Comments by Brian Dantes

Coastsider endorses Measure S

Mr. Olson,

Equating questioning of Measure S with lack of support of the community feels an awful lot like equating questioning the Patriot Act with lack of patriotism.

In all honesty, I do not know yet how I will vote on Tuesday. I am very torn. I strongly believe that good teachers are *grossly* undervalued in our society. But I feel much about public funding such as this as I do about charity—I don’t like to do it unless I am sure it is going to a worthwhile cause and being spent in appropriate way. And I just don’t feel that Measure S has passed muster in that regard. If I could direct Measure S funds directly into the pockets of a few educators with whom I have personal experience at Farallone, then I would do so in a New York minute. Perhaps to her embarrassment, I’ll single out Mrs. Mary Balciunas, my son’s kindergarten teacher. I’m sure they’re not paying her enough.

The information presented to me on these Coastsider threads and the cusd.info site as well as the state school web sites have caused me to seriously question this measure. I want to patch the roof too - but I want to do it with the right shingles, not with chewing gum. And I want to hire a professional roofer with references from the BBB who will give me a detailed invoice to do the work.

To demand accountability and measurable success from our public educators to get extra public funds to me only makes common sense. My children are part of this system - so I am directly impacted by this vote. Please do not dismiss my views as simple lack of support for the community.

Brian Dantes
El Granada

Coastsider endorses Measure S

Mr. Olson,

I also take issue with your statement:

“I�m sorry you feel this way about Measure S and I only wish that you could be more supportive of our community and our teachers.”

I have a child in Farallone and in the fall I will have two. I very much support our community and our teachers. However, I have found these arguments of fiscal mismanagement and the dismal API scores very persuasive.

I am also very offput that it appears none of the Measure S money is earmarked for buses.

And I’m surprised no one else has mentioned this - but I find the exemption for seniors unfair. I could tolerate a tiered tax based on income level regardless of any other factors, but beyond that everyone in the community should support the education of our children. It is in the best interest of everyone for our children to be educated and become productive members of our society.

While I remain disgusted that our society continues to treat one of the most important roles (a teacher) as less than important, I find this measure once again lacking for all of the same old reasons. So sadly, I feel I am once again forced to vote against it.

Brian Dantes
El Granada

Coastside Community First revives Foothill Blvd project

I am not associated with CCF but after reading some of these comments I may be.

These responses are the standard “just say no” nonsense I’ve heard for years now. The roads and other infrastructure coastside are horribly and embarrassingly inadequate. And it is attitudes like those above that have kept it so - stagnated in inertia.

I have news for all of you naysayers - development and growth have occurred anyway. Refusing to expand infrastructure only hurts those already living here. Frankly, I support severe limits on growth *through legislation* - but making life miserable for those already here is just shortsighted not to mention ineffective.

Personally, I’d like to see more parallel roads like the Foothill proposal running all the way to Montara. It is insane and unsafe that the only artery is Highway 1.

The tunnel or bypass should have been built 20 years ago, Highway 1 needs to be widened to three lanes (with an alternating commute lane) from El Granada to HMB, and 92 needs to be widened to four lanes all the way to 280 (particularly with all the heavy truck traffic from the dump and the quarry).

I desperately hope that these recent fiascos with Devil’s Slide and the fiber optic cable being cut will cause the rest of the coastside to wake up and face the music.

I am tired of feeling captive to traffic and having my livelihood put at risk because of insane commute times. I feel like the HMB City Council, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and Caltrans have been woefully derelict in their duty to protect and serve the community.

Brian Dantes
El Granada

Letter: Comcast Cable TV quality problems?

Craig,

Thanks for the feedback. So you are getting local HDTV broadcasts OTA and they are being recorded on your HR10-250 (the only HD-DVR DTV has that I’m aware of)? Are you getting all the major networks in HD: ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX? What about others like UPN, WB20, KQED, etc.? Any HD broadcasts you tried to get and could not?

Where are you approximately? Did DTV do the install for you? Any particular antenna? More than one?

Thanks,
Brian Dantes
El Granada

P.S. I don’t know how bad Comcast Cable customer support is (although if it’s as bad as their Internet support, that’s pretty bad) - but DTV support is not all that great either.

Letter: Comcast Cable TV quality problems?

Ken,

I was told HDTV OTA was impossible more than once by the good folks at Strawflower Electronics. They have given me lots of good and impartial input in the past - in this it sounds like they are just misinformed (which is still discouraging, of course). I never questioned what they said because it seemed logical given all the surrounding mountains. I am still not sure I understand how anything but an antenna on the top of the mountains could have LOS to Sutro Tower. Is there a repeater or something rebroadcasting down to us? I am in El Granada near the bottom of El Granada Blvd, i.e., somewhat up a slope, but not high up. I’m not sure of my elevation.

We have DirecTV and love it. But with them we have only two options for local HDTV broadcasts: 1) via the satellite and no DVR integration (yet), or 2) OTA and Tivo integration. We did not think #2 was a possibliity for us. And #1 doesn’t work because we are unwilling to give up our Tivo.

Can you recommend a good local shop/person that could come out to our house and test the signal strength for us before we get into the DTV bureaucracy of mounting an HDTV antenna and getting a new receiver? Barring that could you recommend some *specific* components I could get at Radio Shack to test this myself? Preferably something I could do by myself while sitting on my roof?

Thanks,
Brian Dantes
El Granada

Letter: Comcast Cable TV quality problems?

Ken,

Where are you located that you can HDTV OTA? I have been consistently told that getting HDTV OTA anywhere on the coastside is impossible.

Thanks,
Brian Dantes
El Granada

Thank you, Coastsiders, for helping us cover the outage

Barry,

Indeed—thank you. Your site has proved invaluable twice now. The sources that should be disseminating information to the public have woefully failed to do so.

Brian Dantes
El Granada, CA

Landslide cuts communication to the Coastside

The location of the slide made me suspicious of the construction work as well—and if they are at fault, I’m sure the lawsuits will flow. However, that’s not the point. No single point of failure, no matter the cause, should take out all communications in one fell swoop. This is simply an embarrassingly horrible design.

Brian Dantes
El Granada, CA

Landslide cuts communication to the Coastside

First and foremost, I would like to express my gerat appreciation for the service Coastsider.com provides. They were the first source of timely information for both the Devil’s Slide debacle and now this latest fiasco. Thank you!

All services except Comcast Internet returned by about 4pm Sunday afternoon. It’s 545pm now and I just spoke with Comcast - and they said they couldn’t even talk to their technical crews until normal business hours Monday! I don’t know why I continue to be surprised by the lack of service out here - you’d think I’d eventually get used to it.

If anyone in the “know” is reading this - I would greatly appreciate it if you could post a comment. And as long as we’re at it, can someone from Pacbell/SBC/ATT/whatever explain why El Granada is *still* waiting for DSL years after even Moss Beach and Montara got it? We’re the one pocket on the Coastside that doesn’t have it.

Brian Dantes
El Granada, CA

Landslide cuts communication to the Coastside

Verizon cell phone service just returned around 7am (thus my ability to post this response through their 1x data service - of course, it’s been coming and going since 1130am this morning).

Here are the questions I think all Coastsiders should be demanding answers to from the Half Moon Bay City Council and the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors:

1) Why does a fiber optic connection going over the hill take out 911 to our own local emergency services? This in and of itself is outrageously unacceptable and dangerous.

2) Why could no one reach local numbers for the HMB Police and Fire depts for over 9 hours (actually the numbers have been busy every time I’ve tried - including now around 12pm Sunday)? As a citizen, reading that no one was at the dispatch station this morning made me furious.

3) Why is there a single point of failure capable of taking out so many services at once?

4) Why did it take almost nine hours to even identify the source of the problem?

5) Why is such a critical resource even exposed to a landslide? Aren’t such cables underground?

6) Cell phones and 911 should have redundant links - one preferably via satellite. Why is it that Verizon is back now (sort of) but other carriers are not? If the fiber link is still out, why is it that Verizon is back at all (but I’m certainly grateful that they are)?

This and the business with Devil’s Slide has really driven home for me how woefully unprepared we are for any real disaster. I am flabbergasted that a single failure could disable 911 *and* cell phones - who is responsible for such a stupid design?

I fervently hope that none of our neighbors have suffered or will suffer because of this egregious lack of infrastructure.

This is beyond the frustrating and irritating way we Coastsiders are treated as second class citizens (from the abysmal roads to lack of FM and HDTV broadcasts and uniform availability of DSL). This goes to the very heart of the safety of our families. I am deeply grateful to law enforcement for putting out the extra patrols quickly - but frankly, I didn’t see anyone in my neighborhoods in El Granada and there was no information to be found.

I encourage everyone reading this to show up at the next meetings of the HMB City Council and San Mateo Supervisors. They need to hear from all of us en masse that this is *not* acceptable and that the situation needs to be addressed immediately.

Brian Dantes
El Granada, CA

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