Category: City Finances

  • Foster City: A caution warning to the wise

    Having spent several decades providing technology advice to companies and agencies large and small, I have long harbored concerns about small municipalities’ IT security and stability. The threats just get stronger every year and small cities with small IT staffs and budgets struggle to keep up in the best of times. That chicken came home to roost in Foster City this week as the SF Comicle reports:

    Foster City officials said Friday that a ransomware attack was “widely impacting” municipal services, and that city leaders planned to issue a state of emergency in an effort to marshal assistance and funding from outside agencies. 

    Officials said in a statement that while emergency services like 911 were “functional and unaffected,” information and services that rely on the city’s computer network would likely be inaccessible Friday. City Hall remained open to the public Friday, although officials said “limited services” were available there. 

    “Out of an abundance of caution, those who have done business with the City of Foster City are encouraged to change their personal passwords and take measures to protect their personal data,” the city said.

    I’m not sure what “personal data” the City of Burlingame might have on us aside from an email address if you subscribe to getting council or commission agendas sent to you. Same goes for the alertcrimegraphics feed. They would hold emails you sent to staff or electeds (at their official addresses), but you can’t “change” that. There’s one’s water bill which makes for a dull read. Local business owners probably have a deeper data profile. In any case, this breach and the ransomware demand are a word to the wise. There are a variety of low-to-high-cost consultants and auditors out there and one would hope city staff are availing themselves of knowledgeable advice. Fifty or a hundred grand every couple of years is money well spent.

  • Transportation Monies: $187.1M

    I wanted to dig a little deeper into the DJ story about $200M going for road upgrades this past week. Whenever I see this sort of number being trumpeted as a standalone factoid, I get curious about the entirety of the picture. On the surface it sounds like a lot of money, but there are about 750,000 people on the county. The DMV doesn’t make it easy to figure out how many licensed drivers there are in the county, but 70% isn’t a bad guess. Call it 525K. The actual budget number from the TA press release last June was $187.1M for a per driver capita expenditure of $356 per fiscal year. Given the cost of any noticeable road improvement, $187.1M won’t go far.

    Not that I want more taxes like Measures A and W that fill this fund or higher gas taxes, but just the Broadway grade separation is $500-600M and climbing by the year. And the TA’s funding included bicycle and pedestrian improvements as well. As a state, we don’t fare well on national rankings:

    California’s road condition rankings vary by study but generally place it poorly, often in the bottom 10 to 15 states, with reports citing significant percentages of roads in poor condition, ranking low in pavement quality for urban/rural interstates and arterials

    It didn’t used to be this way. When I got here in 1981, the roads were awesome compared to New England roads. As they should be. What went wrong? The state is certainly spending a ton of money on something–the tale of the tape is

    California’s state budget has significantly increased under Governor Newsom, growing from around $200 billion in 2019 to proposed levels near $350 billion for 2026-27.

    Bringing some salaries at places like the TA back to earth and making the EV drivers to pay their “fair share” would be a good start. Let’s hope the next governor can rein in the top line spending while reallocating more to infrastructure like roads, reservoirs otherwise things will only get worse out on the asphalt.

  • Top Three B’game restaurants by sales

    I won’t bemoan the dearth of fine dining in B’game again–I just did that here. Instead let’s look on the bright side. The city posts a quarterly sales tax analysis on its website here. The Top 20 sales tax generators are called out each quarter, and three restaurants made the cut back in Q1.

    Working alphabetically, Benihana, HL Peninsula Pearl and New England Lobster are our busiest restaurants. All three being out on the Bayfront means tourists are propping up our tax revenues although I love the lobstah place. Restaurants and hotels are the third largest contributors at around $600K that quarter with the Hyatt and the Marriott making the Top 20.

    This list has been pretty stable over the years, but if I can get the latest figures from Finance, I’ll add them as a comment. In the meantime, Dine Burlingame and let’s see if we can get a couple more restaurants on the list. Rumors around one of the largest downtown spaces changing hands to a high-profile Peninsula chain that is always packed might make it happen.

  • Peninsula Ave. Upgrade$$$?

    I often scratch my head at the amount of money thrown around by various levels of our government. Dan Walters at Calmatters.org had a piece in yesterday’s DJ about the state’s “$165 billion error in revenue projections in 2022 that fueled Newsom’s boast of having a $97.5 billion surplus”. That led to our “structural deficit” that gets papered over every year. Closer to home, I was struck by the amount of money being requested to improve Peninsula Ave.

    San Mateo and Burlingame are applying for a $1.25 million San Mateo County Transportation Authority grant, largely bolstered by Measure A and W funds. The funds, which would require a 25% local match, would fund a study — including community outreach and preliminary engineering work — and not the construction of the project itself. San Mateo and Burlingame propose sharing the local match portion, with the former contributing San Mateo providing $245,000 and Burlingame providing $130,000, as San Mateo owns and operates a longer portion of the Peninsula Avenue corridor.

    That 25% local match brings the total to $1.563 million dollars–for designing (not building) what is likely to be minimal changes to a 15 block long section of a local street. There is no new space available so any changes will either be minimal or they may try to replicate the disaster that is California Drive.

    Elsewhere around the streets of B’game, I heard on Friday that the California Transportation Commission voted to approve $100 million for the ECR Little Big Dig. We should get word soon from the city about what is likely to be a three- or four-year massive disruption to traffic through town. Buckle up.

  • Noise Cameras: An innovation we need

    You have all heard it many times.  The latest generation of muscle cars (think Mustangs, Camaros, Chargers, Challenger SRT Hellcats, etc) seem to come stock with the ability to stomp on the gas and rattle windows for a couple of blocks.  Back in the day it took aftermarket "glass packs" to get high volume, look-at-me noise.  But these days it seems to be stock.  The WSJ has a piece on the idea of "noise cameras" generating tickets for said noise:

    NEWPORT, R.I.—As the crimson Mustang GT rumbled toward winding Ocean Avenue on the rocky Atlantic coast, a roadside noise camera was listening. The device measured the Ford’s throaty engine and exhaust at 85 decibels, two over Newport’s limit, city records show. A camera snapped its license plate. 

    The likely cost of that late July ride through this upscale tourist town? A $250 ticket for violating the municipal noise ordinance.

    Noise cameras are the new frontier in automated traffic enforcement. Growing numbers of agencies across the U.S., from New York to Hawaii, see them as a way to combat revving engines, blaring stereos, honking horns and earsplitting mufflers—some illegally altered.

    New York City reigns as the U.S. noise-camera epicenter. It operates 10 in partnership with U.K.-based Intelligent Instruments, whose SoundVue cameras film and pinpoint the offending vehicle even with others present. 

    After the Walk with Wine event, I was dining al fresco on the Avenue and two ridiculously loud, look-at-me drivers blasted the street with exhaust noise.  Could certain situations occur where it's unavoidable?  Maybe.  Here's one excuse that didn't work with the judge.

    That logic doesn’t sit well with city resident Anthony Aquilino. A noise camera in Manhattan recorded his $315,000 Lamborghini Huracán at 92 decibels. The insurance broker said he would have deserved a ticket for “acting arrogant” behind the wheel. But he said he was driving 25 miles an hour to a prostate-cancer awareness event. The burst of noise, he said, came when he braked for a pothole and the car downshifted.

    I saw two Lambos parked on Howard last week.  How they navigate El Camino without shredding their undercarriages is unknown.  I think Noise Cameras are an innovation whose time has come.  Start with the Ave, Broadway and ECR.  Maybe the fines collected can fund another traffic officer.

  • San Carlos shoots itself in foot

    Here at the Voice, we do not have a category called "At least we didn't do THAT" but if we did, this move by San Carlos would be tagged to that category.  The Daily Post has a front-page piece about the city of San Carlos taking over the lease of a long-time gun store on El Camino that has sat empty for two years costing San Carlos more than $500,000 and counting.

    The back story is Imbert & Smithers got its license revoked by the ATF at the end of 2022.  Three years earlier, San Carlos passed rules about where gun stores could, or rather could not, locate.  Imbert & Smithers was grandfathered into the ECR location, but any new gun store use is disallowed.  The city offered to buy the landlord out of the lease to the tune of $570,528 so far plus more than $90K each of the next two years.  San Carlos cannot find a tenant for such an outdated building and is also on the hook for maintenance and property taxes (triple net lease)!  San Carlos residents should be furious at the waste.  The archaic thinking that location restrictions have noticeable impact on public safety turns out to be expensive and generally pointless in an era when three taps on your phone can find anything.  At least we didn't do that!

    San Carlos gun store empty
     

  • Paying for City Hall: Selling Parking Lot H

    Long time B'gamers will recall Rosalie O'Mahony's long tenure on city council and many of her fervently held positions.  I can clearly recall her somewhat high.jpgtched voice and slight, but hard to decipher accent.  I can also recall one of her favorite sayings, "Never sell schools or parking lots".  When the school district sold–and then had to repurchase—Hoover school, they learned Rosalie's lesson.

    It appears our current city council is about to contravene Rosalie's wisdom in order to pay for the pricy new city hall plan at 1440 Chapin Lane.  Parking Lot H is across El Camino from Walgreen's and is 39,922 ft2 according to the staff report.  It's composed of two lots:  8,500 ft2 zoned R-1 and 24,422 ft2 zoned R-3.  The city has declared both "surplus land" which probably has Rosalie turning over in her resting place.  The staff report notes

    The City owns several parking lots in and around Downtown Burlingame. While Parking Lot H is utilized by residents as well as customers and employees of local businesses, it is not frequently as full as other City owned parking lots. Further, while other City owned parking lots are surrounded by commercial properties, Parking Lot H is surrounded by single and multi-family residential properties.

    Notice the report doesn't actually say how full H is on a typical day.  I pass by it on a daily basis and it gets a decent amount of use.  My guess is Avenew employees are regular users so we should not discount its value as a long-stay overflow lot.  Customers want to park in front of the business they intend to patronize so having employees leave the close spaces open has value.  It is also convenient to a couple of SamTrans bus stops for people looking to make a hybrid car/bus trip.

    The lot directly between Walgreen's and Safeway is quite full as are the one next to the AT&T building.  The library lot is usually quite full.  The new parking garage is too far away to be considered by anyone using Lot H.  This train has probably left the station, but I would listen to Rosalie and not sell–especially when you feel like you have to and interest rates are up.  Any developer will also have to consider how long and disruptive the Little Big Dig will be on El Camino.  Here's view from the roof of Safeway.

    Parking Lot H

  • Fire Station 36 reopens

    With all of the overdevelopment near 101 and in the North End, emergency response and fire response has been a growing concern–for those that think pragmatically.  Denser housing, especially where there has traditionally been no housing, brings more need.  So, it was good news that a big Federal grant has allowed the station on Rollins that has been closed for 15 years to reopen with newly hired firefighters.  The Daily Journal grabbed the photo op "Burlingame, Hillsborough and Millbrae councilmembers complete the engine push-in tradition alongside fire department personnel."

    Central County Fire — which serves Burlingame, Hillsborough and Millbrae — originally shut down operations at the station as a cost-cutting measure. But the department was recently awarded a substantial $8 million grant from the federal government, allowing it to hire 12 additional firefighters and reopen Station 36.  The $8.1 million Staffing For Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant was originally awarded to CCFD in November 2024 and is to be used over a three-year period. The department will be tasked with providing an additional half-million dollars in funding, per a staff report from the CCFD board.

    Reopening the station will provide up to a four-minute improvement in response times to the Bayside area of CCFD’s jurisdiction, Fire Chief David Pucci said.

    When you need serious help, four minutes is a looong time to wait.  Test it.  Set your phone timer to four minutes and sit totally still, silent and sort of meditate.  Good stuff.

  • Filling “The Village” should be a breeze

    The Village was in the early planning stages back in January 2018 as noted here.  The public parking lot was turned into the subsidized housing project that now towers over the south side of the Avenew and Howard Ave.  The question I have when I see the sign below is why advertising is needed to fill the building?  If the "housing crisis" is so bad, wouldn't there be a long waiting list to get in? As units turn over, the next name is called.  And yet, yesterday this sign pops up again.

    Village sign 070225

  • City Budget: Good, just not great

    The last time we delved into the city finances in detail was three plus year ago here.  What we saw back in 2022 was

    A tentative budget proposal indicated the city could dip into its reserves by $2.5 million this year and again by $4.8 million, $5.3 million and $5.6 million (Ed:  that's $18.2M or 40% for those keeping track at home) over the following three years until a surplus is again achieved in 2025-26. But as (City manager Lisa) Goldman pointed out, the projections include considerable planned infrastructure spending that could be pulled back if needed.

    Fast-forward to today and the Daily Journal did some summarizing as follows

    The city’s revenue will likely sit at $92.5 million for the upcoming year (i.e. the 2025-26 year), more than enough to cover the city’s planned expenditures of $85.5 million.

    However, a planned $9.9 million transfer to the capital improvement fund — which will focus on the city’s potable water system and sanitary sewers this year — plus more than $3 million for debt services, will leave Burlingame at a $3.6 million net operating deficit.

    Our extensive water system will slurp up capital monies on an on-going basis due to the waves of investment made over time, and thus aging out over time, as detailed here.  Water isn't getting any cheaper.  The ECR repaving and "good roads" mentioned in the 2022 post are still elusive.  There are plenty of orphan hub caps on ECR to this day as we await The Little Big Dig.

    Vice Mayor Michael Brownrigg emphasized that the city was making an investment choice into long-term capital projects and that the operating budget for Burlingame’s essential services was still in a healthy place.

    At a budget study session May 21, City Manager Lisa Goldman said the city might consider raising its transient occupancy tax from 12% to 14% in coming years.

    Currently, Burlingame’s transient occupancy tax is its second-highest revenue source and will bring in a projected $22.8 million for the upcoming fiscal year. Its most fiscally beneficial revenue source is projected to be property taxes, at $35.8 million.

    The TOT is an easy target as it is buried in the hotel bills paid by visitors.  The bigger question is how fast the "recovery" will happen.  It was $29 million from the tax in 2018-19, nearly 35% of the city’s revenue that year so still $6.2M short and there are more hotels in nearby cities siphoning off some travelers.  Thus the new budget is good, just not great.

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