The story behind the lights!

An evening in March of 2023 I saw the lights on University Ave. and told myself this is exactly how I love to see Burlingame Ave! As the city’s Beautification commissioner & part of the improvement district I proposed adding lights to the trees for holiday 2023. My idea was welcomed with condition to change the existing 9 volts transformers since they would light up one strand of dim lights around only the trunk of the trees & most of them went out every time it rained, the reason why we did not have lights last year. I was told to figure out options other than lights since it would require tearing down the sidewalks which is very costly & time consuming. I faced many challenges but with perseverance, efforts, finding the specs of the existing transformers, continuous search, and many emails, I connected the city engineer, the electrician, and the lighting company installer to figure out a solution for adding 24 volts to the existing wiring without tearing down the side walks. After a few weeks of searching, a solution was found & the transformers got fixed. Next I proposed keeping the lights permanently since I was able to get a 20% discount from BayLuminations lighting Co. for not taking them down & not having to store them. My proposal was accepted and with the money difference I got the beautiful spheres for the holiday decor:)After thanksgiving it was time to add the spheres to find out another challenge that the transformers will not take the lights & the spheres at the same time. Therefore I proposed the idea of adding the spheres to the trees adjacent to the restaurant’s parklet since the parklets have electricity. I walked with the electrician to check every business that has a tree adjacent to their parklet and got their consent then had the city adjust their businesses encroachment permit. Then I got the DBID to add the trees to their insurance which all had to happen in 3 days because the lighting installer was on a schedule and could not do it after that. After all, it was all done and the beautiful lights will stay for all of us to enjoy and to make Burlingame a more inviting and beautiful city!