Coastsider will be at the Chili and Chowder Cook-Off on September 12, serving up Grandma Craner’s Long Island Clam Chowder. This also be Coastsider’s first public event, after a summer of promoting the site by word of mouth.

The Chili and Chowder Cook-Off is a fundraiser for Coastside Family Medical Center. CFMC treats insured, underinsured and uninsured patients up and down the Coastside.

This year, the cookoff is being held in conjunction with the Coastside Infant Toddler Center’s Half Marathon and 3K Fun Run. As I’ve mentioned here before, our daughter attends CITC and it’s a cause I strongly support. The half marathon and the 3K Fun Run start at the American Legion in Princeton Harbor and follow the Coastal Trail along the ocean in Half Moon Bay.

The Chili and Chowder Cook-Off will be 11am to 5pm at Pillar Point Harbor.  In addition to the competitive cook-off, CFMC will host a Music Festival featuring newgrass greats, The Waybacks, country rock artists and local favorites California Cowboys, The Cowlicks and Lane & The Badass Chickenbones plus additional live entertainment, kid’s activities and more. There will be plenty of great non-chili-or-chowder food.  Admission is $10.00, kids 12 and under free. Parking is free.

The CITC Half Marathon and 3K Fun Run start at the American Legion in Princeton Harbor at 8am and follow the beautiful Coastal Trail along the ocean in Half Moon Bay. Half Marathon is $30. Fun Run is $15.

Another motorcyclist, the fourth since April, was killed on Highway 84 Sunday, when two motorcyclists collided with a truck attempting to turn across the highway. The second cyclist suffered major injuries and the driver of the pickup was taken to the hospital. This year there have already been 20 motorcycle accidents, three of them fatal, in and near the small town of La Honda – one of the most popular motorcycle areas in the Bay area.

This happened just one week before an event planned to reduce motorcycling accidents. There will be a motorcycle skills and safety event Sunday, August 29, from 10am to 4pm, at the junction of Highway 35 and Highway 84 (Skyline Blvd. and La Honda Road). Motorcycle experts, firefighters and paramedics will be making presentations on riding skills, safety equipment and what to do when things go wrong.

Over the last three years, hundreds of motorcycle riders from all over the Bay Area have stopped to get their bikes safety-checked and to listen to outdoor workshops by experts on motorcycle riding. This year will be the same type of program designed for bikers who want to stop for an hour or two then continue with their ride.

The Peninsula Open Space Trust has bought the 119 acres of Pillar Point Bluff on Monday. It’s located immediately north of Pillar Point and across from the Half Moon Bay Airport, just south of the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, and features view of of tidal pools, seals, and Mavericks. It used to be the site of a dairy farm and was clearly a prime spot for development. The Trust paid $2.7 million. POST said the appraised value is $3.8 million. The Coastal Conservancy contributed $1 million to the purchase.

The land will eventually become part of the California Coastal Trail. The Coastal Conservancy is contributing $85,000 to the planning and design of a nearly 1-mile section of the trail on the site.  Ultimately, POST hopes to transfer the property to the San Mateo County
Parks system.

People who live in high-sprawl communities weigh more, according to a new study by Smart Growth America.

People who live in sprawling counties walk less and bike less.  They have higher weights and are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure. These results are true after controlling for factors such as age, education, gender, and race and ethnicity.

The study defines sprawling counties as “spread-out areas where homes are far from any other destination, and often the only route between the two may be on a busy high-speed arterial road that is unpleasant or even unsafe for biking or walking. People who live in these areas may find that driving is the most convenient way to get everything done, and they are less likely to have easy opportunities to walk, bicycle, or take transit as part of their daily routine.”

Among other issues, the study notes that 18% of children walk or bike to school, versus 71% of adults who walked or biked to school. Now, think about the impact of moving the middle school from the middle of town to a development on the edge of town.

Sheriff’s Deputies have been searching for Alana Freiberg, 57, and her 11-year-old daughter Anna for two weeks. Read the SM Times story for the odd and confusing details of this story. According to the Times:

Alana Freiberg is white, 5 feet 7 inches tall and 220 pounds with blonde hair and brown eyes. Anna Freiberg is white, 4 feet 9 inches tall and 70 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes.

The mother and daughter may be traveling in a green 2000 Honda Civic with a roof rack and the California license plate number 4SLL018.

Anyone with information about Alana and Anna Freiberg’s whereabouts is asked to call Detective Bob Arnaudo at 363-7823, Detective Michele Flores at 363-4066 or the Anonymous Tip Line at (800) 547-2700.

Freiberg’s husband woke up on August 4 to find the mother and daughter were gone. He reported them missing August 10. The Sheriff says the departure appears voluntary, but they left without clothes, ID, or credit cards.

The state has released results on the California Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Test, and Cabrillo Unified’s results are unimpressive and unimproving. Taken as a whole, less than half the students in the district are performing at the proficient or advanced level, and there has been little improvement in the last two or three years.

There’s a lot of variability in the data, so it’s hard to read.  In 2004, the average proficiency in English across grades was 45%. The average percentage improvement since 2001 was about 3 percentage points. But there are huge differences among the classes and the numbers sometimes jump up one year and then down the next.

So, while there are bright spots, the overall picture is lackluster. The CAT/6 scores show that CUSD students are doing better than about half the students statewide.

According to the LA Times, this result is consistent with statewide performance on the test: 

Overall, results were mixed. The percentage of students scoring “proficient” or “advanced” increased one point in English-language arts. There was no change in math. Some grade levels advanced, but others declined in both subjects.

I think this raises the bigger question of whether we’re going to be able to improve test scores at all without significantly changing education in California, and whether any district can realistically be expected to do any more than hold its own.

I’m linking to the tables at the Los Angeles Times, since they do the best job of organizing the data, but you can get more detailed results, including results by subgroup, from the California Department of Education. The state’s reporting page for these results is very impressive and if you’re interested in exploring the data, I strongly recommend it.

Cabrillo Unified School District

• Cabrillo Unified School District


• Half Moon Bay High


• Cunha Middle School


• Hatch Elementary


• Kings Mountain Primary


• El Granada Elementary


• Farallone View Elementary

La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District

• La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District


• La Honda Elementary


• Pescadero Elementary


• Pescadero High

Last Friday, Scientists at the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center declared that warming water in the central equatorial Pacific last month may indicate a 50% chance there could be an El Niño this year.

While coastsiders wouldn’t welcome El Niño, which brings prospects of outages on Devil’s Slide, newspapers in Texas and San Diego are hoping for rainier winter and Southeast Asia worries about a drought.

The National Climate Center in Australia played down the possibility, putting the probability at 30 to 40 percent, while stating that such percentages were a pretty subjective way to think about the possibility.

I’m going to make sure our roof is repaired.

Joe Cotchett is a weathy trial lawyer, inner-circle Democrat, and the man who purchased and preserved seven historic buildings on Main Street in Half Moon Bay and he’s profiled in the Daily Journal.

The La Honda Fire Brigade has received a grant of $237,000 for a new fire engine —from the Department of Homeland Security.  The grant comes from the 2004 Assistance to Firefighters program that is administered by the DHS.

The engine purchased with this grant will be specially designed to meet the specific needs of the rugged and rural San Mateo County Southcoast.  Some unique features of this engine include four-wheel drive operation for wildland firefighting, a short wheel base for maximum maneuverability, and an advanced foam system that reduces water use.

The La Honda Fire Brigade, one of the county’s last all-volunteer fire departments, was founded in 1953. It provides fire protection, along with the CDF/San Mateo County Fire Department, to over 138 square miles of the San Mateo County Southcoast.

An El Granada resident has posted a series of photographs that show a crew clearing a lot of vegetation and, ultimately, a nest of what was probably a San Francisco dusky-footed woodrat.

The photos are a rare opportunity to see a bit of the local wildlife in the process of being wiped out. The photos show the lot being cleared, the nest in the middle of the newly-created clearing, and the same clearing without the nest. According to the person posting the photos, the lot was surveyed and the woodrat nests marked before the lot was cleared. He described the area as riparian habitat on the banks of a year-round creek.

San Francisco dusky-footed woodrat (Neotoma fuscipes annectens) listed by the California Fish and Wildlife Service as a “federal endangered and threatened species that may be affected by projects in Santa Clara County”. 

Coincidentally, this woodrat may be holding up the development of five vacant parcels in San Carlos.