Comments by Darin Boville

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

Sorry, Joel, the joke about Montana was maybe a little obscure.

A few months back some folks from southern California pretended (for pay) to be from Pacifica for the purposes of promoting online their paymaster’s development in Pacifica. I believe they kept getting “Montara” and “Montana” mixed up. Something like that…

See, in Montara even the jokes are about development!

--Darin

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

Ahem. “Montara.”

But welcome--I think I’m your neighbor if I know which house you are talking about--I’m exactly one block away in a straight line, on Birch.

--Darin

Coastside fights global warming with a Montara beach party

A small correction, Ken: The book “The Weather Makers” is by Tim Flannery. I know this because, due to your post, I just ordered the book from Amazon.  Timothy Ferris is, of course, an excellent writer on astronomy.

Thanks for the book suggestion…

--Darin

HMB Fire District outlines shortcomings of referendum petitions

Brent,

Try as I might to get up to speed on the HMBFD issues I always feel I’m walking in in the middle of a conversation. I wonder if you’d mind doing this for the sake of illuminating this debate:

Could you make a (factual!) list of all the major grievences that the line firefighters have with the management/Board to give people like me a sort of starting point. For example, you talk about standing up to poor and corrupt management practices I feel I don’t know enough detail. I don’t need pagaes and pages, just something simple and to the point.

That would be a great starting point and focal point for debate.

--Darin (...trying to understand)

Letter: Workshop Monday night for proposed subdivision near Farallone View

I love the idea.

Humans as a species need to be more a part of the evolutionary selection process.

Turning that four-way intersection just as you approach the school--already getting dangerous for those kids who walk to school--into a FIVE-way is a stroke of genius!

Think of all those drivers, turning aggressive under the pressure to get their kids to school on time. Think of them as they turn aggressive trying to get out of the snarl, turning down Third or now Second as they can, to get to work on time.

A five-way isn’t 1/4th worse than a four-way, it’s more like a tenfold increase in accident potential.

The slow kids, the unobservant kids, the plain old dumb kids won’t have a chance!

Charles Darwin--wait, make that Herbert Spencer--would be proud.

--Darin

What’s wrong with downtown Half Moon Bay?

Interesting lists about the “Carmelization” of HMB downtown.

Much of the debate about HMB downtown seems to say that the current situation is focused on serving the tourists, not locals.

I disagree.

A few weeks ago, about 8 pm on a weeknight, I drive through Carmel. Block after block of open stores. Throngs of people all along the streets, most carrying something--packages, drinks, etc.

Last night I drove through HMB at 8 pm. Block after block of closed stores. Not a single pedestrian.

As far as I can tell, downtown HMB doesn’t do a good job of serving the locals. But downtown HMB also doesn’t do a good job of serving the tourists, either. What *do* the tourists around here do after a day at the beach? Nothing is open…

My guess is that many of the businesses there are “lifestyle” businesses that survive only only so long as the owner’s savings account holds out. The very kind of business that will pay rates on the higher end of the scale and which tend to be less responsive to customer needs.

If we had a local-serving downtown I’d be happy. If we had a mini-Carmel I’d be happy--at least someplace to go and walk around at night! Someplace to take visitors…

We seem to have neither…

--Darin

What’s wrong with downtown Half Moon Bay?

My growing concern, based upon the events surrounding the Chai shop, is that the City Council in Half Moon Bay, or at least the majority on the Council, do not feel it is their role to shape or control the types of stores and shops that make up the downtown area.

It is almost as if they are repeating some whispered free-market ideology that they agree with but haven’t fully thought through.

This may be fun for tenured professors and for think tank fellows but it is a recipe for disaster at the local level where elected officials really have to *govern.*

I have no doubt that each of the members of the HMB City Council desires to do the right thing by the community. But I sense a Rasputin amongst us, literal or figurative.

What I want in a leader is someone able to articulate an attractive vision of the future and one who will weild the power the people have given them to achieve that future.

Governing is about making choices, not about tweaking the forces of supply and demand as all of the character is sucked from our community.

--Darin

Video: Elephant Seals at Año Nuevo

Hey Donald,

Did things get any clearer when you saw two of them trying to mate at the end of the video?

--Darin

Pacifica sinkhole caused by waves undermining Beach Blvd

A thity foot by eleven foot sinkhole? It’s obvious--take advantage of this opportunity to build an underground parking lot. I bet you could fit four cars in there already--wait a few weeks and and just think what you’d have! Just think of the cost savings!

It is about time that developers started working *with* nature, not against it.

--Darin

Coastsider fights for the right to stream clips from MCTV

Leonard,

Copyright law is more nebulous than that. Here’s your counter-example: Me. I retain copyright to all of my commercial work. Wedding and portrait photographers usually “keep the negatives,” too--you are just paying for the copy of the image, not the image itself (which they retain ownership to).

You’ll also notice that all my work here on Coastsider is copyrighted (though I’m giving away my “Monday Photos” for free for personal use.

The real issue in my mind hinges on the fact that both parties--the HMB City Council and MCTV are supported by public funds and thus the video record of City Council meetings should be available to the public. The current level of availability is low--a single broadcast? You can buy a copy of the tape? C’mon, that is pathetic.

The broadcasts of those meeting need to be available in a real way to the public. MCTV says they can’t afford to put them on the Internet. We do it here with no additional cost in hardware and about six hours of labor (including shooting the meeting).

--Darin

Photo: Comet on the horizon

To all Coastsiders and visitors:

It looks like it will be clear tonight (Saturday)--I’m planning on viewing the comet again in the paved parking lot above Montara State Beach (across from 3rd street).

If anyone hasn’t seen the comet yet feel free to stop by--I’ll have various scopes and binoculars to share--but feel free to bring your own binoculars, if you have them.

Come see the comet! (Weather permitting...)

Viewing should start right around 5:15 and will be over by 5:45.

Dress warm!

Hope to see you there,

--Darin

Photo: Comet on the horizon

If you missed it, keep trying. Start right around 5:15--I was out tonight at Moss Beach and the people I was with were able to spot it without my help with the naked eye--we also had binoculars, cameras, a spotting scope, and a telescope! The view in the telescope was wonderful.

Keep in mind that my directions are only approximate and that the comet will “set” very quickly. The best thing is to use are binoculars and scan a broad area to the right and below Venus. You’ll see it, weather permitting.

--Darin

Photo: A tree falls in Montara

Of course it made a sound, says God…

--Darin

Comcast says it will upgrade HMB’s cable

I’ve been using Callvantage (just like Vonage) for well over a year now. Very happy except when Comcast is down. An extra benefit is for people like me with many out of town relatives you can share the benefits with them: for $5 I have a local number (local to our out of town relatives) that they can call toll free to reach us--no long distance charges for us or them. Saves hundreds a month, counting all sides.

As for high-def programming, I don’t really care. I’ve also had a large-screen TV for about a year and a half but have yet to hook it up to Comcast--nothing particularly worth watching!

--Darin

Wavecrest resumes farming on Thanksgiving

I support family farming on the coast.

Which reminds me of something a friend said to me yesterday.

If I understand it correctly, preventing the Wavecrest owners from building on their property then that may constitute a “taking.” That’s one point of view, at least.

But now assuming the owners are sincere about making this a for-profit farm (rather than just a dodge on the way to building a big development) haven’t the owners sort of shot themselves in the foot? If this is viable farmland could we simply rule out the development idea and consider farmland vs. wetland?

How about it Terri? How about it Mary? Would you support our local farming heritage by making the Wavecrest property farmland in perpetuity?

Or do you support farming only as a debating tactic, all the while eyeing the land’s potential for new residential development?

--Darin

Wavecrest resumes farming on Thanksgiving

Hi Mary,

Your description of farming here on the coast sounds just like farming elsewhere in the country, such as in Ohio where I grew up, or in Maryland where I lived just prior to moving to California. It can be tough to be a small farmer.

It can also be tough to be a major San Mateo County land investment firm, such as Concar Enterprises, the more aggressive of the trio of owners of the Wavecrest properties (the other two are institutional owners).

Doing a quick Google search shows the Larry and Jeff Atkinson, who run Concar, as very active in the county land investment market but no mention of farming. Once source cited Concar as “building most of the sidewalks in San Mateo County"--no mention of oats, barley, or hay.

Their grandfather was L.C. Smith. The real estate firm at 470 Concar (same address as Concar Enterprises) is no doubt named after him.

So you are suggesting that one or both of the Atkinsons were out there on their day off, plowing their old family farm, living out their heritage, a tear in each eye as they recognize the end of a way of life, a way of life being destroyed by greedy investors who care not one whit about what it means to b a farmer--complicated in an interesting postmodern way by the fact that it is they themselves who are the ones who are doing the destroying? Raw greed meets the fading American agricultural soul, all in one person?

I love your stuff, Mary. Keep it coming.

--Darin

Wavecrest resumes farming on Thanksgiving

There are real questions here, but not about the identity of an anonymous source (an age-old and accepted journalistic practice) nor about those seeking the identity (they are, quite transparently, trying to change the topic and shoot the messenger at the same time).

The real question here is in what way does the disking and seeding of the land at Wavecrest represent a legitimate use of the land versus an attempt to circumvent the law?

As we all recall, many of the questions from the Coastal Commission from the last “holiday disking” centered on whether the disking made sense from a rational business point of view if the real purpose was for-profit farming. That’s what all the questions about the costs of security, etc were about. If the costs were clearly to high to allow any expectation of profit then a reasonable person must assume that there was some other purpose to the disking.

And so here we are today. Another holiday disking. Sigh. At least it wasn’t by tractor headlight this time! All of Terry’s talk of “neighborliness” must be having an effect. George’s talk about respect for the law must be sinking in.

So how does it look from a business point of view--if this really is agriculture? What sort of crop will justify these holiday pay rates for farm workers and security guards? What kind of seeds are they? Opium? Magic bean stalks?

Can you even imagine the legal fees?

Those must be some seeds…

--Darin

School Board candidates square off Monday, Oct 30

>or even Darin Boville’s crude parable a few days ago in Town Hall, where he execrably portrays his political opponents as taking out their male members and urinating on a political discussion.  Incredibly, Darin’s diatribe is delivered as a blinkered lament at the loss of public decorum!<<

Hi Don,

I’m glad you enjoyed my parable. You might want to read it again, and more carefully.

The parable was set in a bar in a town very similar to ours but in that town instead of ejecting the rickus-raisers when the beer got dumped on peoples’ heads it got worse. In that town they fell for the false cry of “censorship” and in the end all political discussion was cut off.

Thankfully, in *our* town the guy in charge has enough sense to set a few rules to keep our little discussions from getting out of hand.

It was intended as a parable about the bugaboo of “censorship” as a tool to inhibit political discussion (such as I judge the cries of “censorship” here to be) rather than a lament about the loss of public decorum.

--Darin

Coastsider endorses Pam Fisher for CUSD board

Brian,

I am fascinated by this most recent post of yours for many of the same reasons that I am fascinated by your other posts.

Your posts seem to have a penchant for crude rhetorical devices (e.g. making accusatory statements and then hiding behind the sham claim “Just a question") overlaying a background of paranoia (e.g. suggesting that lack of support for a thing is evidence for that support).

They make my head spin!

I would suggest that they might be made more compelling by the inclusion of more fact and less innuendo.

Otherwise your posts risk looking like nothing more than a smear campaign.

--Darin

“The Ballad of Devil’s Slide”

Hey, very cool.

I live very near where this party/concert took place--that’s my fence you see in the upper left of the image!

I remember it well--the band sounded great. I thought that they had hired some high-priced professional band for the party (and maybe they are--I usually only hear them practicing, muffled and distorted by the closed garage door).

Whatever happened to the idea of a block party to celebrate the Slde’s opening? Or the idea of holding fireworks?

Sigh.

At least I got to hear the band!

--Darin

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