Comments by Carl May

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

If you look at Mackintosh’s record, he took a problem-solving approach to his terms on the board, not an approach where he simply wished to ship out any difficulties he was not competent to handle. The other two alternative candidates running with Mackintosh have not been on the HMB district board; but if you look at their responses during candidate sessions, they, too, do not jump to admit their incompetence and give up on problems by washing their hands of them.

I’d suggest that people look at the videos of the candidate sessions. See how the candidates articulate their positions on issues. People should also dig into Donovan’s longer record as a bumbling city councilperson in HMB, including his ignorant and destructive stances on matters involving the unincorporated midcoast to the north of the city of HMB.

We have been shafted by all fire district board members who took part in consolidation the Point Montara and HMB fire districts, for we now are stuck with a new combined fire district dominated by board members in the city of HMB who, over the years, have proven themselves less than ignorant of the communities of Montara and Moss Beach. In the past we in MMB didn’t need to comment on slogging, old-guard HMB politicians other than to express our relief that we were not under their influence.

Mackintosh, by the way, saw ways for the previous two districts to maintain local control and still get the benefits of cooperation. So what if he has a son working in the district? I have never seen this argument come up when candidates for the school board have children in the schools who will be affected by their decisions.

So there you have it. In HMB, take a chance on candidates who at least want to have a go at solving financial, management, and staffing problems or stick with cement-footed incumbents who have proven their incompetence to manage the district over the past four problem-riddled years. In Point Montara, take a chance on a candidate who has long experience working in fire districts (but not the Point Montara or HMB districts), including at a supervisorial level where budgets and staffing matter, or vote for a candidate who urged abandoning local control to the district to our south without so much as a vote of the people of the communities now subjected to domination by a larger, differently-leaning voting population.

Carl May

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

“The new Coastside Fire Protection District board will inherit a department in crisis. The good news is that the combined boards have agreed to the one solution left to us: contracting out services to Cal Fire.”

So, we should vote for the people on the board or a newcomer representing the philosophy that created and prolonged the crisis (actually crises, as there is more amiss to be addressed than the contracting out or services)? Interesting approach--vote for the ones who have been mucking around in the crisis the longest. Experience counts?

Carl May

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

“All that was missing was the marching band with the drum majorette.

And why shouldn’t we celebrate?”

Sorry for taking the above out of context. But we shouldn’t celebrate because the entire process had the end effect of terminating two independent, long-standing, and self-maintaining local businesses. Because the willingness of Peet’s to move in and pay a rent that an investment entity wanted (or needed) based on stupidly overpaying for the property was a big factor, Peet’s became a facilitator in the downfall of those previous businesses. This from a corporation that has tried to differentiate itself from Starbucks.

I’ll bet the ceremony was attended by the usual HMB political hypocrites and fou-fou urban-mindset money-grubbers that were professing friendship for Raman only a few months earlier. Personally, I’ll never buy another cup of coffee at Peet’s--that one or any other Peet’s for that matter.

Carl May

MWSD celebrates its new well

“I’m assuming we’re going to have enough to serve the ones who are on the wells and the ones who develop,” he said.

What does he, Bob Ptacek, mean by this statement? Does he mean the district will have enough water for fire protection of properties, existing and to be built, that are on wells? Or does he mean there will be enough water for people now on wells to get off wells and into the system plus enough water to serve new development hooked into the system?

I’d hate to hear the district is taking money from all of us, including by way of a new rate raise, to help support new development. For decades, there has no longer been enough water in our watersheds to sustain both the draws made for existing development and the natural system that provides the water and other water-related community resources like biodiversity. In addition, squeezing and storing more water out of the natural systems of which our small watersheds are a part becomes very expensive. No way the people of the district should be made to pay for more environmental stress and more overdevelopment in terms of sustainable water supplies.

Because of the past mistake by the county of allowing houses to go in on wells that must get (and have been paying for) water from the system for emergencies, there is at least a lesser (but not entirely justified) argument for developing the current system up to standards for *existing* water users and the *existing* properties on wells that require emergency water. But developing water for new, additional urban development would be a patent abuse of both current ratepayers and the environment providing the water.

Carl May

Video: HMB fire district board candidates

Darin,

Let me add my thanks for the video sessions with the candidates. Adding what one already knows about the candidates and their past records to the in-person interviews gives a better picture of the people involved than printed campaign materials and paid-for campaign puffery can hope to convey.

Now that we in Montara and Moss Beach are going to be stuck with any Old Guard political mudheads elected in the Half Moon Bay district because of the undemocratic consolidation of the districts forced by the boards, I can only say there are only two people running from HMB who might provide alternatives and get my vote as people who will serve the interests of the multiple communities involved selflessly and who seem awake enough to tackle the now-consolidated district’s massive inequities and remaining problems. Neither was named by Hal in his three endorsements in the message above.

Carl May

Photos: Fire sign theatrics

Coastside people voting for the kind of public safety services they want? What a novel concept!

Sure we should have a vote of the people served before contracting out to a remote bureaucracy. But we should also have had a vote regarding the wiping out of the Point Montara District in the consolidation with Half Moon Bay. Where were the firefighters on the consolidation issue? Why, they were going along with the decisions of the boards that they now are fighting on staffing control.

The upshot of it all is that we are going from two districts with their own staffs to one district with no employees. Local, community based firefighters with intimate local knowledge slipped out between our fingers with the homogenization. The reason? The assumption by the little mutual massage societies of the boards that we wouldn’t pay for proper local services, the way hundreds of small to medium sized districts all over the state pay for what they want. (But, wait, it would have taken a vote to determine what most of us want.) Maybe a few hundred dollars per year as the price of self-determination is significant if one lives in a construction-paper shack, but most of our homes are not in that category.

Local control means local democracy. That isn’t how it works with emergency services hereabouts. If you liked the narrow, puerile, petty, self-centered cliques that dominated your high school, you’ll be quite content with current coastside politics.

Carl May

Album: Pictures from CalTrans Tunnel dig kick-off

So, cover a scraped-away hillside at the south portals with sprayed-on shotcrete (or something like that) a day or two before, then grind a hole in it with a big machine for a photo-op? This is all about what, exactly?

And all the media headlines about this being the beginning of construction of the tunnels project. Huh? They have already spent and done several times as much on the tunnels as would have been necessary to dewater and bolster the landslide along the lines of the most elaborate suggestions for that cursorily-dismissed possibility. Implying that all the tunnels construction that has already gone on was nothing can only encourage public acceptance of more of the kind of politician-enabled, large-scale grading that has already gone on (as if the words of the Coastal Act meant nothing) and of wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on highway projects spun for a feel-good illusion of “progress.” Aren’t they lucky they have the bigger fiasco on the eastern span of the Bay Bridge to draw critics away from the tunnels?

Carl May

Tunnel excavation begins Sept 17 with a public event

Thank you so much for informing me on where and when I should comment on highway scams, Kevin. Clever idea that I should use an alternative energy fair as a metaphor for highway matters. Could it be that you are trying to get us all to think of the overall energy usage involved in large highway construction projects, both in the building and eventual use of the projects versus the same energy costs of alternative projects? How stupid of me not to think of net energy costs and consequences.

The “notables” showing up, once again for a self-congratulating twin-tunnels photo op while happily ignoring any disturbing thoughts of the blatant, unnecessary damage being done or the hundreds of millions of public dollars being wasted or the big increment of the overdevelopment-inducing multi-lane coastal highway that the tunnels represent might also be able to use your services as arbiter of appropriate behavior.

Carl May

Tunnel excavation begins Sept 17 with a public event

You’re right, Sam. Tomorrow morning I’ll check my eyes, ears, and brains on the way out the door and let my nose take me to the last surviving wild rose on the midcoast so I can have a good sniff. By then it might be late enough to head over to Redwood city without getting clogged in Half Moon Bay traffic, where I’ll initiate the procedure to change my middle name to “Pollyanna.”

Carl May

Tunnel excavation begins Sept 17 with a public event

No question, the well-meaning urban mindset can work something like this into a positive rather than recognize it for the slower-growing (vs. the unlamented bypass) environmental and economic cancer it really is.

Carl May

Tunnel excavation begins Sept 17 with a public event

Yeah, let’s all get out there and cheer and give thanks for the oversized mess and overextended delay, unnecessary scale of coastal land destruction, waste of hundreds of millions of dollars, and setup for a four-lane highway from Montara to Pacifica.

Carl May

Montara and Moss Beach homeowners with wells have no other options

With apologies to any who have previously seen this message sent in response to a private e-mail.

Could it be any plainer? Montara and Moss Beach are overpopulated in terms of water supply. Long has it been so. But consider this: a community is not properly served with water if it cannot meet minimal needs for health and safety in the *leanest* water years, not just the generally average years during which most recent shortages have been experienced. So MMB should be using water availability during the drought years of the mid-to-late 70’s or even drier times for its baseline and incorporating that into community planning (not just water/sanitary district planning). Water is just one of the basic resources and ecosystem services that should have been assessed quantitatively as the initial process in revising the county’s LCP for our area, but it makes a pretty good subject for focus.

I do feel compassion for people like the Skowrons. After all, the house they bought had a well that had been approved by the county. It is only natural for newcomers to an area to assume government is operating with some authority and expertise and that government approval provides a level of assurance. But we all know how it really works. Local developers/builders own the county’s allegiance and have the county bending over backwards to find ways to let them do what they want to do. It is a roundabout gift to the builders to allow every house that squeaks through a one-time 2.5 gpm well test into the already oversubscribed water system on an emergency basis when the well fails. Let the county truck water from Planning Department faucets in Redwood City to these people if it cannot act responsibly in dealing with our local resources.

Carl May

CCWD director sends anonymous hate mail to HMB planning commissioner

“...may also be getting a pass...”

C’mon, Barry, you know the majority of voters that chose the current ruling combine in the CCWD will give him a pass--those who even chance to hear about this little embarrassment, that is. From backstabbing coffee shop prattle to the dirty-trick ad next to Jonathan Lundell’s in the Review, this is standard fare for some local politicians who are re-elected time and again. And obviously excusable according to the unpublicized editorial policies of the local newspaper that favors them. You can only surmise this kind of thing doesn’t bother, and may even serve, their core constituency.

Carl May

Harbor Village is opening soon

<<With 450 parking spaces, the mall expects to get a significant amount of its revenue from Coastsiders looking for food, clothing, and housewares.>>

Oh, sure, I’m going to beat it right down to spend my hard-earned at a place that is blocking coastal views, is adding acres of hardscaping, will make midcoast traffic even worse, will compete with existing local businesses, will house and cater to free-spending YUPs and tourons willing to pay elite prices, will further draw down scarce coastal resources, etc.

I don’t go to businesses in Half Moon Bay that are inconvenient to reach and have always been on the side of making my Montara and Moss Beach communities and surroundings worse, so why would I go to this new mistake on the landscape? Nope, I’ll continue to patronize handy businesses in Montara/Moss Beach when possible and in Pacifica, where I work.

Carl May

Photo: Can you identify this shark?

I was referring to the Pacific porbeagle, aka the salmon shark. (It seems to be at least a bit unsettled as to whether or not the Atlantic porbeagle and the salmon shark are distinct, separate species.) At this size, this one could be a juvenile Pacific porbeagle that does not yet have the dark spots in the light ventral areas. Might also be a small/juvenile mako for all I know. The dorsal fin shape and the stockier body are more in the porbeagle gestalt. From the photo I can’t see whether or not there is the diagnostic ridge on the caudal fin. One author, noting the frequent confusion between the two species, called the porbeagle a “fako.”

Carl May

Photo: Can you identify this shark?

Also nothing close to an expert, but it looks to me like it might be a small porbeagle.

Carl May

Letter: Filbert St. crosswalk in the crosshairs

Highway 1 in a trench, even with pedestrian and vehicle overcrossings, has still been a moderate disaster for the communities in the northern half of Pacifica. The freeway trench represents a noisy barrier, an inconvenience, that the crossings can’t overcome, harming community cohesion and business on both sides.

The details in HMB are different, of course. But be careful of the powers that take over ideas and turn them into self-benefitting messes, like the monsterpiece the twin-tunnel project has become.

Carl May

Pacifica Quarry developer in his own words

As was already obvious, Peebles is just another self-absorbed developer so engrossed in enriching himself that he is incapable of learning anything about the world beyond the end of his nose. He spent “evil” amounts of money trying to con Pacifica’s voters into a terrible deal that would have, without question, worsened their quality of life. After reading his select comments, I can’t imagine any Pacifican who voted against changing their local regulations to allow his self-serving scheme will be anything but more certain they voted the right way.

But the quarry area and the highway past it is one of those beckoning areas that will always be fogged in a mist of potential dollar signs. Even now, after the defeat of Peebles’s latest attempt to overdevelop, the Pacifica City Council has instigated a highway-widening study which, if carried through to more lanes (rather than improving the intersections that are the current problem and opposing further population growth on the midcoast and in Pacifica that will cause Pacifica’s southern stretches of Highway 1 to lack capacity in the future) will remove one obstacle and grease the skids for developers like Peebles in the quarry area. Where rich people stand to make money, issues, environmental and social, are never settled until they finally get their way. It takes constant effort to see that they don’t.

Pacificans did win something. They won additional time at a higher quality of life than would have resulted from Peebles getting richer at their expense.

Carl May

Video: Caltrans geologist explains Devil’s Slide

The overall landslide is longer at road level that where they bolted the retaining walls to rods pushed into the hillside. One point is that this and other kinds of roadbed stabilization *together* with removal of the excess storm water that makes the slide slide might well have saved hundreds of millions of dollars in twin tunnel construction, hundreds of thousands to millions per year in operations and upkeep of the tunnels, acres of environmental disruption, years of time, etc.--to say nothing of conforming much better to what flimsy environmental laws we have, including the Coastal Act.

But the fact of the tunnels makes discussion of alternatives moot except to keep the learning experience alive for those able to study, think, and maintain principle over politics. I’m glad the coastside is not of one voice, because when HMB was of one voice for so many years after its incorporation, it was the ugliest, greediest, most destructive voice imaginable for a town that once had a chance to be so much better. Playing to politicians and bureaucrats by gathering communities into one front in order to be more effective with them has it exactly backwards--those bozos are supposed to be serving us!

Carl May

Video: Caltrans geologist explains Devil’s Slide

Darin et al.,

Some may not have been paying attention, and the old HMB crowd refused to pay attention, but the geology of the major landslide on Devil’s Slide was extensively studied and then explained almost as extensively for more than two decades. Local geological engineer Bill Bechtell of Montara did a beautiful job of explaining landslide dynamics and relating them to Devil’s slide in public meeting after public meeting. He drew on both the large geologic field of landslide studies and engineering knowledge of how landslides are handled when people want to do something about them.

Beyond Bill’s synthesis, extensive studies and debates were conducted on the makeup of Devil’s Slide. The groups opposing the bypass hired several geologists over a period of years to analyze and report on the situation, and yet more local geological expertise was drawn in from the USGS. Environmental studies for the proposed bypass and its possible alternatives added yet more. Much of this information poured out in public meetings and in several rounds of draft and final environmental impact statements for the bypass project. The HMB library’s reference section carried multiple copies of much of it for years.

During the multiple rounds of the bypass debate, the last people anyone went to for objective geologic information on Devil’s Slide was Caltrans, where the in-house geologists during the years the bypass was debated always skewed their reports to suit their bureaucratic bosses.

I quite realize that coastsiders of perhaps the past ten years have not availed themselves of all the existing information and that they are wet behind the ears in dealing with Caltrans and its PR apparatus. In fact, I speculate some in the more recent environmental crowd rolled over for the interstate-sized and unnecessary underground freeway of the twin tunnels out of ignorance of both the landslide and of Caltrans’s bureaucratic culture.

The demon in Devil’s Slide is, and has been for decades, a mythical construct of Caltrans abetted by overdevelopment advocates and whatever others they can con into going along with their massive agency--a state agency with a larger budget than the *entire* individual budgets of well over half the states in the U.S. The cursory dismissal of dewatering and reinforcement of the roadbed after Measure T passed put the final “win” clearly on the side of the big spenders at Caltrans and those wanting a multi-lane highway onto the midcoast from the north. The geology of the landslide, the basics of which have been known for several decades now, has never been the main issue.

Carl May

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