Comments by Carl May

Senator Yee proposes naming Devil’s Slide tunnel after Tom Lantos

So, in addition to overlooking Lantos’s refusal to help us over a couple of decades in our quest to prevent a totally unnecessary five-to-six-lane highway from being gouged through Montara Mountain, now we are supposed to reflect on his record as an international humanitarian? In the opinion of many, he has had his dark and ugly moments in that arena as well, especially in recent terms. But a road name designation seems hardly the place to slog through all of that.

Like Chuck, my guess is that there is no stopping the naming of the tunnels. Politicians praising politicians--wonder where that would rank in a public poll of means by which honors are granted?

Knowing that a neutral name is now as unlikely as any politician being influenced by the disagreement here, maybe better we should move on to whether or not San Pedro Mountain qualifies as a name because it does not meet an artificial definition of a “mountain”?

Carl May

Senator Yee proposes naming Devil’s Slide tunnel after Tom Lantos

“When a resolution names a highway or structure in honor of an individual, the designee must have been deceased for at least 18 months, except in the instance of elected officials, in which case they must be out of office.”

“...In other words, elected officials are the only living human beings after whom roads and structures can be named.”

Was going to make the obvious quip--but, nah, too easy.

Carl May

Senator Yee proposes naming Devil’s Slide tunnel after Tom Lantos

“In all the State of California, there are only three named-for tunnels:  MacArthur, McClure, and Waldo, and yes, they are less-known as their “official name, but more often referred to as the Presidio, Santa Monica, and Rainbow.”

Good digging, Annaliese. Your finding of the naming regulations reminds one of all the laws and regulations that our dear politicians (state, county, and local) and highway bureaucrats attempted to honor in the breach while they were trying to blast, figuratively and literally, the bypass freeway over Montara Mountain. I recall Ollie Mayer finding a number of them as she dug into the piles of arcane documents.

You missed one named tunnel--the Collier Tunnel on 199 near the Oregon border. If a tunnel had to be dug under Devils Slide, an updated version of that truly two-lane design would have been vastly more appropriate than the overdesigned, overpriced double-barreled boondoggle we are ending up with.

Anyone who lived in Siskiyou County in the mid-20th Century knew of their local State Senator Randolph Collier, whose family owned the county’s largest title company, among other things. When the Supreme Court decided all state legislators must be elected on something resembling a one-person one-vote basis, Collier’s repeated re-election was ensured as people of the north state, including those who didn’t like the imperious ass, voted for him because of his power-providing seniority in the State Senate. For many years he was Chair of the powerful transportation committee in the Senate, wheeling and dealing in the fat-dripping pork of transportation projects. The Collier Tunnel, which eliminated miles of windy, icy winter road over a mountainside, was actually a rather poor choice of something for his name. Something like “Collier Bend” for the miles-increasing jog Interstate 5 takes at Grenada in order to detour the freeway through Yreka (where guess whose family centered their businesses and wealth) would have been more apt.

So which definition of “consensus” did Yee have in mind with his bill? It certainly couldn’t have been the “general agreement” one unless he cops to being ignorant of the imbroglio he has now inserted himself into.

Carl May

Senator Yee proposes naming Devil’s Slide tunnel after Tom Lantos

Making it about money and maintenance of power isn’t what is good about politics and governmental bureaucracy. Making it about money and power is what is bad about these controlling areas of our society.

The least citizens who want something better can do is refuse to go along with the self-perpetuating game.

There is a bit of an odor about Yee’s proposed naming. First, he knows virtually nothing about the history of the hyped-up Devils Slide debate, not having been around for it. But more creepy is the frequent recent mention of Yee as a candidate for Lantos’s seat in Congress, which would mean a run against Speier this year. Everyone knows about this, don’t they? Yee’s naming proposal might be read as a move to garner favor with Lantos supporters. I have no way of knowing whether or not this is true. But it’s an obvious potential ploy and the timing is suspect enough to be pushing my formerly neutral feelings based on the job Yee is doing in the state Legislature to the negative side.

Carl May

Senator Yee proposes naming Devil’s Slide tunnel after Tom Lantos

Why not call the tunnels the “Devils Burrows”? Nutcases will misread this as the “Devils Boroughs,” where the devils live, and refuse to drive through them, thus cutting down on some of the additional coastside traffic the tunnels will encourage.

Carl May

Senator Yee proposes naming Devil’s Slide tunnel after Tom Lantos

Much bigger chunks of lives were spent over decades trying to stop the bypass over several decades than have been spent since duping the public on a project that is more than twice as big, more destructive of natural features of the environment, and more than three times as expensive (no one will be surprised if that estimate proves to be on the low side in the end) as it was promoted to be during the Measure T campaign. And all that has nothing to say about the probability the tunnels may not have been needed at all in order to have a perfectly serviceable, stable, scenic two-lane road within the protective spirit and letter of the Coastal Act.

So Ollie and Lennie, yes, but those who know the history since the late 1960’s know Nancy Maule, as difficult as she could be, was just as responsible on a grassroots level for fighting the good fight to stop the bypass and attempting to ease the pressure for greater overdevelopment of the midcoast that is part and parcel of the road issue. To her credit, she wasn’t conned into going along with a bloated underground freeway that will only increase the aforementioned pressure. When Harold Gilliam wrote his article on the cause, he correctly included all three leaders.

No one would have thought to mention Lantos at that time well over a decade ago, because he truly backed away from every plea by citizens to get involved in seeking a better project than the bypass. Nonetheless, his name on the tunnels will, in the end, be appropriate, as all he did was procure the pork for a project that will be an enduring monument to governmental heavy-handedness and waste.

Carl May

Letter: Name the tunnel after Tom Lantos?

I really don’t care what they call the twin tunnels fiasco/scam, but if people think Lantos was instrumental in addressing the highway situation at Devil’s Slide, they simply don’t know the history of the controversy. He was MIA until the twin tunnels project was railroaded into being, refusing to get involved in the road debate for, literally, decades. One gets the idea he would have done just as much to help obtain federal funding for the freeway bypass if that was the way the political mess shook out.

Carl May

HMB City Council votes to fight

Hal,

I think we are smart enough to keep the specifics for this plot of land clear while also recognizing the attempted use of the situation as a stalking horse for related agendas (including the road/new congestion points on 1 and 92/overdevelopment desires of CCF or a ploy by Keenan’s company to negotiate for development rights on other properties).

In fact, it is important to not lose sight of the fact that this is yet another instance of HMB’s urban sprawl process playing itself out--a process begun decades ago (and long before Prop. 20 and the Coastal Act). HMB permitted a “leapfrog” pattern of development on agricultural land north and south, of the city center along 1. This is a classic process for sprawl. It jacks property values and serves the short-term incomes of land-sellers and developers as it extends development out from a city’s core *much more rapidly* than if sprawl is continuous from the edge of a city’s developed area. Unless a city becomes enlightened along the way and caps total development, the open spaces jumped over in leapfrog development are doomed to fill-in over the long term as long as population is growing.

The fill-in is what is happening with the incidents and legal process on this property, as it has already happened in other tracts and is proposed to happen elsewhere (note how Podesta et al. are being mentioned as corallaries). It is instructive, sometimes eye-opening for people who didn’t get it before, to see the details and manuevers as part of the general sprawl process in addition to issues that must be dealt with in the immediate situation. They’ll be seeing versions of this again, and again.

Carl May

Opinion: City should do the right thing and win on appeal

Although I have no actual knowledge of such, it is reasonable to speculate the pro-overdevelopment types in city government may be resistant to approving an appeal if they see this as an opportunity to wedge open a development door by way of a settlement with Keenan. All kinds of things might be “justified” in the guise of not bankrupting the city. I do know players in this kind of legal game seldom show all their cards at the outset.

Carl May

Does the public have a right to use Shelter Cove in Pacifica?

The legalities may be similar, but the people living in Pacifica’s Shelter Cove are far from high profile and affluent.

In the meantime, anyone who wants to visit the place can simply walk just above the waterline around the point during a low tide. It’s a bit of a scramble on the rocks in places, but the distance is less than a half mile to get to the cove. This is the route to use to get to Pedro Rock south of the cove and to the beaches at the base of Devil’s Slide (if you plan your tide and time carefully and are prepared for rock-hopping and usually a bit of climbing). Easier and quicker is to know someone who lives in Shelter Cove and visit them.

Carl May

Should TalkAbout continue to allow anonymous postings?

Barry-->>"I would have phrased Paul’s question differently: ‘Are anonymous forums a good idea?’, which I think is an interesting question.”

I can only agree and find quite a few general points made by others in the above messages to be thought-provoking. Whatever a forum’s policies may be, they should be clearly stated. Then a person can choose whether or not to participate.

I understand the various stated concerns about retribution. People may also engender cyber-attacks of various sorts when they are candid about their identities on message boards.

Personally, I don’t care. I’m not running for anything and can’t be bothered with remembering how my comments were shaded to make them more “acceptable” or persuasive.

Carl May

Should TalkAbout continue to allow anonymous postings?

My DSL has been down for a couple of days, so maybe I missed it. Why am I supposed to care about how the Review’s online forum is conducted?

Carl May

Coastside fire board appoints pro-Cal Fire member, union threatens recall

Note that two of the necessary votes for the new appointment were, themselves, just turned down for re-election by the voters (pending a possible recount, which probably won’t change the election results). This amounts to flipping the bird to the public on their way out the door. Any newcomer to the coastside who believes members of the local fire boards are “jes’ folks” serving their local communities and not representatives of political cliques with forceful agendas can learn from this hurried move to counter the apparent will of the majority of voters in the just-conducted election.

And so it plays out in most places in the U.S. Just one more example showing that many Americans are being superficial, hypocritical, and arrogant when they criticize either the conduct or lack (or suspension) of democracy in other countries.

Carl May

Letter: The Time of the Ancient Larimer

How could Woren’s rationale, whatever it is, be any more curious than Larimer’s dedicated, ongoing, and somewhat uninformed attempt to insert his boundless pomposity into the MWSD race?

After all, we’re dealing with someone who has long twisted language into a Mobius strip when attempting to confuse any distinction between the words “replacement” and “expansion.” Their very pontifications show such people wish to become the topic of comment. The only thing I can see that might make lovers of the obtuse question the relevance of Zich’s obliging poetic commentary is the fact that the words are neither dictated nor controlled, as is usually the preference of ones who prefer a monarchy.

Carl May

Coastside election results

Was the polling place closed? It should not have been. There were optional paper ballots, you know; and these were collected in a box for later counting (not run through a machine as our paper ballots in the past).

Carl May

Coastside PAC’s endorse candidates

Lack of water capacity in the MWSD is not due to failure to turn on a magic water spigot somewhere (which is what the advocates for “change” imply). It is due to overpopulation/overdevelopment in Montara and Moss Beach for the water resources that are readily available in the geographic area. This overdevelopment took place long before, decades before, MWSD acquired the water system from the previous private absentee corporation four years ago. Our towns were already short of water resopurces needed to adequately serve the population during the drought of the mid-to-late 1970’s. Ergo, the moratorium.

So, four years ago the sanitary district took over a somewhat run-down water system, its condition due partially to some of the income from the water district being sent out of town to the corporate owners rather than being spent to maintain the system. The district was immediately faced with two challenges: bring inadequate water infrastructure up to par and try to develop new facilities, including new water sources and storage, to adequately serve and protect existing customers. Any new water sought would be tough to come by, the easy-to-locate water having been exploited long ago. Let’s remember, trying to serve any population in an “overshoot” phase that exceeds what can be sustained indefinitely by resources is essentially an impossible job. But the existing district is at least making a try at it. And we ratepayers are paying dearly for this effort--not because the district is not operating well but because providing resources beyond those that are readily available becomes increasingly more expensive the more scarce resources one must provide.

As is the case with most governments at all levels, San Mateo County ignores basic facts of population and environment and tries to serve short-term financial interests that profit from growth. The indefensible but heavily-promoted growth ethic, “Growth is Good,” permeates government and growth industry rationale, no matter how much damage results in the real world of people living in communities. So we see the county allowing numerous homes to go in on wells because the local district water system is already overtapped. When such wells fail, don’t blame a water district that had no water to provide--blame the fools and charlatans, including county officials, who refuse to consider sound population policies and who permitted and built the homes. I don’t want my payments for a water supply subsidizing and mitigating the mistakes of such jerks.

Carl May

Coastside PAC’s endorse candidates

With both of these outfits, we can add to the overwhelming evidence that politics, and in this case PACs in particular, are neither a very good way to deal with the real world nor reliable in terms of sticking to a stated philosophy. Same goes for party politics, of course.

Carl May

Coastsider endorses Boyd, Slater-Carter for MWSD

All anyone needs to do is look at Bulan’s list of prime supporters to know what he is all about.

If you are new to the area and harbor some misguided notion that most candidates hereabouts are objective and altruistic--well, you should know that what we are seeing is a bit of local theater. Nonetheless, virgins to midcoast politics need go no farther than Bulan’s overly general, oblique, and/or evasive responses to questions to understand that he doesn’t know diddly about how the MWSD is currently managed. Look at the online video sessions with the candidates. He demonstrates no knowledge of what it was like under the previous private corporations that owned the water district, what the community clearly understood in voting to take over the water service, what has been done to seek and better understand reliable water resources available in our limited watersheds and aquifers in the few years since the takeover, what the governmental procedures are for bringing new resources online, why the already oversubscribed water district would be mismanaging and creating inequities if it tried to compensate for county mistakes in allowing houses to be built on dubious wells, etc. In other words, he apparently knows little about the actual district he would attempt to “direct.”

With no exhibit of qualifications, he claims he could get things done in a water and sanitary district. He has not provided any credentials nor has he said anything to show he knows anything about the workings and necessary approvals of the various state agencies involved in what the district does--the Coastal Commission, the PUC, etc. He implies he could somehow provide more water to the district but says nothing about the nature of a magic spigot or hydrologic knowledge beyond the professional expertise already employed by the district. (But look at his endorsements from outside the district and you will quickly realize a hookup with CCWD and all the financial, environmental, and ethical problems that go with that are probably lurking somewhere.)

I looked at some threads on the Review’s website when I saw mention of them here. Paul Perkovic has been a one-man wrecking crew, demolishing innuendos, false assumptions, baseless challenges, and mistaken implications emanating from The Ancient Larimer, et al. with factual point after factual point. It has gotten to the stage that he has so thoroughly rebutted all the falsehoods that the HMB-style clods are overwhelmed by his intrusion into their high-school-style electioneering and are asking him to just go away.

I only hope voters relatively new to the issues can add it up and realize that shills for environment- and community-wrecking development are repeatedly put up for local office and often elected with the help of infusions of money from those who stand to receive short-term financial benefits from additional overpopulation and its handmaiden, overdevelopment.

Carl May

Coastsider endorses Donovan, Taborski, and Silva for HMB Fire and Williams for Pt Montara

So now, every time a car is broken into and trashed on the coastside--an act that happens fairly often in parking lots and neighborhoods--local firefighters and their union are tainted by it? A firefighter who lives in my neighborhood had some items stolen from a vehicle parked outside his house a couple of years ago, and it’s just shocking to now learn his colleagues were somehow involved. So reassuring to know someone is running for our now meaningless Point Montara fire district board who can divine guilt without evidence. For one thing, this capability should make investigation and resolution of future fire-involved crimes much easier.

Carl May

City and Chamber welcome Peet’s with official ribbon-cutting

During a dedicated but futile attempt to “Carmeli$e” HMB over the past decade or more, it appears the real town slipped out between the fingers of city government and the Chamber of Commerce.

Carl May

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