Consideration of the appointments to fill the two open positions on the Midcoast Community Council will be taken off the county Board of Supervisors agenda tonight and deferred until the board’s January 27 meeting.

The item is currently listed on the Supervisors’ consent calendar, but the plan is remove the item for consideration at a later date when the public has a sufficient notice to comment.

Supervisors Gordon and Rose Jacobs Gibson have written a memo to the board saying that members of elected boards should be ineligible to serve on municipal advisory councils because those councils’ recommendations should be based on the interests of the communities they serve, independent of other elected bodies that may have an interest in the recommendations.

We did an analysis of the 2008 vote on the Coastside to see what it could tell us about the politics of our community. We looked at three votes: for president, for Assembly District 19, and on Proposition 8 outlawing same-sex marriage.

The presidential election was about as non-partisan as could have been, with all but the hard core Republicans voting for McCain, but locally it does give you some idea of where the hard core lives.

I know less about state elections, but our assembly election should probably be considered a relatively partisan contest.  Most voters don’t know the candidates and in San Mateo County, the Democratic primary usually decides who gets the seat.

Finally, Proposition 8 yielded the most interesting information on the social attitudes of our neighbors.

You can click on the arrows in the lower right of each slide to view all six charts. The charts use Quicktime, so if you have problems, I recommend upgrading to the latest version. I’ve checked this on Mac and Windows XP versions of Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. But if you’re having difficulties using Internet Explorer I recommend installing Firefox.

• The Coastside is still more liberal the further north you go. Excluding third-party votes, 80% of Montarans voted for Obama, compared to 72% of Half Moon Bay residents. [Slide 1]


• Half Moon Bay is a little more Republican than San Mateo County as a whole. It was a little more in favor of McCain, and a little more in favor of Republican assembly candidate Catherine Brinkman than the rest of San Mateo County. [Slides 1 & 2]


• The Coastside is more socially liberal than the rest of the county. While 71% of the Coastside (and 66% of Half Moon Bay) voted down Proposition 8, 62% of San Mateo County voted against banning same-sex marriages. [Slide 3]


• The heaviest concentration of Republican voters in Half Moon Bay is in Ocean Colony. While most HMB neighborhoods voted as heavily for Jerry Hill and Barack Obama as the rest of the Coastside or the County, only 61% of Ocean Colony voted for Obama, versus 75% of the Coastside. [Slides 4 & 5]


• Even the most Republican precinct on the Coastside heavily favored Obama, of course. As Mike Ferreira noted on the Midcoast List: “Ocean Colony is the big surprise. Once it was the only Republican majority precinct on the Coastside. Now it’s the only Republican plurality (barely) precinct. The Ocean Colony registration breakdown is [36% Democratic and 38% Republican]”


• Ocean Colony appears to be as socially liberal as the rest of the Half Moon Bay and only a little behind the rest of the Coastside, with 64% of votes going against Proposition 8. [Slide 6]

Supervisor Rich Gordon’s office will be keeping the Coastside office hours this Friday, December 12 from 10am until Noon at the Sheriff’s Substation in Moss Beach.

Half Moon Bay’s municipal code is now online. We’ve also added it to our “Useful Links” at the bottom of every page.

MROSD has issued a press press release with some details:

Cecily Harris was elected to the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District’s Board of Directors by voters last night over incumbent Kenneth C. Nitz. Harris earned 59.5 percent of the vote from the constituents in El Granada, Half Moon Bay, Montara, Moss Beach, Redwood City, San Carlos and Woodside. The District’s Board of Directors will adopt a resolution certifying her election at their Dec. 10 meeting. Nitz earned 40.5 percent of the votes. [...]

The District is divided into seven geographic wards each represented by a board member elected to a four-year term. Nitz was elected to represent ward seven on the District’s board in 1996. He completed three consecutive terms, running unopposed in 2000 and 2004.

Harris, a San Carlos resident, became the first opponent to challenge Nitz’s board seat. She is a Financial Services Manager with the San Mateo County Parks Department and served for nine years as a San Carlos Parks and Recreation Commissioner. Issues she is interested in include single and multiple use trails, interpretive programs, and natural resource protection.

There will be discussion of the pros and cons of the various ballot measures,pPresented by Kathee Tyson, Sunday, October 28, 11:30am in the chapel at Community United Methodist Church, 777 Miramontes St., Half Moon Bay, CA.

Supervisor Rich Gordon is hosting Coastside office hours this Friday, October 24 from 10 am to noon at the Sheriff’s Substation in Moss Beach.

Representatives from the Department of Public Works will attend the MCC meeting on Wednesday evening to discuss road mainenance.  They will address road mitigation fees and road repair policy, starting with a brief policy report on each and then take questions.

The community is encouraged to attend with their questions and concerns.

Details can be found on the MCC website at http://mcc.sanmateo.org/agendas.php

NOTE: The DPW is also holding a meeting on Ocean Ave at 343 Cypress Ave in Moss Beach on Tuesday evening.

“Millions lost in financial fiasco” in San Mateo County, according to an article in the Bay Area section of the San Francisco Chronicle (Sunday, October 19, 2008). The on-line headline is “Lehman Bros. bust hit San Mateo County hard” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/19/BA1C13K00D.DTL

“San Mateo County has been stung by
the recent Wall Street investment
crisis, absorbing about $150 million
in potential losses that could result
in public school budget cuts, delays
on road and Caltrain improvements, and
scaled-down city services.”

I would like to assure all ratepayers and taxpayers served by Montara Water and Sanitary District (MWSD) that MWSD had absolutely no funds on deposit with San Mateo County, and suffers no financial losses as a result of the County’s investment strategies.

MWSD invests funds not needed for current operations in the Local Agency Investment Fund (LAIF) managed by State Treasurer Bill Lockyer. The State Treasurer’s http://www.treasurer.ca.gov/pmia-laif/ provides more information on LAIF investments.

Paul Perkovic
MWSD Board President