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Terry at
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Copyright 2006 Terry Nagel - All Rights Reserved
July 15, 2006
Dear Friend:
It may be the lazy days of summer, but there’s plenty going on in and around Burlingame. Check out what’s going on!
If you are the parent of a student being bombarded by free credit card offers, you know the value of the “Financial Survival 101” class offered from 6:30 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday, July 19, at the Burlingame Recreation Center at 850 Burlingame Ave.
The class is free, and complimentary pizza and soft drinks will be served. It is aimed at high school and college students, but some adults have taken it in the past. The class was a huge success last year; 83 students enrolled, including several adults who also wanted to brush up on their skills.
The class will be taught by Kevin Nelson, who teaches AP Economics at Burlingame High School and is a candidate for a certificate in financial planning from UCLA. He will explain how to establish a solid credit record, how to save for their first car and house, the mysteries of compound interest and more.
Many thanks to Wells Fargo’s Burlingame-Broadway branch and the City of Burlingame for sponsoring this class! To register, call the Recreation Center at (650) 558-7300.
You can learn everything you need to know to be ready for an earthquake, flood or other disaster by attending a special class called “Preparing for Emergencies” that will be offered by the City of Burlingame from 7 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, July 20, at the Burlingame Recreation Center.
Police officers, firefighters and other city employees will explain how Burlingame responds to emergencies and what you can do to make your family safe. A question-and-answer session will be included. To register, call the Rec Center at (650) 558-7300.
Citizens for a Better Burlingame invites residents to informal forums from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on the first Tuesday of each month at Il Piccolo Caffe, 1219 Broadway, Burlingame. The topic of the evening on Tuesday, August 1, will be future plans for the train stations of Burlingame, including the overpass proposed for Broadway. Admission is free; no RSVP is required.
Free concerts are being offered every Sunday in July at 1 p.m. in Burlingame’s Washington Park. The No Mercy Band will play Motown, rock and roll, jazz and disco on July 16, the Ron Gariffo Octet will offer jazz, pop, R&B and Latin & blues on July 23, and the California Cowboys, a four-piece “hot country” band, will entertain on July 30. Call (650) 558-7300 for more information. And a special treat this Sunday at 12:30pm, immediately before the music, the Il Picollo players will reprise their radio drama, The Shadow and the Tomb or Terror.
Vendors provide fresh produce, flowers and specialty food products every Sunday through November 19 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Burlingame’s Fresh Market, which is located on Park Road at Burlingame Avenue.
Thanks to the efforts of Stephen Hamilton of Burlingame, the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival will present “The Tempest” at Central Park at Fifth Avenue and El Camino Real in San Mateo on two Saturdays, August 5 and 12, at 7:30 p.m. and on two Sundays, August 6 and 13, at 5 p.m. The shows are free and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Bring a blanket, a low chair and a picnic and enjoy a fabulous evening of free professional theatre. Fun for all the family!
Would you like to help plan the third annual Burlingame Pet Parade? The next meeting will be held on Friday, July 28, from 9 to 10 a.m. Contact me if you are interested (see contact information at bottom).
The parade will march on Broadway on Saturday, September 23, beginning at 10 a.m., and will be accompanied by the Los Trancos Woods Community Marching Band. Participants must arrive by 9:30 a.m.
It will be lots of fun! To see photos from last year’s parade, visit www.burlingamepetparade.com.
The Burlingame Pet Parade is sponsored by the Broadway Merchants Association, the Peninsula Humane Society and the Daily Journal. There is no entry fee, but we request that groups register in advance. To register, print out the registration form and mail it as directed or contact Jean Silveira at (650) 344-4945 or jlsilveira@comcast.net. Advance registration is not required for individuals or groups of six or less.
Amateur and professional artists of all ages are invited to submit designs for the logo that will be used on T-shirts and other materials created for Burlingame’s downtown design charrette on Saturday, September 30.
The deadline for entries in the logo contest is August 7. The winner will have his or her name featured on the back of the T-shirts and will be honored by the city. The winner also will receive several T-shirts with the logo printed on them.
The charrette is a collaborative design workshop sponsored by Burlingame in conjunction with AIA San Mateo County, a chapter of The American Institute of Architects. Dozens of architects and other design professionals will volunteer to create design concepts for revitalizing the area around Howard Avenue in downtown Burlingame between El Camino Real and California Drive. A key focus of the study will be the side streets and pedestrian ways that connect Howard Avenue to the bustling Burlingame Avenue shopping area one block north.
Residents, property owners and all those interested will be invited to attend and participate in any or all discussions during the daylong event. The design charrette will produce multiple visions that will help guide the city into the future. Burlingame will begin to create a new downtown specific plan in January 2007.
For details on the logo contest and examples of two winning logos from charrettes in other cities, see www.burlingame.org/Charrette-Logo-Contest.htm.
To be notified about the upcoming charrette, sign up for the city’s e-newsletter on the city’s Web site at www.burlingame.org or call City Clerk Doris Mortensen at (650) 558-7203.
Volunteers are busy planning festivities for Burlingame’s 100th birthday, which takes place in June 2008. If you would like to be involved, contact City Clerk Doris Mortenson at (650) 558-7203, or email her at cityclerk@burlingame.org.
The Centennial Executive Committee will soon decide on a permanent marker or monument to commemorate the yearlong celebration. One suggestion is to create a “roundabout” traffic circle between City Hall and the main Burlingame Public Library with a gazebo-like structure in the middle (possibly adorned with the old City Hall cupola now resting in the parking lot next to Blockbuster). Other ideas include building a fountain and/or plaza in front of the train station, creating a city gateway at the north or south end of town, and installing historical plaques in appropriate locations.
If you have an idea for a structure to commemorate the Centennial, please contact me by Friday, August 4. (See contact info below.)
Volunteers with Web expertise are working with city staffers to upgrade the city’s Web site. Stay tuned! The new site that will launched in a few more weeks will be awesome!
The city was commended at a recent Citizens for a Better Burlingame forum on parking for setting meter fees higher on Burlingame Avenue and lower in off-street parking lots—a technique many sophisticated cities are using to keep spaces turning over in busy shopping areas. You can read a summary of the classic book often quoted by parking experts, “The High Cost of Free Parking,” on my Web site at http://www.terrynagel.com/main/page/522/. For a list of ideas suggested at the CBB forum on parking, see http://www.terrynagel.com/main/page/525/.
You may be qualified for a property tax exemption or rebate that you don’t know about. See “Tax Breaks” on my Web site at http://www.terrynagel.com/main/page/526/.
Looking for cheap gas? Check out http://www.aaa.com/gasprices or http://www.gasbuddy.com. Better yet, go see the new documentary about Al Gore’s powerful PowerPoint on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and you’ll want to buy a hybrid car.
One of the county’s best-kept secrets is the Community Information Program (CIP) database, which lists organizations that provide health and human services to San Mateo County residents. It is a service of the Peninsula Library System. Searching for recreation activities for your child? Need to find assistance for an aging parent? Want to join a cancer support group? Visit the CIP site at http://cip.plsinfo.org. You can sign up for CIP’s free resource bulletin on the home page.
A recent economic study of downtown Burlingame found that land within one-half mile of the Burlingame Avenue train station is worth $100 million more than usual, due to the presence of the train station. You can download a copy of the study here: http://www.burlingame.org/Economic%20study%20note.htm.
Burlingame now has a Small Dog Area at the Burlingame Dog Park located behind Bayside Park at 1125 Airport Boulevard. This park was created as a special project by four city employees who participated in a management class: Jim Brown, Frank Donnelly Jr., Phil Monaghan and Tom Roscoe. Thanks, guys! I could swear I saw some little dogs smiling out there!
The American flag flying over Burlingame City Hall at 501 Primrose Road was flown over the United States Capitol on May 9, 2006. Mary Ellen Kearney, who cheerfully staffs the front “fishbowl” at City Hall, acquired the flag through the office of U.S. Representative Tom Lantos.
I called a roofer recently to ask for a quote on a new roof, and he asked me how steep our roof was. “I don’t know,” I said. “Well, I’m looking at your roof right now on Google Earth", he said, and proceeded to tell me our roof was too steep for his company to consider. (Don’t worry; I found another roofer.)
Fans of Google Earth also love Google Maps. To read about some of the wild and crazy ways people are creating with Google Maps (including a “Sharing Things” map of San Francisco), check out Google Maps Mania.
Charts and diagrams spring to life in a fascinating lecture by Hans Rosling, [http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=hans_rosling&flashEnabled=1] a Swedish public health expert who is the founder of Gapminder, [] a nonprofit organization that interprets in intriguing ways. In this video, Rosling illustrates some counterintuitive facts about people in underdeveloped countries. For example, did you know that they have smaller families when they receive better medical care?
Burlingame attorney Charles Voltz has a son who has appeared on both the David Letterman Show and the Today Show recently—and for an odd reason. It seems that Stephen Voltz is one of the creators of a Web site dedicated to the Coke and Mentos Fountain, [www.eepybird.com] which has been receiving lots of hits. Stephen and Fritz Grobe’s site features a plethora of fizzy experiments that combine Diet Coke and the famous mints. What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and more than 500 Mentos mints? Visit the site to see the video and find out!