As of yesterday, the court has reached no conclusion in the MROSD petition count appeal and the judge is continuing the hearing. So far, County Elections Manager David Tom has found 64 additional valid signatures, including those with only post-office-box addresses and those with residential addresses written in by a third party. Petitioners were about 640 short of the number needed to force an election in November.

I’m looking forward to getting some first-hand accounts of the hearing from the participants.

Half Moon Bay will be the site the Ocean Blue Adventure Race:  seven miles of sea kayaking, 25 miles of mountain biking (with 3,000 feet of elevation gain) and about six miles of orienteering on foot.

The deadline for entry is Aug. 5, online or at REI. Cost: $145/person (includes two meals, two parties, big gear raffle). Entrants can be solo, or up to 4-person teams. Coed teams are the most popular. 530.546.1019 or http://www.bigblueadventure.com

It’s possible to find out your neighbors’ political contributions, how much they contributed and to whom the contributed it. Take a look. You’ll probably recognize some names. It’s no surprise that most of the donations were made to Democrats, but the degree of the tilt may be startling.

Click on the links below to see the results, which Fundrace is continuing to update. The zip codes in the southcoast are very small, and for some reason the results here consist mostly of stuff from Atherton and Los Altos hills. But you can pick out locals in the list.

Pacifica

Montara

Moss Beach

El Granada

Half Moon Bay

Pescadero

San Gregorio

La Honda

Loma Mar

It seems invasive, but it does serve an important public purpose. Fundrace.org uses information in the public record and provided by the Federal Election Commission.  Anyone who contributes “hard money” to political campaigns must provide personal information. This requirement limits the political influence of wealthy, anonymous individuals and allows the public to track financial contributions that may influence the political process.

The Coastside Infant Toddler Center will be holding its annual 45-family yard sale on August 7. Our daughter goes to CITC and it’s a wonderful resource for the coastside, so I’m a big supporter of the event.  Because most of the donors have young kids, it’s a great place to score baby and toddler clothes and toys. They’re collecting donations beginning July 23.

CITC is located at Highway 1 and Redondo Beach Road [map], just south of downtown Half Moon Bay on the west side of the highway. All items must be clean and in good repair; no junk please. Make sure all clothes are washed and on hangers or folded. They’re not looking for old computers or large appliances. For more information, contact Karen Corzine, 650.726.7416.

A California red-legged frog, a federally-recognized threatened species, has been found on the property planned for the Wavecrest Village development. The location seems to be part of the open space area in the current version of the Wavecrest development plan. The frog was found on June 7 by Chris Giorni, a biologist associated with the herpetology department of the California Academy of Sciences.

Photo by Chris Giorni

A california red-legged frog, photographed on the Wavecrest property.

The approximate location of the sighting is circled in red (based on the topographic map), near Smith Field and south of the proposed Wavecrest Village and middle school site.

In 1994, Giorni contracted with San Mateo county Parks & Recreation to survey the coastside for the San Francisco garter snake. He happened to be passing through Half Moon Bay last month and decided the re-visit one of the sites of his earlier survey. He heard what he thought might be a frog, and returned June 7. After a careful search, he was rewarded with a sight of the frog resting in the shade of a coyote bush on the property. The location is marked with a cross on this topographic map. "I haven't been involved in development in Half Moon Bay," says Giorni, "so I didn't know that it might be of so much interest."

The Half Moon Bay and Point Montara fire districts are getting together to discuss consolidation and their existing contract.

The special joint meeting of the Half Moon Bay Fire Protection District Consolidation Committee and the Pt. Montara Fire Protection District Board Of Directors will take place Monday, July 19 at noon. The location will be the HMB District Board Room, 1191 Main Street, Half Moon Bay.

Butano Creek has been restored to eliminate flooding near Pescadero and other problems, according to the San Mateo Daily Journal. The restoration required the removal of a man-made bridge and dams built by non-native beavers that were introduced in the 1940s for reasons that remain obscure.

The result has been a 90% reduction in flooding. The Journal doesn’t mention whether the beavers are still around.

If you haven’t pored over Kenneth Adelman’s beautiful photos of the California coastline yet, there’s a new reason to do it. He’s added an amazing trove of 5,000 coastal photos from 1972 and taken on the staggering labor of fixing decrepit old slides and matching them to current photos taken from different perspectives of the same places. The result is miraculous and seemingly what the Web was designed to do. I thank the HMB Review for bringing this update to my attention.

The changes are remarkable. The 1972 photos show a world where half of Montara is empty lots, Princeton has no industrial zone, the McMansion estates at Miramar is empty fields, Half Moon Bay has only begun to sprawl across Highway 1, and there is no Ritz surrounded by its own Ritzy gated community.

The 13th annual Tour des Fleurs happens on July 24. Once a year, coastside family-run horticultural and farms open their doors to behind-the-scenes public tours. This is a unique opportunity to see operations are not generally open to the public. 

The state is taking money from San Mateo county, San Mateo county is taking $700,000 from San Mateo County Parks and Recreation, and Parks and Recreation is closing Montara Mountain Trail at San Pedro Valley County Park three days a week.  Also closed will be San Bruno Mountain County Park near Brisbane, Junipero Serra County Park in San Bruno, and Edgewood County Park near Woodside.

Park gates will be locked on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays starting next week. On those days you will have to see the view from the top of Montara Mountain on your computer. The park closings will affect 100,000 users annually and save $330,000. On the bright side, the governor kept his promise to make it cheaper to register your car. I don’t know about you, but he saved me $55 this year. I plan to spend it on ice cream. Or a tank and a half of gas.

UPDATE: Carl May notes that Montara Mountain won’t be entirely closed: “It will be no big thing to walk around the gates at San Pedro Valley. But the primary reason is that most people hiking and biking Montara Mountain, including most of those who go all the way to the top for the views you mention, enter by way of McNee Ranch in Montara (gate on the east side of Hwy 1 just north of Martini Creek and a few by way of the parking area at Gray Whale Cove). The trail up from San Pedro Valley is the more minor route for mountaintop visitors....From the Pacifica side some use Old San Pedro Mountain Road extending off Higgins Way in Pacifica for access to Montara and San Pedro Mountains.”

I have updated the headline to say that Montara Mountain to reflect this.