There’s a better map of “Los Pueblecitos” at SF Gate. It’s much better than the hand-drawn one that accompanies the petition. It makes clear something that I missed in my original story: the town would be bordered on the east by either Highway 280 or Highway 35 from roughly north of Highway 92, including the Crystal Springs Reservoir.

It amplifies the important point that the town would incorporate (in both senses of the word) a vast amount of land that is not so much rural as it is uninhabited.

The meeting to discuss the location of the Santa Cruz County landfill will be 6:30 to 9:30 pm tonight. The two sites near Pescadero would require use and possible expansion of coastside roads, according to the Committee for Green Foothills.

The meeting will be held at the Henry J. Mello Center for the Performing Arts, 250 E. Beach St. in Watsonville. There’s a lot of information at the Santa Cruz County Public Works Department web site.

UPDATE: The SMC Times confirms that the two dumpsites near San Mateo county have been eliminated from consideration.

Supporters are circulating a petition to begin the process of incorporation for new town of Los Pueblecitos[PDF]. According to the petition, the town would have 3,600 registered voters and 1,000 signatures are required to move the process to the next step.  The organizers’ goal is to put the measure on the ballot in March, 2005.

Los Pueblecitos would be vast: stretching from Santa Cruz county in the south to Pacifica in the north, Skyline boulevard in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, carefully carving out the more-densely populated unincorpated areas of El Granada, Moss Beach, and Montara.

The petition also requests that all land owned by the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District be given to the new town.

Voters in Pescadero and La Honda would have more control of the area surrounding Moss Beach, Montara, and El Granada than the people who live there. For comparison, here are the populations for some unincorporated coastside towns.  I have linked the town names to census information for the town or the ZIP codes.

• El Granada: 5724
  


• Montara: 2,950
  


• Pescadero: 2,042
  


• Moss Beach: 1,953
  
• La Honda: 1,610
  


• San Gregorio: 287
  
• Loma Mar: 128
  

This process is governed by Cortese-Knox Local Government Reorganization Act [PDF], which you can download from Coastsider. Warning: this document is 238 pages that only a lawyer can love.

Click on “Read more” to see the press release and letter to petition circulators.

I just discovered that Warren Slocum, San Mateo County’s Chief Elections Officer, has a blog. It’s mostly about elections and politics in Calfornia.  It’s a little weird because he’s reprinting full articles from newspapers without comment and without permission. But it’s an interesting glimpse into the mind of an influential public official.

Santa Cruz county is considering a couple of new landfill sites that would require garbage to be trucked through sensitive areas of San Mateo county’s coastside.

According to San Mateo county supervisor Rich Gordon, quoted in the SM County Times, both sites would require transportation of garbage through Año Nuevo State Reserve and Cascade Ranch State Park. Roads in landslide-prone areas would have to be widened and improved.

The bill to transfer the land for original Devil’s Slide bypass from Caltrans to California State Parks is now on the governor’s desk. The Coastal Commission is withholding its approval of the tunnel until the promised transfer is complete. There was some opposition in the Assembly from Republicans who felt the land, which is surrounded by park land, should be sold.

Now you can read the three-page letter from the Fish and Wildlife Service to the Coastal Commission [PDF] for yourself. I’ve uploaded it to Coastsider.

The Coastal Commission removed Wavecrest from its September agenda on Monday afternoon. This was the result of a letter US Fish and Wildlife Service sent Friday to the Coastal Commission saying that building Wavecrest as planned will result in a “taking” of an endangered species, according to Chris Kern, District Manager of the CCC.

This is a result of the discovery by the FWS of California red-legged frog habitat at the site.

Wavecrest will have to get the permission of the Fish and Wildlife Service to develop the land.  “The process could result in potentially significant changes to the project,” Kern told me.

This finding by FWS sets into motion some fairly complicated machinery. Either a federal agency, such as the US Army Corps of Engineers, has to assert authority over the site and work with the FWS to develop a “biological opinion” or a habitat conservation plan must be developed in consultation with the FWS and the CCC. It’s too early to say what comes next.

No one is willing to say how long this process could take, and may only delay the development. However, it puts into limbo Cabrillo Unified School District’s agreement with Wavecrest, which required approval of the development at the September Coastal Commission hearing. According to the agreement, either party can proceed on its own if Wavecrest doesn’t obtain final approval of the development from the Coastal Commission and the period for all challenges and appeals before the CCC have expired before October 31.

Unless CUSD and Wavecrest rewrite the agreement, the site of the middle school will be the most important issue in yet another CUSD board election.

Judge Carl Holm has delayed the decision on those dilatory MROSD petitions for yet another week, says the San Mateo Times. Two weeks ago, the judge ordered the county to organize the insufficient petitions. Those were delivered yestered and he’s now reviewing them. He has asked the plaintiffs for an analysis of the process, and the MROSD and LAFCO for a response to that analysis. He’s expected to deliver a decision at the end of next week.  It’s getting late. I reported two weeks ago: 

Although today was the formal deadline for adding measures to the November ballot, Chief Elections Officer Warren Slocum said his office could still add the MROSD annexation to the ballot if the judge orders it. But it’s getting really late. The county must print and mail sample ballots next month.

I’ve added a link to Coastsider’s left-hand navigation bar which you can use to get a sample ballot and information about the candidates on the ballot from the League of Women Voters. Most of the candidates’ information is missing or wrong at this stage, but this should improve as we get closer to the election. Try it out.