bill that would make California the first state in the nation to mandate speed warning systems in all manufactured or sold car models, beginning in 2030, is awaiting the governor’s signature.

San Mateo County residents, policymakers and researchers reflected on the possible impacts of the technology. Authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, it would warn drivers with an “audible and visual signal” every time they exceeded speed limits by more than 10 miles per hour. 

They dredge up some associate prof of civil engineering to assert this is a good idea instead of someone with practical knowledge and research on how drivers actually react to things around them.  Or an automotive human factors engineer.  How much this will add to the cost of car is apparently of no importance.  They even found a guy who thinks a speed limiter will just be programmed right into EV software.  Another authoritarian thinks there should be sky-high penalties for disabling the system.  This is the watered down version of the bill.  Weiner wanted to hardwire the limit +10.  And you thought it was your car.

I can think of dozens of times I have "stepped on it" to avoid a collision or obstruction on the road.  I vaguely remember my Drivers Ed instructor telling 16-year-old me that there are many times when speeding up is safer than slowing down.  Do we want bells, whistles and dashboard lights going off while in the midst of an evasive move?  No thanks.  Will Newsom continue to be guided by his presidential ambitions and veto this?

"Newsom 2028" in progress

One has to wonder if our governor is all there all the time.  The weathervane swinging from hard left to sort of maybe right is a wonder to behold.  One can only think that his presidential campaign is underway for 2028.  The Comicle reports that 808,000 acres have burned this far this fire year--more than twice the area damaged in all of 2023.  Completely predictable...because it happens every year.

Dan Walters at Calmatters.org keep banging the budget gong

Initially Newsom proposed a $13.1 billion draw from reserves, but the final 2024-25 budget approved in June took just $5.1 billion from the rainy fund and envisions another $7.1 drawdown in 2025-26. It also largely drains two other reserves, including one for schools.  This year’s deficit resulted from a massive overestimate of revenues by Newsom’s administration in 2022, rather than an economic turndown, and some critics have complained that misusing reserves this year could leave them unable to cope with a recession.

Newsom, whose 2022 projection of a huge budget surplus from explosive revenue gains proved to be incredibly wrong, now wants the state to avoid spending estimates of windfall revenues until they are actually in the bank — a prudence that should have been adopted many years ago.

While Newsom flies around the country to swing states and any other state that would have him, his team finds time to issue this warning.  As if any sensible city with even modest resources wouldn't already be doing it.  He's gotta get this problem that he has ignored for decades under control before 2028.  B'game better go check the Eucs along the Caltrain tracks and some of the little nooks and crannies on the Bayfront.

 

Climate Observations: Google, CalFire and You

This is a placeholder post for when we get to the point where we cannot replace our gas stoves or gas water heaters or gas furnaces or gas barbeques.  Hopefully that day is still a few years away, but the smart bet is the climate fanatics will eventually get us.  When we complain about the costs (many hidden including the soft costs of your time), we will be told to suck it up.

In the meantime, two types of events are taking place.  There are 3,543 wildfires of more than 10 acres burning right now in California per the CalFire incident page.  Your barbeque is a problem, but Sacramento (looking at you, Newsom, even though I know you are busy thinking about a promotion) still hasn't addressed the real need for more manpower, equipment, forest surveillance, etc.  Year after year, same old story and the news media always acts surprised.  Massive amounts of smoke, emissions, and cancelled insurance policies that end up as a State (read us) liability via the FAIR program.

And then there are these two tidbits buried in the business news this week:

Google and Microsoft have vowed to slash emissions by the end of the decade, but new disclosures show their numbers are moving in the wrong direction.   Google’s overall emissions increased by 13.5% from 2022 to 2023, according to its annual sustainability report released Tuesday. They are up by nearly half since 2019. A recent disclosure from Microsoft told a similar story. Its total emissions were up by 29% between 2020 and 2023.

Big Tech's servers are using so much electricity that they are doing direct connections to power plants with "behind-the-meter" access.  Some observers are worried this will destabilize the grid and it certainly won't make it any cheaper.  Stay tuned so we can alert you when to start hoarding gas appliances. 

Graduation Requirement: Let's have the Legislature go first

Sometimes you have to laugh at the Sacramento hubris otherwise you will just cry.  Such was the state of affairs last week when the wise folks in Sac added "personal finance" to the required high school curriculum.  From the Merc:

Last week, California became the 26th state to require high school students to take a stand-alone, one-semester financial literacy course when Gov. Gavin Newsom approved Democratic Assemblymember Kevin McCarty’s bill, AB 2927.  The personal finance course will teach students a range of topics, including banking, budgeting, loans, insurance, investing and credit.

Schools will be required to offer the course by the 2027-28 school year, and the course will be a graduation requirement for the class of 2030-31.

“We need to help Californians prepare for their financial futures as early as possible,” Newsom said in a recent statement. “Saving for the future, making investments and spending wisely are lifelong skills that young adults need to learn before they start their careers, not after.”

I will add they especially need these skills if they want to start a career in politics.  Let's go back to February when two people who understand finance reiterated concerns about the mess called the state budget.  Studying "budgeting" and "credit"?  Let's let the Legislature take the course before the high school kids, please.

Trees: Toughening up the ordinance; Sacramento interferes

The B'game ordinance requiring approval to cut down a protected tree is getting an update.  The "sort-of" protected status covers all private trees in the city if they measure at least 48" in circumference when measured 54" high from natural grade.  I say "sort-of" because there are a variety of ways to get around it.  The Daily Journal piece describes some of them

Burlingame is proposing updates to its tree ordinance, including broadening appeal rights for removal decisions, offering staff discretion over plantings and replacements based on site conditions and harsher penalties for ordinance violators.

Burlingame, locally known as the ‘city of trees,’ has long prioritized its urban forest, but its current tree ordinance doesn’t follow present industry standards and isn’t an effective deterrent to intentional wrongdoing, Richard Holz, parks superintendent and city arborist, said.

Note we aren't just locally known as a "city of trees", we have been awarded Tree City USA status by the National Arbor Day Foundation each year since 1980. Tree Cities must have an active tree maintenance and replacement program. They must also have an active local board which specifically deals with arboricultural issues.  But that aside, the piece picks up on the tougher penalties

Additionally, (Assistant City Attorney Scott) Spansail proposed explicitly stating that violations of the ordinance can be prosecuted as a misdemeanor and raising fines for violators — like those who illegally remove trees — to $1,000 per violation and restitution for the tree’s appraised value, the maximum amount permitted under California law.

Sounds good until you realize Sacramento just keep inflicting more and more ways to damage local quality of life and control.  Michael Brownrigg was on it

Although the city has limited ability to deny tree removals for projects like accessory dwelling units or Senate Bill 9 housing, which have state-mandated zoning requirements, they can stipulate conditions of removal, Spansail said.  Councilmember Michael Brownrigg expressed frustrations around these state-mandated allowances and said that the proposed document was “a little too nice.”

“For one, if you want to get rid of a tree, the easiest thing in the world right now is to just say, ‘I’m going to build an ADU right where the redwood is, coincidentally, and you take it out and you never build the ADU,” he said. “You might think of a penalty if that happens.”

Unfortunately, we can think about such a penalty all we want, but it's not likely to happen.  I'm sure bully AG Rob Bonta would be sending a threatening letter to the city the minute even one ADU was stymied because of a measly old tree.  That's like reverse greenwashing.  It's 84 degrees outside as I write this at 3pm.  I'm gonna go find a shady spot under a big tree. 

EssEff: Carl Nolte asking train questions

Columnist Carl Nolte is one of the last remaining vestiges of the SF Chronicle before it transformed into the SF Comicle.  His Sunday column (front section, page 2) is always worth the read and he mixes nostalgia for the lost Bagdad by the Bay with keen observations and, in this week's piece, actual letter grades for the City on a number of aspects.  One snippet caught my attention because it is symptomatic of other screw-ups.  Nolte notes: 

I rode the 30-Stockton bus into Chinatown on the first day of summer, a shopping day. It was packed, standing room only. I rode the subway back. It was nearly empty, plenty of seats. Why did the taxpayers pay $2 billion for a subway when the customers clearly prefer the bus? Good question for the urban planners. It will be on the next test.

Don't expect those urban planners to pass.  The greenwashers keep trying to get people to abandon how they want to travel in favor of how a "planner" wants them to travel.  Look no further than our high-cost rail boondoggle.  Forget $2 billion, think $200 billion and still not "complete" per the promised route.  We'll have electric commercial flights to LA before we have an HSR trip that will take three times as long.  Will Caltrain avoid the fiscal cliff?  I hope so, but it's looking perilous--and expensive for the Bay Area taxpayers.

Prop. 47 Shenanigans around the ballot

You know things are getting bad in Sacramento when even the SF Comicle starts calling out the legislature as "shady".  An initiative to reverse Prop. 47, which was approved by our clueless electorate a decade ago to reduce the penalties on drug offenses and theft, is headed for the November ballot.  As we noted, the action on the ballot this Fall is in the initiatives.  The shady bits to stymie the initiative are slowing coming out as even Emily Hoeven at the Comicle has caught on:

Earlier this year, lawmakers unveiled a bipartisan package of bills that would, among other things, create a new crime for serial retail thieves, allow prosecutors to combine certain low-level thefts when charging offenders, permit courts to issue retail theft restraining orders and institute sentencing enhancements for those who steal, resell and destroy especially large amounts of property.  Thus far, the package has been smoothly chugging through the Legislature. 

But Democrats have now cooked up a scheme to kill most of their own bills if voters approve a ballot measure to reform Proposition 47 — the controversial 2014 initiative that reduced penalties for some drug and theft offenses — which formally qualified Tuesday for the November election.

Last week, news leaked that Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire planned to amend the Democratic public safety package to make it effective immediately upon Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature, rather than the customary first day of the new year, and then repeal it if voters approved the Prop 47 reform measure. 

It was a crafty, if cynical, strategy that effectively left ballot measure supporters with a choice: Either they could support the package of bills, which were all but guaranteed to become law in a matter of weeks, or they could take their chances with the ballot measure, which voters might or might not approve and which would require millions of dollars in campaign funding.

Click through to the Comicle piece for all the dirty little moves, the virtue signaling about "mass incarceration", demonizing district attorneys and whatever else our betters in Sac who have the super majority can throw against the wall.  It really is appalling.

New Category: Sacramento Stupidity....on story poles

I have been meaning to add a "Sacramento Stupidity" category for some time.  One could argue that it is overlap with what goes into a few other existing categories like "State level issues", "High Speed Rail", etc.  But somethings are just so stupid they need a category of their own and I have finally found the one to take the proverbial cake.  The Merc is reporting:

Los Gatos eases story pole restrictions for new developments

Story poles may help Los Gatos residents get a sense of how much space new developments will occupy, but the state told town officials that requiring the poles may keep new housing from being built in town.

After receiving word from the state’s department of Housing and Community Development that the town’s story pole policy “poses a constraint to the construction of new housing” and could therefore impede approval of its Housing Element, the Los Gatos Town Council in a split vote approved easing the requirements.  Poles won’t be required for projects over 55 feet tall, and signage will be allowed in lieu of story poles for certain residential projects.

Outcry from residents who saw story poles go up on the North 40 property led to the developers filing a lawsuit in 2016 after council rejected plans for the first phase of the development in East Los Gatos.

This could easily be an April Fool's Day post, but it isn't.  In a recent email, the GovernforCalifornia.org team discussed the mind-boggling budget deficit the state has just one year after having a massive surplus, by noting the state should:

Reduce the number of Executive Branch employees, which has risen under Mr. Newsom to 252,000, or 6.47 employees per 1000 population, from 212,000, or 5.37 employees per 1000 population, in Governor Brown's last year of office. Matching Mr. Brown's number of employees per 1000 population would eliminate 43,000 positions.

If you are wondering how the state has time to chase after towns about their story-pole policies, there is your answer.  Welcome to the new Sacramento Stupidity category--I fear it will be a busy one.