Thirty years after California (and San Mateo County) voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 13, the landmark property tax initiative, its significant after-effects continue to linger. One of those consequences can be found in Burlingame, where the average price of a single-family residence has topped the $1 million mark. Burlingame, in spite of its seeming affluence, is in something of a financial pickle. The town needs to spend at least $39 million to upgrade its aging storm drain system. It tried to get a bond issue passed and failed. The measure went down to defeat due, in part, to stiff resistance from people who bought their homes relatively recently and are being taxed at close to full market value. Meanwhile, long-term residents receive the benefit of Prop. 13’s tough restrictions on annual tax hikes. The argument of the newcomers is that they would pay much more for that proposed bond. Now, Burlingame authorities are taking another look at how to pay for those needed infrastructure improvements. And the question is: Will they bow to the howls of the minority and seek a funding mechanism that requires only a simple majority vote for approval and spreads the burden more evenly or will they go back to the electorate again with a more traditional bond that has a mandatory two-thirds threshold along with the Prop. 13 wrinkle? No one will be surprised if it’s the former route.

Time doesn’t necessarily heal all wounds. Just ask San Mateo County’s two top cops, Greg Munks and Carlos Bolanos, the sheriff and undersheriff respectively. It’s been a year since they were caught and detained inside a brothel in the Las Vegas area. The explanation for their behavior has been, shall we say, less than adequate. In fact, it’s been downright lacking in any substance whatsoever. But the taxpayers, the people who pay the salaries of the two gentlemen in question, are supposed to accept this without a peep. It’s particularly galling when Munks continues to ask for more money for jails and other necessities for the County Sheriff’s Office. And that’s probably the most vexing problem: Munks has no credibility. His cachet, if he ever possessed any of that elusive commodity, is long gone. His essential silence on the circumstances involving his sojourn in that Nevada whorehouse (neither he nor his deputy was charged with a crime) has made his pleas for monetary assistance ring hollow. It’s too bad. The county deserves better.

If you are looking for reasons for the stress experienced by public school budgets, look no farther than special education. That’s the requirement imposed by the federal government and the courts involving students with specific physical, emotional and academic handicaps. These mandates have grown over time to the point where, in San Mateo County at least, the dollars involved are huge. Unfortunately, though the feds have laid down the law in this matter, they haven’t fully-funded it. Their responsiblities have been allowed to slide. Today, according to the County Office of Education’s Jean Holbrook, the Peninsula’s 23 public school districts have been forced to make up for $62 million in special education financing out of their general fund budgets. That’s cash that won’t be used to educate the bulk of the total student body that numbers close to 90,000 youngsters in grades kindergarten through 12. Combined, all district budgets came to just over $738 million in actual expenditures in 2006-07, according to the California state Department of Education. So, to put it another way, for every $12 spent on local schools, $1 goes to special education. And the situation shows no signs of being alleviated anytime soon.

There has been little or no reaction whatsoever to the quiet elimination of a BART line from Millbrae to San Francisco International Airport. When the huge Millbrae “intermodal” station was opened several years ago, it was supposed to be something unique in the Far West: A convenient transfer point for two rail systems, BART and Caltrain (not to mention SamTrans buses), serving, in part, travelers utilizing SFO to the east. It all seemed quite grand at the time. But it never really panned out as originally envisioned. Instead, Millbrae BART trains going to and from the airport were barely used at all. The link turned out to be a money-loser right from the start. At one point, it was discovered that there was one passenger per BART car on that route. So, finally, it was terminated earlier this year. The tracks remain, but they are unused. Instead, if you are coming from the south on Caltrain and need to get to SFO, you must transfer to BART at Millbrae, ride north to San Bruno, wait for another BART train bound for the airport and transfer. That’s not what the planners had in mind years ago when the Millbrae station was contemplated.

The cleanup crew is continuing its laborious work in the San Mateo Union High School District. A new administrative team, led by superintendent David Miller and his budget chief Liz McManus, and two new members of the board of trustees have embarked on what promises to be a long, tough exercise in bringing the district back to fiscal stability. It’s not going to be an easy task by any means. The legacy of the past continues to haunt them. Beginning with the stunning and unanticipated need to rebuild seismically-unsafe San Mateo High School at the beginning of the current decade, the district has been shocked by a series of fiscal challenges, many of them of its own confused making. In a nutshell, the district plunged into budgetary chaos during, and after, the administrations of former superintendents Tom Mohr and Sam Johnson. It is still recovering. And controversy persists. The latest flap involves a plan to increase fees significantly for the use of district facilities. For taxpayers who have watched the district stagger along blindly for years (even as they approved two big construction bond packages), this latest development has been seen as a slap in the face. It’s a public relations disaster. There is some talk that a formula can be found to ease the pain. That would be the prudent thing to do, especially when you consider what the long-suffering public has put up with since 2000.

Elections are coming fast furious this year in San Mateo County. We just had a presidential primary. We’ve got two more primaries coming in April and June. Then comes the big general election in November. There is no rest for those who operate the election process here on the Peninsula. But there is plenty of down time for another aspect of politics in these parts: Meaningful debate. Discussions about policy and practices are strictly one-way. The county is a bonafide one-trick political pony. That’s because the Republican Party has become about as relevant as the rotary telephone. The GOP has slipped so far out of favor with the local electorate that it’s a mere blip on the radar screen. According to statistics provided by Warren Slocum, the county’s chief election honcho, there are 180,531 registered Democrats in the county. That compares to only 83,619 people who classify themselves as members of the GOP. What’s more telling, 81,628 say they are undecided and don’t list any party affiliation at all. It won’t be long before the undeclared outnumber those from the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. It makes for a mighty boring time out there in the public square. It is a routine fact of life here that every key elected federal, state and local official is a Democrat. Republicans are strictly MIA. Simply put, in this barren idea desert, there is no meaningful back-and-forth whatsoever.

When a 17-year-old accused murderer escaped from the new San Mateo County Youth Services Center recently, the outcry began. How could this occur at what was supposed to be a state-of-the-art juvenile detention center that cost $150 million in taxpayers’ money? The details of how the young man managed to break out of the facility, located in the hills near the Highway 92/Interstate 280 interchange, are coming to light. And the county officials responsible for security at the center are having to come up with some answers. That’s all well and good. But the incident should also be an opportunity to come to grips with a reality that not many in leadership roles want to address: The level of violence being perpetrated by some Peninsula youth, particularly ethnic gang members, is a very real and present danger to the entire community. So the primary function of the county’s juvenile probation people is not rehabilitation of the inmates, it’s the safety of the community at large. That’s why the center has fencing and other supposed safeguards intended to keep the young offenders away from the law-abiding citizenry. Make no mistake, far too many of the current crop of young law-breakers are not your garden variety shoplifters or purse snatchers. They are violent and an imminent threat to society. For too long, county authorities have patted themselves on the back for creating a “campus” instead of a “jail.” It’s time to re-think that approach. If that’s not being sufficiently in tune with current trendy approaches to dealing with juvenile criminals, so be it. Sadly, the Peninsula has changed a great deal in just one generation. As a result, the therapeutic kid glove treatment doesn’t seem to be working.

He’s gone now. Tom Lantos, a San Mateo County congressman for 28 years, died Feb. 11 in Bethesda Naval Hospital due to complications from cancer. He was 80-years-old. Over the better part of three long and momentous decades, Lantos became what amounted to a Peninsula political legend, revered by many, despised by some. As the county changed, he became unbeatable in an election. Republicans quickly realized that trying to oust the native of Hungary was tantamount to throwing good money after bad. It just wasn’t worth it. They tossed in the towel. Lantos was a sure thing. But his critics were adamant: His devotion to Israel and corresponding enthusiasm for the use of American military power in the Middle East and elsewhere made him anathema to those on the bitter and angry left. But Lantos was unmoved. He never wavered. Even when cracks appeared in his tough foreign policy posture (a pre-Gulf War I allegation of Iraqi atrocities in a Kuwait hospital proved to be particularly inaccurate and wildly provocative), it didn’t matter after the dust had cleared. Lantos, a lifetime foe of worldwide radical Islamic terror, fascism and communisim in all of their many forms, persevered. It was rather ironic. He represented what has become an anti-war, almost pacifist 12th congresstional district and there he was advocating the use of the U.S. military, whether it was in the Balkans, Afghanistan or Iraq. The frustrated and addled left couldn’t abide him. They marched. They protested. They wrote letters. They whined. They sulked. Forget about it. They could not find a candidate to stand up to him. Not even close. Was Lantos perfect? No. Was he a patriot? Yes. We will not see his like any time soon.

In some ways, it was a walk back into San Mateo County history. Dick Vermeil, the highly successful former NFL and college football coach, returned to the Peninsula last week. He did so to honor the memory of Homer Zugelder, a friend and one-time colleague when both men were on the faculty of Hillsdale High School in San Mateo early in the 1960s. Vermeil, whose St. Louis Rams won the Super Bowl in 2000, is retired from coaching now. He travels throughout the country giving motivational speeches and doing some commentary work on football telecasts. Vermeil, as he was as a teacher and a coach, is a superb public speaker. During ceremonies to name the Hillsdale gymnasium for Zugelder, Vermeil spoke for perhaps 15 to 20 minutes. It was riveting stuff. He discussed the basics, the qualities that make up true leaders and people of character and substance. In a very real sense, it was a talk devoted to those, like Zugelder, who don’t put on airs and who remain grounded in their friends and families. In other words, they are quite the opposite of the usual sad parade of terribly flawed oddball celebrities on whom American culture spends so much time and money. Vermeil has never changed. For those of us who knew him nearly a half-century ago when he first arrived at Hillsdale, it’s refreshing to see and hear him now. An emotional guy, he’s the antithesis of the likes of Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Dennis Rodman. Vermeil doesn’t crave the limelight. Instead, he tries to deflect it. He’s been a class act from the start. No wonder his message tends to resonate. In excess of 300 folks turned out for the Hillsdale event. There was more than one standing ovation for Vermeil. It was a memorable occasion.

A strange (or maybe not so strange) backlash had been building out there. You may have heard or read about it. Tom Brady is not universally admired. Certainly not in venues like New York and New Jersey, which had a vested interest in seeing the San Matean and his New England teammates falter and flop in the Feb. 3 Super Bowl in Arizona. They got half a wish _ the Patriots were upset by the New York Giants, 17-14, but Brady, true to form, wasn’t the reason. In fact, he led a last-minute drive that produced a 14-10 New England lead. But the Giants, behind their own clutch quarterback Eli Manning, came right back and won the game with under a minute remaining. Those who long to see Brady fall must be gloating today. For these unhappy souls, Brady is simply a bit too much _ too attractive, too happy, too celebrated, too wealthy, too victorious way too often. It’s probably simple human nature. There are those among us who simply hate to see success of such scope and scale. It would be akin to hoping that Warren Buffett goes bankrupt and winds up on food stamps or Oprah Winfrey puts on 250 extra pounds and expands her waistline right off the TV screen. Brady, with just a few exceptions, had been pretty close to perfect for some time. His New England team was 18-0 heading into the Super Bowl. That can be hard to handle if you have chinks in your own personal armor. Fans of former San Francisco quarterback Joe Montana who can’t abide what Brady has accomplished and see it as a threat to St. Joe’s sterling legacy here are certainly in that category. They’d like to see Brady brought down to size. But at least they have a fairly logical reason for their disdain for the NFL star. Montana has been their storied guy for the better part of a quarter-century. The irony is that, as a boy growing up in San Mateo County, Brady idolized none other than, you guessed it, Joe Montana. Go figure. Hey, you can’t please everyone. So why bother to even try?