“I understand there is a 10 car dirt parking lot being built on the west side of Airport St. just north of the mobile home park, with a dirt trail for easier access to the bluff area.”
There is an upside to such unneeded developments like this and the toilet, bridge, and road on Mirada Surf West. They tell you the sources of funds have plenty to burn and you do not need to vote for more when bond issues are on the ballot.
Jim,
I’m guessing you do not know about the specific state project known as the California Coastal Trail (CCT) and are somehow extrapolating from HMB’s misplaced paved road called the Coastal Trail. The Pillar Point bluffs are not in HMB.
Through the Coastal Conservancy, funds are made available for many local stretches of the CCT. The recipients of these funds range from local governments to nonprofit organizations working in concert with local governments. Other funds are often added from other sources, locally and regionally. For example, the “Coastal Trail” (actually road, as it can be and is driven on with park vehicles) in HMB was built by the city’s Parks and Rec department while the trails on the Pillar Point bluff are being developed by POST.
Yes, HMB’s “trail” is multi-use, but that is a feature of HMB’s stretch of trail and is not, nowhere, nohow, mandated for the CCT elsewhere. In fact, new stretches of CCT in HMB do not necessarily have to be multi-use, but, realistically, one cannot conceive of anything else being built in that pavement-addicted, money-slathering outpost of suburbia.
Where new stretches of the CCT are being created elsewhere, the design of the trail should be appropriate according to what the trail is supposed to be--which is lateral access to the California coastline.
So, back to the points made in my previous message. HMB and other places that have built destructive, misplaced portions of the CCT do not dictate conditions for the rest of the universe. Thank goodness.
What needs to be done to provide space (width) and a hard surface for bicycles spoils trails--especially those in open and natural areas--for people on foot. The urban mindset, stuck in its develop-everything mode, sometimes can’t see this, so disconnected from nature are such people.
There is no statutory requirement, whatsoever, for the state’s California Coastal Trail and the monies made available for this specific project to be multi-use. There are those in the Coastal Conservancy who push the multi-use model, the better to inflate their budgets and importance using a project popular with the public. Building a multi-use road in many places along the coast causes damage to the very coastal features a trail is supposed to access. Oversized access routes also bring more people than some areas can handle.
Finally, money is wasted causing the unnecessary destruction as engineers and landscape architects are paid more money to merely design construction projects than the entire trail should cost to create. This has meant we have gotten relatively little trail length for our money and the California Coastal Trail is taking decades longer than it should to create. The trail gets away from some of the places it is meant to access (sensitively) in order to accommodate bicycles, so people on foot are not only forced onto ugly bicycle roads like the asphalt-topped disaster about to be bulldozed through the middle of Mirada Surf West, they can’t visit the places the CCT was intended to visit.
Thanks to the unavoidable minority of renegade riders, bicycles have been kicked off of some single-track trails in the GGNRA; and on some stretches of the California Coastal Trail designated on existing single-track trails, they have not been allowed to enter. Some bicyclists have also objected to having the CCT route on wide sandy beaches, even though those beaches are by far the best way to go for some stretches of coastline.
There is no getting rid of bicyclists and other mechanical travelers from our public areas, and there are existing roads that provide multi-use routes that can be used with little conflict. Some parts of the California Coastal Trail follow such existing routes, and it would be foolish to establish yet more trails and roads. But on new stretches of the CCT, the resource should be respected. This extends to keeping even a single-track footpath out of some places that would be negatively impacted. The Pillar Point bluffs are not exactly pristine nature, but the restoration efforts under way for the vegetation are serious and the open space is one that should allow separate facilities for people on foot and bicycles.
The annual state trails conference is quite an eye-opener for some who go to it believing we can “all just get along.” The motorized contraption users are there--dirt bikes, ATV’s, you name it--are there to lobby for their “rights.” They are simply another degree of artificial travel beyond bicycles and could care less if they have to destroy it in order to access it. California is grossly overpopulated, so everyone is pushed into everyone else’s face. Visits to undeveloped outdoor areas can provide valuable respite from that, but not if everyone is forced onto multi-user roads.
Different from the aggressive bicycle crowd, my worry is that there will not be a path following but set back from the bluff edge that is blessedly unpaved, not so wide that it represents a swath of destruction, and off-limits to bicycles and other mechanical contraptions. Such a path should properly be the Coastal Trail. If a bike or multi-purpose route on the property, and not alongside Airport Road, is an absolute must, it should be separate from the trail for those on foot.
It seems to me something like this scheme was indicated at one of the planning stages, but the worry is a legitimate one because of the pavement/urban-style/big-spending mindset of the Coastal Conservancy when it comes to new segments of the California Coastal Trail. The agency is known to force its way on grantees as the uber-provider of funds. The Coastal Conservancy and many of its supporters and contractors don’t seem to know the difference between a trail and a road.
Average home “prices” may or may not have anything to do with what is happening to the average home or with most homes. For example, higher prices for a few homes at the upper end can more than compensate for lower prices for a much larger number of homes in the middle and lower end.
And then there are the matters of asking versus selling price and whether or not all the houses that can’t currently sell at any price are being considered.
Fuzzy statements about prices don’t help anyone to know what is going on and don’t do anything to establish one’s authority. So be clear.
“Home prices in both the County and Coast were still up for the first half over last year. Volume, a good indicator of demand, has been declining since 2004 with this year being the lowest level since 1990’s.”
Define “home prices.” If this turns out to be the average price--the mean price--the statement may or may not be worthless for the majority of homes because of prices of more expensive homes do not represent what is happening with all homes. Is it asking price or sale price? Big difference there, also. And so on. Fogged information only fools the gullible.
It’s always worth a smile when the people who cheer on cuts at the Coastal Commission are the same ones who complain about delays on various matters at the Commission. Extend foot, aim, fire!
Carl May
Mr. Gardner:
Why an intertie with the NCCWD? You say “and only use the water when we need it.” Do they have extra water they would like to send south? It would be great of you to tell us how NCCWD is avoiding all the problems that go with all the other agencies now staring Hetch Hetchy infrastructure upgrade costs and maxed-out supply from the Tuolumne River in the face? What volume of water is sustainably available that would justify the cost of an intertie, including the pumping operation that would be needed? Goodness knows, we don’t have enough of our local water yet to be sending it the other way to the NCCWD or the CCWD.
In other words, and more generally, why should our district pursue new and expensive infrastructure unless there is strong evidence there could be something real in it for our district? Hasn’t our district repeatedly shown an open mind toward cooperation with other districts as long as there is reason to get involved?
Don’t we elect our directors to run our district in a thoughtful and mature manner for the benefit of us citizens and customers? Do we want them to be dreaming up wild goose chases to pursue, or do we want them to use their considerable experience to deal with real and known district matters?
Water in our district is limited and committed to us existing customers. Now you want us customers to be shorted and possibly endangered by sending district water north to an oversized (what else with Caltrans) tunnels project with its extensive support facilities being built in Green Valley? Or do I misread you? Within the last day or two, you seemed to indicate you believed there would be usable water coming from the tunnels? Which is it, or don’t you know yet? Has Caltrans and its contractors pursued groundwater in Green Valley in case the tunnels are drier than expected? Wouldn’t we in the MWSD, with our moratorium, want new local sustainable sources already developed before committing to sending excess water off to grandiose Caltrans projects? Is the tunnels project really so badly planned that necessary water was not lined up in advance?
Don’t recall the picnic, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one.
I do remember there was usually a good party on Romeo’s Pier at the harbor that anyone could crash. Also, a local crowd would often hang out at the Montara Inn on summer holidays.
It makes me feel really old to mention it, but some years ago we had our own community parade on the 4th in Montara.
Mr. Gardner,
I assume those who want to take over the MWSD for their own purposes will have many conversations with Paul and other members of our MWSD board. The several of you repeatedly attacking the board obviously have a communication problem with them, one that prevents you from understanding the answers already provided by them and by district printed materials and websites.
But instead of non sequiturs, red herrings, and the like, do you have any answers to the questions I posed above? Numbers and definitions, please. I are a high school gradiate and can handle them. And figures of the sort I requested are necessary to move on to succeeding questions that would need to be asked before a picture can be built that would recommend the so-far mythic tunnel water to we customers of the district.
Paul seems to have been accommodated by Mr. Gardner’s answers to his questions on the recreation money thread, but I am most certainly not. The interwoven and crucial nature of the factors involved require more than offhand “trust me” type replies.
To wit:
“The current yield of dewatering from the tunnel is in the range of 25-50 gallons per minute.”
So, is this meant to imply this snapshot is reliable for the long term? Is this one-time water that is now being drained off by the bores or is it from underground sources that will be reliable indefinitely? As indicated by measurements made by competent hydrologists or those with related geologic expertise, what is the expected daily output of exploitable water from the tunnels throughout the year? That is crucial if the water is suggested as an ongoing source of supply for more overdevelopment in Montara and Moss Beach.
“The contaminents that need to be removed are similar to those found in drinking water wells.”
Okay, we have had chemistry and geology courses and know that drinking water wells vary greatly from place to place, so what are the contaminants? In what concentrations? Is the water brought up to drinking water standards by the current treatment? If not, what additional treatment would be necessary? What is being done with the contaminants now being removed from the tunnels’ water? How much energy is being used in the treatment? How much is the current treatment costing on a unit of water basis?
“The drainage is intercepted prior to any physical contaminents [sic], and to my knowledge Kiewit has complied will all NPDES permits. Caltrans has some very stringent rules and a redundent [sic] system is nessasary.”
By “physical contaminants” do you mean contaminants from the construction process? (You will pardon some of us who have fought Caltrans for decades because of its institutional lack of even basic environmental understanding in some areas if we are not automatically impressed by mention of its “rules.")
“Yield will vary during drought, since we’re in one it will most likely go up.”
How do you define “drought.” If water recharge is important to your volume estimates, wouldn’t it be prudent to observe, or at least calculate, what volumes will be available from that location throughout the year in a real, extended drought of the sort that have occurred during the past 50 or (better given the planet’s changing climate) 100 years? You suggest a supply of water on which people would be dependent through all kinds of weather and climate regimes to be reasonably expected around here.
“A small package plant can be installed to treat the water to public standards in the neighborhood of (how much “use it or lose it?) about $1 million bucks. A pipeline can be installed to tie-into the existing system for about another $3 mill (2 years of “use it or lose it?) Add on the cost and time for no-growth obstructionism citing the damage to the highways environment and you can add another $3 mill and 5 years (about what was added to the El Granada pipeline).”
Don’t such estimates depend to a degree on an operation scaled to the volume of water to be treated and piped? What is the volume used in these estimates?
“The point here really is connectivity to Pacifica to the north. We can add 15-20% capacity of locally produced water, have flexibility to obtain Hetch-Hatchy water from the north (and south with a connection to CCWD water (which by the way, has connectivity to pump from Crystal Springs), and we wouldn’t have to rely on some “plan†to bring trucks over Devil’s Slide or 92 in an emergency.”
Does the NCCWD have water to spare? Does the CCWD have water to spare? Does San Francisco’s Hetch Hetchy System have water to spare? Isn’t it fiscally and ethically responsible to guarantee the availability of excess, sustainable, non-environmentally damaging water from outside sources over the long term and, especially, during low-water periods before using taxpayer money on expensive infrastructure to transport that water?
“I hoped this helped you, now I am going back to work.”
Thanks for your time. May we in the communities that depend on the MWSD look forward to more help in the form of answers to the follow-up questions above?
PUDs have been more of a device of the City of Half Moon Bay, so maybe mention of them shows where someone’s affinities lie? Here is one bit of an update on property in PUDs there:
http://www.cdelmarrealestate.com/PUD_Lots/pud.htm
Adequate services are being rendered by MWSD. It is misleading to suggest additional ready water sources exist when they don’t to anyone’s knowledge. Consolidating away the MWSD and thus moving the district out from under the control of a responsible board is a developer’s pipe dream, nothing more. So LAUGHCo voted for it. Yawn. How surprising.
Because it is now the only government the citizens of Montara and Moss Beach can call their own and the only government directly responsible to those citizens, I’m all for the MWSD covering as many of our community needs as possible. It’s a sure thing the county supervisors don’t care much what happens to us, and the consolidated districts that would dissolve the MWSD away are a farce, given the HMB-centered districts with which we would have to combine.
I’d like to know more, however, about what the MWSD would do with any parks and recreation money before getting behind district expansion into that area. I see Paul’s reasoning, but it is built on maybes. Parks and recreational facilities can be just as destructive of community and environmental values as any other kind of development if not handled sensibly--the main reason I voted against the vague blank check of Measure O and the possible money that might have gone from it to what I see as a misguided county P&R effort in our area.
Yes, indeed, HMB will be reminded of a truly stupid and weakly negotiated settlement with their favorite developer from over the hill.
But the language in the settlement is what Mullin copied into AB 1991. Any altered bill will not conform to the settlement. So Keenan would have to agree to the terms of the altered bill, or the bill will mean nothing as far as he is concerned.
More likely, an altered or new bill will grant some specific relief to HMB from the consequences of mistakes it made without flushing state laws. Such specific legislation might even include financial aid, though that is tough to come by at the moment in budget-conscious Sacramento. The specific relief/financial aid might whittle the $18M to be paid to Keenan down to an acceptable size, considering the value of the property and any cash and loans involved.
Anything like that could have been had without going through the idiocy of AB 1991 and throwing money away on the spin doctors and lobbyists. Yee would have helped, and that would have gone a long way toward getting a bill through the State Senate. He may help yet on a revised or new bill that does not contain all the negative settlement language. That would be a saintly act considering some of the petulant, arrogant slander aimed his way from HMB when he decided not to throw his integrity and principles away by becoming a co-author of AB 1991.
No matter how this comes out, the bottom line is as it has been with the City of HMB in the past. A petulant, myopic, arrogant, sold-out city decided its neighbors on the coastside and the rest of the state were unimportant next to its desire to foster overdevelopment. Since its incorporation, there have only been short interludes when the city was not like this. Something to be remembered every time annexation of the unincorporated communities to the north is brought up.
By the way, the deadline dates in Julia Scott’s column are straight out of the Legislature’s calendar for 2008.
Anneliese et al.,
In an action dated yesterday but not showing up until today on the Legislature’s website, it looks like the hearing for AB 1991 by the Senate Local Government Committee has been cancelled once again at the request of the author (Mullin). I have no knowledge of why. All sorts of lobbying and other stuff going on.
Your list of the members of the Local Government Committee is the one I get from the Legislature’s site. Note that Kehoe and Machado are also on the Natural Resources and Water Committee. That would have been one of the more logical committees to hear this bill, so it might not hurt to put in a couple of extra sentences in any messages to those two.
Time is getting short for bills to get out of committee in the Senate. I’m not sure how quickly a new committee hearing date can be scheduled, but common sense tells one that it would be just like Mullin to try to sneak this bill back in on a quickie basis. So I’m sending my short last-minute messages to the Local Government people anyway.
One news bit also suggested the Senate Rules Committee, which directs bills to committee, may be asked for a waiver to avoid any committee hearings and send the bill straight to the Floor of the
Senate. That is all wrong for this precedent-setting piece of legislation. Not only should it go through Local Government, but Rules should also direct it through Natural Resources and Water and through Environmental Quality because of the nature of the extensive exemptions from major laws of various kinds in the bill.
So, for any who have the inclination, it is probably not too early to start making comments to the (obviously powerful) Rules Committee with regard to not short-circuiting the committee process due to the importance of the bill. ‘Tis the season when some of the Legislature’s attention is siphoned off by the annual budget circus, so it is important that they not be taken in by the city/lobbyist ruse that this is a one-time, one-place fix for a small city that has no other options and rush it through.
Just two days to go until the State Senate’s Local Government Committee hears AB 1991 on June 25.
For those who have not seen it, here is a link to the Local Government Committee’s staff analysis of the bill. It pretty much nails the precedent setting nature of the legislation. http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/asm/ab_1951-2000/ab_1991_cfa_20080619_143611_sen_comm.html
Please reinforce your opposition to the bill with Senator Yee and, more importantly, fax or call your short, pointed comments to the members of the Local Government Committee no later than June 24th.
Wow, could it be that Mr. Muteff, he who readily assigns blame on behalf of all of us, is actually so channeled in his approach that he expects to get away with the most basic logical fallacies? In this thread, he attempts to pull off the “correlation equals causation” fallacy repeatedly. For those who never took a beginning philosophy or logic course, this might provide some quick help: http://www.logicalfallacies.info/cumhoc.html
The weirdness comes when the gaffe is pointed out, and the one making the mistake keeps on pushing it, thus indicating she/he believes they have their audience in the bag or that their audience lacks the rudimentary thinking skills to recognize a fallacy. Does Muteff really have so little respect for those he tries to gather to his point of view?
Muteff is acting weirdly. Does he, or does he not, know anything about the landowners and HMB’s actual history with the Oak Avenue Park property? What are all these oblique references he makes? Are these facts? Do they have something to contribute to this discussion?
Muteff seems to be awestruck with Ferreira, ascribing all kinds of Svengali-like powers to him.
But is anyone else asking what that has to do with the landowners and Oak Avenue Park? Presumably there are facts somewhere chronicling the status and handling of the property to the present.
Cairns in Princeton Harbor?, Aug 29 7:51pm comment by Kevin J. Lansing, Deb, it seems you may have uncovered something of extreme archeological importance: "The Druids taught the existence of one god,…
MWSD residents invited to 50th anniversary celebration, Sunday, Aug 29 4:28pm comment by Paul Perkovic, Montara Water and Sanitary District's 50th Plus 5th Anniversary Celebration was a tremendous success, thanks to the many community residents…
Editorial: Senator Yee's SB863 gets it right, Aug 29 3:11pm comment by Sofia Freer, Barry thanks for a great editorial. My husband and I posted a message on Senator Yee's website on Aug. 21…
Editorial: Senator Yee's SB863 gets it right, Aug 28 9:21pm comment by Kevin J. Lansing, Many thanks to Senator Yee. It is instructive to contrast Senator Yee's efforts to strike a compromise bill that addresses…
Editorial: Senator Yee's SB863 gets it right, Aug 28 2:25pm comment by Steven Hyman, Glad to hear that the appraisal issue was anticipated. Everybody would sure hate to have this blow up in our…
Editorial: Senator Yee's SB863 gets it right, Aug 28 1:49pm comment by Mike Ferreira, It might be wiser to read the bill before popping off. It's for "acguisition and associated park and trail development"…
Editorial: Senator Yee's SB863 gets it right, Aug 28 1:15pm comment by Steven Hyman, I too am glad that this long running nightmare may be coming to an end. Although, as you all know,…
Overnight: Patchy fog. Otherwise, cloudy, with a low around 53. WSW wind between 7 and 9 mph.
Saturday: Patchy fog before 11am. Otherwise, cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly sunny, with a high near 63. West wind between 9 and 17 mph.
Saturday Night: Patchy fog after 11pm. Otherwise, increasing clouds, with a low around 53. WNW wind between 16 and 18 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph.
Sunday: Patchy fog before 11am. Otherwise, cloudy through mid morning, then gradual clearing, with a high near 62. Breezy, with a NW wind between 18 and 23 mph.
Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 52. Breezy, with a NW wind between 17 and 23 mph, with gusts as high as 29 mph.
Labor Day: Sunny, with a high near 69.
Monday Night: Clear, with a low around 54.
Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 69.
Tuesday Night: Patchy fog after 11pm. Otherwise, partly cloudy, with a low around 54.
Wednesday: Patchy fog before 11am. Otherwise, mostly sunny, with a high near 70.
Wednesday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 55.
Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 71.
Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 54.
Friday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 69.
PFC: 6:30pm; AFD: 10:45pm
