In an editorial in today’s Review, Debra Godshall writes,

In early July, the Review broke the story of the red-legged frog sighting at Wavecrest that all but derailed the Wavecrest Village project just days after the city had signed an agreement with Wavecrest Partners.

Actually, Coastsider broke the story on July 19.  Two days later, on July 21, the Review followed our lead with a report skeptically titled “Biologist reportedly discovers red-legged frog in Wavecrest”.  Even then, the nasty adverb “reportedly” intimated that the biologist, whom their reporter spoke to, might be lying. The Review didn’t “break” the story and it didn’t happen in “early July”.

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.

I’ve run a three stories about the Half Moon Bay City Council’s purchase of land between Oak Avenue and Pilarcitos Creek to build a park that would complement the trail they’re now building and to add some open space to a neighborhood that really needs it. The Review has not simply ignored the story, they buried it.

Not only is this a feel-good story, but the purchase was passed unanimously by a city council that was severely divided by the Nurserymen’s Exchange purchase earlier in the evening. Everyone agreed that this was a great plan for a neighborhood that desperately needs a park.

The Review reported this by dropping it in “In other matters”, a tedious compendium of city council agenda items on the next-to-the-last page of Section A. Here’s what they wrote:

Adopted a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into a purchase agreement and record title for the purchase of 056-141-950; 056-141-960; 056-141-970.

That’s it: no description of the parcels or their location, or any indication the city is building a new park. Not even a quote from Marina Fraser, who testified at the meeting that this was a priority ever since she was on the Parks and Recreation Commission and how it will provide a safe place for the kids of the neighborhood, many of whom are now playing in the street.

Perhaps Oak Avenue doesn’t matter to the Review.