The San Carlos Real Estate Week in Review: 3/13/10

Inventory Analysis

Has Spring finally sprung?  If this past week is an indication, we’re starting to come out of our winter hibernation.    9 new single-family listings hit the market this past week — 6 of them are 3BR/2BA configurations, which seem to be in the most demand right now in San Carlos.  Taking into account the 4 homes that went into contract this week, this surge of new listings pushed the inventory up to 34 total homes for sale in San Carlos – still well below average, but a good sign for buyers nonetheless.

If you’re interested in any of these new listings, be sure to visit one of the open houses being held this weekend.  Chances are some of them won’t be around next weekend!

Here’s a snapshot of the San Carlos single family home market, as of 3/13. The previous week’s stats are in parentheses:

Single-Family Homes Sold in San Carlos:

Below are the single-family homes that sold this past week in San Carlos. Click on the respective addresses to get all the details.

… Continue Reading

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Reminder: San Carlos City Council Budget Workshops.

Key Budget Meetings.

If you’re at all concerned about the fiscal direction the City of San Carlos is heading, then there are two Budget Workshop meetings coming up that you should try to attend.  In these meetings, which are open to the public, the City Council will be discussing various options for reducing the City’s budget deficit, including outsourcing our key City services:  Police, Fire, and Park Maintenance.   The meetings will consist of a presentation by the City Manager and the various department heads on the latest proposals.  There will also be time for Council questions, and public Q&A.

Here are the meeting times/places:

Saturday, March 13: Noon – 5:00 PM

San Carlos Library, Upstairs Conference Room

and

Monday, March 22:  6:00 – ?

City Council Chambers, City Hall

If you can’t make today’s meeting, it will be broadcast on the SCTV channel (Channel 27 only on Comcast.)

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A Tough Day for the San Carlos School District…

Reductions and Termination Notices.

Last night the San Carlos School Board voted to accept the recommendation to send out potential termination/reduction notices to approximately 28 certificated employees in the school district.  Even though 28 staff will receive notifications, the net impact to the District will be the possible loss of up to 18.5 Full-Time Employee (FTE) positions.  The discrepancy in numbers arises since some of the positions that are impacted are part-time positions, and others are reductions in hours rather than complete eliminations.   This recommendation was made as the District struggles to close a budget gap that is estimated to be between $1.6M-$2.2M.

Here’s a copy of the resolution which discusses the positions in more detail: San Carlos School District Reductions

Superintendent Dr. Craig Baker issued an email today that did a very good job of clarifying what these notifications actually entail:

“By law, if a school district is even considering reducing or eliminating a position currently occupied by a “certificated” employee (which includes teachers), the district must give notice to that teacher by March 15th of the prior school year.  Even though these are commonly referred to as “pink slips,” they are not termination notices.  Rather, they are a notification that the District may eliminate/reduce a certificated employee’s position for the following school year.  The District can rescind these notices at any time, as happened last year after the Measure B parcel tax was passed.  However, the law is very clear—if a school district does not deliver these potential termination notices by March 15th, it cannot eliminate those positions for the following school year, regardless of how necessary that might be to balance the budget.”

Tough Losses.

San Carlos has always been known as having one of the top public school districts on the San Francisco Peninsula, and if these positions are indeed lost it will be felt throughout the District.   More details about this staff reduction will certainly follow in the upcoming days, but for now it’s a tough day for everyone involve in the San Carlos School District.

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Cal Fire Submits Initial Proposal for San Carlos Fire Contract.

The Other Half of the “Preferred Option”.

Today, Cal Fire submitted their first-pass proposal to provide San Carlos with fire and emergency services.  If you recall from my post earlier this week, the City Manager has stated that his preferred option to balance the city’s budget is to outsource both police and fire services to outside agencies.    The San Mateo County Sheriff’s office is due to deliver their proposal for police services by Friday of this week, in advance of the Budget Workshop on Saturday, March 13th.

The Cal Fire Plan:

The detailed plan can be found on this link on the City’s website, but here are some of the key points of their proposal:

• It provides two, 3-person, Advanced Life Support (ALS or paramedic) engine companies rather than the current Fire JPA mix of one Engine Company and one Truck Company in San Carlos
• It uses the Cal Fire approach to staffing and scheduling rather than the Fire JPA approach
• The proposal offers both a Cal Fire Staffed cost and a “Red Circle” Staffed cost where Fire JPA employee salaries are frozen until they “catch up” with the salary levels paid by Cal Fire
• The proposal also assumes that all current Fire JPA and Cal Fire employees are at the highest salary step.  To the extent that is not the case, actual costs to the City will be lower and potential savings will increase
• Annual cost for Cal Fire Staffed services: $3,495,262
• Annual cost for Cal Fire/Red Circle (frozen salary) Staffed services: $4,257,525

What Does This Mean?

Just like the situation with the San Carlos Police Department, the initial glance raises more questions than it answers.  Here’s just a few:

• What exactly is the “Cal Fire approach to staffing?”
• What happens to existing members of the Belmont-San Carlos Fire Department?  Absorbed, or fired?  Are we going to get crews that know anything about San Carlos?
• What is the disposition of Station 16 on Alameda?  There’s some vague wording about “sharing of fire resources between San Carlos and San Mateo County/Cal Fire to address the existence of the overlapping stations on Alameda (BSCFD) and Cordilleras (Cal Fire).  That sure sounds like it’s leaving the door open to a station closure somewhere….
• What happens with the existing ladder truck that currently is staffed between Belmont and San Carlos on alternate years?   Do we now have to rely on a neighboring city for basic ladder service?
• What happens to the HazMat rig?
• Do we have references from other municipalities (preferably local) that have contracted their fire service to Cal Fire?   What is there experience with this arrangement?  Did they achieve the cost savings that were promised?

One problem that is not solved is the staffing level for each engine company.   The existing law requires that before a strike team can enter a burning building, there must be an equal number of support firefighters on the outside.  So if a 4-man engine company is first to respond to a burning building, they can send a strike team of 2 firefighers inside immediately.   But if a 3-man engine company is first to arrive on the scene, they must wait for the next company to arrive before anyone can enter the building.     This is exactly what happened at the recent fatal fire on Devonshire.   So on the surface this is no better than what we already have — and with the loss of the tiller rig, it seems inferior.

The City claims that Cal Fire’s proposal will save the City save between $1.2M-$2M annually.   Just like the Police Department proposal, more details are supposed to be forthcoming at Saturday’s Budget Workshops on March 13 and 22nd.    And the same question needs to be raised in both cases:  How are they able to provide the same level of service that we have now at such a drastic discount?

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“Spotlight on San Carlos” Interview Series: San Carlos Police Officer’s Association.

Public Safety – A Hot Topic.

The San Carlos Police Department has been in the news quite a bit these past few weeks, but not for reasons you might expect.   Last week, the City Manager of San Carlos announced that his “preferred path” to balance the City’s budget calls for outsourcing the law enforcement responsibility in San Carlos to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.   (The other part of this proposal is to turn the Fire Department responsibilities to Cal Fire, but that will be addressed in a different segment.)

This announcement has raised major concerns within the Police ranks, as well as with the citizens of San Carlos — and rightfully so.   If you attended last night’s fantastic Police Town Hall Meeting, you saw the statistics first-hand –  San Carlos has one of the best police departments on the Peninsula, hands down.  So while the cost savings that the City Manager is proposing may look enticing on paper, there are far too many questions that need to be answered before any judgment should be rendered on this proposal.  One thing is for certain — ANY proposal needs to maintain this level of service, or it won’t be a good deal for San Carlos.

Interview:  The San Carlos Police Officer’s Association.

This week’s guest on Spotlight on San Carlos is Suzanne Sheppard, Vice President of the San Carlos Police Office’s Association.   In this interview, we discuss topics ranging from current staffing challenges in the department, to the latest budget proposal.   Click the play button below to hear the interview:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

(If you’re reading this on email, click on this link to access the interview:  Interview — San Carlos POA)

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The San Carlos Real Estate Week in Review: 3/6/10

Inventory Analysis

If you haven’t noticed the trend yet, most new listings in San Carlos hit the market on either a Monday (to catch broker’s tour), or Friday (in time for the weekend open houses).   So if you’re looking for new listings, these are the two days to watch closely.  This past week, Friday brought us a strong surge of new listings as 5 new homes came on the market — and all were below the $1M mark, which is still the most active segment in San Carlos.   But with all of that new activity, we’re still below 30 homes for sale in all of San Carlos!

And for yet another week, there are more homes pending sale than there are active listings.

Here’s a snapshot of the San Carlos single family home market, as of 3/6. The previous week’s stats are in parentheses:

Single-Family Homes Sold in San Carlos:

Below are the single-family homes that sold this past week in San Carlos. Click on the respective addresses to get all the details.

… Continue Reading

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A Milestone…

“Stick-to-it-iveness”

This post also has absolutely nothing to do with real estate….or San Carlos.  But it is the 500th article on the White Oaks Blog.   My hands hurt just thinking about that number.  When I started this site in the fall of 2007, I couldn’t fathom finding the material (or the initiative) to write 5 articles, let alone 500.   But the odometer that keeps track of site data has been slowly clicking away, and after 500 posts, 1,349 comments, and probably about 300,000 words (I’m just guessing on this last one, but I’m probably not too far off ), here we are.   That’s a lot of ….whatever you want to call it.

What does this mean?  I don’t know… I guess if you stick to something long enough…well,  you get stuck to it.   It also means that if I get an early onset of arthritis, I’ll know exactly why.

A Long, Interesting Journey.

Far more interesting than the numbers, is the path this site has taken over the past two or so years.  What started out as a place to post real estate data slowly evolved into a community bulletin board of sorts — it didn’t take long to figure out that while people in San Carlos are certainly interested in real estate, they’re absolutely passionate about the issues that pertain to their neighborhoods, their schools, and their city.   This is a good thing!  And with all that has been happening in San Carlos over the past 3 years, both good and bad, there has been no shortage of things to write about.

This site has opened doors and has taken me places I would never have imagined going, like landing this impromptu 30-second gig on KCBS radio.  That was definitely a trip!

But the biggest surprise to me about this site, and the aspect I treasure most, is the personal connections that it has created for me.   I have made friends with many great people through the site that I probably wouldn’t have met otherwise — residents, City Council members, police officers, fellow bloggers…all different people, but all who share a common desire to make San Carlos a great place to live.

It has been an interesting journey, that’s for sure. … Continue Reading

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San Carlos City Manager Presents Two Paths to Close Budget Gap.

Two Options Proposed.

Late today, the City of San Carlos issued a press release that outlines the two paths that are now being considered to close the city’s current $3.5M budget gap.   While the two options are quickly outlined in the City Budget Overview from the city website, they will be discussed in much more detail in the upcoming City Council Budget Workshop that will be held next Saturday, March 13 at 12:00 at the San Carlos Library.   But even with few details to draw from, one thing is very evident — both options take radically different approaches to solving the budget deficit.

The City’s “Preferred” Path:  Outsource Fire and Police Services.

You may have heard rumors to the effect that the City was considering outsourcing the Fire Department services to Cal Fire, and the Police Department services to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.  Well, these are no longer rumors –  in today’s press release, City Manager Mark Weiss left no doubt that this is his “preferred path” to closing the budget deficit, since it accounts for $3M-$6M in potential savings.  This proposal also calls for outsourcing park maintenance, and for the installation of parking meters downtown for an additional savings of up to $500K.

The Other Path:  Cuts Across the Board.

The second option that is being considered is essentially an aggregation of the cuts that were proposed earlier in the 10%/20% budget reduction exercises that were conducted a few months back by each of the key departments.   … Continue Reading

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