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  • Sobering up in Burlingame instead of San Mateo

    We have not had a Guest Author on the Voice in quite awhile, but when San Matean David Long asked me why I had not weighed in on the “sobering center” controversy I asked him to pen his perspective for us. I wasn’t really paying attention to the issue when it was in San Mateo and he has, as you will read here. The DJ had a piece two days ago that noted

    San Mateo County will purchase a $13 million Burlingame property to hopefully open up a sobering station as soon as possible, house the Pride Center and provide an option for a treatment facility, with supervisor approval Tuesday. The property of more than 2 acres at 818-828 Mahler Road was the former site of First Chance, a 14-bed sobering center operated by since-closed nonprofit StarVista.

    Since First Chance closed, individuals who get arrested for driving under the influence are brought to county jail, rather than a station that promotes wellness and provides offenders with resources and opportunities to rehabilitate. It costs double the amount to house a DUI offender in a county correctional facility than a sobering center.

    Here is David’s perspective on the switch from central San Mateo to Mahler Rd.:

    San Mateo County’s proposed sobering and treatment center at 101 N. El Camino Real has felt like an experiment in how many bad land-use decisions could be shoe-horned into an already congested corridor. 

    • Dense residential neighborhood? Check. 
    • Multiple schools and daycares nearby? Check. 
    • Dense senior housing within walking distance? Check. 
    • Breakneck traffic at a pockmarked El Camino intersection seemingly designed by bumper-car enthusiasts? Absolutely. 

    And yet somehow, this was presented as the “best” location for a large detox and treatment facility projected to generate up to 17,000 annual client trips with 24/7 intake activity?  Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed.

    On Tuesday, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to purchase the former sobering center property on Mahler Road in Burlingame for $13 million. Only a single speaker opposed the purchase. Even the Burlingame City Council – never mistaken for a drum circle – gave Mahler Road unusually ‘high’ marks at its 4/20 meeting. Why? Because Mahler Road makes sense. 

    At two acres, it’s a large parcel in a light industrial and emerging biotech corridor with sparse nearby housing. It sits just one mile from Highway 101 and three miles from Mills-Peninsula Medical Center. Most importantly, it has a long, proven history as a sobering center serving San Mateo County. The Mahler sobering component is expected to open within six months. By comparison, the 101 ECR proposal likely faced a three-to-five-year runway filled with entitlement battles, lawsuits, redesigns, and enough public hostility to power a small city. 

    Burlingame’s Supervisor Jackie Speier deserves enormous credit for recognizing the broader potential of the Mahler site. In addition to treatment services, discussions have included a future home for the San Mateo County Pride Center – which has been without a permanent location since 2024 – as well as possible housing for essential service workers increasingly priced out of the communities they serve.

    Which makes San Mateo’s Supervisor Noelia Corzo’s continued attachment to the 101 ECR location all the more puzzling. This debacle echoes her divisive performance during COVID while serving as SMFCSD’s school board President, where her stubbornness and delays reopening San Mateo public schools were epic. Her tone-deaf obstinacy has triggered a June primary write-in candidate (Taso Zografos) and a recall effort (you heard it here first). 

    At some point, leadership means recognizing when a better option has emerged. Corzo’s four Supervisor colleagues did exactly that. They listened to residents, looked at operational realities, and pivoted toward a faster, cheaper, and far less divisive solution. 

    These are important services that our families, friends and neighbors need ASAP. The Mahler location delivers services quickly and in a location that is well suited for this use. Only time will tell, but San Mateo County appears to be getting this right. 

    David Long is a San Mateo Park resident who continues to view the failed 1909 Burlingame annexation effort of his neighborhood as one of local history’s great missed opportunities.

    —————

    With all the fuss about commercial properties not turning over and thus never being revalued per Prop. 13, my hope is that even if the County did get a deal at $13 million, I hope they are paying full property taxes on the purchase. We shall see how the Broadway overpass handles another 17,000 trips per year. And yes, San Mateo Park would have made a great addition to South B’game. Thanks, David. 

    Posted by:

    Joe

    1 comment on Sobering up in Burlingame instead of San Mateo

  • BHS: New principal and vice principal arrive

    We like to keep track of who’s who at BHS (and SMUSHD) since there has been some controversy over how the high school has been administered in the past. BHS (and Mills) are key elements in the community spirit of our little city. Per the DJ:


    Peter Alvarez and Lauren Kelly were named as the new principals for Aragon and Burlingame high schools, respectively, by the San Mateo Union High School District Board of Trustees at its meeting last week.

    Kelly served as the vice principal of McDonald High School and the principal of Cabrillo Middle School in the Santa Clara Unified School District since 2023. Prior to that she served as the principal at Freedom High School in Oakley from 2021-23; the assistant director of educational services and the K12 pathway coordinator at Eden Area ROP in Hayward from 2018-21; and the principal of Evergreen Valley High School in San Jose from 2013-18. Kelly has also served as the athletic director and PE teacher at Milken Community School in Los Angeles; and as a math and science teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

    The district also recently announced that Chad Slife was named as vice principal of Burlingame High School. He has more than 23 years of experience in public education and currently works at the San Mateo County Office of Education. Born and raised in Riverside, Slife began his career as a Teach For America Corps Member and has since served as a teacher, a founding assistant principal of a charter middle school, and an elementary school principal for seven years.

    Welcome aboard Lauren and Chad. We wish you well in maintaining and improving the school’s reputation.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Josh Becker: Poor judgement in action

    Last Friday was International Socialists Day aka May Day. One would expect some SF politicians to participate in the random protest here or there because, well, that’s what they do. But would one expect them to protest themselves? Isn’t that peak stupidity/hypocrisy? Apparently understanding that the City and County of SF own and operate SFO airport was above their pay grade. The Chronicle reports

    A May Day protest by airport service workers briefly shut down the departure-level roadway at San Francisco International Airport’s international terminal Friday, diverting traffic as demonstrators rallied over a wage dispute and broader labor concerns.

    Several San Francisco elected officials were arrested after demonstrators blocked the roadway to the international terminal, including Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, Supervisor Connie Chan and former Supervisor Jane Kim. State Sen. Josh Becker, who represents San Mateo County and part of Santa Clara County, was also arrested.

    “San Francisco airport is the people’s airport,” Chan told supporters before her arrest. “We know our workers deserve fair pay, a fair contract, health care and benefits. We’re demanding that the workers get that benefits and fair pay right now.”

    Like I said, plenty of things are apparently above Connie Chan’s pay grade even as she runs for Congress, but what about our own state senator Josh Becker? What exactly caused him to feel it was a good idea to disrupt traffic at SFO while his constituents were trying to catch a flight? Has he taken care of the insurance crisis, the energy and gas prices, water security, and the state’s budget crisis so airport salaries move to the top of the list?

    And in the ultimate finger to her constituents, SF Supe Jackie Fielder who is supposedly on “medical leave” and has not been doing her job as a supervisor for several months was photographed at the protest. You are judged by the company you keep, senator.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Sam’s replacement coming soon

    Word on the street is that after several stunted attempts by the city to lease the old Sam’s Sandwich space in the old Greyhound Depot, a tenant has secured the lease. It’s a small space but having it sit empty for several years has been depressing. Anything we can do to keep our small-town feel is progress.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • High-cost rail – Part 168 Billions more

    The steady drumbeat of bad news just keeps getting worse. This week a new, worst-case number KTLA is reporting a possible hit of $231 billion! They report

    In a newly proposed business plan released this year, project leaders estimate the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco segment will cost about $126 billion, with service beginning around 2040. In the meantime, the state is focused on getting the Bakersfield-to-Merced section up and running earlier, with a target of no later than 2033. All of this falls under what officials are calling an “optimized plan,” which reduces the scope of the original proposal. Under the updated plan, some segments would share tracks with existing systems such as Metrolink, and the number of tunnels would be scaled back, at least for now. Project leaders say those changes could significantly reduce costs. Without them, officials estimate the full Los Angeles-to-San Francisco buildout could have cost as much as $231 billion.

    You would not be wrong to ask why, at this stage of the game, they are still tweaking the design? It’s the shockingly bad management we have some to expect along with the waste noted in Part 167. The latest circus act was reported in the Comicle this week involving Cesar Chavez of all people and his 187-acre monument. The headline read “Add a $1 billion detour for California high-speed rail to Cesar Chavez’s legacy”:

    Add one more twist to the complicated legacy of disgraced civil rights icon Cesar Chavez: A reroute around his grave site has inflated the cost of California’s high-speed rail project by nearly $1 billion. Ironically, Chavez’s monument already sits on a key rail corridor that carries about 36 freight trains each day through the rugged Tehachapi. A single track loops around the property, creating a constant rumble for anyone walking among the Mission-style buildings and courtyards where Chavez lived and organized grape-field workers. Through letters and stakeholder meetings, the Chavez Center and the Cesar Chavez Foundation successfully lobbied for a bespoke alignment called the “refined Cesar Chavez National Monument design option,” which moved the track about three-quarters of a mile away from the monument boundary.  Board directors for the High-Speed Rail Authority adopted the alternative design in 2021, as part of a final environmental impact report for the 80-mile Bakersfield to Palmdale (Los Angeles County) section. Now, some rail authority staff or board members might call for a do-over.

    Here’s the mindset on the Authority Board:

    “We are constantly reviewing decisions that we’ve made along that alignment,” said board director Henry Perea, pointing to other potential revisions, such as the relocation of a future train stop in Merced. Plans that are really lines and dots on draft paper are always subject to change, Perea noted, particularly if policymakers are seeking to save money, or trying to acknowledge a historical wrong.

    Will any gubernatorial candidate with a D after their name have the guts to say we should just cut bait on this monstrosity? We only have a month to go until the primary.

    Posted by:

    Joe

    1 comment on High-cost rail – Part 168 Billions more

  • How we will remember April 2026

    The month started with a prank and ends with sorrowful tear.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Water Rate$: Feel the tip of the nozzle

    I knew what was coming when I opened this morning’s Comicle and saw the front-page headline: “S.F. water and sewer rates may rise in July.” As an avid water-watcher and a firm believer in the phrase “when EssEff sneezes, B’game gets a cold” I knew it wasn’t just S.F. rates they were talking about. And indeed, going to the Comicle website to grab a couple of snippets delivered a much more accurate headline: “San Francisco is about to hike up water rates — and much of the Bay Area will feel it” And feel it we will.

    San Francisco is planning to sharply raise water and sewer rates over the coming decade, beginning with a nearly 25% projected bump in residential bills over the next two years, as the growing cost of maintaining the city’s waterworks comes due. This summer, the average single-family household bill for combined water and sewer service will increase from $171 a month to $189 a month, and next summer it will rise to $212 a month, according to estimates in the rate-hike proposal scheduled for approval next week. Officials expect that utility rates will continue to climb through at least 2036, though at varying levels.

    We are a wholesale customer of SFPUC and the Hetch Hetchy feed for most of our water which you can read about from my tour last year here. If they go up, we go up.

    The SFPUC’s water, in addition to serving San Francisco, goes to about two dozen wholesalers in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Alameda counties. The water rate for these suppliers is set to increase 7.4% this summer, compared to a 2.3% rise last year. 

    After the Comicle covered the improvements needed in the city, our shared part was revealed

    Smaller, yet significant outlays are going toward water supply projects, including repairs to the 19-mile Mountain Tunnel and replacement of the century-old Moccasin Penstocks, both of which are in the Sierra Nevada and are critical for San Francisco’s long-distance water deliveries.

    All this infrastructure costs money, but some groups think SFPUC is spending too much

    At least two environmental groups are calling on the SFPUC to go further. The Sierra Club’s San Francisco Bay chapter and the Yosemite Rivers Alliance, formerly Tuolumne River Trust, want the agency to re-evaluate its water supply needs, believing the city has long overestimated its demand and consequently overbuilt its infrastructure. The Yosemite Rivers Alliance and Sierra Club have asked the SFPUC to downgrade a worst-case water scenario that it plans for — a severe drought lasting roughly 8 years — arguing that this event is highly improbable and requires amassing too much water.

    But we know from our own Urban Water Management Plan flaws that just because they say they are planning for an 8-year drought doesn’t mean anything real is happening–even over a 5-year scenario. I won’t retype the real story but rather just point you to the infamous Table 7-6 described here. We are creeping up on the deadline for the every-five-years revision, and we have a new Public Works director so we shall see if 7-6 gets a real update. Either way, our checkbooks will be lighter soon for at least the next 10 years……

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • California Dr: From bad to worse

    Now that the El Camino Real project, The Little Big Dig, is in full swing things have gone from bad to worse on the reroute path–California Dr. It was unpopular two years ago as we noted here. But now with the additional volume it’s downright frustrating. The bike lane seldom has even one biker on it. Turning left out of Floribunda or Douglas has become perilous due to the steadier flow of traffic. The cars parked alongside the bike lane all seem to know how to protect their mirrors and doors by parking as close to the bollards as possible. And the mostly empty middle turn lane beckons to drivers like the sirens of Greek mythology calling sailors to the rocks.

    I know it’s hopeless, but I can’t help but wish things would just Go Back To The Way They Were on California. In the meantime, if you must park on the Caltrain side, do as the locals do. Squeeze in.

    Posted by:

    Joe

    7 comments on California Dr: From bad to worse

  • BSD School Bond – Another Hundo?

    We addressed the bevy of local school bonds two and a half years ago here. The DJ is reporting on the next appeal to local voters for bond money to maintain and upgrade school infrastructure. The new classrooms at McKinley are moving right along and the new bonds would go towards “re-piping” and WiFi upgrades.

    The Burlingame School District Board of Trustees voted to increase the amount sought through a bond measure to $100 million from a previously approved $89 million, which is intended to be up for voter approval in November.

    Trustees previously approved moving forward to seek $89 million through a bond measure but the item was brought back for discussion to see if asking for just a bit more was worthwhile. The increase was approved unanimously. 

    The district passed its most recent bond, worth $97 million, in March 2020. The bond measure was a $25 tax per $100,000 of assessed property value. While Trustee Doug Brown said there isn’t a significant material difference between $89 million and $100 million for taxpayers, and “there wasn’t any red flags or yellow flags about increasing it,” he said the board should still carefully weigh the ask.

    The Board needs to formally vote by August on putting this on the November ballot. The same tax fatigue that was in place two and a half years ago is still with us in this age of “affordability” as noted recently here. It’s going to take some strong community outreach to push this on over the finish line especially if big transit and sales taxes are on the ballot as well.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Broadway Dining Meter? Eat faster.

    The Parking category here at the Voice is the repository for weird maneuvers, usually by drivers. But the City is not immune from having its weird moves get memorialized as well. Popular restaurants often require diners to be in and out in some time limit–often 90 minutes– so the restaurant can turn the tables at a profitable pace. It’s polite and often loosely enforced– no fine for staying 95 or 100 minutes. Perhaps just a nudge by the server. One wonders if this new form of Dining Meter at Cafe Figaro’s parklet on B’way will be as flexible? Can Figaro issue tickets to slow diners?

    I get why the City might have either a) left the old meter knowing investing in a new blue one would be a waste of money, or b) just taken the meter out altogether allowing staff easier access to the parklet tables. Installing a never-to-be-used new meter is odd. Could Cafe Figaro eventually give up its parklet? Sure, but that would be the time to refresh the meter. Otherwise, this looks like an expensive dog leash station.

    Enjoy the free parking around town with all the headless meter stanchions.

    Posted by:

    Joe

    1 comment on Broadway Dining Meter? Eat faster.

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