Dedicated to Empowering and Informing the Burlingame Community

  • Democracy dies in daylight

    The typical quote is “Democracy dies in darkness”. According to Gemini:

    “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is the official slogan of The Washington Post. Owner Jeff Bezos selected the phrase after hearing investigative journalist Bob Woodward, who found the line in a 2006 First Amendment judicial opinion by U.S. District Judge Damon J. Keith regarding government wiretapping and secrecy.

    Here in California, it seems democracy is slowly withering away in plain sight. Tuesday’s Candidate Forum was lightly attended to say the least. It seemed like maybe 30 people were there for an event that used to be standing room only and had overflow into the lobby. The move to “five little districts” is one thing driving the lack of interest. We only had three candidates on the dais (Andrea Pappajohn was called away). Peter Stevenson is unopposed but was invited by the League of Women Voters anyway. That left only Jen Faber and Howard Wettan to vie for the District 3 seat. All three candidates said they are elected by district but represent the whole city. But voters tend not to show up when they don’t have a vote (as with two districts this cycle) or a competitive choice (also in two districts this cycle). I just read where Newsom signed 1,000 bills this legislative cycle, but apparently this democracy-killing loophole in the law wasn’t important enough to anyone in Sac. The DJ’s Mark Simon tallied nearly half of the 52 city council seats being elected in the county have no competition. 80% of our city’s voters are disenfranchised and nobody who could do anything about it cares.

    The Forum itself was fairly mundane. Part of that is due to the format. Three minutes to introduce oneself and two minutes to conclude. One minute per question. With questions like “How would you suggest we wrest some local control back from Sacramento?”, “Do you support selling Lot L?”, and “What do you think are the Top 3 priorities for Bgame residents?”, one minute doesn’t cut it. Back when we had nine people on stage that might have been necessary, but not when there are only three. Unfortunately, the lady from the League struggled to keep track of the speaking order for three or to organize her thoughts around the twelve questions asked. That isn’t helping keep democracy vibrant. Here are Howard, Peter and Jen.

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    Joe

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  • Fall treehugger post #1: Apples everywhere

    We are two weeks into Fall and my Gravenstein apple tree has delivered another bumper crop through the Summer. Apples the size of softballs that land with a thud that can scare you. Here are the last couple yet to drop. Fall foliage hasn’t really kicked in yet on the streets of B’game so post #2 will have to wait.

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    Joe

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  • Burlingame was alive at Live

    We have had the nickname “Boringame” in the past. I first heard it when I worked in town in 1983, but this past Thursday to Sunday we were alive with the sounds of music on the Ave. Four days, three bands per day. A dozen bands. That’s a lot of music and hundreds of people came out to hear it each day even with the oppressive heat on the weekend.

    I had the pleasure of MC’ing Friday and Sunday as I did for one day at Burlingame on the Avenue back in August. Sometimes it feels like our city is growing fast, but other times you see a lot of familiar faces and it seems still small. Well, maybe not “small” but not big either. Kudos to the Burlingame/SFO Chamber of Commerce for managing all the details of the program that makes it all go smoothly.

    The talk on the street all weekend was about the merchandise theft and subsequent tackle of a suspect by a “Burlingame man” on Wednesday. Here’s the NBC Bay Area report complete with video.

    A Burlingame man was caught on camera tackling a person police were chasing after a reported retail theft on Wednesday. It all started with a man running full speed down Lorton Avenue. Camera footage showed when he was followed by another, who quickly closed the gap and took him to the ground. The two wrestle on the sidewalk before a passing car blocks the camera’s view. The video was recorded around 12:45 p.m. on Wednesday. Around 15 minutes earlier, police said they received a report of a theft from a business on Burlingame Avenue.

    Not recommended, but gutsy, nonetheless. Here’s Mike Annuzzi’s band closing the festivities last night.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Hotel Tax: Leveling up from 12% to 15%

    The easiest tax to support is one you will never pay. And no, I’m not talking about the billionaire tax. Raising the Transient Occupancy Tax, the “ToT”, is on our ballot in five weeks and as the DJ editorial says, it’s a “no brainer”. The rationale may not always be solid as in “hey, revenue is down so we must raise the tax rate”, but that’s the story and supporters are sticking with it. From the DJ

    Before COVID, the city collected approximately $30 million in revenue from the 12% hotel tax. In its last budget, the city showed it collected approximately $23 million. Before COVID, the hotel tax provided about 35% of the city’s revenue and the most recent budget showed it provided about 23% of the city’s $93 million annual general fund budget.

    There might be other new revenues in the denominator of the 23% ratio like Facebook and the other new businesses along Old Bayshore. Maybe auto sales are up–the prices certainly are. The claim is the average room rate on the B’game bayfront is $200, but a bit of Gemini searching yields more like $300-350 and big conventions in the city take it up from there. 15% of $300 is $45/night–a better way to think about it than the editorial saying it’s an incremental $6 per night. It’s easier to say neighboring cities’ ToTs are higher so just level us up. Prop. D stands for just Do it. Nobody voting for it will ever pay it.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • High-cost Rail – Part 170 The buffoonery continues

    Will there ever be an end to the incredible sinkhole of our “high-speed rail” project? The weak powers-that-be started the planning in 1996–30 years ago. Prop 1A passed in 2008–18 years ago. The “groundbreaking” was in 2015–11 years ago. And yet they still have not settled on where the Merced area station will be located! Want to know why a $10 billion dollar kitty has swelled into a $231 billion starving tiger? Check this out from the Comicle

    Plans to make high-speed rail the new gateway to Yosemite National Park have met resistance from community organizers in the Central Valley, who last week sent a cease-and-desist letter to the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

    It’s the first salvo in what could be a long legal battle to preserve the original plans for the railway, which include a station in downtown Merced. Earlier this year, officials began discussing options to move the stop about 4 miles southeast, to what’s currently a country road lined with pistachio orchards and a defunct wholesale warehouse. “The HSRA has no authority to unilaterally re-route the high-speed rail project out of downtown Merced without prior authorization from the California legislature,” the letter says.

    Even if the bought-and-paid-for legislature did authorize such a thing, change orders are the death knell to any sort of budget. We already know this as listed here 4 1/2 years ago, but they just keep doing it.

    Considering all the budget constraints on high-speed rail, moving a Merced station to the boondocks is “a better deal,” (Mayor Mathew) Serratto ventured.

    Genius. Put the station in the “boondocks”. He means put the boondoggle in the boondocks. The buffoonery continues. The only way it will stop is if a miracle happens on November 3rd.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Meet 6 Neighbors…or maybe many more

    On Sunday afternoon, more than 80 local neighbors gathered at Pershing Park for cake and conversation. The event was sponsored by the Burlingame Public Library and the Burlingame Community Center as well as the City. Volunteers spread the word by flyers and shoe leather since relying on the City e-newsletter doesn’t work as well. You need a flyer to put on the fridge as a reminder. Luckily the Niners had things well in hand against the Dolphins by the 3pm start time which probably helped attendance. I met way more than six there and a few new neighborhood dogs.

    Meet 6 Neighbors is a state initiative focusing on building connection and reducing isolation. Research shows that knowing at least six neighbors improves physical and mental health as well as overall individual and collective well-being.

    A wag might say it depends on which six neighbors, but let’s leave that for another post!

    The goals of M6N are to improve well-being, foster civic engagement, fight loneliness, build trust and support disaster resiliency–the later similar to the BNN meet-ups, drills and Zello radio practice sessions. The Meet 6 Neighbors ad-hoc Committee consists of Colleen Conefrey and Margaret Glomstad, Park & Rec Department; Cynthia Ryder, Burlingame Public Library; Stephanie Lee, former city council member, Brad McCulley, City Librarian; and Anne Hinckle, BNN (The last four are pictured L-R below at the event). The next Park Party is scheduled for Sunday, October 18th at Cuernavaca Park. More will be scheduled in 2027. Moving the start time to 5pm and swapping out the cake for some vino might enhance attendance even more!

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Dirty Dozen: What’s up with that?

    I worry that our beloved local paper, the San Mateo Daily Journal (the “DJ”), is susceptible to the nonsense that makes the SF Chronicle the “Comicle”. Uncritical thinking. Poor story selection. Intentional or unintentional omissions. Tertiary sources. There are so many ways to screw up. Thursday was an example. The front page, above-the-fold piece with accompanying photo was headlined “Organizers protest detainment facility at SFO”. The very first sentence reads “Roughly a dozen protesters…..” Stop right there. The line at Walgreen’s pharmacy window after the lunch break has more than a dozen people in it. If it’s a slow news day, just stick with whatever the AP feeds you. Twelve people posing for a photo op is sad.

    Then we are treated to some rando protester from some rando organization that probably only has these dozen people in it telling us that if “people knew they would not be pleased”. He has no idea what people would think except for me–I think he’s an idiot. My worry, noted above, is exacerbated when our intrepid local reporter then starts regurgitating Comicle reporting from three weeks ago. Ugh. Do better.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Leno’s Law – Part 2?

    The Gavinor signed “Leno’s Law” yesterday as advocated by Jay Leno himself on behalf of classic car owners in California. It absolves cars from 1976 to 1980 from smog checks starting in 2028. The non-inspection years grow to include up thru 1985 by 2033. That’s all well and good. These cars on the road are mostly classics that don’t get a lot of miles driven to begin with. But I have been thinking about the other end of the market for years now. When was the last time you had a car from after 2005 or 2010 fail a smog inspection? I have a couple and cannot remember it ever happening. I won’t say which B’game inspection station is my usual one, but I asked the guy how often 15-20 year old cars fail? He kind of looked away and then muttered “not very often”. And it turns out most of the failures come after the battery has been replaced and the computer hiccups. Kind of like losing your preset radio stations. So what do you say, Sacramento? Isn’t it time to improve “affordability” and save people (and the DMV) time? Pick a year–even 2020 model year and cut us some slack.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Sheriff charade: Where is she?

    My prediction that we would still be talking about ex-sheriff Christina Corpus throughout 2026 is looking like a sure thing. It’s a long saga as documented here and here among other places. She is being sued by one of the captains that she allegedly spread false rumors about causing all sorts of problems for him. But the story is that the process servers in that case cannot find her! Even when the “lights are on” at her San Bruno home “but nobody’s home”. I sure hope we, the San Mateo County taxpayers, are not on the hook for her attorney fees on this one–like we were on the last one to the tune of at least $4.8M. Talk about an ordinance that should be changed.

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    Joe

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  • First peek: The new, Old Post Office

    We noted that The Old Post Office restaurant was hiring back during the last Avenew festival here. An intrepid regular reader has added to the anticipation by getting a couple of photos of the nearly-complete interior–and they are exquisite. Check it out our first peek inside.

    I can taste the French 75s and Kir Royales already. Add a strolling violin player and some paté. Voilà.

    This is a good time to look back — way back — to 2014 and remember the effort that went into saving a key piece of the old post office. My lovely wife laid it out in an Op Ed for the DJ back on Sept. 25, 2014, here. I’ll repost just one small bit of it:

    With the recent sale of the historic downtown Burlingame post office on Park Road, these words from Dr. Gray Brechin, project scholar of The Living New Deal at U.C. Berkeley, come to mind: “Far more than utilitarian containers for conducting business, they are our piazzas — the places we meet one another and in doing so, see our landscapes, history, work and ourselves reflected back from their walls.”

    In my mind, 220 Park Road, embodies the spirit of New Deal public works projects built during the lingering poverty following the Great Depression and championed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in hope of rebuilding our nation and its people. Roosevelt, “an avid stamp collector,” per Brechin, “took a keen interest in the postal service” actively overseeing the design of six post offices near his Hyde Park home and believed “they are at once centers of community and symbolic of government’s integrity — and believed they should look it.”

    Click through and get the full Op Ed while we await the opening. You can sign up for updates from the restaurant website here.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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