We’re deep in the “silly season”. One week to go to Election Day. Only two more days to send political letters to the DJ. Oddly enough, Donna Colson’s LTTE of the DJ in today’s print edition does not appear on the DJ website. The other four letters are there, but not hers. I’ll paraphrase briefly. Jen Faber has had some signs stolen. This weekend her house was egged. Donna would “like to think it’s not adults, but rather youthful pranksters who don’t understand it’s a criminal offense to vandalize election signs.”
Well, it is silly season and school is in full swing. Jen has three boys and I had two, one of whom was pretty popular with the girls, so I have some experience with being TP’ed and even having an orange thrown through my front window–surely a throwing error. Eggs are better for sure. All of this brings back memories of bad adult behavior in Old B’game. Think back to 2007:
Bay Area radio personality Joe McConnell will face a criminal charge for stealing a Burlingame City Council candidate’s campaign sign, San Mateo County District Attorney James Fox confirmed Wednesday. Fox said prosecutors were in the process of filing a petty theft infraction against McConnell, who admitted to plucking City Council hopeful Gene Condon’s sign from a front yard Oct. 8. McConnell’s wife, Geraldine O’Connor, was chairwoman of the Committee to Elect Jerry Deal (Ed: RIP Jerry as noted here), one of Condon’s opponents. McConnell will not face jail time if found guilty of the infraction, which Fox compared to a traffic ticket.
The Internet is forever, Joe M. McConnell got snagged by some front yard camera footage back when it was rare. The word on the street is some B’game kid got video-snagged recently lifting a Howard Wettan sign. Crazy stuff in the age of Ring, Arlo and Blink. Will the kid get some time picking up roadside trash? Reading to old folks at the Trousdale? At least let’s hope his parents read this post. Halloween is this Saturday and one week to go.
P.S. Six days have gone by and no response from the City Clerk, who is our official election official, on what she intends to do about the false Faber claim of being endorsed by the B’game Police Department. As I noted in the comments here, if BPD did that it would be a violation of state law. Will Meaghan act or end up with egg on her face?
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.
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.
I seldom do the “Feel Good Friday” type of posts, but this one from the new California Post plucked my choke cable. I’ve never had any Detroit muscle preferring my nimble Japanese sports car, but I love seeing them on ECR and at car shows like the one this Sunday on the Avenew.
A Northern California man whose prized muscle car was swiped more than three decades ago has finally been reunited with his beloved wheels, cops revealed this week. Police in Auburn recently discovered the black 1971 Chevrolet Chevelle through a vehicle-identification-number inspection, they said. California Highway Patrol cops did not say what prompted the VIN probe into the car, but noted that during it, they noticed something that “warranted a closer look,” CHP wrote on Facebook on Thursday. It turns out the classic had been stolen from San Mateo County more than 158 miles away in 1993.
“With assistance from the San Mateo Police Department, investigators were able to confirm the vehicle’s history and do something that probably seemed impossible after all these years – reunite the Chevelle with its original owner,” CHP said.
The car is reported to have been well taken care of and hopefully we will see it rolling down the roadway in San Mateo and B’game soon. The photo in the Post shows it to be a Chevelle SS, so here is a stock photo. The original owner didn’t want to be identified — probably to avoid have the ride boosted again! See you Sunday on the Ave.
The only thing worse than race-baiting or misinformation is when the two appear together. Society is inflamed enough without resorting to the combination. Enter Jim Lawrence, the former mayor of Foster City and chair of Fixin’ San Mateo County, writing a letter to the DJ. He starts off well-enough with a concern many of us probably have but can’t stop himself there. He writes (and I snip):
The eight-month jail sentence imposed on former San Mateo County Community College Chancellor Ron Galatolo has shaken all confidence in our local judicial system. Mr. Galatolo was convicted of eight felony counts involving perjury and tax fraud. According to published reports, both the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office and the Probation Department recommended a state prison sentence. Judge Leland Davis instead imposed just eight months in county jail, with the likelihood that he will serve only about four months.
I don’t know about “all confidence” but OK so far. Eight months is light in my opinion as well and the whole idea of serving halves of sentences is ridiculous. But things quickly go off the tracks.
As an African American, I cannot help but wonder whether a working-class defendant or a person of color would receive the same outcome. This strongly indicates that we need a review of court policy and procedures. As a strong proponent of oversight, I believe this is yet another taxpayer-funded function over which taxpayers have little meaningful oversight or input. Wake up, everybody. Titles do not make the man — but they certainly seem to count in our court system.
The only problem, and it’s a biggie, is Judge Leland Davis is black. How do I know? Because the last time I had jury duty, he was the judge. In fact, he was appointed to the bench by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in December of 2010 and is the current Presiding Judge for San Mateo County. I may have actually been in his court room twice over the last 15 years and I clearly remember a photo of Justice Thurgood Marshall on his wall. I recall him being of the “no nonsense” school of judging. Shouldn’t someone like Jim Lawrence either know this or bother to look into it before firing off a misleading public letter? Short answer is “yes”. Just another reason why I call his op Wreckin’ San Mateo County. Their idea of “oversight” is often short-sighted. Here’s Judge Davis.
For a while I have been meaning to create a post to record the on-going sad state of affairs in our judicial system. Between the DJ and mainly the Daily Post, we get a weekly barrage of news pieces that cause one to ask, “what the heck was the judge thinking?” This one finally lit my fuse enough to create it.
The Daily Post is reporting a 50-year-old guy from Berkeley was arrested in Palo Alto for setting fire to St. Frank Coffee Shop’s awning at 1:45 am. A review of security footage spotted him and then he returned to the scene about 40 minutes later chanting “burn, burn let it burn”. Here’s the kicker:
He as a recent arson conviction in Contra Costa County according to the DA. He remains in jail on felony arson with bail at $2,500!
Why was he out in the first place? What was that first judge thinking? And what is the second judge thinking setting bail at $2,500? What’s next? He pleads poverty and they go to “no cash bail”? We have had crazies like this in B’game. Ten years ago, we almost lost our historic train station to one as you can read here. That was before the Caltrain employee decided to turn that space into his own personal apartment on our nickel.
I am occasionally asked why I call the SF Chronicle the Comicle. The question mostly comes from people who don’t subscribe to the Comicle; or any newspaper for that matter. I didn’t make it up; I stole it from one of my journalistic heroes–Herb Caen. Per the Google AI
About “The Comicle”: As a master of wit and wordplay, Caen used “The Comicle” to poke fun at his own employer, often highlighting the sometimes chaotic or amusing nature of local journalism.
Caen used the term more amusedly than I do. I use it to highlight what passes for journalism at a much-degraded paper. You can see the slippage almost every day, but some days it is so blatant that it’s worth highlighting. Today is one of those days as reporter Aidin Vaziri, no Comicle newbie he, wrote the piece on the mayor of Arcadia, CA pleading guilty to being a Chinese spy and resigning. He gives us 20 column inches of “just the facts, ma’am” but leaves out a ton of facts.
I figured Vaziri would bury the fact that ex-mayor Eileen Wang is a Democrat near the end of the article. I was wrong. He completely buried it: 86’ed it if you will. If she had been a R, it would have been front and center along with some investigative reporting on her major donors, her endorsers, her policy statements, etc. The piece would have been four times as long and then get more of less repeated next week for good measure.
We would have learned how she used WeChat to communicate with the CCP. We would be treated to photos of her with big wig R politicians, like the ones you can find elsewhere of her with AG Rob Bonta and Sen. Alex Padilla. We would know to whom and how much she donated to other politicians and there would be some digging on where that money came from. The piece would spiral into comparisons with other spy situations (e.g. Feinstein and Swalwell). But not today, not at the Comicle. Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.
We have not had a Guest Author on the Voice in quite awhile, but when San Matean David Long asked me why I had not weighed in on the “sobering center” controversy I asked him to pen his perspective for us. I wasn’t really paying attention to the issue when it was in San Mateo and he has, as you will read here. The DJ had a piece two days ago that noted
San Mateo County will purchase a $13 million Burlingame property to hopefully open up a sobering station as soon as possible, house the Pride Center and provide an option for a treatment facility, with supervisor approval Tuesday. The property of more than 2 acres at 818-828 Mahler Road was the former site of First Chance, a 14-bed sobering center operated by since-closed nonprofit StarVista.
Since First Chance closed, individuals who get arrested for driving under the influence are brought to county jail, rather than a station that promotes wellness and provides offenders with resources and opportunities to rehabilitate. It costs double the amount to house a DUI offender in a county correctional facility than a sobering center.
Here is David’s perspective on the switch from central San Mateo to Mahler Rd.:
San Mateo County’s proposed sobering and treatment center at 101 N. El Camino Real has felt like an experiment in how many bad land-use decisions could be shoe-horned into an already congested corridor.
Dense residential neighborhood? Check.
Multiple schools and daycares nearby? Check.
Dense senior housing within walking distance? Check.
Breakneck traffic at a pockmarked El Camino intersection seemingly designed by bumper-car enthusiasts? Absolutely.
And yet somehow, this was presented as the “best” location for a large detox and treatment facility projected to generate up to 17,000 annual client trips with 24/7 intake activity? Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed.
On Tuesday, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to purchase the former sobering center property on Mahler Road in Burlingame for $13 million. Only a single speaker opposed the purchase. Even the Burlingame City Council – never mistaken for a drum circle – gave Mahler Road unusually ‘high’ marks at its 4/20 meeting. Why? Because Mahler Road makes sense.
At two acres, it’s a large parcel in a light industrial and emerging biotech corridor with sparse nearby housing. It sits just one mile from Highway 101 and three miles from Mills-Peninsula Medical Center. Most importantly, it has a long, proven history as a sobering center serving San Mateo County. The Mahler sobering component is expected to open within six months. By comparison, the 101 ECR proposal likely faced a three-to-five-year runway filled with entitlement battles, lawsuits, redesigns, and enough public hostility to power a small city.
Burlingame’s Supervisor Jackie Speier deserves enormous credit for recognizing the broader potential of the Mahler site. In addition to treatment services, discussions have included a future home for the San Mateo County Pride Center – which has been without a permanent location since 2024 – as well as possible housing for essential service workers increasingly priced out of the communities they serve.
Which makes San Mateo’s Supervisor Noelia Corzo’s continued attachment to the 101 ECR location all the more puzzling. This debacle echoes her divisive performance during COVID while serving as SMFCSD’s school board President, where her stubbornness and delays reopening San Mateo public schools were epic. Her tone-deaf obstinacy has triggered a June primary write-in candidate (Taso Zografos) and a recall effort (you heard it here first).
At some point, leadership means recognizing when a better option has emerged. Corzo’s four Supervisor colleagues did exactly that. They listened to residents, looked at operational realities, and pivoted toward a faster, cheaper, and far less divisive solution.
These are important services that our families, friends and neighbors need ASAP. The Mahler location delivers services quickly and in a location that is well suited for this use. Only time will tell, but San Mateo County appears to be getting this right.
David Long is a San Mateo Park resident who continues to view the failed 1909 Burlingame annexation effort of his neighborhood as one of local history’s great missed opportunities.
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With all the fuss about commercial properties not turning over and thus never being revalued per Prop. 13, my hope is that even if the County did get a deal at $13 million, I hope they are paying full property taxes on the purchase. We shall see how the Broadway overpass handles another 17,000 trips per year. And yes, San Mateo Park would have made a great addition to South B’game. Thanks, David. I happened by 818 Mahler and snapped this photo. The building really looks like it needs some love.
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.
At least ten Peninsula cities and the Sheriff’s department have installed Flock license plate readers, including ours. The recent report in the Daily Post that several federal agencies were able to access Mountain View’s plate data has that city council and Woodside’s council “unnerved”. It makes for a good headline, but when you read the actual piece, it appears that ATF, GSA and two Air Force bases were able to access photos due to a configuration error by Mountain View.
I don’t know about GSA or the USAF, but if ATF was looking for a particular plate I for one would like them to have that ability. The Mountain View PD and, I’m sure others, told their council they would have strict privacy protocols in place to prevent access, but what privacy does a vehicle have on public streets? Reading the pearl clutching headlines brought back vivid memories of our own B’game incident that used LPRs to find an attempted kidnapping suspect who tried to grab a woman a couple blocks from my house. You can remind yourself here, but the snippet from November 2024 noted
The victim screamed for help as another vehicle passed which startled the suspect, causing him to flee the scene. A nearby witness heard the commotion and observed the suspect’s vehicle speeding away. This witness was able to provide a partial license plate number. Further investigation utilizing local Automated License Plate Reader cameras yielded photographs of the suspect vehicle and a complete license plate.
A man who recently tried to rob a San Jose bank by handing the teller a handwritten note demanding money was arrested within an hour, authorities said. Police said victims and witnesses provided officers with descriptions of a suspect and potential vehicle, and within about seven minutes of the initial call, officers in the SJPD Real Time Intelligence Center found the car and were getting updates through the city’s system of surveillance cameras.
I’m often disappointed at how slowly the Wheels of Justice turn after an arrest. Some cases that look open-and-shut take years. Let’s not gum up the Wheels on our streets at the arrest phase. If a city wants to tighten access security by outside agencies, just get the configuration right.
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