Comments by Darin Boville

Supervisor Gordon plans to defer MCC appointments to Jan 27 meeting

Kevin,

I think it is rash to accuse (as I interpret your cryptic comment) Chair Leonard Woren as being a member of the “pro-builder lobby.”

He seems to have made his views abundantly clear--he is nothing of the sort.

--Darin

Analysis: CUSD likely to start growing soon, becoming majority Hispanic

Hi Jonathan,

I’m curious about the last two charts in your analysis--the ones that project enrollment out ten years. Although you cite Ed-Data as the source for the charts I didn’t see the projections there so I’m assuming they are yours.

Could you share the methodology you used to develop these?

I see that your charts differ in enrollment by about 1000 students (You used different methodologies for each chart? Or the same methodology produced different results?) and also that not only will Hispanics be a majority (Hispanics are almost there now, of course) but by 2018, in ten years, they will constitute about two thirds of the student body with Whites making up only about 25% or so.

Those are dramatic changes, as you suggest, but I’m puzzled why you didn’t attempt to include such obvious factors as the ones you list: “new changes in demographic trends, the bursting housing bubble, changes in local employment patterns, and the state of the economy generally.”

These left-out factors might prove very important. For example, the rise in home values over the past ten years probably contributed to “white flight,” allowing parents to borrow against their rising home values to pay for expensive private schools. That might not be so easy now and that change in borrowing ability might contribute to a decrease in the rate of “white flight.” Or even an increase in White enrollment.

I just looked over the historical charts for home prices in California and it seems the escalation (the “bubble") started right about the time that White enrollment began its decline. The possibility of a correlation is intriguing and if so would certainly have a big effect on any projection--and would work against your conclusion.

Another example is demographic changes. Your projections require a large increase in the number of Hispanic children to come true. That implies either a large increase in the number of Hispanic children born here or a large increase in the number if Hispanic people moving to this area (to name the two most obvious possibilities). Hospital records of increased birth rates or evidence of expectations of increased labor demand would go far to validate such projections.

If you left out all of these factors I’m curious about the ones you *did* include. Can you tell us more about your projection methodology?

Thanks,

--Darin

HMB High’s dropout rate soars under new reporting system

>>I am still waiting, since 5 November 2007, for some explanation of your ‘disinformation’ campaign!

My intention is not a “personal attack” - it is a friendly ‘intervention’, to get you to face your problem with factually recognizing CUSD’s shortcomings.

Ken Johnson<<

Ken,

I don’t have time to get in a pissing match, nor the interest. You seem convinced that you are the one and only bearer of the truth and yet I’m puzzled that I don’t see you making more use of this gift outside of the chat boards.

I also remain puzzled why you have taken this hostile and inappropriate tone toward me--it certainly falls well below, in my opinion, the standards of behavior promoted by Coastsider.

Finally, readers will want to include in Ken’s “timeline” at least two more data points near to the point of the video.

First is the public announcement (a few days before the video) by the principal at Farallone View that the school was not in Program Improvment:

http://www.cabrillo.k12.ca.us/faralloneview/API_AYP.html

Second is the report in the HMB Review that Farallone View had successfully appealed its designation as being in Program Improvement--this was published a fews days after the video:

http://hmbreview.com/articles/2007/10/18/news/local_news/story10.txt

Thus, as can easily be seen, in the real world the sequence of events and perhaps much else is more complicated than Ken would have us believe.

--Darin

HMB High’s dropout rate soars under new reporting system

>>I am surprised, after CUSD destroyed your credibility, that you are still an apologist for them.<<

My credibility has not suffered at all, Ken. I’m surprised at your zealotry and your personal attack.

--Darin

HMB High’s dropout rate soars under new reporting system

>>The headline and the text make it clear that the reason the reported dropout rate has soared is that the reporting system has changed.<<

But my point is that the *graphic* is not clear and is, perhaps, misleading.

The problem’s root is a confusion over language. We are using “dropout rate” in a sort of common English usage way and then using it again to refer to not one but two different statistical indices.

If you name the indices differently--call the earlier one “Bayless rates” and the new one “Gaskill Rates” then the issue becomes clear--putting a Bayless rate next to a Gaskill rate on a bar graph does not imply that anything has soared or changed--they are different measures.

Yes, you can read the text to see what the chart is *supposed* to be showing--but then what is the point of the chart?

As Jonathan points out in his comment:

>>The new method relies on data that simply wasn’t being collected before, so there’s no way to develop comparable numbers for prior years.

Which is exactly my point. The numbers are not comparable. But yet they are being compared.

As for the larger issues, I’ve tried again and again to flesh out specifics when these discussions have come up over the years with little luck.

I would love to know from CUSD critics and political opponents what *exactly* they feel is being done incorrectly--teaching methods? Poor management (in what way)? Or what?--that is leading to these outcomes.

It would also be nice to hear specific suggestions for change to address these problems.

As it stands (putting the graphic aside) the article only goes as far as to say something akin to “CUSD has long underreported dropout rates--now the truth is revealed"--which I’m not sure gets us very far in terms of an action plan.

--Darin

HMB High’s dropout rate soars under new reporting system

The graph is still misleading--it essentially mixes data types--the “reported drop out rate” prior to the last column is a different beast than the “reported drop out rate” in the last column.

Oh, what would Edward Tufte say!

In any event, if we really want to address the problem we need to dive a bit deeper into the data. Here is the chart that I think Jonathan is referring to:

http://tinyurl.com/6s49o3

And what jumps out is that three fourths of the drop outs are Hispanic (29 out of the 39)--keeping in mind that along the coast here “Hispanic” is almost 100% correlated to other demographic categories (income, language, etc).

So that is interesting.

One question that is raised is when you adjust the chart using the pull-down menu to show the dropouts by exit code it isn’t immediately obvious how they got to 39. My rough count from that display is roughly 29 dropouts by the standards I would normally use for the phrase “dropout.”

Does anyone have the list of codes that comprise “dropouts” according to the reports?

--Darin

HMB High’s dropout rate soars under new reporting system

The chart seems to give a wildly inaccurate impression--suggesting that something happened in the past year that caused a sharp spike in dropouts when in fact it is just an artifact of the change in methods.

The point should be not that the dropout rate has increased but that the dropout rate has always been much higher than admitted (making some assumptions about the missing data).

It would be nice to include data about kids who are “dropouts” only because they haven’t passed the test so we can better compare a recent year (which has testing requirements) with an older year (without testing requirements).

Finally, I assume that economic and other factors which vary from year to year might have an affect on how many immigrant high schoolers return to their home country--given the high percentage of such kids in our schools that movement might play an important role in the data--giving the impression that our schools are failing when in fact other factors may be more dominant.

--Darin

HMB releases financial analysis of Beachwood settlement

fyi, the end of the Piper Jaffray analysis has more detail on the numbers…

--Darin

HMB releases financial analysis of Beachwood settlement

As I have mentioned elsewhere, my copy of the Beachwood Settlement says that if the City of Half Moon Bay pays Keenan $18 million they get two things: 1) The land referred to as Beachwood, and 2) the *option*, recently purchased by Keenan, to buy the land referred to as Glencree.

They don’t get Glencree--just the option. They have to buy Glencree which, based on the option payment, looks like at least $1 million on top of the $18 million.

The Piper Jaffray analysis, however, has HMB building on Glencree without purchasing it.

That missing payment makes the analysis look worse for getting payback out of Beachwood, true, but it does reveal that the analysis is not a reflection of reality.

Another example is their assumption that HMB will play developer and try to develop the lots themselves is silly and no doubt causes the costs to rise well beyond what would actually be the case.

Garbage in, garbage out, as the computer guys say.

--Darin

Letter: Why I support Richard Holober for State Assembly

>>From Gina Papan:
I do not and would not support AB 1991 unless it was amended<<

With all respect, I would characterize Gina’s e-mail as a change in position rather than a clarification of a misstatement.

I went back and reviewed the video and it seems to me that she clearly supports AB 1991 (but hedges a little). The e-mail is clearly in opposition (but hedges a little).

You can make your own interpretation--the portion is at the 24:30 mark of the debate video:

http://www.montarafog.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=153&Itemid=1

--Darin

Meet the Democratic assembly candidates tonight

>>Will you Democrats be asking them how they stand on AB 1991, and why? Do they understand the nature of the precedent for the rest of us who do not live in HMB?<<

Yes, they were asked. I taped it...should be ready by Monday or so. In the meantime, Hill said he wold oppose it in its current form, ditto for Holober (with even more emphasis), Papan says she supports AB 1991.

--Darin

Why the Coastside Fire Board should keep the copyright to tapes of its meetings

Here’s my two cents on the copyright issue.

First, as for my own videos and photographs, no matter whether they are published on Coastsider, Montara Fog, or in any other form--they are copyrighted.

Why? Because I am the one who created those works. I am the one who paid for those works. Artists and content providers aren’t reverse charities. While there may be little to no hope of monetary gain from holding the copyright to certain works--such as government meetings--the principle still holds.

With that in mind I am very generous with my photos and videos, allowing and encouraging wide dissemination with little to nothing asked for in return. I do prevent certain uses--I’ve had several requests for the use of my photos and videos for use in the real estate industry to advertise the attractiveness of our area to buyers and builders. Since I owned my work via the copyright I was able to decline that category of use.

But my view on the copyright question regarding the competing proposals from MCTV and my own Montara Fog is just the opposite.

Why the switch?

Because the public interest far and away outweighs the private interest.

That’s the key issue.

There are exceptions. The government, even though it is paying, doesn’t have to automatically make it public. There are important areas such as in national security and certain kinds of scientific research where it is deemed that the private interest trumps. But this is far and away the exception, not the rule.

What possible case could be made for allowing a private entity to own videos of government meetings paid for by the government? What possible case could you think up that would be powerful enough to outweigh the public’s need to learn what what goes on at these meetings--the whole point in filming them in the first place?

I can think of none.

It is a self-defeating policy to copyright (and thus legally restrict the public’s use of and access to) government-funded videos of government meetings.

--Darin

Why the Coastside Fire Board should keep the copyright to tapes of its meetings

Ahhh, you should try it with a high fever!

--Darin

Supervisor Gordon suggests MCC has “outlived its usefulness”

Kevin,

You wrote: “Here are the endorsements I referred to above:

Rich Gordon endorsed Merrilees, Lieberman, and Ptacek. “

This is news to me. When did Rich Gordon endorse candidates for election?

You also wrote: “That statement was based on the premise that most MidCoast residents don’t want to see another 3400 houses crammed into an area where the infrastructure (roads, schools, waters and sewer) are already overburdened (see link below). “

I think that is close to the mark. But it fails the reality test. Walk around Montara, for example. There’s an awful lot of houses newly built or being built.

It seems to me there are two inter-related parts needed for any strategy for controlling growth here on the coast--and so far only one exists, such as it is.

We are fairly good at slowing and stopping projects (although that claim is increasingly in doubt the more houses I see going up).

Where we have almost totally failed is to shape the growth that we are getting. It’s coming out in a random hodge-podge with no vision at all.

And by not admitting that we will get some level of growth no matter what we really want, we find ourselves opposing so-called “growth inducing” improvements.

You are an economist, Kevin. I’ve had plenty of economics classes. Show me the evidence that a crosswalk in Montara or a bathroom at Surfer’s Beach will induce meaningful growth. I believe such claims to be on the level of fables or reassuring stories that we tell ourselves because it represents (and fits in with) our larger goals of preserving the coast. That is, such stories *represent* something to us rather than serving as an accurate depiction of reality.

What we need is a strategy of controlling growth, stopping bad projects, while at the same time making common-sense improvements on the quality-of-life here on the coast by developing a vision of what the growth we are going to get should look like.

Control growth and shape the growth. We need both parts.

--Darin

Supervisor Gordon suggests MCC has “outlived its usefulness”

Hi Kevin,

I know you don’t agree with Neil Merrilee’s views but are you hinting that something subversive is going on? If so, I don’t see it.

Neil, as you point out, won with 29.1% of the vote in a five-way race. I believe that was the second highest percentage for a candidate in an MCC election ever, only bettered by a tiny fraction by April Vargas in a four-way race, way back when.

He was also endorsed by the whole spectrum of the coastside political establishment--the League for Coastside Protection, Put Community First (the pac of Coastside Community First), and the Half Moon Bay Review.

To my mind the only way to interpret those election results--Neil’s high percentage followed by Deborah Lardie’s--a complete newcomer to coastside politics--is that voters were looking for a change.

I believe the voters still want to see that change reflected in the actions of the MCC.

We’ll see if they get it.

--Darin

UPDATE: Coastsider’s technical difficulties

Hey! Drop the camera all you want but be nice to my tripod!  :)

--Darin

HMB loses $36 million judgement

Here’s a point I’m confused on.

According to the SF Chronicle, the Keenan bought the property in 1993. But the city projects that he claims led to the man-made wetlands occurred in the early 1980s--ten years earlier.

Is that right?

So the wetlands existed at the time Keenan bought the property?

--Darin

Letter: Airliner over Montara?

The stories can be found at the following web addresses for KCBS and the County Times. Here you go:

http://www.kcbs.com/Low-Flying-Jet-Over-Bay-Area-Creates-Alarm/1230023

http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_7509802?source=most_viewed

--Darin

Letter: Airliner over Montara?

It was a promotional flight for a restored jetliner. A poster on the other chat site has links to news reports.

Sorry I missed it!

--Darin

Letter: Sign stealing

I think Neil was saying that there was “selective culling"--if that is the case that would suggest that it wasn’t Caltrans…

--Darin

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