Cabrillo Unified School District superintendent John Bayless withdrew his candidacy for the Somerville school superintendent position on Sunday, according to to Somerville Journal.

Mayor Jim Grady told me that there will be a report from City Attorney Adam Lindgren at the next meeting on Tuesday, March 1 regarding procedures for replacing a City Council member. The expectation is that a decision will be made at that meeting about what to do next, but no one’s making any promises at this stage.

Sid McCausland says, “I’ll miss the Coastside, but not Coastside politics” in a good article about his promised resignation in the SM County Times.

Knight-Ridder, publisher of the San Jose Mercury News, bought the company that publishes the San Mateo Daily News, and four other free papers in Burlingame, Redwood City, Palo Alto, and Los Gatos. This is a significant media shift, both in the Bay Area and nationwide.

The big monopoly metro dailies are facing death from a thousand paper cuts, from the Internet as well as from free dailies and weeklies.  The NY Times just bought into a free paper that competes with its own Boston Globe. The SF Examiner has launched a new edition in Washington, DC. This probably marks the beginning of the end of big papers’ strategy of using zoned editions to compete in suburban markets.

In the corporate press release, Hilary Schneider, senior vice president/operations for Knight Ridder, said, “These newspapers are widely embraced by the communities they serve. They provide the kind of ‘micro-local’ coverage that larger metro dailies often do not, but that many consumers and small advertisers clearly seek.”

Significantly, the newly-acquired company will report to Hilary Schneider at the corporate home office and not the San Jose Mercury News.  I expect to see KR provide the capital to expand this mini-chain throughout the Bay Area, both deepening their coverage in Santa Clara County, the Mercury News’ home market, and broadening it in San Mateo County, where the Chron and ANG (SM County Times, Pacifica Tribune) are dominant.

In this region, KR also owns the Contra Costa Times and the Monterey Herald. I worked for the Mercury News in the mid-nineties, as one of the architects of their Web site.

The increased competition in Bay Area newspaper market could mean an eventual competitor on the Coastside.

Half Moon Bay City Council Member Sid McCausland announced his intention to resign, as soon as a replacement is found, at last night’s meeting.  He’s moving out of town, citing his need to retire some place with lower housing costs. 

In his prepared statement, McCausland warned against pro-development forces that will leave “Half Moon Bay looking like any other overcrowded California beach town”, including the Half Moon Bay Review among the forces attempting to “distort every issue and twist every fact in an effort to undermine the credibility of those of us who support controlled growth”.

I’ll have more on this later. But for now, here’s McCausland’s announcement.

February 15, 2005

Honorable Jim Grady, Mayor

City Council

City of Half Moon Bay

Dear Jim:

It has been my great personal privilege to serve on our City Council while Mike and Jim and Toni and Marina and I and our City staff have been accomplishing great things. I am proud to have played a small role in our accomplishments as a City Council.

63% of the votes cast by our voters in 1999 approved Half Moon Bay’s 1% per year limit on growth.  All of us have been working hard to abide by the voters’ mandate.  I extend my deepest thanks to the vast majority of our City’s residents for their support for our efforts. 

But let me sound an alarm for all of the residents of our community who believe in controlled growth. 

There are two major forces at work in our community:  there are those who are “pro-growth” and there are those who support “controlled growth”. 

In spite of the 63% vote for controlled growth, we hear every week from a very loud minority that is intent on undermining our growth controls.  During my 40-year career on the fringes of politics I have never encountered such widespread disrespect for the truth as I have encountered from Half Moon Bay’s pro-growthers.  The pro-growthers, which includes the local paper, routinely distort every issue and twist every fact in an effort to undermine the credibility of those of us who support controlled growth. 

Do not be fooled by the lies of those who seek to destroy your personal commitment to our City’s future.  The elections coming up in November 2005 will decide the fate of our 1% controlled growth limit once and for all.  The pro-growthers want you to be so confused by their propaganda that you forget what the election is really about.

If you sit on your hands, we will loose everything that our Neighborhood Alliance, our League for Coastside Protection and our City Council have been fighting to protect.  If you sit on your hands, you will find Half Moon Bay looking like any other overcrowded California beach town.  I hope you will fight for the Half Moon Bay you want to live in.

I hereby submit formal notice that I will resign my seat on the City Council as soon as my successor is named.

I retire as Chief Executive Officer of the San Mateo County Employees’ Retirement Association March 31st and my retirement income necessitates our move to a region with lower housing costs.

Suzanne and I have enjoyed our eleven years here and will cherish many wonderful memories.  I will always remember the dedicated efforts of my fellow Council members and our hard working City staff.

Respectfully,

Sid McCausland

409 Washington Boulevard

Half Moon Bay

In the midafternoon of Oct. 9, 2003, Kirk von Ackermann, an American contract worker from Moss Beach was abducted, leaving his satellite phone, his laptop computer, and, on his car’s backseat a briefcase holding $40,000 in $100 bills.

On the morning of Dec. 14, 2003, Ryan Manelick, one of von Ackermann’s business associates, was shot dead. “I’m in fear of my life, you know,” he told a gathering in an Iraqi restaurant the night before he was killed.

The Chronicle has a good, long article on the mystery surrounding von Ackermann’s disappearance, and suggests that it had to do with a kickback scheme: “Ryan Manelick had earlier told Army investigators looking into von Ackermann’s disappearance that large sums of money were being paid in kickbacks to a U.S. Army officer in Iraq in return for doling out lucrative contracts.”

Coastsiders are holding an “Abundance Sale” to benefit victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami that devastated the southeast Asia. All proceeds will benefit tsunami relief organizations. The sale will be held Saturday, Feb 19 from 8:30am to 3:00pm

You can help.

They’re still looking for quality donations. Drop off your donations at the Bell Building on 16th, 17,18th by appointment. Pick-ups are available for larger items. They’re also looking for volunteers to set-up, be at the sale, or clean-up.

For donation information, call Nancy Kinghorn at 650.596.5434

I captured this forked rainbow from the Linda Mar Shopping Center parking lot, at 5:18 PM on Friday - light rains moving through, with clouds extending maybe a mile offshore, but clear beyond that to the west, rains to the north and east, very calm seas.

I’ve enhanced the photo a bit in Photoshop, but still not anywhere as impressive as in person. At least a dozen people were standing in the parking lot staring at it. I’m not sure if this was visible from anywhere else.

My best guess is that the larger bow, which appeared first, is from the reflection of the sun off the ocean, the tighter, sharper one to the right (appearing after the sun had moved below the cloud layer extending offshore) from the actual sun.

EDITOR’S NOTE: There’s a lot more information on the formation forked and other unusual rainbows in Light and Color in the Outdoors, by M.G.J. Minnaert.

Chuck Kozak

Click on the picture for a larger version.

Nearly half the US Fish and Wildlife Service Scientists responding to a survey say they have been directed, for non-scientific reasons, to refrain from making findings that would have protected species, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The UCS reports that 56 percent of all respondents reported cases where “commercial interests have inappropriately induced the reversal or withdrawal of scientific conclusions or decisions through political intervention.”

The LA Times has a good article on this survey, which points out that the assistant secretary of the Interior in charge the Fish and Wildlife Service, has been critical of the Endangered Species Act, because it has created hardships for developers while failing to restore healthy populations of wildlife.

Eco-Pop Designs, a Moss Beach company, received the State’s top waste reduction environmental award yesterday, according to the Pacifica Tribune.  Located in Moss Beach, Eco-Pop Designs uses art, ecology, and invention to create environmentally friendly products that promote recycling. Eco-Pop uses the maximum amount of recycled materials to make recycling containers.