I followed the protesters for two or three hours, trying to capture a little of the feel of the march. They went all over—from 92 all the way down Main Street to Highway 1 at the south end, turned around and walked all the way down Main the other way, crossed 92, and came in the back way into the Albertson’s parking lot. Then back up Main, down Kelly to the Catholic Church. After a short break they headed out again, down Kelly, across Highway 1, and then through the Baskin-Robbins Plaza, then off to the Longs/Safeway Plaza. Then back to 92 to line the road.

At 7:00 pm they were still going strong!

I don’t speak a word of Spanish, but I was told by two different marchers that the phrase they keep chanting (”Sí se puede”) translates as “We can do it!”

The police in the video look a tad ominous, but according to the CHP officers I spoke with (who were watching and waiting to be called if needed—they weren’t) there was no advance notice of the march so the HMB police were scrambling to escort the marchers to avoid injuries. In the video you’ll see the marchers approach the police vehicle—that was the first encounter. There’s a part I had to cut out where a female marcher says something like, “Oh no, the police are waiting for us,” and male voice says, “Don’t worry.” If you listen close to the video you can hear the police officer tell the marcher to march in the right lane and they will protect them. Later (on video) a police officer stops and asks them for the next part of their route—this happened several times.

Anyway, the cops did an awesome job of keeping up with the marchers and their winding path.

Lou Papan, who is running against Leland Yee and Mike Nevin for the state senate seat that represents San Francisco and San Mateo Counties [background article on Coastsider] came to the Coastside Wedndesday night.  The Midcoast Community Council has invited all the candidates to appear.  Mike Nevin was scheduled to appear April 12, but cancelled and has not rescheduled.

Click on the picture to see the video, which is about 30 minutes long.

Darin Boville has made a video about life after the closure of Devil's Slide, or at least one aspect of it. All I'll tell you in advance is that it's sort of a music video.

Darin Boville

Click on the picture to see the video.

Grant Wilcox, Senior Engineering Geologist on the Slide repair project, explains how how the Devil’s Slide geology works, why it is so unstable, how it was repaired in 1995, why Caltrans has temporarily suspended activity on the Slide, and why Caltrans can’t simply build a bridge over the damaged portion of the Slide.

This is the best explanation that we have seen of the geology and dynamics of the slide. If you want to understand what’s happening, you must watch this video.

Wilcox spoke Wednesday night at the Midcoast Community Council.  The full meeting will be cablecast tonight on MCTV, but this is the part you must not miss.

Having problems with our videos?  Coastsider’s videos should work correctly with Mac and Windows.  But they require the most recent version of Quicktime. You can download Quicktime free from Apple.

UPDATED APRIL 8, 3PM: Caltrans has delayed blasting from Sunday until “possibly Tuesday”.

Caltrans is scheduled to begin blasting loose debris on the cliff above Devil’s Slide on Sunday as early as Tuesday, “weather permitting”.  Drilling equipment is already on Highway 1, just above the slide, waiting for the process to be completed.  Then crews will drill three 150-foot holes in the Slide so its movements can be measured.

Coastsider went out to the Slide again Friday afternoon at 4pm and it was clear that the roadway is continuing to slip toward the Pacific.

Caltrans is also preparing to put a gate on Highway 1 north of Graywhale Cove and south of the tunnel construction site. This, combined with the concrete barriers near the entrance to McNee Ranch State Park in Montara, will allow pedestrian access to Gray Whale Cove.  “We had a call from a person who was planning to get married there on April 29 and wanted to know if they needed to make other plans,” said John Cunliffe, CalTrans spokesperson. 

Wednesday afternoon, Coastsider visited the Devil’s Slide just 48 hours after our first visit on Monday.  We were surprised by the amount of deterioration both at the Slide itself and at the slip-out at Shamrock Ranch.

It was clear that in just two days the situation had become significantly worse.

The principal cracks in the pavement at the Slide were wider, the differences in the elevation between each side of the crack had increased from a couple of inches to six inches, the number of smaller cracks in the pavement had increased, and the whole section of highway at the Slide had become a noticeable dip in the road.

Meanwhile, the slip-out at Shamrock Ranch had gone from being a dip to a hole.

Barry Parr	Cheri Parr
Monday: The concrete barriers were already displaced and lower than the pavement by about a foot.	Wednesday: The concrete barriers had sunk at least another foot so that their tops were even with the pavement and the gap between them and the pavement has increased greatly.

Click on the link to see more comparison photos.

Darin Boville

Click on the picture to see our tour of the Devil's Slide taped at about noon on Monday, produced by Darin Boville. You can to use the Quicktime controls to pause and back-up to look at certain scenes again.

UPDATE: KTVU ran a story which included some footage of a couple of huge boulders that came down the cliff at the Slide a couple of hours after Darin and I were there.

We’ve solved the technical problems keeping Internet Explorer users from using our streaming videos of the planning commission interviews and the Half Moon Bay Fire Chief’s recommendations.

The videos are now on special pages that are designed to work with all browsers.  Please let us know if you have any problems.

I have removed the link to the video from the February 22 meeting of the Half Moon Bay City Council from the site at the request of MCTV.

As careful as I have been about getting permission to use photos, art and stories on Coastsider, I made a mistake last week. I assumed that you didn’t need permission to run a video of a government meeting from a public access station. In retrospect, that was pretty dumb. I digitized a VHS tape I made from their scheduled broadcast of what was arguably the most significant city council meeting in years because I thought it was important for the public to see what had happened.

Of course, MCTV is doing the work and spending the money to diligently tape and broadcast meetings all over the Coastside.  And they own the rights to those tapes.

I have asked MCTV for permission to continue to offer the video to our readers, but they have declined to give it.

If you want to see the meeting, and I think you should, you should ask MCTV to rerun it. As far as I know, that’s the only way you can see it.

At the Half Moon Bay City Council meeting on Tuesday, February 22, all attempts to bring about civility in government broke down.  If you haven’t seen the video yet, take the time to do so.  What happened on that night will hang over Half Moon Bay politics for the next two years. 

We’ll be talking about this more, but here are some things to watch for in the movie, along with the times in minutes and seconds when they take place.  I’ve heard different interpretations of this from both sides of the divide before I saw the actual video.  But one thing is very clear here: David Gorn and Jim Grady are very suprised and angry at what happens here. The video is almost exactly one hour long.

Mayor Marina Fraser is presiding. City manager Deborah Ryan outlines the selection process.

David Gorn expresses surprise that no interviews would be conducted, and says that he expected to interview the candidates for the planning commission at the meeting, as it was done by the city council in the past. [6:25] Naomi Patridge says she interviewed candidates over the weekend [8:00]. Marina Fraser says she did as well.  Jim Grady says he also was expecting to interview candidates at the meeting [9:30].  Fraser says they could wait to interview at-large candidates. Patridge interrupts her to say that she doesn’t want to wait. Bonnie McClung agrees.  [11:30]

This is the first point where the audience becomes boisterous.  It’s muted on the tape, because MCTV uses the council members’ microphones, but it’s clear that a large contingent from one side showed up for this city council meeting.

During the public comment section, Terry Gossett, a resident of Moss Beach, describes the outgoing Planning Commission as “irresponsible and incompetent” and says “all sitting commissioners betrayed the will of the voters for a non-growth agenda”. [20:30]

Sofia Freer, an outgoing planning commissioner asks that copies of the candidates’ “Willing to Serve” forms be made available to the audience during the meeting. She’s told they can be found at City Hall.

Jim Grady notes that there is no information the “Willing to Serve” forms of many of the candidates and that he’s uncomfortable voting on these people for the planning commission. [24:30] Bonnie McClung says that the process was emailed to the council members and that Grady should have let the city manager know ahead of time if he was uncomfortable with the process.

Marina Fraser begins the process of individual nominations with David Gorn, who nominates Kevin Lansing. [28:00] Gorn nominates Mike Ferreira. McClung nominates Doug Snow. Patridge nominates Patric Jonsson, and Fraser Tom Roman. Marina Fraser asks for comments on the nominations. There is none.

Kevin Lansing is approved 5-0.  [39:40]

The vote is held on Grady’s nomination of Mike Ferreira.  [39:50] Note Grady’s and Gorn’s surprise, which is noticeable even on this tiny video, when McClung votes “no”.  Gorn yells, “Whoa” and notes that there was no discussion of Ferreira’s merits. Without missing a beat, Marina Fraser says, “That is correct.” Listen to the hubbub from the audience. Gorn: “That’s really tricky. That’s really sneaky.” This is where the meeting begins to break down.  Bonnie counters Jim by saying she does not think Mike is a fit for the planning commission and the audience erupts into applause. Grady withdraws his nomination.

After a long discussion, Fraser moves on to the next nomination. Gorn and Grady abstain. After the vote on Patridge’s nomination (Gorn and Grady abstain), the audience erupts into applause. In response to the vote and the applause from the audience, Gorn yells sarcastically, “Let the healing begin!” [41:50]

After the vote on the members’ individual nominations, Grady says he’s withholding his nomination until a later date.  [42:30]

The nomination of the at-large members proceeds without participation from Gorn and Grady. During the discussion, Gorn, getting no help from the chair, asks the audience to be quiet while he’s speaking. [48:20].

As the voting on at-large candidates begins [54:00], Gorn declares the process a “charade”. McClung, clearly distracted by what’s happening, becomes disoriented during the vote first vote.  Gorn and Grady abstain on all votes. During the voting, Gorn has to ask two people in the audience to “Stop making fun of us.” On the final vote, for Linda Poncini, McClung looks very relieved and says, “Finally, yes!”

Grady takes exception to Patridge’s declaration that “You guys attacked me” and Patridge replies.  [58:36].

A note of thanks: Coastsider has been working for nearly two weeks to get this video online. It’s the first video that Coastsider has streamed and we learned a lot by trial and error. But it would have been impossible without the help of several volunteers who helped us encode and upload MCTV’s video of the meeting to our server. Please let us know if you have problems with the video. This video has been tested on Mac Safari and Firefox, and Windows Firefox and Internet Explorer.