Month: November 2013

  • Historic B’game Bar

    Our very local columnist, John Horgan, has a column today that is being widely read due to its pointed comments about Terry Nagel's campaign tactics.  It's already been posted as a comment here.  I found another part of the same column interesting.  John writes

    Rising property values are all well and good, but there are downsides to going upscale. There was a time when most of the Peninsula was not considered high-end at all.

    There were a few notable tony enclaves like Hillsborough and Atherton, but, for the most part, they were exceptions to the generally middle-class rule. That's all changed now. And there's no going back.

    Consequently, evidence of a blue collar ambience is disappearing. You can chronicle that shift in the number of true working class bars left in these parts. They are few and far between.

    Three which are especially missed by former regulars are Welte's in South San Francisco, John's Place in Burlingame and Malley's in San Mateo.

    Those were very basic joints that served an honest drink. There were no pretensions, no nods to political correctness. Tobacco use was rampant; spittoons were available well into the 1960s; as for language, well, let's just say that freedom of speech meant precisely that.

    You didn't see too many ladies hanging out in those gritty establishments. If they did, you wondered why.

    Not being a native local, I referred to my 1952 Directory to learn that John's Place was apparently owned by George G. Garbuio and was located at 346-348 Lorton Ave.  I believe that space is currently The Holiday House, next to All Fired Up!  Garbuio lived at 840 Linden (one of our tree streets).

    After the election we just had, I would love to go back in time and have an "honest drink" at John's Place.

     

  • Are We Done? Maybe.

    ABO signage_2013

  • Tree Streets

    I'm using an article in the Friday Wall Street Journal as the basis for this post about Tree Streets–not street trees, that's a related topic–but streets named after trees.  We have a bunch of them in our City of Trees that are listed along with the history of other B'game street names at this Historical Society page.  The Journal worked with Trulia to determine

    In the U.S., over 5% of current (real estate) listings are on streets with tree names, according to Trulia's analysis of 100 metro areas.  In most of these areas, the median listing price for homes on tree streets is a notch above the overall median listing price, most likely because tree streets tend to be in areas that have more trees. …such naming dates back to William Penn, who planned the city of Philadelphia.  All the east-west streets are named after trees.  All the north-south streets are named after numbers.

    Here's the most common tree streets in order from Trulia:  oak, pine, maple, cedar, willow, elm, walnut, palm, laurel, cherry.  We have them all here in B'game and H'borough (I'm counting Oak Grove, Pinehill and Elmwood) except cherry.  Not on the Journal's list, but ones we have include acacia, linden, eucalytus, and pepper.  Did I miss any?

     

  • Election Results – Until the Fat Lady Sings

    Congratulations to Ann & Michael on their reelection to Buringame City Council. And the third seat?

    The Daily Post had an interesting article on the election's late vote tally. For all of the races in San Mateo County, there are an additional 14,724 remaining votes to count. Wow! 

    Many in Burlingame are anxiously awaiting the results of the final vote count as two candidates for the third open seat landed just a few votes apart on election night. Russ Cohen was leading much of the night and in a late night upset, Ricardo Ortiz surged ahead by 10 votes.

    So how many additional votes should we expect? According to the Post, based on voter stats Burlingame's share should be in the range of 824 ballots.  That's a fair chunk of change yet to be counted, considering the voter count through Tuesday night was 4,075.

    Updates were expected on Nov 6th at 4:30, when a new timeline was posted, setting the updates for end of day on Nov 8th & 12th. So as they say, "It's not over until the fat lady sings."

  • Klingons invade Burlingame

    And we all thought that the Burlingame election was a strange cast of characters.

    Calling all trekkies.

    Did you know that Klingons will be seen here in Burlingame starting tomorrow during the Star Trek convention?

    http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/official-star-trek-convention-returns-to-burlingame/Content?oid=2621456

  • 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.

  • E minus 1 day

    It's Election Day minus one.  I can say with total confidence that I have no idea how this one will play out. I think this photo captures the mindset out there!

    2013 Goat Rodeo signs

    I felt a little sad for the San Mateo County Times on Sunday since they finally got around to publishing a very high level piece on the race on Election Day minus 2 when almost two-thirds of the ballots had already been cast by mail.  If you have voted, congrats.  If you have your absentee ballot but did not send it yet, you can walk it into your polling place tomorrow or drop it in the locked mailbox in City Hall.  If you are voting in person tomorrow, maybe I'll see you there!

  • Our Annual Foliage Tribute

    Every Fall I treat you guys to a beautiful example of our local foliage.  It's the New Englander in me!  Here's a gorgeous tree up on Alvarado!

    2013 Alvarado red tree

  • Campaign Bucks to Date

    To save at least a couple bloggers the work of going to the city webpage for campaign spending, here is my recap of where the bucks are flowing up to October 19 when this reporting period closed.   Like before, not every filing appears to be correct regarding loans vs. contributions, but rather than pass judgment on that (again), I have just calculated my estimate of loans as a percent of total contributions.  Here are the numbers rounded to the nearest dollar in the order they appear on the city site:

                                      Total Raised        %Loans        Total Spent

    Keighran                        $23,455                0%              $17,393

    Brownrigg                      $10,873                0%                $9,500

    Bandrapalli                    $23,086                63%             $19,543

    Cohen                           $14,426                0%               $11,559

    Duncan                          $2,000                100%                 $677

    Kent                              $1,579                 74%                  $980

    Ortiz                             $13,496                 6%                $6,058

    Peceimer                       $51,675                97%              $45,611

    The last filing period doesn't close until December 31st when we will see the full total expenditures.  I can see from my mailbox that Ricardo Ortiz must still have some postage expense to report.  Schinagl hasn't filed yet.  So the total spent to date is $111,321 and the top spending campaign (Peceimer's) accounts for 41% of the total.  Don't forget to vote on Tuesday!

     

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