The Burlingame Voice

Philz Arrives

I'm finally convinced by the hiring sign out front and a couple of weeks of straight work happening inside that the second biggest eyesore in downtown is going to be cleaned up and occupied again.

The arrival of philzcoffee should keep our downtown techies and realtors happy since java will move in next to David's Tea for their caffeine fixes.  Heretofore one could only get philz by the bag at Mollie's.  With Prestige liquors moving off the Avenew and into a space a couple doors down, that section of Primrose is finally looking up.

 

Shopping Trip? Breakfast?

A regular reader forwarded this totally cute photo from this morning on the Avenew.  Could Mom be taking the ducklings out for school supplies?  Or were they just headed for Alana's for some bread crusts and maybe a few pancake scraps?  The sidewalks look pretty good, too!

Russ and I always appreciate a candid local photo-- and it doesn't have to be wildlife.  You can always email me at joe@baylock.com with anything you deem interesting.

Revenue Up: Hotels, Cars, Housing

The Daily Journal provides some great pull-out factoids about B'game's financial status today in a piece noting that the city coffers are bulging.  Here is the essence of it

The city’s annual budget document, released last week at the Burlingame City Council meeting, showed the city’s general fund increased 8.5 percent from the previous year, bringing in an additional $4.3 million, swelling to $51.3 million.

Hikes in hotel, sales and property tax revenue have spurred the increase of cash flowing to the city, according to the report. Those three taxes account for 85 percent of the general fund.  Tax on the city’s 3,742 hotel rooms brought in $3.1 million more than the previous year, accounting for 38 percent of the city’s current general fund proceeds, according to the report.  The top 25 car dealerships, hotels, general merchandise stores and restaurants brought in a nearly half of the sales tax revenue to the city, said the report.  

Property taxes also helped drive the city’s economy, increasing 8 percent from the previous year, and bringing $15.5 million in revenue to the city, said the report.  The median value of the 32 homes sold in Burlingame was $1.8 million last year, a 6 percent increase from the year prior.

I have to agree with Vice Mayor Keighran who "preached the value of fiscal responsibility, citing the volatility of the travel industry, and suggesting the city might add more to its reserves from the unprecedented amounts of hotel tax."  The other options is a.......wait for it....rebate.  But let's go with "build the reserves" for now.  Of course, the swimming pool, Rec center, and other identified priorities like improving City Hall, not to mention some out-of-nowhere scheme for affordable housing will all compete with the reserves for dollars.  I think a nice donation to help the legal battle against high-cost rail would be a good use of the first 25 grand.

   

Beware Buffett?

In my perpetual quest to answer the question "what does this news mean to B'game?" today's chapter deals with the news that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway investment company just agreed to buy the country's fifth-largest auto retailer as a basis to "roll-up" the fragmented car dealership market.  Simultaneously "AutoNation and Lithia Motors have been snapping up smaller retail chains, often run by families who have been selling cars for generations." according to the WSJ.

Car retailing is very, very, shall I add a third "very" important to B'game.  It was the leading sales tax generator in Q1 as you can see on the City website here.  About $900K came in that quarter and even with lines around the corner at the Apple store for the iPhone 6, it will take a lot of phones to come close to that.

The Journal notes "there were almost 17,700 new-vehicle dealerships operating in 2013, of which more than half sell fewer than 400 units a year.  The average profit margin for them was a princely 2.2% -- pretax."  Couple that with Tesla's non-dealership sales model where the sales tax goes to the city where the buyer lives not the city where it was sold and there are changes afoot.  Should be interesting to see if the robust Peninsula economy keeps car selling local or if the Oracle of Omaha will move into B'game.  In the meantime, shop B'game.

Streetscape Kudos

Coming back to town at one commenter's request, here is a very complete review of our soon-to-be-completed Avenew streetscape project.  I don't know Planner Dan and never heard of him before, but from some of his technical terminology and analysis it is apparent that he is in the urban planning business.  And overall, he is impressed with what is happening on B'game Ave.  You should read through the whole blog entry.  My favorite bit is

At about 10 feet, the walkway is wide enough to accommodate leisurely strolling and more purposeful pedestrians. Conversations among pairs or groups can be had while allowing plenty of room for others to pass. The walkway hugs the buildings, as it should. While a few narrow tables with chairs occasionally sit against the buildings, the main furniture zone is out toward the curb where it belongs. 

That also means there is plenty of room for the newly-legal canine dinner companions which have been common on the Ave for a long time.  His commentary on the crosswalks is also insightful

The crosswalks use the same pavers as the sidewalks. It looks good, but I prefer to keep crosswalks simple. Continental striping on asphalt, made famous on the cover of the album Abbey Road by the Beatles, is very easy for motorists to see and is universally understood to denote pedestrian crossings. They are also inexpensive to build and easy to maintain. And, what could be cooler than looking like a Beatles album?

It also gives me a chance to post a picture of myself and two friends in that famous crosswalk on Abbey Road!  Just another day in the life.

 

 

Good clean fun.

As the new sidewalks appeared on Burlingame Avenue, so did the complaints about the spills and stains. The city has promised a more aggressive steam-cleaning schedule. I’m afraid that unless there is steam cleaning each day, the spills will appear quicker than the steam cleaner can clean.

Here are three ways we can get ahead of the spills and stains. Not surprisingly, some of the ways I am about to suggest are somewhat untraditional, but sometimes you have to think outside the box to accomplish the goal.

Hang on to your hats, here we go.

a.)   In Downtown Palo Alto, for example, there is a program called The Downtown Streets Team. The folks on the team appear everyday and work in shifts all day to pick up trash, etc. These folks are down on their luck and work in exchange for room and board vouchers. They wear uniforms and even at as downtown ambassadors in a fashion, answering questions of visitor’s etc. They keep the downtown cleaner than it would be without their help. Funded through grants, contributions from the BID and the city. Downtown Streets is a non-profit 501 c 3 organization and is proved a successful model that pother cities are following. Perhaps Burlingame could be one. www.streetsteam.org

b.)   The San Mateo County Sherriff’s Work Furlough Program. This is another program available to SM County cities. It is largely free of charge to the cities and brings folks who have some community service indebtedness because of troubles with the law like DUI, non-payment of alimony, etc. They are certainly not hardened criminals and all participants have to be recommended for the program through the courts. The only obligation from the city is to have a city employee supervise and the participants cannot use power tools. I am not sure if a power washer would fall into the exempt tools category or not but at the very least these folks could help make sure the downtown is tidy on a daily basis. As I understand it, they would work in the early morning hours and be gone before the shops and restaurants open. Most folks would never even know they had been there. Other cities take advantage of this opportunity and I believe the city of Burlingame has in the past used this program to help clean up our creek sides.

c.)   Many folks in Burlingame like to work out. They even join clubs and pay for the privilege to do so. Why not grab a broom or a mop and push it from one end of the avenue to the other? I can assure you the calories will burn and you will get your daily dose of exercise--all while helping the community. How about we create a daily competition? Participants could earn points for downtown discounts. Corporations could assemble teams. Once again, this program could be free of charges to the city. In fact, the city or the downtown association could charge a small fee to participate in the activity and actually make some money. Now there’s a novel concept. How ‘bout the city council form the first team? Why get on an exer-cycle and peddle to nowhere when you could tone up and tune up downtown?

There ya go, three low or no cost ways to keep downtown looking spiffy. 

Rare Sight on the Avenew

This struck me as a very funny sign.  You won't see it again for a long time.  I can definitely appreciate the merchants' dilemma, especially those near the El Camino intersection who have to live with this weird anomaly, but nonetheless a "U-turn Only" sign is not something you will see on the Avenew again.

$aving Our Pennie$ 2014

The Daily Journal piece on the audit results have generated some council commentary on building up our reserves instead of taking on new projects right away. 

The city’s annual audit revealed the city’s net position increased $13.1 million, or 7.4 percent, during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2013. The city’s current total budget is $64.6 million. The largest positive budget variance was reported for the transient occupancy tax, or hotel tax, which totaled $18.2 million, up $2 million from the previous year. Property and sales tax revenues were up for a combined $1.4 million — as the economy continued its measured recovery from the 2009 downturn, according to a staff report.

The council sentiment is quoted as "Also in agreement with Deal and Nagel was Councilman Ricardo Ortiz who would like the extra money to be saved for now." and I can't imagine council members Brownrigg or Keighran disagreeing with that.  Maybe just a little to commission a local artist to do a new painting of Anson B'game for city chambers?  I'll bet a couple of hundred would do the job.  In the meantime, keep shopping B'game.

Another Local Downtown Fatality

We keep an eagle eye on the Avenew in hopes that it won't all be new in the next few years.  The DJ has a piece on The Personal Touch's decision to go to strictly on-line

After 33 years in business, a local engraving store is shutting its doors due to rising rent costs.
The Personal Touch of Burlingame will be closing in January 2014, after finding a final Burlingame home at 257 Primrose Road for 18 years. Its previous location was at Burlingame Avenue and Park Road.

“We pleaded with the landlord, but they keep raising rents,” said Folks, who lives in San Carlos. “We paid top dollar and had no air conditioning in the summer or heat in the winter. A client just came in and said what everyone is saying, ‘It’s sad to see so many small businesses leave Burlingame.’”

Please click through and read the whole story because it bears on what our "village" will look like 10 or 20 years from now.  We bought a couple nice things in the shop just last month so now I will look at them in a whole new light--which is easy with crystal!  As we move into the heart of the holiday season, please remember to Shop B'game.

City Sales Tax Leaders

While we wait with bated breath for the Council vote to be finalized (probably next Tuesday, Nov. 12th), here are the Top 25 sales tax revenue generators in town (in alpha order) for Q2:

Apple, Bayshore Shell (love their car wash!), Benihana (had a good meal there this year), Chevron, Color Copy, Elephant Bar, Fiat, Garratt Callahan, the Hyatt, Hyundai, Il Fornaio (always a good choice), Kern's, Marriott (had a great two day business meeting there last month), Mike Harvey Acura and Honda, Payless Car Rental, Putnam (x4 dealerships), Rector, Safeway, Technical Instrument, Walgreens and WW Grainger.

Overall we were up 8.3% year-over-year in Q2 and Autos and Transportation continue to be the Golden Goose.