Comments by Kevin Barron

Devil’s Slide closed for cliff rescue

By the way, it was at the very very top of the Slide. I hope the person is ok. There was another gentlemen in a sling looking shaken up, but ok. The other, they were preparing the cables, lift and equipment.

Devil’s Slide closed for cliff rescue

Apologies here the site:

http://cad.chp.ca.gov/

Can be a bit cryptic at times, but you see SO, HMB PD, CHP, and CalTrans inter-communication.

Devil’s Slide closed for cliff rescue

Actually Barry.. I just got home to check the CHP site… coming from Pacifica.. what I experience was one-lane traffic control.

Likewise the CHP traffic site (what I live by, when I hear the sires) lists the situation as follows:

Incident:  1344 Type:  Provide Traffic Control Location:  SR1 AT DEVILS SLIDE Zoom Map:  726 6F info as of:  4/28/2008 3:56:33 PM
ADDITIONAL DETAILS
3:55PM 1039 DOTCC
3:47PM 1039 DOTCC
3:30PM REQ CHP FOR TRAFFIC CONTROL
3:30PM SO WORKING CLIFF RESCUE//BICYCLIST OVER EDGE

Dream Machines 2008

Fantastic pictures. Well done Christopher!

State Senate passes Lantos tunnel-naming bill

Not shocking… politicians patting each other on the back… a la the Lou Papan stretch of highway in Pacifica.

I find it compelling that reps get lord knows what named after them, despite the plush-yet-mediocre job they seem to have/do. And that’s not my opinion… Tom Lantos’ own Congress, led by his own party, of which he was a ‘senior’ member of… has an approval rating of 19% ... over 1/3 lower than President Bush’s approval rating… so where does that leave Lantos and his peers? There are some highlights to his record, I won’t argue that… but with 27 years in one of the highest revenue producing districts in the United States… enough said.

It’s always so easy to push these through postmortem. At least have the fortitude to name landmarks while they are still in office and their record/performance is up for grabs? Yet politicians, once again, pat each other on the back, and bestow yet another landmark honor.

You may as well rename the stretch of road from Montara-to-HMB the Jackie Speier Highway… just get it over with.

See “An Inconvenient Truth” in HMB free this week

For what it’s worth… thinking it’s now even two more years later since this posting...and Al Gore still won’t debate publicly on anything he lays claim to (nor privately) any politician, scientist, or any lackey that he should be able to slaughter cerebrally (since after all he won the Nobel Prize on the subject). He’s got some good stuff/intentions, but whom better to go head-to-head with proponents. Call me kooky, but something is still awfully awry here.

Few find this odd, also given his senatorship nor presidential candidacy had little/nothing to do with the paramount threat to mankind he’s benefited so much off of.

What’s there to lose Al...? Why is this shown as gospel and fact, when it is yet to be validated nor debated. It’s like the San Mateo County Board pushing through on an coastside agenda, with no opportunity for expert rebuttal.

Coastside firefighters’ pay averaged $155,000 per year in 2007

Barry wrote: The starting salary for a Vallejo firefighter is about $70,000 a year, among the highest in the state. Ten firefighters earned more than $200,000 each last year, including overtime, city officials said.

Once again, my point on the “overtime” racket that is going on in many districts across the state. What I find odd/compelling, is with so much overtime going on, and the golden opportunity for the media to latch on to a story of our safety being compromised by overworked emergency personnel…

...how come we never see anyone from these districts complain?

Have you seen this video yet?

Even Ann Coulter says Hillary is more conservative than McCain.. interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuTqgqhxVMc

Representative Tom Lantos dies

Growing up here, he was pretty much the only “regular” thing in local politics… mayors, state senators, US senators, etc… Term limits aside, would be good to see a summation of what exactly he did for almost 30 years for his district.

Coastside firefighters’ pay averaged $155,000 per year in 2007

Additionally, I know quite a few firefighters, and have never heard one complain about their overtime. Only when they get pulled in to fight grass/forest fires, AKA work in difficult tiresome and dangerous conditions.

Coastside firefighters’ pay averaged $155,000 per year in 2007

You see this in just about every fire district in the state, and it’s getting worse. Why do you think THOUSANDS of people stand in lines for firefighting open requisitions?
There always seems to be a perfect opportunity for overtime, as this graph illustrates… despite the criticality of the fire department, many are allowed to post ridiculous hours, not sure if there are restrictions on overtime… or what the issue is with scheduling, much less hiring one additional person. The base salary for captains looks to be $100K… 8 captains getting anywhere from $25K to $65K. What am I missing, in not hiring at least 2 additional captains??? It’s always been a total racket. The hours, the overtime, the actual work. Reminds me of supermarket workers getting triple pay putting price tags on soup cans because it’s a Sunday and a holiday at the same time. Private companies operating that way… perhaps only Google could afford to operate in this fashion.
Good to see some rhetoric on here around cost-of-living adjustments for firefighters here (despite the overtime racket)… where’s this same candor for teachers???? Teachers who are local, make less than 50%, don’t get the overtime opportunities, can’t bill/account for grading papers at home at 10PM, for staying after school to have to meet with parents on our snot-nosed kids ill behavior…

Coastside election results

Dennis well taken, but I’ll caveat that with “as many folks as possible who understand what they are voting for.”

Voting is a right, not a privilege… but at the same time it is our civic duty to be informed of what we are voting on…

It was easy to figure out the interface, but I found it odd as it just seemed very non-intuitive via making it idiot proof, flywheel aside. Not sure how much a flywheel helps over a touchscreen, much less dragging a pen across a broken arrow… but no need to go into logistics and the ADA of ‘80. Looks like it gave a number of folks in Redwood City something to do over the course of the last 2 or 3 years.

Thankfully, we don’t have 3 votes separating the MWSD outcome and the confusion of voting flywheel thereof… otherwise, we’d see Coastsider.com’s disk space at capacity on the threading/posting thereof.

Coastside election results

I don’t know, but to me ...keep it simple. The more ‘they’ try, the more simplistically confusing it becomes. Not to recount Florida ‘00… but it seems the voting machines, and many other forms of technology that is coming out these days, that the greater good tries to prevent some citizens from being the “disenfranchised” albeit across the myriad of socio-economic criteria, moreover, the absence of intelligence capital are overly simplified, attempting to serve and protect the lowest common denominator.

Not sure, but if you can’t figure out the most simplistic of voting processes… how in the WORLD are you somehow qualified and knowledgeable to evaluate, measure, and decide upon a measure which requires revenue from the issuance and underwriting of 3 series of general obligation bonds and their effect upon and from taxation and tax revenue across the various municipalities it effects, including yours. Course..., those may be the same ppl that still can’t seem to figure right-of-way, much less that the posted speed limit also serves as a referral for flow of traffic.

SF Bay Oil Spill - Info From Surfrider

“Also I saw this in the news.  It picks on the coast guard, which I am not ready to do yet “

Anneliese’s reference is paramount to the armchair-quarterbacking on every government agency’s response time, press release, official’s comments, approach, reaction, proposal, solution, and/or allocation of funds… it reminds me how ridiculous it can get. In the end, it creates civic organizations which require so much delicate tip-toe’ing, careful verbiage, and organizational bloat and process to ensure the public firing squad doesn’t hold the accountable for the slightest mis-step.

Coastside election results

Interestingly, not much comment on how cumbersome those voting machines were, in lieu of trying to make everything “idiot proof” it seemed be an O/S written for monkeys. Not be critical, but wow… it was operating system from another time. A flywheel?

Caltrans may end “free” right turns onto Hwy 92 for HMB commuters

>>Talk to anyone north of HMB and the issue is getting to 92, which usually takes in excess of an hour. Getting on to Route 1 in El Granada sometimes takes 45 minutes alone.

And it’s always some jamoke with his/her still unwarmed car who leaks on 1… and crawls at 25 MPH… or during stop&go;traffic doing their makeup, or getting dressed, or what have you. Everyone should take it upon themselves to put ontheir “A” game of driving… the leisure time you take in thusly creatin a casual gap of 60 feet between you and the car in front of you as you realize “oh it’s my turn” is inconsiderate for those behind you… and only compounds the problem… the right turn lane is actually one of the easier parts of the drive, but yes making it fair for both ppl on the South side and North side seems equitable to me.

Also, good to see the HMBPD nabbing ppl doing the ol’ cut into the turn lane onto 92 at the last minute. 

Un Dia Sin Immigrantes (A Day Without Immigrants)

There is some great rhetoric here, but much of what is highlighted is indicative of this “not being on the same page” I see across all mediums regarding the issue… or at least I THOUGHT I knew what the original issue is/was. I noticed the ‘reactionary’ posts are about ILLEGAL immigration, yet the counter posts are all about immigration in general. Huh?

Let’s re-focus that the issue is about illegal immigration. All these data points, some legit, and some from agencies with clear agendas and paybacks, are in support for immigration in general. Fine, but last I knew there wasn’t a significant outcry to SHUT the borders down altogether.

Once again, we see “A Day Without Immigrants”, odd… given what legislation is trying to push, it should of read “A Day Without Illegal Immigrants”. So let’s look at some myth/fact on that, to see if there is substantial issue around that. I’m not going to fill this thread with stats from the “Univ. of _______ study” on the $10B tax deficit illegals create, prison populations, crime rates and so forth.

Personally, I don’t think the government needs sweeping reform replete with congressional grandstanding of some Rep representing a border district with media-in-tow, with their chests puffing out belting out their either ‘for’ or ‘against’ reform position…

...how about just enforcing the LAW that is ALREADY in place? It pretty clear, just casually start funding and enforcing the law and supporting agencies thereof. Trying to sweep out millions of illegal citizens with one fell swoop of legislation and then the setting up some governement special agency to carry it out… is laughable at best. Just turn the heat up a bit on what we have in place now, and slowly, but deftly clean things up.

Caltrans expects Devil’s Slide design and timeline in about two weeks

I’m not sure CalTrans has to move any quicker. There is a huge difference between Northridge and our lil’ Coastside. For one, Northridge was a major event or the state/nation. Ours is a local/micro concern. Second, the number of citizens effected by freeway closures/limitations in Northridge were in the hundreds of thousands, if not over a million.... we’re less than 25,000. Ergo, the civilian population was effected, and moreover the economic impact to Northridge (or any SoCal freeway for that matter) was significant. Other than local ma/pa business and a very light level of industry… there’s little cost/benefit for CalTrans to divert $$$/resources to the Slide… with regard to the greater good to the OVERALL welfare of the State of California Besides, most of us on the coast have known a washout/slide could someday happen again, yet we stayed put, and for some worked on dragging out the tunnel as long as humanly possible.

Yes, two weeks may seem like a long time, but you’d want them to get it right, so as to set expecations and allows us all to make alternate plans.

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