Comments by Barry Parr

Anonymous benefactor is funding CUSD parcel tax survey

Cunha is a big part of the lifeblood of downtown, in ways that a lot of people do not recognize. Abandoning Cunha is a step toward abandoning downtown.

I’ve felt that Cunha is unattractive as a site to some folks because it would be hard to expand the capacity of the school itself at that site.

I also think there is a feeling in some quarters that our kids “deserve” a new school, and that some old school isn’t good enough. I’ve heard that sentiment expressed by some prominent Wavecrest supporters. It’s irrational.

[The lot across from Cunha was the city’s corporation yard, and that activity has been moved to paved portion of the park site.]

Half Moon Bay whale is still dead

Still dead, according to usually reliable sources close to the late Generalissimo.

Dead whale now haunts the Ritz

W.C. Fields understood that sentiment very well.

When asked why he didn’t drink water, he replied, “Because fish f*** in it.”

HMB’s biggest farmers upset with LCP revision

I’m not sure I understand your objection. It appears that the goal remains to keep farm land in agricultural production, which is consistent with the needs you’re expressing here—especially for farmers who must rent their land. Renters are especially subject to displacement by development or by subdivision of working farmland into hobby farms.

County Times reviews the HMB city council candidates

Because the story is copyrighted, if the County Times chooses to charge for it, there’s not much that we can do.

Half Moon Bay and Wavecrest settle lawsuit

Yes. I’m working on it.

Coastsider’s recent comments are now available in every page

As in, “Whereever you go, there you are.”

Accident on Highway 1 in Moss Beach/Montara kills one, seriously injures another

Montara1980: I’d wager there’s a lot more traffic on the road than there was in 1980, both locals and tourists.

Clearly, driver error played a role here. I wouldn’t be so quick to blame the now-dead left-turning driver because we don’t know what happened or what we would do under similar circumstances.

However, there is clearly a problem with the highway on this stretch. A design that results in deadly errors, even when carelessness or recklessness is involved, is a bad design. Highways must be designed to anticipate, minimize, and mitigate stupidity whenever possible.

Also, even if we have someone to blame, that’s cold comfort to the blameless dead and injured—close to a dozen so far this year.

Accident on Highway 1 in Moss Beach/Montara kills one, seriously injures another

My next-door neighbor shared a piece of practical advice with me last night after he read this article:

If you’re waiting to turn left, keep your wheels pointed forward until the moment you turn. Don’t turn your wheels until you’re ready to move.  The reasoning is that if you get struck from behind, you will be pushed into oncoming traffic.

I haven’t been able to verify this tip, but it makes sense.

Thinking of running for office?  The filing deadline is Aug 12

I think it’s too early to say at this stage.

We’re not going to have a really clear picture until the deadline, because we won’t know what incumbents will run again until then.

The couty will start issuing candidate lists as the deadline approaches, and I’ll report these as they are released.

Did a developer steal this woman’s camera?

I agree these guys probably weren’t breaking any law before they stole Barb’s camera.

Barb’s on the edge—of development and of coastal law as well.  It’s people like her who are responsible for getting us to think differently about what the law ought to protect. I know that makes people uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable.

Once features, such as trees and streams are eradicated, it’s impossible to bring them to mind without documentation.  Preferably documentation of how they were originally and how they were removed. I’m a big believer in privacy, but this was a public act with profound implicatons for public policy on the Coastside.

But that’s not what this is about.

Go back and take another look at the picture of Barb and think hard about the courage it took for her to take those pictures and then think about the variety of courage it took to take her camera away.

Farmers’ opposition holds up coastal trail

The Pescadero Municipal Advisory Council sent me a copy of a letter they sent to the Coastal Commission about the trail. Their concerns had to do with collaborative planning, tidepool protection, and traffic.

You can download the letter here:

http://coastsider.com/images/uploads/environment/pigeonpoint/PMAConpigeonpointtrail.pdf

Did you read about Coastsider in today’s Chronicle?

I think the story did downplay my credentials a little too much.  I know Steve Outings and respect his work. Here’s the direct link to Steve Outings’ piece:

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=83444

Here’s the reply that I posted on Steve’s item:

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Steve’s absolutely right that the SF Chronicle, which is ahead of the industry in many ways, should allow comments on its website.

He’s also right that I’m not a novice in the news business, and I did make that clear to Verne when he inteviewed me.

But I am a novice reporter. The only formal training I’ve had was one year of journalism in high school. When I started Coastsider, the only thing I’d ever had published in a newspaper was a book review.

I think it’s significant that no newspaper in the country would have considered hiring me as a reporter when I started Coastsider.

Should the Coastside be more like Foster City?

There are some fundamental problems with Foster City. The number-one problem is that it’s built for cars, not people.  That’s why moving the middle school from Cunha to Wavecrest is a problem. Traffic flow is a big driver for that decision and it will certain decrease the number of kids walking to school.

FC’s shopping is inhospitable to pedestrians, unlike HMB’s downtown.  Foster City is all about strip malls, which is a huge planning blunder rooted in its 1960s origins.

Another issue is that you can’t build community from scratch. Darin Boville wrote a great column for the Review about how the “new urbanists” are trying to recreate the community we have in our coastside towns:

http://hmbreview.com/articles/2005/05/18/news/editorial/story3.txt

Pillar Point Harbor’s beaches among the most polluted in California

I was riding my bike on the western edge of Pillar Point Harbor last weekend and saw a couple of families whose kids were wading at the beach. There were no warning signs that I could see.

I never really thought of the harbor as a place for swimming because it’s a harbor and for all the reasons that Mike mentions. But clearly other people view it differently.

Biased survey of Montara Water customers yields predictable result

I have received a footnote to the Kentucky takeover campaign. The anti-takeover compaign fielded a slate of candidates who took over the city council.

From the Lexington Herald-Leader, courtesy of Felton FLOW <http://www.jgpr.com/Calam/heraldleader.html>:

In all, candidates who oppose condemnation far out-raised their opponents, $243,673.98 to $148,751.99 as of Oct. 18, the most recent campaign finance reporting date. Only a small portion of that money was donated directly by employees of Kentucky American, but a much larger percentage of contributions to candidates on either side of the issue came from memb ers or associates of either the Coalition Against a Government Takeover or Bluegrass FLOW.

The idea a German company could unseat the city council in an American city in order to maintain its ownership of community water is shocking and depressing. Even in Kentucky.

Cypress Cove board attacks park funding

That’s a point of view I haven’t heard expressed in the public meetings or in the Review. Everyone seems to be talking about the process or the grant applications for sports fields and not that they don’t want a park on the site at all.

I’m not sure if I’m talking to Jim or Nancy, and I don’t know your last name. But if you’re interested in writing a full-length opinion piece or a letter the editor for Coastsider, I’d be happy to run it on the main page.

Cypress Cove board attacks park funding

I’m not sure if this was directed at me, but when the city was discussing whether to buy the park, I wrote:

Finally, I was impressed by the response of the neighbors in Cypress Cove. The City Council did survey some neighbors as part of their due diligence. Virtually all of the Cypress Cove folks at the City Council meeting expressed legitimate concerns about traffic, parking, and safety; and expressed a desire to work with the city to mitigate the impact. What you don’t see is a knee-jerk NIMBY response. They know what a boon this park will be for their neighborhood.

However, one Cypress Cove homeowner did ask, “Would you like this park built right next to where you live?” Ummm...yeah. Please.

http://coastsider.com/comments/241_0_1_0_C/

The Coastside’s middle school site is in play again

Not so much through the site as beside it. There would presumably be a road, a light, and a widening of the highway for the school. It might be more expedient to connect Pacific Ridge to that road than to connect it to Terrace Ave.

It never occured to me, but the folks in Highland Park have appararently figured it out and seem to love the idea. Assuming, of course, they are properly insulated from our offspring.

The Coastside’s middle school site is in play again

Also, once you play around with the point allocation and scoring you realize how arbitrary these kinds of systems are and how they tend to make your analysis look more objective than it really is.

I agree with the point Bayless made at the meeting that ten-point differences are probably not terribly significant due to the limitations of the methodology.

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