With the deadline for filing coming on Friday, San Mateo County has released the names of those who have filedfor candidacy.

So far, six candidates have filed for the three open seats on the County Harbor Commission. No candidates have yet filed for the two open seats on the Cabrillo Unified School District. Three candidates have filed for seven open seats on the Pescadero Municipal Advisory Council.

Click “read more” to see the list of candidates as of Friday July 30.

The judge in the MROSD petition case has implied that the county elections commission was not impartial in its counting, and extended the deadline. San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Carl Holm will hear oral arguments in the case August 5. Apparently he must reach a decision by Aug. 6 to place a measure on the November ballot. Holm gave the lawyers until next Friday July 30 to file briefs on the case.

Neither the Mercury News, the San Mateo Times, nor the San Francisco Chronicle gives enough information to really understand this case, although the Merc has the most detail. I think this has become too arcane for baysiders to be interested. I’d like to hear more about this hearing from people who were there, but most will probably keep quiet while the case is up in the air.

MROSD’s opponents are taking two approaches, attempting to have some 650 invalidated petitions declared valid and trying to get the judge to order LAFCO to call for an election regardless of the outcome of the petition review.

The Mercury News reports that the judge expressed his concern that the county elections commission was not impartial, referring to county elections manager David Tom:

“I was led to believe Mr. Tom was trying to do things objectively’’ rather than helping the annexation cause, Holm said.

FOR OTHER VIEWS: See comments on this story for a pro-annexation account of the hearing. See comments on an earlier story, for an anti-annexation account.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District will not be on the November ballot, if the County’s signature count is upheld. Opponents of the MROSD were only able to gather 3,443 valid protest signatures versus 4,071 required to bring about a vote in November.

According to the certification [PDF] posted on the San Mateo County Elections web site, 1,757 of the 5,340 signatures collected were invalid. Most were duplicates or not registered.  MROSD supporters were only able to gather 140 valid withdrawals.

In an email to the Southcoast mailing list, Catherine Peery reports:

...a lawsuit on this is being heard tomorrow at 9 am in Judge Forcum’s court, room 2H in the Board of Supervisors building (400 County Center).  The total of duplicate and nonregistered signatures is about half of the rejected total.  There are some questions about whether both duplicates (the valid and invalid) were not counted, etc.  So, I think...its off the ballot, but the methods for invalidating were not as clear cut as the certification would imply.  The judge who agreed to hear the case said a 34% rejection rate was a red flag.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that this wound up in court.

The Pescadero Municipal Advisory Council (PMAC) has seven (7) vacancies to be filled by election this November.  The term of office is four years.  The seats to be filled are as follows:

1 seat At-Large
3 seats District 1 – Pescadero town/Stage Rd.
1 seat District 2 – South Coast
1 seat District 3 – Butano/Gazos Creek
1 seat District 4 – Loma Mar

Candidates must reside in the district they wish to represent.  The At-Large seat represents the entire Pescadero-Loma Mar area.

Individuals wishing to file for candidacy must do so, in person, at the San Mateo County Office of Elections, 40 Tower Road, San Mateo, with Linda Tulett, 650-312-5370, The filing period is July 12 – August 6.

For additional information or questions about serving on PMAC, contact Catherine Peery at 650-879-1846, , or Meredith Reynolds at 650-879-0495,

Oscar’s Braun’s appeal of the Devil’s Slide tunnel was denied by the San Mateo Board of Supervisors Tuesday morning.

But that’s not the end of the matter by any means. Braun plans to take his case to the Coastal Commission and, if he fails there, to Federal court. According to the San Mateo Times, Supervisor Rich Gordon says that the Coastal Commission staff is prepared to recommend full approval of the project to the commission itself.

Braun says that the tunnel will damage wetlands and violate the county’s Local Coastal Plan. The county maintains that the damage is mitigated by increased access to the coast—a peculiar tradeoff. Braun says that his appeal will result not only in cancellation of the tunnel, but in prosecutions.

Until the appeal process is complete, Caltrans cannot get its Coastal Development Permit, the last piece of paperwork it needs to put the $275 million project up for bid.