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.

The San Mateo Daily Journal features an interesting profile of Pillar Point Harbor and its harbormaster Dan Temko. There’s a lot of interesting information about search and rescue (more than 100 operations per year), and the harbor’s relationship with commercial fishermen.  Pillar Point’s search and rescue team has Honda personal watercraft on a donated lease/loan program, for about $1 per year that make it to perform rescues at Mavericks.

The 5th annual Relay For Life is in Pacifica, 11am Saturday, July 31 to 11am Sunday, August 1st, at the Terra Nova High School track. This is a 24 hour community gathering to raise funds for cancer research, education, and patient services.  You can walk as much, as you wish.

Ginny McShane will be walking the track honoring her best friend, Maxine Gonsalves, whom she lost to cancer this year. Cancer survivors will also be walking, along with those battling the disease.  Ginny’s seeking sponsors.

Judge Forcum has granted a temporary restraining order preventing MROSD’s expansion until invalidated petitions can be reviewed.  The Mercury News reports:

Forcum was troubled that county officials disqualified nearly 33 percent of the 5,340 protests submitted—a “staggering number,’’ he said—and called for a more “inclusive’’ process that wouldn’t disenfranchise voters. Several dismissed protest petitions had technical problems, such as listing post office boxes instead of home addresses.

However, only 147 petitions were invalidated for incorrect addresses. About 640 of the disqualified petitions would have to be deemed “sufficient” for an election to be called. It’s unclear where the remaining 500 petitions will come from.

On Thursday, July 22, the court will hear a motion to place a full restraining order on the protest process.

The sound of chainsaws is becoming as common as that of the surf in Montara.

In ones and twos and threes, Montara’s big trees are sprouting yellow signs and disappearing. Our treeline is moving steadily inland and is now mostly past Acacia.  In the last year, we’ve lost about seven huge trees just a block from our house.

I took a camera with me on my walk with the dog today to record some lost trees. I realized I should have shot them when I knew they were doomed so you could see the before and after views. Walking around Montara, taking pictures of these soon-to-be-missing trees also made me realize how ugly and unavoidable our overhead powerlines are. I could’t keep them out of the pictures. Trees may damage these lines, but they also mitigate their visual impact.

I know that there are often reasons for removing these giants. Most of the big cypresses are nearing the end of their projected lives. A couple of years ago, a big cypress landed in our back yard, flattening our trampoline and nearly flattening the afforementioned dog. Our insurance agent told us we should sue our neighbors to get them to cut down the rest of the trees within striking distance. One neighbor had his huge cypress pruned, which should preserve its life.

I’m not sure what Montara will look like when all its big trees are gone.