Comments by Jimmy Benjamin

Rick Kowalczyk nominated Brian Ginna as his appointee on the HMB Parks & Rec Commission

Councilmember Kowalcyk is of course free to nominate his choice of eligible citizens for the consideration of the City Council. Mr. Ginna's distinguished history of trash-talking anyone who advocates environmentally responsible development makes him a great test case of our newest leader's commitment to bridge the gap between communities. Perhaps he will counterbalance this appointment with a new planning commissioner who expects development to conform to our environmental law. We'll see.

Another bill to exempt developer from the law submitted to Assembly

Steve, although we disagree profoundly on the best interests of the City, I appreciate your candor in coming to the unveiled chat rooms. Many who seem to share your point of view prefer to hide behind pseudonyms in that other chat room. Kevin, while realtors are driven by profit in a very short horizon, I firmly believe that there are some realtors on the coast who realize that the natural beauty of Half Moon Bay is the goose that lays the golden egg, and that destroying it in the interest of short term is a low NPV option. They usually remain quiet in these debates rather than risking ostricization by their colleagues -- after all, less principled members of the profession could retaliate. That leaves honest if myopic guys like Steve as an unrepresentative model of his peers. Thanks again for having the courage of your convictions, Steve. If you do come up with that lie, I know that you will let us know.

Another bill to exempt developer from the law submitted to Assembly

Like Rush Limbaugh, "ditto" crowd calling him just entertainment, Steve's "funny" (you can't possibly be serious, can you, Steve?") comment derogating threatened species and relegating them to medians really lays bare his hostility toward environmental law, and a lack of understanding of the science of species preservation. I look forward to his reply to Francis' inquiry. If people who share is values were in the majority...we'd be where we are today :-(. In addition to Francis' inquiry, I just one more question: aside from the commissions, don't you like it here?

Video:  HMB government takes on the Coastal Commission and gets nowhere

Thank you for opening the thread, Ken. I had to reply to the same post, in which Georg eclaimed that the last Planning Commission had been very disrespectful of this applicant. This is the second time that such a baseless charge was leveled at the prior Planning Commission (recall that then-CCWD President Chris Mickelson's claimed without evidence at a City Council Meeting that the commission had "disrespected" the District's water engineer, and the accusation was seized on by the ladies of the City Council as justification for removing the prior Planning Commission). A responsible party making such a claim would back it up with facts. I await the details from George or Chris about a specific incident involving a specific action of a specific commissioner to support either claim. I am all for public courtesy and accountability, and stand ready to apologize for any action that I took. Absent such evidence, I feel George, Chris, ladies of the City Council have a similar responsibility to issue the members of the former Planning Commissioners a apology of their own. I'm sure that the City officials who traveled to San Luis Obispo to support the incursion into the 100-foot buffer will let us know whether they were reimbursed for travel expenses. I just hope it was not my tax dollars at work.

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

Thanks for bringing this meeting to the web, Barry. I think the Council majority needs to explain whey they decided to discuss a topic of such long-term importance to the City with minimal notice. Although I have not watched the entire file, I was disappointed at the inconsistent and possibly manipulative inclusion of information from the staff report. For example, Arnold St. environmental concerns were discussed extensively, and were at least briefly mentioned in the discussion of the Magnolia Street site. But for the site in front of the Sewer Plant, the summary of the site was badly skewed to suggest expansive development is easy. An EIR was mentioned, but not that the EIR was unadoptable; it was so inadequate at acknowledging the impacts and providing mitigations that the EIR was shelved. And since that draft EIR was created, the City's own environmental consultants mapped extensive ESHAs in the west half of and north of the park site that further constrain the use and maintenance methods at the site. Staff may wish to provide the City Council with copies the Open Space Element drafted by a committee led by Linda Poncini and adopted by the Planning Commission. It carefully documented the condition of the land at that time, and the subjective part of the document is clearly identified. This document should be a one of the City Council's starting points for park planning. If this information is unavailable to staff or the Council, I will be glad to provide it. This does not means that the City must abandon active uses on this park site; I believe the park could have real value to Casa del Mar community, and could support lower-impact uses to a larger set of users. However, the site must be programmed within its capacity. Noise, circulation (parking, intersection LOS and conflict with CdM traffic), hours of operation next to a neighborhood, (how far after artificial turf would lights be "a must"?), toxicity of adjacent land, drainage, policing, and other issues constrain the amount of land that can be used for active sports while increasing the cost and risk. Even if we can't afford to develop some of it in the forseeable future, City-owned park land is nearly always a precious legacy for which future Half Moon Bay residents will be grateful. Sidewalks, school buses and current Local Coastal Programs all expose the City to liability, but that shouldn't stop us from having them. It shouldn't stop us from having an inventory of park land to be developed in the long term, either.

City will add agriculture to Boys and Girls Club lease

Steve and Brian, If you were advising a client on land decisions, particularly one involving a parcel about which disagreements stalled earlier development, concerning a new use for which the Director of Public Works recently advised that you would need a CDP, it's likely that you would advise the client to get contrary assurances of particular rights of development in writing, and warn them of the risks of not doing so. I'm going to adopt the positive attitude Brian thanked Steve for and assume that Mr. Cline will step up to his responsibility -- as Brian might might say, time will tell. I ask that you consider the undisputed report (this is the evidence, Brian): When asked about the matter, Mr. Cline justified his action with the assurance of an City official he will not name, offering uncorroborated verbal advice that contradicts previously received advice from the Director of Pulblic Works. You'll have to forgive my skepticism about Mr. Cline's tag line, "It's all about growing pumpkins." Maybe his financial interests have narrowed despite his history of coastside land dealings, but MANY wanna-be developers with ESHA's on their property, or perhaps "possible" ESHA's on their property, will be very interested in whether this Council and other authorities with responsibility for enforcing environmental and other land use law let this slip by in the good name of the Boys & Club, creating a precedent that pesky land use restrictions can graded away with a pumpkin field. I am not buying it. Gentlemen, that is why this is a big deal. Claiming that it's just about pumpkins will not make this go away. Retroactive declarations by a City Council that holds environmental law in contempt because it limits development will not make this go away. Angry claims that anyone who objects hates boys or girls or Boys and Girls Clubs will not make this go away. Since you both are clearly and deeply interested in the welfare of the B&G Club, my advice is to not sully their project by brandishing it as a shield for Mr. Cline's unfortunate decision to reject citable advice that he might not have liked in favor of claimed, unattributable, uncitable advice that was more convenient. He's too smart not to know better. And so are you. - Jimmy

Boys and Girls Club bulldozes probable wetlands on city’s land without a permit

Hi Mary, Sorry for the delay in posting; I was on the other thread posting some thoughts for Steve and Brian. My home was built in 1989. I purchased it in 1993. In my opinion, if the planning commission and city council were on their mettle, the City would not support a lot subdivision that created a lot so close to an ESHA. I haven't thought about how to design a builing site that is not within the buffer area -- it certainly would result in a narrower house than we live in. But the stream (designated as an ESHA in the Coastal Development Permit that established the subdivision) is one of the reasons we liked the house, and we try to be good stewards of the species that need it. Yes, many people in Half Moon Bay have structures that couldn't be built under current law. No, the law does not require that property owners alter (say, demolish) their legally permitted development to conform to new law. The City's ability to take care of its natural resources rests heavily on our husbandry of the few that remain. I'm grateful to those that are paying attention and respect the law. - Jimmy

Boys and Girls Club bulldozes probable wetlands on city’s land without a permit

I appreciate your kind words, Mary. With respect to establishing whether wetlands were destroyed, I understand Mr. Johnstone's point that the evidence remains, at least in a forensic sense. But the grading has destroyed the vegetative clues of where samples should be taken for analysis. So in theory we COULD find wetlands that existed, but if those wetlands occupied, say, 1% of the parcel, then the odds of finding it in a randomly selected sample are no better than 1 in 100, and perhaps worse if the samples are throughy diluted with non-wetland soils. I hope this clarifies why this kind of unpermitted bulldozing is such a cause for concern. With respect to obtaining a remodeling permit on a substandard lot, I agree with you that future changes in law are difficult to predict, and citizens should keep up with them. I was one of the very few citizens at the early-90's LCP amendment public hearing asking about the impacts of the proposed LCP update. I tried to follow the Yamagiwa v. City of Half Moon Bay link that you included in your post, but it brought me back to the unpermitted grading article. However, if I may take a guess, I think it is important to distinguish between being able to maintain a current level of intensity of use, which does not require a CDP, and creating new uses or increasing the intensity of use. In the referenced case, I believe that there was no argument that a new and increased intensification of use was being proposed. A land owner who is maintaining a garden plot in a portion of their back yard is not increasing the intensification of use, and so would not be required to stop gardening if a wetland were to appear in or adjacent to her garden. Personally, I chose my house because it does have a legally recognized and protected wetland (a stream) flowing on it. I would be thrilled to find endangered species living there, and try to nurture them with a supportive habitat. I think that some gardeners would consider this one of the very highest forms of gardening. I hope this helps distinguish Yawagiwa from the backyard gardener, and gives the latter a well-deserved measure of comfort. It's up to all of us to ensure that, if the Boys & Girls Club builds at this site, the City's decision making process and the club's operating program will model habitat protection values, respect for neighbors, and instill a respect for nature and the rule of law that protects them. It is also one of the highest forms of education that we can pass on to the next generation. My $0.02's worth - Jimmy

Boys and Girls Club bulldozes probable wetlands on city’s land without a permit

Whoops, my bad. In my June 19 post, The migratory corridor I mentioned is is north of the City's property, not south (until you get to Pilarcitos Creek). And in another slip of the fingers, I meant wrung hands -- sorry for those typos. - Jimmy

Boys and Girls Club bulldozes probable wetlands on city’s land without a permit

Hi Mary, Thanks for your questions. It's been a while since I looked at the history of this land in EIRs that involve this and nearby property, but I think it's safe to say that it was almost certainly farmed in the past. It may interest you to know that a portion of the parcel was used as a landfill. I believe it served as a corp yard for a period, too. When Caltrans created the eastbound passing lane on highway 92, they mitigated the negative environmental impacts by cleaning up the landfill and creating a wetland that was subsequently inhabited by the California red-legged frog (as I understand it, the property to the south still contains landfill separated from the City property by a capped dam). The land also held soil excavated from the SAM plant during its expansion project in the 1990s. All of these activities were the subject of approved coastal development permits. Generaly, permits are required when the intensity of land use changes. When a use is terminated (I believe the period is six months, but I would need to check our LCP), a permit to resume the use is required, and the use must conform to legal standards in effect at the time the permit is requested. Mowing to control for a fire hazard would make sense on the eastern border, where the parcel is adjacent to a residence and the Lutheran Church. I think the size of the fire break on the north would be smaller because the Sewer Plant Road would contribute to its width. This kind of mowing would be really minimal if any adjacent to the crops to the south, and not permitted in the buffer for the Caltrans wetlands mitigation area. (It is a source of perennial amusement to see the SE corner of the intersection of Hwy 1 and 92 mowed in utter contempt of this standard, to make room for oil-dripping pumpkin festival parking.) It's important to distinguish between mowing, which removes vegetation above a certain height (say, 6 inches), and scraping, disking or bull dozing, which destroys vegetation, kills animals that live in that vegetation, and reshapes the land in ways that greatly reduce the habitat value of the land. The sections of law that define the limitation on land use in ESHAs depend on what type of environmental resource occurs there; more that one may apply. At the west end of the parcel we know that there is CRLF habitat, which implies particular buffer areas. A pond and seasonally wet area would have other restrictions. Concerning your caution to a resident working in their garden: If the garden is part of a legal yard of their home, they really don't have to worry. If they have set up a garden in a buffer zone that was established as a condition of approval for development (rare in Half Moon Bay), then they really never had the right to garden there, and should move their garden outside the buffer area. HTH, - Jimmy

Boys and Girls Club bulldozes probable wetlands on city’s land without a permit

Hi guys, It may (or probably or is likely or should :-) interest you to know that in 1998 a group of residents in Casa del Mar formally expressed reservations about the completeness of CEQA process for the Boya and Girls Club and the City Park proposed at that time. Among those reservations was the concern that the sensitive habitat on or adjacent to the site was not adequately delineated and protected. The decision-maker(s) who felt authorized to install a "Future Home of Boys and Girls Club" sign should recall or have access to organizational memory about this and other issues, know better than to pay someone to bulldoze there, and should be ashamed of themselves. The 14.8 acre site and adjacent property indeed contains some Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Areas ("ESHAs"). These ESHAs (and buffers around them) are protected from disruption (let alone grading). As evidence, you may view biological assessments performed by Brady LSA on April 28, 2000 and updated August 2, 2000, as well as CDP 33-88-10. Terms like "probable" or "likely" or "might" are not a criteria for deciding whether or not a coastal development permit is required. Intensification of use is an obvious criteria, and no probabilistic reasoning is required to see that scraping is an intensification of use. The interesting thing is that the referenced surveys were conducted at the west end of the site, because the (different) project under consideration at that time was at the westernmost end of the site. Last Friday's bulldozing occurred on the eastern portion of the property, most of which was not addressed in these surveys. I don't think that USDF&W, CA DF&G, the the Coastal Commission or the City will look kindly on this action. Moreover, indisputable documentation of the protected CLRF habitat to the east of Highway 1,(Pacific Ridge area) and west (Pilarcitos Creek, Caltrans wetland mitigation project, estevation areas delineated in LSA report), make the migration corridor to the south of the property supporting habitat and therefore protected from the impacts of future development. A buffer area adjacent to the migration corridor is also subject to such protections. The western portions of this drainage is also the subject of protections that conditioned Coastal Development Permit 33-88-10. Documentation on these projects are available for anyone with an inclination to look. One of the reasons that activities like this requires a prior permit is so that owners and users can be made aware of these limitations, or they and concerned members of the public can learn that no such limitations exist. This and similar unpermitted scraping of land make it difficult to assess the quality of whatever habitat was destroyed. If the folks who paid for and operated the bulldozer were so confident that nothing was there to protect, they should have let the public come to the same conclusion. Sorry, but they are entirely responsible for the any consequences of their actions. In addition to environmental concerns, other impacts documented in comments on the earlier CEQA process for the B&G Club, ball fields, bleachers, etc. included noise, visual, traffic, density of public service, air quality, lighting, trash and safety. The questions of funding not robbing residents of other valued city services, construction and maintenance annuities, what to do with the large structure in the event that the B&G Club decide to move to a different location (perhaps nearer to their middle school) were also raised. Unfortunately, none of these concerns were addressed in a satisfactory way; instead, the item was quietly set aside, and Casa del Mar residents like me were named as haters of children. If development of the property is scaled down to the capacity of the area, impacts are acknowledged and mitigated in a meaningful way, history need not repeat itself. But the scraping and replacement of unsurveyed eastern park habitat with a sign that this will be a future home of the Boys and Girls Club is hardly an olive branch. Notice that a traffic light at Terrace Avenue, paid for by the developers of Pacific Ridge, will undoubtedly be claimed as a cure for any and all traffic impacts - I hope the people on Terrace Avenue hoping to avoid a traffic light understand how they have been manipulated. The light will go in, hands will be rung, and another end run around traffic impacts of development will be attempted. Keep in mind that the law places the burden on the APPLICANT to present evidence to support findings that projects conform to the LCP and zoning ordinances. Bulldozing the evidence makes that much more difficult for them; they want to win too much. - Jimmy

Must-See MCTV: City Council détente breaks down

Let me be sure I understand what you are claiming, Joel. You are asserting that a member of the City Council (whose?) nominated Jeff Allis for his/her councilmember preference seat, and that appointment was defeated? My recollection is somewhat different, and possibly wrong. I seem to recall Jeff having been Dennis' appointee. There was a juggling of appointees when the commission was expanded to seven members, after which David Mier became Dennis' appointee, and Robin King became Naomi's. Bob Hansen was Jerry Donovan's appointee, and so I believe that Jeff's seat was an "at large" one. But I could be wrong. If you could provide independently verifiable references written at the time to buttress your claims, I would be glad to stand corrected. Until then, I have to regard your claim as "truthiness" rather than truth -- there is so much of that going around these days. But even if you are correct, the tone with which appointments were made Tuesday night is a stark contrast to the ones made a decade ago. Dennis waited until the expiration of his commissioner's term, rather than ousting him mid-term as the current majority has done. And in choosing a different appointee (me), Dennis was very complimentary of Jeff. This contrasts starkly with the groundless, trumped-up tarring of the planning commission by Naomi Patridge, Marina Fraser and Chris Mickelsen, and with the astounding assertion by Bonnie that a citizen leader who garnered half the City's support was not "fit" for the job. Moreover, the public attending the meeting a decade ago was civil, waiting quietly for their turn to speak, and respecting the rights of city council members and other members of the public to hold different views. The unruly trash-talking members public who disrupted this week's meeting, and the failure of Mayor Fraser to protect the speech of others by maintaining regular order, is the real contrast, destroying the healing mentality that could have taken hold. But then, some very competitive people feel that to win, there has to be a loser. What a sad way to see the world. Call the new planning commission appointments whatever you would like, but don't insult the now retired city council of 1996 by equating their process of choosing commissioners to the debacle that took place earlier this week. That really was a massacre and, Brian's cheap shot notwithstanding, I understand why Jim Grady made the decision to abstain. Notwithstanding this, congratulations to the new appointees. I wish them isolation from the disgraceful manner in which they were appointed, insightful staff reports, meaningful and civil public testimony, and wise decisions that conform to our laws.

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