Month: January 2015

  • 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.

       

  • Historical Footnote – 1915 Transcontinental Phone Call

    Those of you who know me well know that I owe a lot to the telephone industry.  I got my start in it in 1979 and worked for seven different phone companies of one sort or another.  One of those was GTE Sprint headquartered in good ole B'game.  Its first office at One Adrian Ct. is still there and still sports a Sprint sign.  We will discuss why that is another day.  Suffice it to say, AT&T was the competitor to beat for a long time.

    For today–the centennial of the first transcontinental phone call–we will put that aside.  Cnet does a nice job of describing AT&T's accomplishment here.

    The four original phones used to make the call rarely come out of the AT&T archives for a public viewing. This past week, however, they were unveiled, and they will be on display at the California Historical Society in San Francisco as part of its "City Rising: San Francisco and the 1915 World Fair" exhibition at 678 Mission Street, which officially opens on February 22.

    Transcontinental-call-att-1901(1)

    Road trip!!

     

  • 2015: What’s in the cards?

    My predictions are based not on science but rather on rumors, intuition and my trusty crystal ball. My instincts tell me that 2015 and moreover the next ten years will see profound changes in our Pleasantville of a burb. I won't pass judgment, that’s up to you. I will simply prognosticate.

    In the near future Burlingame will see more and more multi-unit dwellings pop up— filling every nook and cranny and every surface parking lot. Downtown will be surrounded by 35 foot and occasionally 50 foot tall architecture.

    Here are my 2015 predictions of change.

    One easy forecast is the change to the Broadway intersection. It will look and function differently. This isn't much of a prediction since evidence of this change is staring us in the face.

    However, the area on the east side of the railroad tracks, near Howard Avenue and near Bayswater Avenue will see some of the auto related uses disappear and housing or offices appear in their place.

    Photo 1
     Nearby, we might see more apartments or condos replace the long-standing funeral home.

    Photo 4

    We might see the sleepy buildings along California Drive currently housing Gray’s Paint and the former Schaefer’s Tire (now located on El Camino Real and Broadway) turn into who knows what. Same goes for the buildings on Highland Avenue near downtown.

    Photo 2-1

      Photo 3-1

    More condos? Over on Carolan Avenue we know Camissa and the surrounding businesses will be gone in the near future—that ship we know has sailed.

    Photo 1-1

    Oh sure, the Broadway Train Station has been vacant for some time now, but my prediction is that this is the year that we’ll see a new restaurant move in—a hamburger joint perhaps?

    Photo 2

      Photo 3

    Speaking of long vacant property…the drive-in site on the bayfront will still be vacant despite swirling rumors that it will be the site of Alibaba’s headquarters. The Post Office or should I say, former PO, in the heart of downtown will see some sort of temporary tenant but a real proposal won't be realized for sometime.

    And the city is looking for developers to build attainable housing on at least one of our surface lots near downtown and talk of a downtown parking structure has been bubbling up of late. No real movement until after 2015 on these two projects.

    So let’s revisit all of this soothsaying in about a year to see exactly what has come to fruition and what died on the vine.

     

     

     

  • Historical Footnote – 1933

    I love finding B'game memorabilia on eBay.  I've had some amazing finds of postcards, pamphlets, automobilia (from our historic Auto Row) and the like.  I thought I would share the latest one with you since it counters the idea that B'game was such a genteel place back in the day.  The photo is dated August 8, 1933 from a newspaper file.

    Biddeson Chilcott 1933 photo

    The caption on the back reads "A gay barbecue party at a fashionable Burlingame, California home ended in tragedy when Fortune Nelson Burson, 33, San Francisco orchestra leader, we found dead after an asserted fight with Richard Chilcott, 21, San Mateo College football star.  The party was held at the home of Burson's fiancee, Miss Frances Biddeson, 23, daughter of Mrs. Georgia Biddeson, divorced wife of of a New York broker.  Miss Biddeson witnessed the fight, and is shown here in the Biddeson garden, with Chilcott, standing at the spot where Burson died."

    The 1933 City Directory puts the Biddesons at 1520 Hoover which is across from Mercy's property, but the photo seems to be looking towards Columbus and shows a lot of open space.  Interesting to ponder not just the event as described but the social and geographic environment. 

  • Adding a Crossing Guard

    Long time Voice readers will recall the huge controversy over school crossing guards that erupted five-plus years ago and was eventually resolved with some key donations from civic and business groups.  There is probably no appetite for reopening that especially when a parent can get 185 signature on a petition as the Daily Journal reported yesterday.

    Concern over a busy intersection at Ray Drive/Rosedale Avenue and El Camino Real has sparked Burlingame’s school district and the city to add a crossing guard to the area to reduce potential dangers.

    The intersection is frequently used by students traveling from the Burlingame Village neighborhood to both Lincoln Elementary and Burlingame Intermediate schools, but traffic at that intersection is very fast and congested. A $10,000 a year crossing guard will increase safety for the Burlingame Elementary School District students and potentially reduce the number of cars traveling to and from the schools, according to a staff report. The cost will be split equally between the city of Burlingame and the district, and the city has already approved the guard as well, said City Manager Lisa Goldman.

    The facts and figures that drove this decision are

    At that particular intersection, there have been 12 accidents, eight injuries and zero fatalities between Jan. 1, 2010, and Dec. 31, 2012, said Caltrans spokeswoman Gidget Navarro. The total accident rate is 0.86 compared to statewide average of 0.27. The total average is based on similar intersections for the whole state of California. Caltrans takes similar intersections with the same amount of lanes together and do comparisons, she said.

    Sounds like a plan!

  • Blowing the Whistle on City Staff?

    I am intrigued by this latest suggestion to add an anonymous phone number for whistleblowers to use for City concerns.  The Council will be considering it on Tuesday night (Monday is MLK Day).  Here is a part of the staff report:

    RECOMMENDATION
    Staff recommends the City Council provide direction on whether it wishes to establish a
    “whistleblower hotline.”

    BACKGROUND
    During the future agenda portion of a City Council meeting in late 2014, then-Vice Mayor Terry
    Nagel asked that the City consider establishing a whistleblower hotline. Vice Mayor Nagel noted
    that she had been approached by several residents who had concerns about the City but were
    uncomfortable reporting those concerns to staff. For that reason, Vice Mayor Nagel suggested
    that the City consider establishing some type of whistleblower hotline to enable residents to report
    any concerns they may anonymously.

    DISCUSSION
    The City already provides a number of mechanisms for making whistleblower-type complaints.
    The online Citizen Connect, system, for example, enables people with complaints about the City,
    City staff, or elected or appointed officials to register their concerns either anonymously or by
    providing an email address or phone number. Those who lodge their complaints anonymously
    receive responses to their messages, but the identity of the complainant remains masked.
    In addition, more than a year ago, the City established an email address (info@burlingame.org)
    that is available for anyone wishing to register a complaint or concern. In order to remain
    anonymous, one could set up an email address using an alias on one of the many free email
    services.

    The two things that intrigue me the most are: "What have we already received in the past?" I have to assume we got something from someone.  Is there a report somewhere?  Also "What will be the transparency of the new hotline?"  That is to say, will we be adding a recurring agenda item to the Council agenda to disclose what the whistleblowers have reported?  I have sent this whole post to the info@burlingame.org address just in case no one from the City is reading the Voice (LOL).  We'll see what comes back.

  • Is it more restaurants that will help Broadway?

    It looks like the restrictions on Broadway regarding restaurants will soon be lifted. At least that's what the tea leaves say. I for one would proceed with caution as mentioned in other posts here. An article I was reading recently talked about Main Street being better off and attracting more people when there are places where people can gather other than inside stores and restaurants. The idea is to make the street a destination. Will restaurants do that for Broadway?  I think not.  Seems to me Broadway has no open space, no public gathering spot–except the alley next to Il Piccolo :-).  Here is the article about Main Streets. It has some interesting ideas. Like this one:

    We know that the more uses public spaces can accommodate, the more successful they will become as community gathering places. Simply stated, the more varied the uses, the more varied the audience becomes. But still we are designing and managing too many places that have only a single purpose—whether it is a park, a square, or a street. All too often, uses and people don’t mix. As our communities become more diverse and populous, we will not only need more public spaces; we will need places where people of different backgrounds feel comfortable coming together. How can we promote more of the right kind of design, management, and investment to create multi-use public spaces and places?

  • Dinner and a Massage on B’way?

    The process for making changes to the composition of our B'way business district took another step forward this week.  As the Daily Journal reports

    With a vote of 7-0, the Planning Commission approved changing a zoning code to remove the restrictions on health services above the first floor and food establishments in the Broadway Commercial Area Monday night. Last year, the Broadway Business Improvement District, or BID, sent a letter to the City Council in support of measures like this. For 20 years, Broadway has sought to encourage retail by restricting certain types of businesses but, in recent years, the nature of retail and the demands of the community has changed, according to the letter. The city currently allows only 28 food establishments on the street, based upon the City Council approval of Broadway food establishments in October 1999.

    We will see.  Unlike B'game Ave. that I almost always walk to, I always drive to B'way–and I do it often–and I just don't see the parking problem that is the main focus of the article.  I think this commenter has a better perspective

    “We have a large number of restaurants (in Redwood City),” he (Dave Simpson) said, according to a video of the meeting. “I’ve seen the retail businesses in Redwood City die. This is really tough because I look at the street (Broadway) that is only two blocks long and that many food service businesses on that short block. The concern is about the relative traffic of the restaurant business. It turned Redwood City into a terror now; it’s deserted during the daytime and it’s a parking lot at 6 o’clock at night.”

    We should all be watching that bit about "health services above the first floor".  If you want to talk about what could help the image of B'way, it would be a bit more attention paid to "health services" businesses.

  • High-Cost Rail – Part 108 Now Mother Jones

    We can usually count on Dan Walters of the SacBee to have an informed take on Sacramento and California events.  He did not disappoint this week with this analysis of the governor's bull-headed high-cost rail "groundbreaking" ceremony.

    A clue that the bullet train may be a solution in search of a problem lies in the seemingly strong statement by one speaker that the train will reduce automotive travel in California by 10 million vehicle-miles a day when fully operational in 2040.

    The number, echoing High-Speed Rail Authority assertions, sounds impressive until one looks at it in context. California’s motorists drive nearly 1 billion miles a day, so the supposed impact – as voiced by the project’s cheerleaders – represents about a 1 percent reduction.

     

    In addition to Walters' comments hitting the papers this week, no less of a leftist mouthpiece than Mother Jones had this to say about our Golden State boondoggle

    We are rapidly exiting the realm of rose-colored glasses and entering the realm of pure fantasy here. If liberals keep pushing this project forward in the face of plain evidence that its official justifications are brazenly preposterous, conservatives are going to be able to pound us year after year for wasting taxpayer money while we retreat to ever more ridiculous and self-serving defenses that make us laughingstocks in the public eye. And unless we put this project on hold until we can get some genuinely independent and plausible estimates of costs, ridership, and alternatives, we'll deserve it.

    Yes, you will.  The journalist, Kevin Drum, appears to just have figured out that the Parsons Brinkerhoff ridership estimates are pure fantasy.  What?  This will never happen?

    Parsons said the high-speed rail system could carry 116 million passengers a year, based on running trains with 1,000 seats both north and south every five minutes, 19 hours a day and 365 days a year. The study assumes the trains would be 70% full on average.

    My goodness.  Where has he been?  This has been known since 2008.  While you are at it, Kevin, how about commenting on Nancy Pelosi's prediction that with HSR "a million good-paying jobs would be created"? 

  • Our changing landscape

    Photo

    From the 101 freeway its hard not to notice it—the skeleton of a building in the making. This is the newest addition to our Burlingame landscape. According to the folks in the Planning Dept. it is going to be an indoor tennis center. So, it looks like, as we have discussed before, the Rollins Rd area is slowly changing from light indusrial to recreational. Today we have a number of recreational options along the corridor, from this latest tennis effort to Burlingame Sports Center, Sky High Sports( indoor trampolnes) to Nothing But Hoops, Future Pro ( indoor batting cages), The Burlingamer (indoor Futsol) and ofcourse PrimeTime Athletic Club and there are probably a few more that I haven't mentioned. Will this trend continue?

    Maybe this is the area the city should be considering for a new Rec Center as opposed to bulding a new one where the old one is along the residential section of Burlingame Avenue? 

     

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