Comments by Jonathan Lundell

Consultants’ plan for Hwy 1 lacks awareness of our environment and community

I’ve had essentially the same experience as Tim, driving in rural and semi-rural Sweden. Small-scale roundabouts are a blessing, and I’d much rather encounter one than a conventional intersection.

Large-scale roundabouts (I’m thinking Charles de Gaulle-étoile, which has pedestrian underpasses btw) can be a little scary. But I’d expect to get used to them pretty quickly.

Tsunami advisory issued for California coast

NWS at 11 (more detail; no real change).

Tsunami Warning center. Biggest concern will be south to southwest facing beaches. Outside of our area the latest model runs show a 4.6 foot wave at Pismo Beach in San Luis Obispo County. No real change in wave arrival times with 12:31pm at Santa Barbara and 1:26pm at San Francisco. Forecast wave heights still 3.3 feet for Half Moon Bay and 0.7 feet for San Francisco. Local areas of increased concern would be north side of Monterey Bay in the vicinity of Santa Cruz/Capitola. Also San Mateo coast and Half Moon Bay as well as the Marin coast. Hopefully the fresh images of the Mavericks wave event will help to keep people clear of the area beaches. Even though intitial waves will arrive after midday… the peak wave action may be delayed several hours. Best course of action will be to stay away from the coast the rest of today… including surfers. Please help local officials by taking this tsuanmi advisory seriously and resist the urge to visit the beaches/coast. Coast guard and other agencies are already swamped. More information as it becomes available.

Tsunami advisory issued for California coast

NWS at 10:10: “Latest intel from the Tsunami Warning center brings initial waves into Santa Barbara at 12:31pm this afternoon… reaching San Francisco around 1:26pm. Forecast wave heights along the California coast include 4.6 feet at Pismo Beach… 3.3 feet at Half Moon Bay and 0.7 feet at San Francisco.”

Brown pelicans are still imperiled in mysterious die-off

Oh, and the spelling:

A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican,
He can take in his beak
Enough food for a week
But I’m damned if I see how the helican!

Brown pelicans are still imperiled in mysterious die-off

Poetry credit to Dixon Lanier Merritt, 1910.

CUSD will seek $150 parcel tax

This list is obviously not meant to be taken seriously. Or, if it is, it does its audience a disservice.

Brews & Views: California Politics—The Real Story, Thursday at HMB Brewing

Time? Link?

Traffic slowed on Highway 92

You can see the effect here: http://lcp.sanmateo.org/trip/current.html

It seems to have been cleared.

County Charter Review Committee to meet Weds, Jan 13 at 6pm

It’s hard to imagine a worse setup than the one we have now, and I really don’t see district elections as all that much of an improvement.

Suppose we added enough districts that the coastside got its own representative (that’d take a lot of districts, yes). Even then, it’s not as if the coastside speaks with one voice; given that hard-fought coastside elections tend to be reasonably close, even then half the coastside would find itself unrepresented.

I’d prefer to see county-wide proportional representation, so that voters across the county could ally themselves to elect supervisors that really represented their views, preferably with a bigger board. Then at least we’d have a representative range of viewpoints on the board.

Big Wave “trails” are hardly worthy of the name

Now, Kevin, I’m sure we can beautify the trail with some fake plastic fencing and streetlights.

CUSD’S “Push Poll” for a Parcel Tax

I don’t recall the precise definition of “senior”, but it’s set in the constitution (via Prop 13) as part of the parcel tax clause. The district can adopt the exemption or not, but beyond that they don’t control it.

And it’s worth remember the distinction between ad valorem property taxes and flat-rate parcel taxes in California.

Photos: Coastsider visits San Mateo County’s Temple of Democracy

Mr Ginna appears to be confused about how recounts work. One cannot even request a recount until the result is official, per the certified statement of the result, which in this case can be found here: http://www.shapethefuture.org/elections/results/nov2009/final/nov32009SOV.pdf

As for payment, I find myself confused by Mr Ginna’s comment.

Before the recount starts and by 8:30 a.m. on each day of the recount, the requestor of the recount shall pay to the Registrar of Voters a sum sufficient for that day’s recount as determined by the election official. If the advance deposits are not paid, the Registrar of Voters will terminate the recount. (CA Elections Code Sec.15624).

What’s the clueless part? They don’t accept cash, perhaps?

CUSD’S “Push Poll” for a Parcel Tax

Re “new lettering”, no, what does it say?

I hadn’t heard about the lost rotunda; that’s a shame. At the risk of highjacking this thread, I’ll say that I was puzzled by the architects’ choice to go Santa Fe; I was expecting (hoping for) more of a WPA Deco look.

(And yes, the budget is only going to get worse, judging from the flood of bad news from Sacramento.)

CUSD’S “Push Poll” for a Parcel Tax

I remain ambivalent about yet another parcel tax. Unlike Barry, I oppose parcel taxes in general as regressive and discriminatory; it’s not the way we (as a state) should be funding our schools. On the other hand, the post-prop-13 constitution gives school districts no other practical mechanism to raise significant funds.

I don’t quite see how CUSD deserves credit for “making sacrifices”; they have a top-line budget that’s largely out of their control, both on the revenue and expense side, and that’s an end to it. No praise, no blame, except that they’ve managed to stay out of bankruptcy—no great distinction.

The state of the economy makes this a rather poor time to be asking homeowners for money. Maybe times will be better by next November, but I’m sure that election will be fought over the economy, which isn’t likely to create a tax-friendly atmosphere.

I do not think that the district has done a good job in the past of determining how the proceeds of a tax would be spent. What the district wants is a bigger budget, with the flexibility to spend it as they wish. That has translated into a rather vague laundry list of stuff that the board hopes will appeal to voters, or stuff (like class-size reduction) that we’re already paying for and the threat of loss is effective.

I think that’s a mistake. I’d be much more inclined to vote for a tax that was targeted at one or two things of obvious benefit that wouldn’t be done otherwise. I’d like to see a full busing program, but I concede that it wouldn’t do much to help the rest of the budget. I’d also vote for a tax devoted to closing the Hispanic-Anglo performance gap.

We’ll see, I suppose.

Demographics of CUSD continuing to shift

Only 15 years ago the district was 3:1 anglo:hispanic. It’s pretty clear who was being “tolerated” back then. By 2000 it was 2:1, and last year it was 1:1, with a slight Hispanic lead.

The term “toleration” has a long history in the US, going back at least to religious toleration (or more frequently not!) in the colonies (string up that Quaker!).

The dictionary (and etymological) meaning centers around “endure”, which is certainly not the message we’d like to be sending.

What Happened to Charlie Hall for Granada Sanitary District?

No guess from me. But I’m moved to wonder, not for the first time, why voting has to start a month before election day and, on a related note, what the return rate of ballots is over that month. We know that the percentage of voters voting by mail has risen to (IIRC) around half in some elections. And it’s also clear that campaign schedules, including media endorsements and candidate forums, continue to behave as though there were only one voting day.

Not just for the convenience of candidates, but in the interest of an informed electorate, can’t we shorten the voting period to, say, one full week? Ten days? Ballots could be mailed so as to arrive at the beginning of the voting period, and there’d be plenty of time to mail them back. If necessary, we could still allow 30-day-early voting by special request (say for someone who would be out of the state or country near the election), but the default would be a considerably shorter period.

Current HMB City Council’s slate sweeps the field

It seems like an extraordinarily slow count tonight. For the county, it’s a lot of races, I suppose, but still….

CUSD’s head lice policy is not supported by science

I understand Barry to be asking for the CSBA model policy, which sounds consistent with the original editorial.

No?

CUSD’s head lice policy is not supported by science

I think Kevin’s point was clear enough, though granted a little skew of topic. CUSD simply reminds us all of climate-change deniers, in that they’re inclined to ignore science and its ‘ballyhoo’.

Of course, that might be unfair to CUSD; we’ll find out soon enough.

Coastsider operating out of Caffe Lucca. How’s the storm affecting you?

3.2” here (Lobitos Creek) as of the lull an hour ago. We had some dead trees down; all but one were considerate enough to stay out of the road. Radar suggests that we might see another smallish wave, but then again it might miss us to the south. Showers predicts through tomorrow morning.

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