Dedicated to Empowering and Informing the Burlingame Community

  • Neighborhood siege and YIMBY bigotry

    Here at the Voice, we go the extra mile for our readers or, in this case, the extra 1.7 miles. That is how far 606 S. Delaware in San Mateo is from my house. Having read the DJ news piece noted in the anniversary post, John Horgan’s column and Dana Yates’ opinion piece, I wanted to see the house and the neighborhood for myself. Horgan called the proposed 5-story, 20-unit project “absurd”. He notes

    There, on South Delaware Street not far from downtown, a plan is afoot that simply boggles the mind. A property owner has proposed constructing a five-story minitower that would include 20 studio apartments. The structure, if approved by city authorities, would be markedly out of character for the neighborhood.

    But that’s not the most striking aspect of the plan. According to a revealing report in the Daily Journal last week, the bold project would not have a single on-site parking space, not one. Nada. Nil. Zilch.

    My trip to San Mateo was late on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I found a section of quaint single-story, small bungalow style homes and no open parking spaces on the block. Think back to this post about the San Jose parking fiasco. “Parking is a necessity” should not be a surprise to anyone, but the Delaware St. project has no on-site parking! There is some odd arrangement to have eight spaces (not 15 or 20) in a “nearby garage”, but I didn’t see it on the east side of the Caltrain tracks where this neighborhood is located. I just keep thinking about people lugging groceries especially with all the talk about senior housing.

    But the rising angst isn’t just a San Mateo or Burlingame thing. Anyone following the EssEff Marina Safeway project has seen concern about size and density morph into bigoted accusations of bigotry. Note the Comicle’s Laura Waxmann piece about a photo of a community meeting:

    When I snapped the photo Thursday night, it looked like many community meetings I had covered before: a crowd of hundreds of neighbors packed into a Marina District warehouse to discuss a large housing development they opposed, the proposal to reimagine a waterfront Safeway into 848 apartments rising as high as 22 stories. I didn’t expect the image to take on a life of its own. Many (readers) were incensed or incited by one detail: Almost everyone in the room was older, with graying hair and faces that had seen decades of life. Two days later, the post had nearly 10 million views. Yet others called out what they described as a “YIMBY bigotry” toward older San Franciscans that the photo had unleashed.

    Waxmann didn’t call out people in the meeting being “white” but plenty of other commenters have and the YIMBY bigotry is rife in the opinion pieces and letters to the editor both at the Comicle and elsewhere. Comicle hack Joe Garofoli even dredges up the old race restrictions in deeds that were invalidated 80 years ago. One letter-writer says

    NIMBYs do not get to decide who lives here. If they like their city, they should want more people to be able to live here.

    No sorry. Let’s put the soft YIMBY bigotry away. People aren’t trying to influence WHO gets to live here–just some common sense about HOW MANY get to live here. Dana Yates’ column about why we are losing faith in local government gets to the source of the angst, but the bottom line is lack of action at the local, county and state levels. The priorities seem wrong and it could be too late by the time they figure it out. Remember Ben Franklin’s quote “When the well is dry, we know the worth of water”. Here’s the photo of the orange house on Delaware that has kicked over the hornet’s nest.

    Posted by:

    Joe

    4 comments on Neighborhood siege and YIMBY bigotry

  • Town Square schedule challenges

    I’m very supportive of the effort to bring music and other events to our new Town Square. It’s perfectly located to bring more life to our city center–if things go off as advertised which isn’t happening consistently. Thursday was the latest challenge. A ukelele band was advertised on the sandwich board and in the Daily Journal’s very helpful weekly schedule of events that runs most days. Start time 4pm which would have allowed people at the Farmer’s Market to enjoy some uke. It was also the DBID Walk with Wine event. Even better. The problem was no band. People were peering at the sandwich board, looking at their watch or phone and moving on by 4:20. Back in June a band was cancelled because Music in the Park was scheduled for the same day. Having two shows on the same day isn’t a deal killer. Last minute cancellations and no shows won’t help bring in an audience.

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Eucs: Blinded by the light

    Luckily, I was on foot when I took this picture at around 7pm, but my head was on a swivel as it usually is around Safeway. My understanding is that some of the big Eucs that are still standing are housing nesting birds. When they leave, so will the Eucs. Southbound drivers are going to miss them in the morning, and northbound in the evening, when they are gone. I do wish the contractors would get on with the stump grinding instead of letting the corpses just sit there. In fact, I wish they would just get on with every aspect of the project. After the initial surge of activity things have slowed down dramatically.

    Posted by:

    Joe

    3 comments on Eucs: Blinded by the light

  • Voice Blog: 23 and thee

    The blog version of the Burlingame Voice turns 23 years old today. It’s been an interesting year as we scrambled to migrate from TypePad to WordPress on short notice in September. Special thanks to Matheus Souza for the tech support. WordPress has a more informational backend. It can screen out automated crawler views, so viewership is now real human viewership–even if some commenters use AI to add poignant prose which is fine. The views are tallied by post and the subscription feature is also working better than it did on TypePad. And of course, it’s all still free and ad-free. I still get asked if someone can place an advertisement, but we’re not going there. We’re into “affordability” here at the Voice even if everything else just goes up including our taxes.

    Many of the issues of the B’game day remain the same. Just two days ago, the DJ headline was “1st AB 79 development application for San Mateo; 5-story building proposed for residential street after bill goes into effect”. The Monsters are still invading. And there are some new issues like the backlash against more data centers (also on the DJ front page Friday). Who would have thunk the systems that power the net, the Voice and all the apps we depend on would become a power and water-sucking boogie man in the public’s eye?

    Onward to another year. We’ll be here for thee.

    Posted by:

    Joe

    1 comment on Voice Blog: 23 and thee

  • Watering down the water story–no end in Site

    Credit the Comicle’s Kurtis Alexander, the water guy, with crafting a pretty complete story about the woes of building the hoped-for Sites reservoir 70 miles northwest of Sac. All of the actors in the delayed play are present–farmers, ranchers, salmon, tribes, and bureaucrats. And of course, the Gavinor is complaining about the delay as well, like he hasn’t been in charge for the last seven and a half years. But the journo buried the real story in paragraph 11.

    Seed money for the venture comes from the state’s 2014 water bond measure. The $7.5 billion Proposition 1 initially helped fund four large reservoirs, but Sites is the only one that hasn’t fallen through due to financing and other issues.

    He meant to write it “is the only one that hasn’t fallen through yet“. The state has been sitting on $7.5B of water monies for eleven years and hasn’t built a single thing. We are headed for an El Nino year so hopefully the legacy reservoirs will capture most of what we need, but one has to wonder what it takes to get some competent management that doesn’t make the high-speed rail team look like it’s making progress!

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • The County appears flush

    Amid the steady drumbeat of housing affordability and lack of same, one entity doesn’t seem to have any problem buying up real estate. The San Mateo County government is buying left and right regardless of whether the cities they are buying in like it or not. Today’s DJ headline is “Contentious land buy OK’d; County buys Foster City property for Human Services Agency“. Another $29 million to upgrade the second largest department’s digs. The La Quinta motel purchase in Millbrae sparked all sorts of protests and a recall election (which was successful). The “sobering center” planned for B’game’s Bayfront may be controversial with some nearby business owners and hoteliers, but it hasn’t sparked the same ire as the San Mateo proposal on El Camino did. Just another run-of-the-mill $13 million purchase. There is the “affordable housing” project in Daly City and Caltrain had no problems getting primo space in the new Millbrae complex but constantly reminds us it may literally go under soon.

    One wonders when the belt-tightening will begin? Perhaps the November election will send a message about it.

    Posted by:

    Joe

    1 comment on The County appears flush

  • Summer treehugger post: Squirrels win

    Here in the City of Trees, or as Mark Simon at the DJ recently noted, “except not so much lately” referring to our City of Tree Stumps, I still marvel at the bounty in my yard. The Gravensteins are having a bumper year, the lemons are doing well, and I thought I would get a great yield of pears. It is always a battle with the squirrels over my pears and my neighbor’s figs that hang over the fence. I thought I would win this year because the main bunch was quite far out on a branch that would deter the determined little fellas. I was wrong. All seven are missing in action……

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • More local music: Barracuda’s turn

    Barracuda Sushi is doing its part to add some entertainment to the Avenew with comedy, game night and last night’s live jazz at the front of the restaurant with The Birds. I wasn’t familiar with the band–a quintet of Aragon High School kids–with a front line of alto and tenor sax, hence the name referencing Charlie Parker. They did a credible job on mostly mid-tempo standards.

    It’s really fun to see the latest Gen Whatever get into jazz and I hope to see The Birds around town regularly whether at the upcoming B’game on the Avenue (it’s probably too late for that) or Burlingame Live (Oct. 1-4) or on the Town Square. Barracuda is billing itself as the new Barracuda, but it looked the same to me and the chef’s choise sashimi was choice. Here are The Birds:

    Posted by:

    Joe

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  • Of Caltrain, consultants and transit taxes

    I know a bit about premium priced consulting services that I learned over 30 years including some engagements with government agencies. When the Daily Journal headline screamed “High pay for Caltrain consultant”, I thought “How high?” Luckily the subhead read “Transit agency pays $1.4M for deputy leader, amount over three times top-paid executive director’s salary”. Wow. Is that for a one person, one year extension, not a contract with a firm staffing three or four or more consultants? That’s premium with a capital P. But it gets worse. That front page piece on July 6th came out the same day the purported million-dollar consultant, Sherry Bullock, was scheduled to present the state of the B’way grade separation to our city council.

    Thanks to a tipster, I got the word that the presentation didn’t go so well. The video is not streaming smoothly for me, but around 1:05 on this link you can start to feel the confusion and maybe a bit of desperation from the 20-year Caltrain veteran! When asked to spell out some of the arcane acronyms (and there are many) lower-priced staff had to jump in with an assist. The $1.4 mil was looming large given the newspaper was probably still in the box outside city hall. The piece is a little convoluted, but according to a later LTTE from Jeff Gee (Caltrain board and RWC councilmember) “That was a max authority to a consulting firm. Caltrain paid a quarter of that and is closing out the contract.” So perhaps we are down to $350K–that still some “max authority” for someone who is also charging overtime.

    And yet we know, because Caltrain told us, that it is on the brink of disaster. Per the DJ

    After adopting a $270 million operating budget, Caltrain is reiterating short- and long-term plans to narrow its deficit with a state loan and upcoming sales tax ballot measure — or else it could shut down entirely, leaders say.

    Cue the DJ two days later discussing the formation of some opposition to the “Connect Bay Area” 14-year duration sales tax increase.

    The measure would be the sixth transportation-dedicated sales tax in San Mateo County. Measures A, W, RR and the San Mateo County Transit District tax are administered by the county, with a portion of the state-mandated 7.25% sales tax going to local transportation efforts as well. They’re thinking, ‘well we’re getting bailed out by the government,’” said Peninsula resident Gregg Dieguez, a member of the Committee for Affordable Bay Area Transit. “They are used to spending our money, rather than reforming what they’re doing.”

    This ain’t rocket science, kids. The primary Caltrain commuter rail line spans 77.2 miles between San Francisco and Gilroy. The core corridor between San Francisco and San Jose Diridon Station is approximately 48 miles long. We not running Amtrack or the TGV here. And this is going to be a very tough election for new taxes, bond measures, and whatever else got thrown against the wall by anyone other than the Howard Jarvis people. Couple that with the fact that the B’way grade separation (remember that?) is still not close to being fully funded. The question is “are we getting what we are paying for?”

    Posted by:

    Joe

    2 comments on Of Caltrain, consultants and transit taxes

  • Gas Water Heaters: Common sense missing

    We are officially in the last half of the year, and the burning question is are we also in the last six months for gas water heaters? It was more than six years ago when I first analyzed here what a stupid, expensive, complicated mandate this would be when B’game looked at it. I elaborated on more nitty-gritty problems in May here. More issues come to mind as I look at my water heater especially how much time and money it will take to patch the ceiling and roof where the deleted vent exits. Do the retired gas pipes under my house just lay there for eternity like a desiccated rodent’s skeleton? This ban is a plumber, electrician, roofer, and painter’s dream. More people are waking up to the impending implosion, and the San Mateo County Supes will be looking at it during their August 11th meeting. Will common sense make an appearance? The supes should memorize this letter to the Comicle.

    The Bay Area Air District’s plan to prohibit gas water heaters and furnaces needs to be scrapped.  Everyone is in favor of cleaner air, but how we get there needs thoughtfulness. Arguing that incentives for property owners and future higher costs for gas will ease the pain of conversion isn’t going to cut it.

    Converting from gas to electricity is not a simple process. One can’t just unplug the old unit and plug in the new. Designing the new systems, obtaining the appropriate permits, and coordinating with PG&E, if an upgraded electrical panel is needed, will take time.  Modifying the building to accept the new water heater and furnace takes money, budgeting and careful planning, especially if people are living in the building.

    Hardly anyone replaces a water heater or furnace before it breaks. When one does need to be replaced, the situation is tantamount to an emergency because the home becomes uninhabitable without hot water or heat. Mandating the replacement of the gas units with electric add to the cost and complexity. This flat-out ban on gas water heaters and furnaces will bring nightmares to many.

    Frank Lee, San Francisco

    Lost in all of this is just how much time a homeowner will need to spend to comply. I value my time pretty highly, but I don’t get a sense that our elected officials do.

    Posted by:

    Joe

    8 comments on Gas Water Heaters: Common sense missing

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