[Press Release] The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD) has scheduled several public meetings to obtain input from its constituents on how the District’s ward boundaries should be redrawn.  The reapportionment is necessary in order to democratically represent coastside residents who became District constituents when MROSD’s Coastside Protection Program was made official on September 7, 2004.  Workshops will be held on October 21 in Half Moon Bay, on October 26 in Pescadero, on November 4 at the District’s Skyline Boulevard field office, and on November 9 in Los Altos, when the District’s Board of Directors will also vote on a final redistricting plan.

By law, special districts, such as MROSD, are limited to a maximum of seven wards, which have to contain roughly the same number of people. Since MROSD is composed of seven wards with approximately 100,000 citizens in each and because the population in the Coastside Protection Area is only about 30,000, the District will have to reapportion one or more existing wards to include the new constituents.

At the public meetings, participants will be able to provide input on several different redistricting alternatives to include the Coastside Protection Area.  Participants will also have an opportunity to meet the District’s Board members and ask questions.  In addition, constituents will have an opportunity to provide comments via the District’s Web site and by submitting written comments directly to the District.

Below are the times and locations of the meetings:

• Thursday, October 21, 2004, beginning at 7:00 p.m. at the Comfort Inn Half Moon Bay (formerly Miramar Lodge) at 2930 North Cabrillo Highway in Half Moon Bay, CA 94019.
• Tuesday, October 26, 2004, beginning at 7:00 p.m. at the Russell Administration Center, 620 North Street, Pescadero, CA 94060.
• Thursday, November 4, 2004, beginning at 7:00 p.m. at the District’s field office at 21150 Skyline Boulevard, La Honda 94020.
• Tuesday, November 9, 2004, beginning at 7:00 p.m. in the Board Room at the District Administrative Office at 330 Distel Circle, Los Altos, CA 94022.

Individuals interested in participating in the process can also call the District for more information at (650) 691-1200 or visit the Web site at [url=http://www.openspace.org]http://www.openspace.org[/url]

I’ve made it a policy not to make Coastsider about what’s wrong with the Half Moon Bay Review. I’m content to make Coastsider the best site it can possibly be and let them do whatever it is they do.

I’m making an exception this week because the Review’s report on the September 21 Half Moon Bay City Council meeting was so bizarre that their coverage has become the story.  Jeanine Gore and Debra Godshall were at the meeting, and I only saw it on tape. But in reading Wednesday’s coverage, I got the impression that we were reporting on two different meetings.

This is a big story with lots of moving parts, so I’m going to break it into pieces. I’m in good company: the Review used three stories taking up 60% of their front page for it. I’ve already run my first story, the Review’s astonishing neglect of the Oak Avenue park story.

If this is too much negativity and cynicism for you—it is for me—I recommend you go back and read my original coverage of the Oak Avenue park or my new photo album of the Moss Beach Park reconstruction.

The next regularly-scheduled meeting of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD) will begin to address the open issues of their expansion to the coastside [agenda].

They have a 60-day deadline (until November 10) to hire an ombudsperson and decide on redistricting the District’s wards. Perhaps it should be called ‘re-warding”, but I’m not sure the “rewarding the District” would be the right thing to put on the agenda.

Tomorrow night, the MROSD board is expected to authorize $25,000 to hire a consultant to help them with the public communication process for revising the District’s Good Neighbor Policy [MS Word doc], as well as to facilitate the series of public meetings on the policy. The plan for the GNP revision needs to be in place before the November 10 deadline.

Also on the agenda is approval of a series of public meetings beginning October 21, a public workshop to discuss redistricting ward boundaries and evaluate alternatives; November 4, to present revised boundaries for feedback; and November 9 for the board vote on the alternatives. The location of the October 21 and November 4 meetings has not yet been set. The November 9 meeting will be at the District’s office in Los Altos.

The board will also vote on a public workshop to prioritize amendments to the District’s Resource Management Policies [MS Word doc]. That workshop will be Monday, October 25, 2004, beginning at 6:30 p.m. in the Board Room at the District Administrative Office.

Not on the agenda is an October 20 meeting in which the board will interview candidates for the ombudsperson position.

UPDATE: The proposed resolutions were approved at Wednesday’s meeting. Click on “comments” in the byline to read MROSD’s press release.

Some comments have been posted under my name on the RLINC (Los Pueblecitos) Web site. However, my “postings” in the forums were copied from the comments pages on Coastsider and posted on the RLINC forums under my name without my knowledge or permission. And some of the text posted under my name was written by other users. I stand by my comments, but they have been ripped from their context and don’t come close to expressing my opinion of this complicated subject.

Furthermore, apparently now someone other than me owns my identity on the RLlNC site, which is problematic for lots of reasons. Until RLINC posts a public notice about their policy on users’ identities, I don’t recommend accepting anything that’s posted there as coming from whom it claims to be.

I applaud RLINC for allowing users to discuss the pros and cons of the proposal on their site, but there are better ways to jump-start a discussion than faking postings.

Caltrans says it can now get its construction permit for the tunnel.  Governor Schwarzenegger signed SB792 Friday, directing Caltrans to transfer the land it was to use for the freeway bypass to the California Department of Parks and Recreation. This clears the Coastal Commission’s final appeal of the tunnel. This was reported in the Daily Journal, but looks like it was based on a Caltrans press release.

“Monday we are going to the San Mateo permits office and make sure that all the details are taken care of, and once the permit is in our hands we will be preparing to advertise the first contract of the project, the South Rock Cut,” said Skip Sowko, Caltrans Tunnel public manager.

The official Web site of the Los Pueblecitos campaign (the Rural Lands Incorporation Now Committee) is now up and running.  There’s a ton of information for supporters and opponents on the site, including a summary page with the first decent maps of the proposed new city and the sources of $9.96 million in mitigation revenue from county, state, federal,  Peninsula Open Space Trust, and San Francisco watershed lands. There’s a demographics page that doesn’t include any information about people, and a Resources page that is kind of a dump for every conceivable document. The links aren’t organized, dated, or sourced, but at least they’re all in one place. Oh, and there’s a link to Coastsider in the menu as well.

One notable fact is that 95% of the land in LP would be owned by governments or land trusts and less than 5% would be in private hands. Another is that Los Pueblecitos would occupy 35% of San Mateo county.

I’m going to be mining this site for information and I suspect others will as well.

Click on the “Read more” link to see who that $9.96 million is coming from.

At the last (closed) meeting of the School Board, the board voted to sign a letter of agreement with Wavecrest developers to create a special district [pdf] that would tax market-value homes in the development $1,000 per house per year for 30 years. The revenue for this Mello-Roos community facilities district would be earmarked for middle school construction and facilities. There are 178 market-rate homes planned for Wavecrest.

Mello-Roos was a response to the restrictions that Proposition 13 placed on raising money via taxes. It allows the creation of special tax districts for capital facilities and services. According to the state, the principal risk of setting up a Mello-Roos district is that it could create a sense of spiralling taxation among its residents and make it more difficult to raise taxes at a later date.  For example the 178 homeowners in Wavecrest would theoretically be less inclined to vote for new parcel taxes to support the schools.

California Land and Title has a good explanation of how this would be represented to home buyers. The state’s page on Mello-Roos is less helpful.

This is good news, producing genuine revenue for the district. It’s less clear what incentive Wavecrest had to go along with this plan. According to Superintendent John Bayless, who negotiated for the district, the main advantage to the developers was the assurance to home buyers that the middle school would be kept up and that this would have some tangible impact on property values. But it seems to me that the special fee would have a depressive effect on the selling price for new homes.

The San Mateo Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) yesterday issued its “Certificate of Completion”, formally adding the San Mateo County Coastal Area to the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District’s jurisdictional boundary.

Yesterday’s action clears the way for MROSD to buy land from willing sellers for the purpose of protecting the region’s coastside from inappropriate urban sprawl.

UPDATE: On the same day, September 8, Oscar Braun’s Save Our Bay, issued a press release declaring their intentions to “file a validation action against” LAFCO’s action.

Cabrillo Unified School District (CUSD) board took no action on the deadline for Wavecrest at their secret meeting last Thursday. Despite rumors that the board has extended the deadline for Wavecrest to get its approvals, board member Dwight Wilson told me that they discussed the contract, instructed their attorney to look into the matter and took no action.  He says they’re waiting to see what the US Fish and Wildlife Service is going to do. 

The current contract with Wavecrest says the developer must obtain final approval of the development from the Coastal Commission and all challenges and appeals before the CCC must have have expired before October 31. If not, the district has the option of cancelling its agreement to swap its land in El Granada plus some cash for a school site at Wavecrest. Wavecrest has been removed from the agenda for the September 8 meeting of the Coastal Commission at the request of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the next CCC meeting is October 13 to 15 in San Diego. The next School Board meeting, the last before the election, is not scheduled until October 14.

There is a seat open on the board of the San Mateo County Resource Conservation District (RCD). You do not have to be a farmer or rancher to apply. The RCD is a Special District, first organized in 1939,  that partners with land owners, land users, individuals, agencies and organizations to conserve natural resources in the unincorporated rural lands of the San Mateo coast. The SMC RCD is one of the oldest environmental organizations in the county, first formed in 1939 in San Pedro Valley. The district presently covers over 157,000 acres of mostly rural, agricultural and open space lands in the western half of the county. The district runs nearly the entire coastline of San Mateo County and includes all watersheds draining into the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary

The RCD works in partnership with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in providing technical assistance and in delivering locally led conservation programs. To be eligible to serve on the RCD board, a candidate for appointment must reside within the district and either own real property in the district or alternatively have served for two years or more as an associate director, or be a designated agent of a resident landowner within the district.

Here are web links for legislative language on district directors and the general powers of the district.

The RCD Board members generally have a strong interest in conservation, community involvement, agriculture, ranching, working lands, erosion, runoff, wildlife, watersheds, water quality, and the environmen. RCD Board members serve voluntarily. District board meetings are held once per month and board members participate on committees and in projects.

To apply or find out more, contact the RCD at 650-712-7765 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)