Last week it was pretty gloomy around the San Mateo-Foster City school board and the word was out that there was going to be layoffs of more than 100 employees. Well it seems that Measure A has passed by the narrowest of margins. At one point it appeared that it was leading by 3 total votes.

Passage will mean $6 million annually to the district but will not necessarily eliminate the need for more cuts. The district folk are still expecting to cut more in the future.

The new tax essentially renews a parcel tax that had previously been renewed in 2003 provides about $2 million in district revenue and it was set to end in 2010. A vote is going to occur on March 4 over a plan to cut various positions and the new tax plan will be a part of that decision making process. The final decision on cuts will be May 15.

Here’s a link to the Daily Journal’s story on this topic:

http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=125673

Not sure how that title relates to the post itself…but it sort of sounded good, so what the heck! Anyway, the point is that Foster City’s own Gilead Sciences  has officially gained approval for nearly doubling it’s Vintage Park campus. It’s going to grow from a little over 629,000 square feet to over 1,200,000 sq ft in a total of 17 buildings. Construction is expected to take place over the next 10 years. Gilead also purchased an additional 30 acres of land adjacent to it’s current campus.

To me at least, this all means a continued healthy Foster City economy and yet another reason to feel optimistic about the maintenance of home values in this area. Gilead’s plan is to expect an increase in employees from 1200 right now to more than 3000 in 10 years. This, in a town where there are currently only 10 single family homes actively listed for sale. It seems obvious to me that this kind of growth is going to keep home values stabile at the very least. I wrote a post  in 2008 about a great book by a guy by the name of Richard Florida called Who’s Your City? that really nails the strength of this area and why it’s dynamic energy bodes well for our futures here. What we’re seeing with Gilead is living proof.

Remember this? It was about a year ago that a delay was announced that told the folks that had signed up for the proposed new Mirabella project. This is the project that was set to complete the Parkview Plaza/15 acre site and sure has seemed to have been on the table for ages! If you recall, the plan to have a large senior center on this site was chosen a couple of years ago and sort of became controversial in parts of Foster City after the developer expanded the original plans and called for towers up to 12 stories.

That’s still the plan, but a week or so ago Pacific Retirement Services decided to return the $600,000 they had received in deposits from families who wanted to live in this project. Since the developers exclusive right to negotiate expires on April 1 of this year, and the SM-FC school board sort of would like to build a fourth elementary school around here, I think we can expect some discussion about the future use of this land…again.

The PRS folks are still saying they want to build on this site…so who knows? I personally love the idea of a “downtown” type destination for Foster City and while this plan wasn’t exactly Santana Row it’s better than alot of alternatives. I have no doubt that the City would love the long term revenue that would be produced by this project so I think we can expect that they will be pretty firm in their commitment to it, or something very much like it going forward. We’ll see. Anyway, here’s a SM Daily Journal link to a story about it:

http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=124776

City Council Recap – 1/19/10 from Foster City TV on Vimeo.

There’s two very important reasons to watch this FCTV video highlighting the most recent City Council meeting. First, because it’s possible to see our good friend, perennial Blog participant, and Foster City’s new Finance Director Steve Toler wearing a nice dress shirt and a tie. I told him I’d refer to him here as a stud, but I promised not to go that far, so let’s just say that he’s looking “studly” and be good with that. Secondly, and possibly of slightly greater importance, is the actual content of what he’s saying. In a nutshell, the City’s finances are in pretty darn good shape. There’s actually a significant reserve and financially Foster City is a very well managed community.

It also means that if you live in Foster City you’re pretty spoiled to tell you the truth. Many of Foster City’s sister communities here in the Mid Peninsula are not even close to the position that FC finds inself in right now. Let’s take a look at San Carlos for example. San Carlos is quite possibly the most coveted community in the area. It’s shown wonderful growth, it’s schools rank well (though not as good as FC’s) and it’s downtown has become a Mecca for shopping and dinning. I like San Carlos, don’t you? Guess what? Because of severe budget shortfalls the Parks and Rec department have recommended that 6 parks be closed by July 1 of this year. Not only that, the plan is to actually fence off these parks to prevent their use.

Sound bad? That’s not all. It’s also recommended that the youth center be closed for 10 months out of the year. The other two months will be open only for revenue generating activities. In addition all off season sports will end. Spring soccer, fall baseball and softball will receive no field time at all.

Imagine this scenario in Foster City. Catamaran and Boothbay parks closed…and fenced off! Not only can you not use the fields but the tennis and basketball courts are off limits too. Ketch, Turnstone, Killdeer, and Sunfish Parks closed as well. The Vibe closed for 10 months out of the year. Half Moon Bay, San Bruno and Millbrae are a mess too for what that’s worth…and their restaurants aren’t as good as San Carlos either.

No matter where you live it’s not uncommon to hear some bashing from time to time of local government. In my opinion at least, Foster City has done a remarkable job in managing it’s financial situation and they should be commended.

For the last few years, since the proliferation of real estate and real estate related topics on the Internet, I have heard comments about great deals available on foreclosures…usually coming from a buyer’s discovery of said opportunity online. Most of the large aggregator sites…Trulia, Movoto, Realtytrac get info from the public record and publish this data and a great many people think they can buy a house on the water in Foster City for pennies on the dollar. Folks can see, for example, a “pre-foreclosure” opportunity on Grunion Ct in Foster City with an amount of $10,649.00 next to it. Every once in  awhile, I’ll get a call from somebody all excited about the opportunity to buy this type of house for a price like this. Ummm…I think not. There’s a ton of this type of listing out there and what they are in reality are notice of defaults filed. It means that this homeowner is experiencing some kind of financial difficulty, maybe has missed a couple of payments. Maybe the homeowner missed a couple of payments on some other type of note not related at all to the subject property too. In my experience, people don’t lose homes around here for amounts this low. Certainly, you can’t buy it for that low amount.

When I looked at the MLS history on closed property in Foster City since the beginning of 2009 I was surprised to see very few foreclosures. That is, homes that were owned by a bank and sold by them. There have been short sales, but most of those are in smaller condos. All told there were less than 10 foreclosures that actually matriculated in Foster City so far this year. Yet, Realtytrac is showing that there are 281 bank owned properties here. Go figure! Where have they been hiding? Are secret buyers buying them from secret bank representatives? I’m confused.

I’d love to see deeply discounted REO’s hit this market…even though they would get lots and lots of offers. I just don’t think they’re coming. I think folks in trouble have found ways to get out of it. Certainly we would see ALOT more short sales in this market long before we would see REO’s. If there really are 281 bank owned properties, how did we miss 281 (or so) short sales? Did these sellers just all emotionally throw in the towel collectively? As a conspiracy…like they all planned to let their banks take over their homes without trying to sell?

I really don’t know the answer…I just know that it makes no sense that Foster City has a large number of secret foreclosures.

Foster City’s library is now officially on hiatus while it undergoes a big renovation. It’s going to be closed until the first week in January while it experiences a $900,000 interior remodel. The improvements include new carpets, fresh coats of paint, self-checkout stations and quieter reading and study areas. There also will be a new children’s area, a room for teenagers and a technology bar…whatever that is. Maybe we can order a beer while using the computors? I suspectg not.

The costs are being split between the city, the San Mateo County Library system and the Friends of the Foster City Library. The county is paying the largest share.

If you have a book checked out right now you don’t have to return it until the library reopens on Januray 4. Let’s hope everyone remembers that they have a library book after all that time.

Here’s a little video that the library put together about this event:

FC Library Remodel – 60sec from Foster City TV on Vimeo.

There sure seems to be some good news for folks in Foster City about the flood zone changes that sure seemed to be coming from FEMA. It seems that Jackie Speier has sent a letter to FEMA asking that they officially delay the implementation of the new map to March or April of 2011 to give San Mateo time to complete the construction of levee updates needed.

Just in case you missed it, City of San Mateo property owners approved an Assessment district whereby they will be paying the construction costs of the levee improvements necessary to gain compliance. Even if there is some Federal stimulus money coming, they have a structure in place to pay for the improvements anyway through that new district.

Assuming Jackie’s request is granted that should prevent both San Mateo and Foster City residents from having to buy flood insurance. That’s real good news…especially if you live in a condo or townhouse in Foster City!

The 25 page agenda packet has been released for the big pow wow scheduled for Monday in which a fourth elementary school will be discussed. It’s kind of tortuous to get through all 25 pages but there’s some interesting stuff there.

The attorney has rendered an opinion that “the sale of Boothbay Park to the School District is prohibited by Government Code Section 37111.1″ because “transfer of this park land to the District would not represent use for a ‘municipal’ purpose” and because “the City has not, within the last 3 years, acquired or developed an equal or greater amount of land for park purposes” that could replace the park.  It’s also indicated that Port Royal Park might be restricted based upon the dedication that was made by the original developer in that section of town.

Further, it’s also opined that giving the land away would be a gift of public funds, which is prohibited under the Government Code. As such, the District would have to pay “fair value” based on an independent appraiser.

Hmmm…pretty interesting. Especially if you’re fighting to save Boothbay Park. It also sure would seem to put pressure onto the 15 acre/Parkview Plaza site again, doesn’t it? At any rate it sure will be an interesting meeting on Monday!

I often have to laugh at how many,many categories there are for which we find ways to congratulate ourselves. I know in Real Estate there are awards within each company for just about anything and everything you can imagine. It doesn’t take a whole lot of success for somebody to get a plaque, or something, come the end of each year. We just simply like to pat ourselves on the back from time to time…I guess just because it feels good to do so.

Well that philosophy also applies to citys and towns. Turns out a group called the Metropolitan Transportation Commission has honored Foster City as having the best roads in San Mateo County! Turns out that FC was third out of the entire 108 municipality Bay Area too, and all of this determined by the pavement condition index (whatever that is!).  There was a nice article in the San Mateo Daily Journal on Tuesday about this achievement and I would encourage you to check it out.

I don’t actually mean to be smart alecky, really, and I’m sure there’s a bunch of very worthy individuals who have been, and continue to be responsible for making sure Foster City’s streets are in top shape. It’s just that it seems funny to me that there are folks out there whose job it is to index and rate pavement condition for every town in the Bay Area. It’s such a good thing that we don’t have snow here! When I lived in Denver 20 years ago, a heavy snowfall was followed by the city dropping tons of rock salt and gravel onto the city streets to create traction…which was followed by melting, runoff and, finally,  pot holes when all was said and done. You could lose your whole car in some of those pot holes! All the roads around here seem pretty darn good to me. Congratulations for being the best!