Category: Press
Burlingame Receives National Environmental Award
The National Environmental Hall of Fame honored Burlingame Monday night for its green practices and initiatives.
By Miriam Finder April 7, 2011 
Accepting an award on behalf of the City of Burlingame from the National Environmental Hall of Fame on April 4 were (back row, from left), Councilmember Michael Brownrigg; Vice Mayor Jerry Deal; (middle row) Community Development Director Bill Meeker; Jerry Winges, Susan Castner-Paine and Mike McCord of the Citizens Environmental Council-Burlingame (CEC); Councilmembers Ann Keighran and Cathy Baylock; and (front row) Kathy Meriwether of CEC; Mayor Terry Nagel; and presenter Bill Schulte, Chair of Sustainable San Mateo County. The award recognizes Burlingame’s environmental achievements.Credit City of Burlingame
The National Environmental Hall of Fame Monday night presented Burlingame with a National Environmental Award for the city’s sustainable and green initiatives. Burlingame joined an exclusive group of cities to have received this recognition, including Seattle and San Jose.
“You have a list of achievements that is long and lustrous, and I’m very proud to be able to present these awards tonight,” said the chair of Sustainable San Mateo Bill Schulte.
The city received the award for its work including adopting Burlingame’s first Climate Action Plan, prioritizing transit-oriented development as part of a new downtown specific plan and organizing an annual Green Street Fair.
Schulte also commended the city staff and their dedication to educating the community on green practices, such as lowering carbon emissions.
Burlingame boasts other green accomplishments, as well, such as hiring a green-building specialist, participating in the Drive Less Challenge encouraging alternate means of transportation, adopting green building ordinances and eliminating solar panel permit fees.
For more information on the environmental work underway in Burlingame, visit www.burlingame.org/sustainable.
Burlingame Becoming New Tech Hub
By Janis Mara jmara@bayareanewsgroup.com
Posted: 07/24/2011 06:15:38 PM PDT
Updated: 07/24/2011 11:35:21 PM PDT
BURLINGAME — The City of Trees is awash in tech firms — everything from incubators to research labs to startups and full-fledged businesses.
The city doesn’t have quite as many tech firms as its estimated 18,000 trees, but the demand is so strong that a Burlingame property owner recently petitioned the city for permission to convert part of a building formerly used for auto repair to office space for such firms.
Burlingame’s tech companies include CarWoo, a website where dealers bid against each other to sell customers new cars; Jobvite, which helps companies use social networking to recruit employees; and DataStax, a software company that helps other firms manage their databases. Additionally, Sprint’s M2M Collaboration Center, where the company and its customers test various devices that use Sprint’s data network, is located here.
Towns such as Palo Alto and Sunnyvale, in the heart of Silicon Valley, are traditionally associated with such firms, but Burlingame is drawing tech companies, too. John Ramey, the founder of isocket, said Burlingame’s central location was a big advantage.
“I was in an apartment in Mountain View when we took our venture capital funding,” said Ramey, whose company is an advertising marketplace designed to make it easier to buy and sell ads online.
“When it was time to set up a company, I intentionally wanted to come to this area. Burlingame and San Mateo have been growing because it’s a way to split the difference between San Francisco and Silicon Valley,” he said. Isocket’s building, at 270 East Lane, is home to other startups, too.
San Francisco is developing its own tech bubble and there is still a tech and social media boom in Silicon Valley, Ramey said. This has created a split culture between San Francisco and Silicon Valley, with some venture capitalists shutting down their Silicon Valley offices and moving to San Francisco. Burlingame is a compromise between the two locations.
“Our primary need as a company is to grow and hire. Hiring is very difficult. By being in this mid-location, you have the widest circumference of hiring. When you are in San Francisco, you are limited to hiring people in The City. When you’re in Palo Alto, you can only hire folks there. But Burlingame is 20 minutes from either city via Caltrain or car,” Ramey said.
“Burlingame has great restaurants and it’s a good central location,” said Michael Weir, vice president of marketing for DataStax, also at 270 East Lane. Weir said his firm liked the building because it was near the Caltrain station, a factor that others mentioned.
“I estimate that one-third of the employees of the companies in my building are taking the train,” said Gary Cohn of BR Commercial, owner of 270 East Lane. Cohn got permission this month to convert 8,000 square feet of the building from industrial to office use.
“We are going to convert it to a high-tech space with high ceilings, exposed beams, exposed ductwork,” Cohn said. “A lot of tech firms are looking for this sort of thing.”
By no means is Cohn’s building the only one housing tech firms.
Incubator YouWeb and its companies including OpenFeint, a DataStax customer, and CrowdStar are on Primrose Road, and cellular business solutions partner Walsh Vision has an office on Bayshore Highway. BitGravity, a video streaming firm, is on Airport Boulevard; Veebeam, also a video streaming firm, is on Rollins Road. TellApart, which shows display ads to potential buyers who visited but abandoned shopping activity on e-commerce websites, is on Chapin Avenue.
Downtown seems to be the location of choice for new firms moving in, according to Patricia Love, Burlingame’s economic development director.
“I spoke with a technology firm last week that was pretty clear: space near the train station and proximity to downtown, as their employees like to have that walking access,” Love said.
“I think it gives downtown a great vibe, and it’s great that more people are ditching their cars, fast food and strip malls in favor of using public transportation and walking to downtown commercial districts,” Love said.
Contact Janis Mara at 510-208-6474.
SamTrans & Caltrain Welcome New Board Members
July 22, 2011
The San Mateo County Transit District Board of Directors and the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board welcomed two new members at its July meetings.
Redwood City Councilman Jeff Gee was sworn in as the newest SamTrans board member July 13, replacing former San Carlos Mayor Omar Ahmad who recently died of a heart attack. Gee represents Cities – South County on the board.
Burlingame Vice Mayor Jerry Deal was sworn in July 7 as the newest member of the Joint Powers Board, which owns and operates Caltrain. Deal, who also replaces Ahmad, represents SamTrans on the JPB.
Board member Adrienne Tissier was elected vice chair of the JPB at the same meeting, a position also held by Ahmad.
The Transit District’s board has nine members, with two representatives from the county Board of Supervisors; three city council representatives, who are appointed by the City Selection Committee; three public members from different geographic regions of the county; and a transportation expert, who is appointed by the county Board of Supervisors.
The Transit District board meets the second Wednesday of each month at 2 p.m. at 1250 San Carlos Ave. in San Carlos, two blocks from El Camino bus service and the train station. For more information about SamTrans, visit www.samtrans.com.
The Caltrain board has nine members, with representatives from each of the three counties through which the rail service operates – San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara.
The Caltrain board meets the first Thursday of each month at 10 a.m. at 1250 San Carlos Ave., San Carlos. For more information about Caltrain, visit www.caltrain.com.
Burlingame Vice Mayor Jerry Deal announces re-election campaign
BURLINGAME, CA – Burlingame’s Vice Mayor Jerry Deal is making it official that he will be running for re-election to the Burlingame City Council. “The last four years have only reinforced my commitment to my community and public service,” Deal said Monday. “Now more than ever, we need strong, focused leaders to make the right decisions for Burlingame.”
Deal knows the Burlingame community well, and is a committed leader on the issues that matter most to our area: high speed rail, balancing the budget, shared safety services, education, recreation and environmentally sustainability. He’s been a consistent voice for balancing the community’s needs and financial responsibility. Vice Mayor Deal is especially proud of the Council’s ability to balance the budget this year without any employee or service cuts and bringing future financial sustainability to the City of Burlingame.
Regional issues such as High Speed Rail are also of great importance to Burlingame. Furthering his regional influence, Deal was elected on June 24th to the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (CalTrain) by a vote of the City Selection Committee of the San Mateo County Council of Cities. Deal is currently also the Vice Chair of SamTrans (fixed bus routes and paratransit services in San Mateo County) as well as a Board Member of the Peninsula Congestion Relief Alliance. This places Deal and the city of Burlingame in a position to influence the outcome of transportation services throughout the county as well as High Speed Rail.
Deal is looking forward to the campaign, talking with residents about their priorities for the city and ensuring that our community is well represented both in City Hall and regionally.
John Horgan: Deal’s appointment is a ray of hope
By John Horgan
San Mateo County Times
Posted: 06/27/2011 09:55:06 PM PDT
There’s a hint of hope for those who’d like to see an occasional dissenting voice on the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board.
With the appointment of Burlingame City Councilman Jerry Deal to the group that governs Caltrain, at least one member of the nine-person body now has a track record of skepticism regarding the rail line’s intimate relationship with the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
Caltrain has agreed to allow the planned high-speed setup to utilize the commute line’s right of way in return for infrastructure upgrades.
Until Deal’s arrival on the JPB, the entity had been dominated exclusively by appointees eager to march in virtual lock-step with high-speed rail on the Peninsula. Deal has been a critic of such one-way posture during his tenure on the Burlingame council, which is worried about the impact of the proposed line on its quiet downtown.
Deal replaces the late Omar Ahmad, a San Carlos councilman who passed away unexpectedly in May. Not all that long ago, there had been a concerted push to have Deal named to the JPB, but Ahmad got the nod instead.
JD Selected for JPB
By Joe
Burlingame Voice
Posted: June 25, 2011
Burlingame finally has representation on the Joint Powers Board that owns and operates Caltrain. Last night Jerry Deal was selected to fill the seat that was formerly held by the San Carlos mayor who recently passed away. Deal had been neck-and-neck in the voting the last time and was able to gain the seat this time around.
Given that the Burlingame City Council’s views on High-cost Rail are pretty well known around the County, Deal’s selection could be interpreted as a vote by a majority of the other cities for much closer inspection, if not out-and-out challenges, to the California High-cost Rail Authority. About time!
This also means Deal’s re-election to the council this Fall gains importance beyond the city borders