Comments by Leonard Woren

Devil’s Slide is open!

Barry, I’ve suggested that they paint the inside of the tunnel to look like the view from the current alignment.

Devil’s Slide is open!

Matt Wrublewski compares dimensions for the Eisenhower tunnel and the Devil’s Slide tunnel to justify the oversized Devil’s Slide tunnel.  However, this is apples and (sour?) grapes—the way I read it, Matt and Carl are both saying that the Eisenhower tunnel is two traffic lanes in each bore.  The Devil’s slide tunnel is supposedly one traffic lane in each bore.  If a traffic lane is 12 feet wide, the Devil’s slide tunnels should be 40-12=28 feet wide.  Therefore they are grossly oversized.

The Devil’s Slide tunnels are only a can of paint away from being two lanes in each bore.

Devil’s Slide is open!

I kinda figured they’d do that, in order to avoid a land-rush lineup of people wanting to be first.

Photo: Devil’s Slide ribbon-cutting

I just got this vision of Coastsider.com editor Barry Parr and HMB Review editor Clay Lambert running to their cars and racing off after the ribbon cutting, like a scene in an old-time movie.  Apparently the trip to downtown HMB takes 9 minutes longer than the trip to Barry’s house.  (Clay’s story was posted 9 minutes after Barry’s.)

I have a more serious question.  If the road was paved Tuesday, and the ribbon cutting was today, why isn’t the road open now?

Letter: Fire boards didn’t give themselves enough time to act on proposals

The claim that because the meeting notice stated an ending time that they had to adjourn at that time is just ludicrous.  Counsel for each district was present and supported that claim, but I’m not convinced.  (My dad liked to say “When you ask a lawyer ‘how much is 2+2?’, the response is ‘How much do you want it to be?’") The boards got from counsel the answer they wanted.  HMBFPD’s counsel cited GC 54956 (in the Brown Act).  Here is that section in its entirety:

54956.  A special meeting may be called at any time by the presiding officer of the legislative body of a local agency, or by a majority of the members of the legislative body, by delivering written notice to each member of the legislative body and to each local newspaper of general circulation and radio or television station requesting notice in writing.  The notice shall be delivered personally or by any other means and shall be received at least 24 hours before the time of the meeting as specified in the notice.  The call and notice shall specify the time and place of the special meeting and the business to be transacted or discussed.  No other business shall be considered at these meetings by the legislative body.  The written notice may be dispensed with as to any member who at or prior to the time the meeting convenes files with the clerk or secretary of the legislative body a written waiver of notice.  The waiver may be given by telegram.  The written notice may also be dispensed with as to any member who is actually present at the meeting at the time it convenes.
The call and notice shall be posted at least 24 hours prior to the special meeting in a location that is freely accessible to members of the public.

I see nothing in there regarding ending time of a meeting.  “The call and notice shall specify the time and place of the special meeting.” Any normal reasonable person would interpret that to refer to the start time.  The purpose of that section is to make sure the public is alerted to the meeting if they wish to attend.  That whole concept is focused on the start time only—people need to know when to show up for the meeting.

As Ed intimates, it’s also suspicious that an ending time was even listed and nobody was willing to indicate who requested putting an ending time on the agenda.  One of the PMFPD directors knows that he probably doesn’t have the votes to stop from contracting out the services, so he’s trying to use “process” arguments to stop it.  Every delay at this point is only detrimental.

Also note that if a board member is “actually present at the meeting at the time it convenes”, he is precluded from claiming that he didn’t receive proper notice of the meeting.  That reinforces my claim that this section applies only to the start time.

Environmentalists didn’t kill Measure S

Ray, when comparing the cost of refurbing Cunha vs building new at Wavecrest, please compare apples to apples.  Cunha has permanent buildings and I believe the new building will be a permanent building.  If I understood correctly, ALL of the classroom buildings in the new middle school at Wavecrest are designed as modulars, which I don’t consider permanent buildings.  Only the admin building is permanent.  If cost is an issue, why are modulars ok for the students but not for the admin staff?

Environmentalists didn’t kill Measure S

One of the few things that I remember from statistics class in college is that a high positive correlation doesn’t imply anything about cause and effect.  For example, it could be that environmental-leaning voters are also supporters of school parcel taxes.  Or it could be that supporters of school parcel taxes are more likely to also vote for environmental candidates.  Or it could be that people with kids in the schools are more likely to vote for environmental candidates.  Or that people who support protecting the environment are more likely to keep their kids in the local schools rather than put them in private schools.

So there is no legitimate conclusion from the numbers other than that there’s a positive correlation between parcel tax supporters and environmentalists.  Given the actual numbers shown, what that means is that someone who’s in one of those two sets is a bit more likely to also be in the other set than someone who is not.  Clearly there are many people who are in only one set, and some who are not in either set.

NY Times finds the tacos of its dreams in Pescadero

[...]but food just naturally sticks in my mind.

I’m sure there’s a joke there somewhere.

Devil’s Slide to reopen August 4

I think that CalTrans intentionally gave a public estimate much later than they expected, just so that people would be falling all over themselves with gratitude towards CalTrans for having it open “early”.

“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.” - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Editorial:  It’s time to solve the Coastside’s firefighting mess

I agree with Carl’s point about “why consolidate” if it’s all going to be contracted out.  The only answer I’ve received is a weak “because the contracting agencies don’t want to deal with two agencies over here.”

But Carl, when you point to small single engine companies in small towns, how recent is your knowledge?  There have been requirements imposed from above which make it somewhere between difficult and impossible to run a small fire district.  I’ve also been told that the small fire districts that you’re likely thinking of are stilll all-volunteer districts.

All that said, I still don’t see any great need or substantial value in consolidating—the same net effect can be accomplished by continuing the fire services agreement between PMFPD and HMBFPD and in that agreement, indicating that HMBFPD may subcontract out the whole operation.

By the way Carl, do you know that the County, at least in the form of the two Supervisors on LAFCo, is basically saying that we can’t reorg the Granada Sanitary District into a CSD in order to add parks and rec because they think that there should be a single NEW midcoast-wide parks agency?  (Just what we need… ANOTHER government agency on the coastside.) The fact that this may never happen doesn’t seem to concern them—they just don’t want the “greater El Granada” area (*) to have local control of parks.  This is nearly the identical issue that you’re miffed about with the fire districts.  (If there is to be response to this paragraph, I should submit it as an LTE to start a new thread.  Email me privately instead of commenting on this fire district thread.)

(*) By “greater El Granada area” I mean the part of the Granada Sanitary District outside the city of Half Moon Bay:  Princeton, El Granada, Miramar north of Medio Creek.

Editorial:  It’s time to solve the Coastside’s firefighting mess

Linda Prieto asked a number of questions --

Leonard says thare are 18 firefighters for 20,000 people in Half Moon Bay while Point Montara has 8 firefighters for 5,000 people in the Montara area. Is he saying they should have four times as many firefighters as Point Montara since they have four times the population to cover? Is he saying they need 72 fire fighters to man the HMB service area.

I’m not expressing any opinion regarding the appropriate staffing level, I’m just pointing out that per capita costs are higher in the PM territory because there are twice as many firefighters per capita.

In Montara we pay four times as much as do parcels in HMB. Maybe if they raised their fees to $160 they could afford extra fire fighters.

Vince has described how those assessments are only supplemental, both districts get a significant amount of money from property taxes.  So you’re not paying 4 times as much total—it’s just the extra assessment that is much higher in PM.

HMBFPD engine 40 (HMB) and engine 41 (El Granada) theoretically have 3 firefighters on each engine for all 3 shifts.  PMFPD engine 44 (Moss Beach) has 3 FFs on 2 shifts and only 2 FFs on one shift.  What conclusion do you want to draw now regarding “… afford extra fire fighters”?

Are the fire fighters in both districts paid the same? Is the work different?

Vince has answered this—it is a combined work force.  PM does not employ any firefighters.

I think $160 a year is a bargain for fire service when you consider the rise in your fire insurance if you don’t have a good fire department. I am amazed the HMB fees are so low at $40 a parcel.

Check earlier comments regarding the total funding levels—you can’t consider only the additional assessments you mention.

Also I find it hard to believe that there are no candidates willing to train with the fire departments at $170,000 a year salary, if that is what they really get.

I think that the issue is retention, not recruitment.  They currently have something like 9 trainees, an unacceptably high and unprecedented percentage.

It just seems to me that if we have one combined fire department the training, pay, service,staffing etc should be more or less equitable.

Since it’s a single combined operation now, there is no distinction based on which station they’re assigned to, so this isn’t an issue.

Editorial:  It’s time to solve the Coastside’s firefighting mess

Vince wrote “According to the current draft agreement, the plan is to put all the existing revenue in to the common fund and provide uniform service, whether one resides on Tunitas Creek, Ocean Colony, Downtown HMB, El Granda, or the backside of Montara.  If the Coastside FD runs out of funds in the future, presumably they will be able to raise the Measure H in the PMFPD service zone or raise the rates in the Comunity Facilities Districts(the details have not been worked out yet on the process Appendix C is not available).

How is 8 firefighters for 5,000 people the same level of service as 18 firefighters for 20,000 people?  In the Point Montara territory, you have twice as many FFs per capita as in the HMBFPD territory.  Yet some of your board members whine that there are only 2 FFs on one of the shifts in PMFPD.  Yet they lowered the Measure H assessment for purely political reasons, so that they could get re-elected.  After the consolidation, they’ll be insisting on the consolidated district funding that 9th FF in the Moss Beach station.  Who’s going to pay for that?  Me?  Why?

HMBFPD gave PMFPD a discount ("what a deal") of what, $400,000 on the fire services agreement in order to try to keep the relationship afloat.  That’s a major part of HMBFPD’s current budget problems—the drawdown in reserves for the fiscal year is almost exactly that amount, when other one-time revenues are removed from the equation.

Vince concludes with They can also propose a new parcel tax and put it up to the voters.

Yeah, that’s really fair to the HMBFPD service zone people.  PMFPD doesn’t pair their fare share, the consolidated district runs short on money, and then everybody has to chip in more.

The bottom line as I see it is that HMBFPD could survive on their own if they had to, although they wouldn’t like it.  PMFPD cannot, and that’s clear to everyone except 3 PMFPD board members and Carl May.  So why exactly should anyone currently in HMBFPD be interested in this consolidation?

Editorial:  It’s time to solve the Coastside’s firefighting mess

To simplify Vince’s numbers even more, the Point Montara Fire Protection District (PMFPD) serves 5,000 people with one fire station .  The Half Moon Bay Fire Protection District (HMBFPD) serves 20,000 people with two fire stations.  Of course costs are going to be substantially higher in PMFPD.  And there’s no reason that a merger should reduce costs in the PMFPD territory by increasing costs in the HMBFPD territory.  Therefore even in the consolidated district there will be what’s known under the law as “service zones”, with different rates.

These days, with “move ups” to cover stations where the engine is out on a call, it’s apparently always the El Granada station that is left uncovered.  Montara and Moss Beach get better service, so you have to pay more.

Personally, I think that instead of merging and contracting out, PMFPD should just continue the fire services contract with HMBFPD and HMBFPD can sub out everything.

Grand jury says Coastside fire districts should merge and outsource services

Kathryn—The proposed scheme for getting from the 8 current board members to 5 is nothing but an incumbent protection plan.  I’ve said so multiple times at fire board meetings.  Otherwise, why not simply have only 1 seat up for re-election in the November 2007 election and then there will be 5 board members?  (To reset to the required 3/2 election cycle it would be necessary to have one of the seats in 2009 be a 2 year seat, but that’s a nit.)

“It’s unwise to cross a chasm in two leaps.”

Brent—Einstein said that doing the same thing over and over expecting the results to be different is the definition of insanity.  How many times was the district sued by firefighters trying to fix the same problem?  Perhaps those 4 lawsuits are a major reason why the District’s reserves are gone?  I will not defend management or the boards at this point, but your implication that the firefighters are blameless doesn’t hold water with me.  Do you want me to quote from Bonano’s report?  The FFs have done nothing apparent to deal with the problem FFs.  And a claim that there are no problem FFs won’t have any credibility.

The bottom line is that there’s plenty of blame to go around.  Also, there’s evidence that Asche’s predecessor wasn’t too good either.

As to the BoS stepping in and taking over, to my knowledge there is no legal authority to do so.  HMBFPD and PMFPD are ”independent special districts.” That means they basically answer only to their voters unless they do something illegal.

Letter:  Why hasn’t anything been done about the evening commute?

Robert—If you have read Dr. Hovland’s report on the geology of the Slide area and how the level of the water table triggers a slide (basically, a lot of rain late in the season), you know that a permanent fix requires proper dewatering, forever.  No amount of concrete and steel can be a permanent fix without proper dewatering.  Few people believe that CalTrans’ dewatering meets the requirements in Hovland’s report.  Second, I doubt if anyone will continue to maintain the dewatering system once that section of road is no longer SR 1.  I can’t see San Mateo County spending a nickel on it.  We have no permanent fix because CalTrans doesn’t want one.  Note that even with the half-assed dewatering they installed post-1995-slide, the 1995 road repair lasted through some seriously wet seasons (1997/1998, 2004/2005).

That said, we still need to deal with the 92/Main issue for evening commute.  I’ve driven eastbound late in the afternoon, and I’m convinced that those who say the problem isn’t 92/Main but point instead to other locations like 92/lower 35 don’t understand traveling waves.  It’s fluid dynamics.  At a certain level of traffic, the red light starts a ripple which travels slowly east until it gets to where the road has more capacity at Crystal Springs.  The only way to avoid this is to avoid the red signal completely at a certain level of traffic.  (At lower levels of traffic, the flow can recover without generating a traveling wave.) I’ve seen this travelling wave at peak evening commute even with Devil’s Slide open.

Again, the way to settle this argument, just like the free right turn argument, is to try an experiment for a few afternoons blocking through traffic on Main at 92 and all turns there except WB 92 ->SB Main.  Clearly the current “do nothing” approach isn’t working, why not try something different to see if it improves things?

Letter:  Why hasn’t anything been done about the evening commute?

Oops… I forgot to include something in my previous comment.  T was technically not a vote for the tunnel.  T deleted the inland bypass as an allowed option for SR 1 and added a tunnel as an allowed option.  My personal preference is the other allowed option—permanent repair of highway 1.  If you want talk scenic roads, the current alignment is much more scenic than the inland bypass could possibly have been.

Letter:  Why hasn’t anything been done about the evening commute?

Measure T was a county-wide vote because that portion of SR 1 is in unincorporated territory, controlled by the County LCP, and the only way to force the County to do something they don’t want to do is via a county-wide initiative.  There is no mechanism whatsoever for just one portion of the county to do an initiative against the county.  If only it were so.  Many people in the unincorporated Midcoast would dearly like to have a Midcoast-only vote on our LCP.  Then we’d see a 1% growth rate here.

I was not involved in the Measure T campaign, but my guess is that the statement “[...] the tunnel people were afraid if left up to the coast we would have favored the bypass.” is completely wrong.  Does anyone have the statement of the vote on measure T in order to compare precinct results for T on the coast to those of the county as a whole?  I’m betting that the T vote on the coastside was at least as strong as the county average.

Letter:  Why hasn’t anything been done about the evening commute?

Kevin, the best way to resolve the disagreement over the free right turn is to try activating the signal for a few days.  What are you afraid of?

Your comment about some people making the U at Kelly and therefore there is equilibrium is simply false, because SB traffic is backed up way and you’re not counting the time it takes to get TO the 92/1 intersection in order to continue on to Kelly and make the U.

Again.  All this intellectual pontificating could be resolved by simply running an experiment for a few days.  Funny how most of the proponents of that live N of 92 and most of the opponents live S of 92.

I got a phone call yesterday sometime around 10 am or so from someone who was at Capistrano complaining that SB SR 1 was completely stopped.

Letter:  Why hasn’t anything been done about the evening commute?

Brian Ginna wrote, in part: For some reason, that part of the “plan” seems to have a barricade to prohibit right turns from WB 92 to NB Main (along with cross traffic).  That does not make sense.

I haven’t seen “the plan”, but it probably makes some sense—it’s a fairly sharp right turn requiring most (sane) drivers to drastically slow down.  Doing so impedes the traffic flow.  I believe that this is one of the things that will be fixed with the 92/Main project.  However, that said, I see no reason why CalTrans can’t go out with a can of paint immediately and move the lines, narrowing the EB lane there (it’s wider than required) in order to shift the dedicated left turn lane south a tad and make it a bit narrower, and split what’s left to make a dedicated NB right turn lane.  Even as it is, if a smaller car is towards the left of the through lane waiting on the signal, smaller cars can squeeze past to turn right.  So it won’t take much of a shift in the left turn lane to enable creation of a real right turn lane there.

Heck, CalTrans doesn’t even need the can of paint.  Temporary double yellow lines come on a giant roll of tape (although they don’t last long if drivers can’t manage to stay off of them.)

OTOH, since the N Main right turn onto NB SR 1 is “no right turn on red” during commute times, I don’t see this as a big imposition—if I happen to unavoidably be there during those hours, I will generally take 92 to 1 to turn right instead of waiting for the green to turn right from N Main.  I’m sure that was a significant part of the intent of posting the “no right on red” hours.

Letter:  Why hasn’t anything been done about the evening commute?

For the evening commute I still don’t understand why the Westbound 92/Main signal isn’t locked green but still allow the WB->SB left turn signal to happen.  That will allow people to get to the HMB Main Street businesses and also allow traffic to flow freely.  What would be the downside to implementing this?

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