Comments by Carl May

Why I don’t do polls on Coastsider

Identifying the population one wishes to sample with a poll, determining a statistically valid sample of that population, and wording questions for the sample so that they produce objective, relevant information is some of the stuff of polling. Entire companies are built on developing and implementing polls that produce reliable results.

The sad part is that the sloppily-created, unreliable polls on local controversies that the Review has conducted from time to time are presented and read by many as if they indicate something about the overall HMB or midcoast populace.

Carl May

When did the minimum become sufficient?

Joel,

You may be part of a community that cares about the park; but you are not a citizen of HMB nor are the HMB politicos responsible to you. You can’t vote for them, and they are making decisions on city property involving city money according to city land use regulations and city policies. In other words, you have no standing and no juice regarding the park.

Overall, this is a good thing if we can use the same principle to keep HMB government out of the affairs of the unincorporated midcoast. Then we have only one irresponsible, absentee government, the county, to deal with instead of two with regard to community parks not associated with schools.

Carl May

When did the minimum become sufficient?

The points about community are that there are many kinds of communities based on numerous, often interacting, factors (geographic, social, religious, ethnic/national origins, governmental, and beyond) and one cannot impose their assumptions and particular sense of community onto others. Where there are not commonalities, people will not associate in the same communities. By this token, one cannot expect those outside their personal communities to support their community-centric ideals and activities.

There may be a self-assembled midcoast community with an interest in a centrally located city park in HMB, but there is no all-encompassing midcoast community with such an interest.

Carl May

When did the minimum become sufficient?

“You also seem to resent folks from the Midcoast poking into the city’s business. We’re not all one city, but we are all one community. “

Over thirty three years of making my home in Montara and Moss Beach, I have never considered myself to be a member of a Half Moon Bay community nor of any of the several different communities in HMB that some define. Not even when I had an office in the Miramar district of HMB for 19 years. In fact, I have never considered myself to be part of El Granada or Princeton communities. There is no compelling geographic reason to be part of those communities if, in fact, one is not within their boundaries. And the voting patterns of the several named and neighboring geographic communities are often quite distinct, so politically, and one might extend this to many social issues, there is no well-defined single community. Our different controlling governments are also differently structured and have differing policies and regulations in many areas. Only the school district covers the entire midcoast, including HMB--but it also covers a distinctly separate and distant community on Kings Mountain.

All this is not to say one might not feel part of a single midcoast community--that feeling, after all, is part of an individual’s personal outlook. But it is clearly wrong to assume there is, factually, a single coastside community that includes everyone in the unincorporated areas and Half Moon Bay.

I see the park controversy as a City of Half Moon Bay issue. Although I might have some philosophical views and opinions on the matter, it does not concern any community of which I am a part and is none of my governmental business as a citizen. We who describe ourselves as members of one of the several communities in the county part of the midcoast have plenty of park problems of our own, should any of us wish to spend time in that area of concern.

As far as voting in the Review’s poll goes, even if I did feel I had a stake in the city park issue, I wouldn’t vote because of the loose and unreliable way the paper’s polls are, and have always been, structured. Talk about setups for stuffing the “ballot box”!

Carl May

Opinion: Everything I know about Coastside politics I learned from Half Moon Bay High

Politics in the City of HMB have always been high schoolish, with sporadic movements to detrivialize city affairs eventually subdued by the old ruling clique.

Carl May

Exclusive video:  HMB City Council prepares to kill Pilarcitos Creek park site

And some still wonder why most of us who have lived a while in the distinct unincorporated communities to the north don’t want to be annexed to our southern neighbor, HMB, in spite of long-time- bad government by the county.

The fire is not an attractive alternative to the frying pan.

Carl May

Prepare for a detour on Devil’s Slide

Could they possibly figure out how to spend more money unnecessarily (unnecessary in view of what would have been more reasonable fixes for the landslide)? How about a suicide barrier where the green-phase retaining wall will take the roadbed out over the current edge? (The Golden Gate Bridge authority can recommend a consultant for any agency with money.) Or maybe an eight-foot-high mosaic Caltrans logo in gold nuggets on the wall for all the fishing boats and ships to see?

Carl May

Fire districts face a staffing crisis

Rally the community? Sorry, Leonard, I only have one life to waste.

It would, however, have been interesting to see how the MMB community would have voted (without rallying cries) at the time in the late 90’s that the partially unelected three-member board started the Point Montara District on the road to dissolution into HMB/EG’s district. You know, before the squirming around with the “neighbors” managed to eliminate some options and help work the district into a tighter straightjacket.

Carl May

Fire districts face a staffing crisis

Mine is not revisionist history. We never had these troubles in Point Montara until a couple of boards in succession got goofy with district management after we voted a substantial tax on ourselves in the 90’s. One of these boards voted an insane (for the small district) jump in management salaries after the tax was approved. The next board, with one member out of three who was appointed and not even elected by the citizens, then decided to solve things by abandoning the district through a several-stage consolidation program with a neighboring district down the coast--a neighboring district with monumental internal problems, including personnel problems, of its own. Yes, citizens can be blamed for electing board members to do tasks neither they nor the board members appear to understand very well, but they can’t be blamed for the unelected Point Montara board member who was probably the most public and vocal of all in favor of consolidation. As I recall, that guy never did manage to get elected in ensuing elections, did he?

I love it how people assume others should come up with answers to problems created partially by local mismanagement under the assumption all must now live with the mismanagement--accepting all that goes into HMB-style station calculations for example. Or answers to problems caused by external factors such as state-level money grabs out of local districts. Or answers to gross stupidities in government costs and requirements caused by lack of a population plan and other governmental elements needed for any kind of sustainability for our area. I have given plenty of examples in the past of small, mostly rural, districts in California that endure through local support and cooperative arrangements--not that they necessarily have the answers to our particular, somewhat self-imposed mess but that they demonstrate some sorts of solutions can be found in spite of state hegemony over tax money.

Viewed objectively from the standpoint of the individual citizen, California, overall, is a train wreck in progress--economically, environmentally, and governmentally. Although some small subpopulations “get it,” the likelihood the state’s electorate will wake up to the fundamental factors fueling the slow charge to Hell is close to nil. The second best thing we can hope for is for wakeful geographic subpopulations to get as much control over their local situation as possible in order to do relatively better than the masses engaged in the general decline, a decline that will become ever more expensive as artificial, urban systems increasingly dominate. No one knows better what is suitable for a locality than the locals, as out-of-the-area county government in Redwood City demonstrates every day.

Carl May

Letter: “The Bluff”

Richard,

In the end, you’ll probably end up with at least a narrow “ad hoc” trail down that landslide. That will be better than the casual road that once went down there--is the car that couldn’t make it out still visible down there, or is it completely covered? In any event, I’d prefer a casual trail there. Many people would not like the route, anyway, as there is often a real soft muddy place the last few feet down to the beach where the landslide drains.

You may have noticed that, like most state agencies, the Coastal Conservancy likes to maximize the size (and, therefore, the cost) of its projects and the projects it funds. If it did fund a formal trail to the beach, it would most likely be oversized and, indeed, cause more disruption to the landscape than necessary. They really don’t understand the terms “single track” or “footpath” where that might be the best size for an acceptable trail. That landslide, being a classically and continuously disturbed area has been pampas grass hell for many years. While it will continue to move, being one of the places of most active bluff retreat on the entire California Coast in recent times, I’m happy to see someone at least wanting to revegetate it with natives. This will help create more of a situation in which the beach, Frenchman’s Reef, and the other intertidal areas below get more of a natural rate of material from the bluffs and big landslide.

One reason the intertidal area below these bluffs is in better shape than in the part of Fitzgerald in Moss Beach where the parking lot and rangers hut is located is because it is visited less, much less. It will probably be best if we do not have a wide, signed trail channeling more people to it (which, incidentally is another reason to oppose the new parking area and trail to the ridgetop just over the ridge on Airport Road). You’ll still know the route.

Carl May

Fire districts face a staffing crisis

Let’s not forget that the unhappy situation is largely the result of mismanagement by the boards and the officers they hired over the past decade, creating an unhappy situation for the people, the firefighters, actually doing the work of the department. Before all the board shenanigans that disrupted the operations of long-enduring districts and led to the push for consolidation of the coastside districts, a firefighters job was one of the better local ways to earn a living.

So now the boards have created a self-satisfying situation--they can, in desperation, only hire the outside help they have been wanting to hire in spite of the objections (and in the face) of of the firefighters who have been serving us. Gee, I really want a truck full of tired people who have been insulted and pounded into the ground answering my emergency. Thanks, boards.

The several local firefighters I know about who have left the two departments have not been “cherry-picked” by other agencies. They would have preferred to work where they live. They are leaving to get away from what they claim is a relatively bad situation, in spite of the costs for any who continue to live on the coast.

Suing government to have one’s grievances addressed is one of those First Amendment things. If anyone is to blame, it is most often those who caused the grievances and not citizens who are exercising their rights. Does anyone imagine horsing around with union lawsuits is how local firefighters want to spend their precious (because of pulling extra work due to the low staffing) free time?

Carl May

Darin’s Monday Photo: Hawk and Raven

Darin,

Every year at the north parking lot of Montara State Beach we have ravens that have learned to perch on the edge of the garbage cans and pull up the poly bag liners until they can get at what was dropped to the bottom. (Can’t help but notice your shot is in a place where birds might be exploiting a human-created situation.)

The raven aerobatics (plus those of other birds) above the ridges of Montara Mountain can be sensational. Throughout the coastside, smaller birds often harrass (notorious nest-robbing) ravens, and ravens, in turn, are often seen harrassing hawks (something that happens in my neighborhood frequently, with the hawk involved sometimes being driven out of a tree to the ground). Then there was the scene last week in which three seagulls were taking turns diving from above at a redtail hawk hovering almost motionless over a ridge above the ocean, coming within maybe 4-6 feet on each dive but failing to move the hawk from position.

Carl May

Letter: “The Bluff”

May I suggest that you get a copy of the material being circulated that describes what POST is proposing for the property rather than getting your information from the Review? Access to the property, which is not the entire ridgetop north from the tracking station to the houses, would not be lost by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t necessarily endorse the overall plan and believe a lot of the proposed money would be wasted on such things as the parking area and new trail up from airport road. But revegetating most of the crisscrossing ad hoc offroad vehicle roads, which are currently in no way natural and will continue to erode and provide opportunity for destructive non-native plants, must at least be considered thinking in the right direction.

This ridgetop was even farmed at one time before industrial recreationists started their own brand of damage with their vehicles. Quibbles aside, POST might be engaged in one of the rare “environmental” attempts hereabouts to actually make a place better (more natural) rather than less worse.

Carl May

Anonymous tipster vexes HMB City Hall

Given the possible inside knowledge, might this be one or more local HMB whistleblowers trying to avoid the “kill the messenger” consequences that often befall such people?

Carl May

Coastside fights global warming with a Montara beach party

What do the terms “liberal” and “conservative"--and, especially, political claims to and spin on those terms--have to do with understanding physical phenomena and adjusting activities based on that understanding?

Carl May

Coastside fights global warming with a Montara beach party

Lots of people confuse “climate” with “weather,” which can lead to ridiculous comments like “There was a record low temperature today--so much for the global warming whackos.”

Carl May

Video:  Design Review Committee rejects two houses on Birch Street in Montara

“Why is it that developers all seem to come from the same gene pool?”

Don’t know, but because there are few exceptions, it becomes easier to and more legitimate to paint them all with the same brush in one’s comments. The only caveat is to keep one’s mind open for those exceptions.

Carl May

Coastside fights global warming with a Montara beach party

No question, matters of future climate change are probabilistic and based on (ever-more-refined) models. Also no question that Earth’s surface, as a whole, is warming (though warming much more quickly in some regions than others) and that carbon dioxide and other significant greenhouse gas molecules partially contributed by artificial human activity are increasing in concentration in the atmosphere.

When it comes to assessing risk, Americans are particularly dingbatty among the “educated” First World countries. (Perhaps that has something to do with scoring near the bottom of the heap in assessments of science and math abilities among those countries, perhaps not.) In any event, there is sometimes a huge emotional hubbub over a “threatening” event with very little probability of harming anyone at all, such as an old satellite falling out of orbit, and high degrees of denial that anything is wrong when massive amounts of evidence and high probabilities indicate that it is, such as global climate change. We are willing to set safety standards for air travel and safety and efficacy standards for forms of health care where the odds of anyone being harmed are far lower than for various effects of global climate change.

At the risk of disrupting feel-good, head-in-the-sand denials or faith-based speculation by introducing just one of the major scientists with decades of experience in this area, including trying to inform the public of the basics of the issues, some might be interested in this website:
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu

Carl May

Sierra Club director speaks out on LCP update

The fact that those who wish to make the midcoast worse through more overdevelopment and population growth are here to stay does not create a need to help them with infrastructure expansion. That only facilitates and accelerates their life-wrecking activities.

Carl May

Sierra Club director speaks out on LCP update

Of course, reducing the number of cars and trucks during the commute crunch accomplishes an improvement in traffic flow without having to spend on destructive and grossly expensive road expansions that will eventually lead to more and worse traffic. Population growth in California has been and is stimulated by infrastructure expansion (inevitably with the promotion of growth by developers, the self-serving engagement in the growthg game by politicians and bureaucrats, and a mouth-breathing adherence to the growth ethic by the public).

There are no practical, working checks to keep development and population to sustainable levels. Infrastructure expansion is merely a way to get the public to subsidize development. When an area is already overdeveloped and unsustainable for the kinds of artificial activities going on in it, any growth is degrading, and the growth rate is simply a way of stating the rate at which things will get worse.

Anyone truly serious about wanting to make life on the midcoast better cannot avoid consideration of how to make the human population here sustainable. An increase in population, cars, and hardscaping and a decrease in finite natural resources and ecosystem services--and infrastructure expansion to serve these life-and-environment-worsening increases and decreases on the midcoast--can only make the place worse than the unsustainable situation it already is. One cannot clean up by making more of a mess. Smart shrinkage of the midcoast population is the sensible course for the future, and even those who only see the world through the headlights of their jammed-together autos would get better lives along with everyone else.

Carl May

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