Comments by Paul Perkovic

Supervisor Gordon suggests MCC has “outlived its usefulness”

Vince,

I’m not an LCP big gun, and no one sent me. My comment wasn’t intended as a smear, it was the only sense I could make out of your sentence, “I suspect the BOS and the people that elected them interests would be better served by keeping the democratically elected political theater group called the MCC going as a sort of roach motel for MidCoast political activists(the cost is minimal).”

A roach motel is a trap for unwanted intruders that you would prefer to keep out of sight.

It was not at all clear that you used that comparison to represent the situation now, as opposed to the intent of the Board when the Council was created.

My apologies for misunderstanding your earlier comment. We usually communicate better with each other. Thanks for clarifying your intended meaning.

Supervisor Gordon suggests MCC has “outlived its usefulness”

Vince Williams has a colorful, but extremely cynical, view of the Board of Supervisors.

Perhaps the Board really was embarrassed on many occasions when Coastside activists would scurry out of the woodwork to speak for two minutes each, bringing up inconvenient facts when the Board had already decided to approve some development scheme that stretched or violated the Local Coastal Program (or just hugely offended local sensibilities). After all, they were used to hearing from their SAMCAR (San Mateo County Association of Realtors) or SAMCEDA (San Mateo County Economic Development Association) or other lobbyist friends, who spoke with reverential praise of any proposed project, and rarely from actual members of the public who bluntly pointed out flaws or improvements that might serve the community better.

So I can imagine it would be like giving a dinner party to celebrate your campaign contributors, and then having your guests scream in horror when roaches turned up.

What better idea than to set up a powerless local “advisory” group, where those pesky residents could argue with each other outside the hallowed chambers of the Board of Supervisors (and off the official record), and hope everyone got so stuck and mired at the Midcoast Community Council (MCC) that no one would show up to speak directly to the Board.

But I think this is too cynical a vision, that the Board intentionally set up a “roach motel” to trap Coastside citizens, and then intended to ignore every inconvenient recommendation from the MCC. Even if that was the original plan, it hasn’t worked.

Coastside citizens still make the pilgrimage to Redwood City when a noxious proposal comes forth, and now our two-minute speeches are featured County-wide on the Board of Supervisor’s televised meetings.

Maybe it is time for the Board to provide actual support so the MCC can function more effectively, and honor the recommendations that come from the Council. It would save local residents much time in traveling over the hill and fulfill the stated purpose of the MCC.Vince Williams has a colorful, but extremely cynical, view of the Board of Supervisors.

Senator Yee proposes naming Devil’s Slide tunnel after Tom Lantos

There has been a good deal of discussion on Coastsider.com about possible naming of the Devil’s Slide Tunnel. Although there are several citizens who worked for decades to achieve a solution to the transportation problems at Devil’s Slide (such as Olive Mayer or Lennie Roberts), many Coastside citizens who worked very hard to get Measure T on the ballot and approved by approximately 74% of San Mateo County voters establishing the tunnel solution as the preferred alternative, and several local elected officials (such as Chuck Kozak and April Vargas) who worked extensively with CalTrans during the design of the bridges and portals as well as other portions of the project, it is really the Federal funding that enables this project to come to fruition.

Representative Tom Lantos has been instrumental in obtaining Federal funding for emergency repairs to State Route 1 over Devil’s Slide and for a permanent solution. The tunnel would not be under construction without him. Therefore, in my opinion, if the Devil’s Slide Tunnel can be named in honor of a single individual, Representative Lantos is the most appropriate choice.

Power out and Coastside stores are closed, except for emergency supplies

Barry might have had power on Friday at 1:40 p.m., but most of Montara was blacked out. Maybe you’re on a special part of the grid that keeps Three Bells powered?

Montara Water and Sanitary District and Sewer Authority Mid-Coastside crews spent the day out in the wind and pouring rain making sure backup generators at all of the well sites and pump stations kept functioning, so you could continue to enjoy normal water supplies during the blackout. You might express your thanks to them the next time you see them in the community.

Should TalkAbout continue to allow anonymous postings?

Incidentally, I posted the same quotes from the same article on TalkAbout. You can see what the discussion is over there if you want.
http://talkabout.hmbreview.com/topic.php?t=917&c=8&d;=

     

Letter: Can anybody at all explain the Montara Water rates?

Barb Mauz,

This topic began as a Letter to the Editor posted by Mr. deBeer, asking questions about his water rates and tax bill line items for the Montara Water and Sanitary District, i.e., the General Obligation Bond tax and his Sewer Service Charge.

All of the responses - until yours - have stuck to that subject matter.

San Mateo County’s current Midcoast Local Coastal Program Update, their policies on development on substandard lots, their affordable housing policies, their decisions to allow development on high risk slopes and in urban / wildland interface zones, their continued approval of new development on private wells even in the face of known well failures, etc., etc., are all interesting topics in their own right.

Some of us are eager to build wherever we can, and as big a project as we can get away with; others of us consider many of the County’s policies unwise or even harmful, leading to problems such as failed wells or buildings slipping down hillsides or into the ocean. Some think that the County fails to enforce laws and policies that are designed to protect the community or the environment, when those policies might slow down development; others think that it is too difficult to build anything, anywhere.

These would all be great discussions.

However, may I respectfully suggest that you begin a new topic - either by submitting an article for review by the editor, or a letter or Town Hall topic - for any of these other subjects that interest you? There is plenty of discussion opportunity on every one of them. It should not be lost under a heading that looks like it only addresses water rates.

Just a suggestion, of course. And (before any of those folks from TalkAbout chime in) I am not in any way attempting to restrict your freedom of speech, just trying to guide you to optimum use of Coastsider’s discussion facilities.

Paul Perkovic (commenting as a Coastsider reader)

Letter: Can anybody at all explain the Montara Water rates?

Tracy Usher asks:

How is the Sewer Service Charge (SSC) determined for customers who are currently on private wells?

Because the Montara Water and Sanitary District (MWSD) does not have actual water use measurements for sewer customers on wells, we currently use the average residential water use (just cited in my comment above) to determine the SSC for properties on wells. The Board established this policy many years ago, as it seemed the fairest way to estimate usage when no accurate figures are available.

Historical Note

It is my understanding that, prior to voter approval of Proposition 13, sanitary districts typically simply set a tax rate necessary to produce the revenue to cover operating costs. Subsequent to Proposition 13, sanitary districts generally converted to fee-for-services funding (using the Enterprise Fund model). This was a requirement of some of the Clean Water Act grants made to Sewer Authority Mid-Coastside when the original consolidated wastewater treatment plant was completed in the early 1980s.

Individual districts have chosen different payment models. MWSD bases our SSC on approximate wastewater flow from each premise, together with a “strength factor” that adjusts for differences between residential and other wastewater producers, such as restaurants. Some districts, like Granada Sanitary District, have a flat charge for all residential users.

Thanks to Mr. Woren for explaining one of the main reasons that the MWSD SSC rates are higher than in Granada Sanitary District.

Paul Perkovic, MWSD board member (writing his own opinions)

Letter: Can anybody at all explain the Montara Water rates?

CORRECTION

In my earlier posting on Montara Water and Sanitary District (MWSD) Sewer Service Charges (SSC), I stated: “For Fiscal Year 2007/2008, the average Montara Water and Sanitary District (MWSD) residential sewer customer pays $439.06, or $36.59 per month.”

It turns out that I had referenced the incorrect amount. The sentence above is correct for the minimum, not the average. The minimum Sewer Service Charge is based on 16 hundred cubic feet (HCF), or about 12,000 gallons, used during the four wet-weather months.

The correct figure for the average SSC is $631.14, or $52.60 per month. This represents the SSC for the average water usage of all water system customers in the District, which was 23 HCF over the four wet-weather months. (And thus Mr. deBeer’s usage is only slightly above average, not significantly above average.)

Please accept my apologies for citing the incorrect number. (This is one reason that my responses are not “official” statements of MWSD; they have not been reviewed by staff, our attorney, etc., to check every detail.)

Paul Perkovic, MWSD board member

Photos: Fire sign theatrics

When does the community get to vote on whether or not the Coastside Fire Protection District (CFPD) should contract with CalFire?

Apparently, the former boards of the Point Montara Fire Protection District and the Half Moon Bay Fire Protection District made their decisions to go with CalFire, but rejected the idea of putting the question to a community-wide vote, despite petitions organized by the firefighters.

Now that it appears the CFPD board majority will be controlled by those very firefighters themselves, I’m sure we can finally expect to get to vote. As the sign says, “Tell them you want a vote!!”

When do they plan to schedule the community vote on whether or not to go with CalFire? Do they want to make it a binding vote, or merely an advisory vote? And if it is merely advisory, will they take the advice from the community?

It is too late to get a question on the February 5, 2008 Presidential Primary ballot. So that leaves either the June 3, 2008 state Primary ballot (for Congressional candidates, State Assembly and State Senate candidates, statewide propositions, and local measure) or the November 4, 2008 Presidential General Election.

How quickly can the new CFPD board draft a resolution calling for an election on the question of whether or not to contract with CalFire? What does the community do in the meantime?

Or do you share my cynicism, and not expect a vote after all, despite all the rhetoric before the election?

Letter: Can anybody at all explain the Montara Water rates?

What about properties that do not currently receive water service from Montara Water and Sanitary District (MWSD)?

Property owners in the community who are not currently connected to the water system for domestic water service also benefit directly from the availability of a water system for fire protection. Prior to Measure V, those property owners received the fire protection benefit but paid nothing. Instead, the full cost of the water system was borne by just the water customers.

Long ago, when Citizens Utilities had sufficient water resources to meet the needs of the community and nearly every property was a water customer, it was fair and reasonable for the entire costs of the water system to be paid only by connected customers - because everyone was connected to the privately owned water system.

During the decades of mismanagement by Citizens Utilities, when the Department of Health Services and the California Public Utilities Commission imposed a moratorium on new connections, San Mateo County allowed continued development in the community using private wells.

Homes on those wells - some for nearly 30 years - received the benefit of the fire protection offered by the water system, but paid none of the costs. They were being subsidized by Citizens Utilities ratepayers.

Measure V allowed the entire community to take the water system public, so we can meet our own needs rather than those of stockholders. The water system is a municipal resource or service, like schools, parks, or the fire department. Measure V clearly spelled out the financing mechanism and was overwhelmingly adopted by the community. It provides a fair method of sharing the costs of acquiring and improving the local water system.

Paul Perkovic, MWSD board member (writing his own opinions)

Letter: Can anybody at all explain the Montara Water rates?

Mr. deBeer,

Let’s turn next to the Measure V bond. This will require two parts. First we will examine your property tax payments for the Measure V bond and your benefits. In a subsequent comment, we will explore the benefits properties on wells receive from community ownership of the water system.

What are your effective bond payments?

As an example, if you owned your home prior to August, 2003, before the Montara Water and Sanitary District (MWSD) acquired the water system; and if overall assessed valuations continue to rise (as I explained in an earlier posting in this topic); and if your assessed valuation remains the same; then your total payments over the life of the bond will be about $12,500. This comes out to an average of about $500 per year. (These are rough estimates only. For readers other than Mr. deBeer, the numbers vary depending on your own assessed valuation.)

In general, property tax payments are deductible on both State and Federal income taxes. I have no knowledge of your income or individual tax status. However, given the cost of living in our area, it is likely that your marginal State tax rate is 9.3% and that your marginal Federal tax rate is at least 25%. (If much of your income is from dividends and long-term stock gains, your rate might be lower.)

This means that $1.00 paid as a deductible amount is equivalent to $0.66 paid with after-tax money, for many customers in the District. Thus an average annual bond payment of $500 is really equivalent to $330, or $27.50 per month, if you were paying this acquisition cost with after-tax money as part of your water bill.

For this investment, your property receives the benefit of a community water and fire protection system. Your homeowner’s insurance premium is based on an ISO rating class 5, which depends on availability of a suitable fire station within 5 miles of your residence and a hydrant within 1000 feet of your property.

Without a community fire protection system, your ISO rating class would be 9 or 10 ("unprotected"). You might call your own insurance agent next week and ask her or him to compare the premium you pay today, with the benefit of a fire protection system, against the premium you would pay for an ISO class 9 or 10 property.

Paul Perkovic, MWSD board member (writing his own opinions)

Letter: Can anybody at all explain the Montara Water rates?

Mr. deBeer,

Let’s address your Sewer Service Charge first.

A comparison with neighboring areas will require some research, which cannot be done over the weekend. (Granada Sanitary District has a website, but it does not show its sewer service charges; the City of Half Moon Bay also has a website, and the Public Works page mentions Sewer Charges, but there is no link with information.) These are our partner agencies in forming Sewer Authority Mid-Coastside, which handles the actual wastewater treatment and disposal for all three agencies. I do not happen to know their charges.

Scott Boyd explained the Sewer Service Charge in an earlier response to your posting. For Fiscal Year 2007/2008, the average Montara Water and Sanitary District (MWSD) residential sewer customer pays $439.06, or $36.59 per month. It appears that your Sewer Service Charge is $713.46, or $59.71 per month.

You can reduce your Sewer Service Charge for next year by conserving water right now - between November and March. The water consumption by your property last year was significantly above the community average.

I suggest you make some telephone calls around to neighboring agencies, or others in the Bay Area, and investigate how your Sewer Service Charge compares to those in other parts of the peninsula.

Keep in mind that different agencies have different methods of paying for wastewater collection and treatment, but everyone who has sanitary sewer service pays for that service through one mechanism or another.

MWSD’s sanitary sewer service operations have been in existence for decades and are independent of the ownership of the water system. So let’s keep water and sewer costs separate, so we are comparing similar services.

Paul Perkovic, MWSD board member

Letter: Can anybody at all explain the Montara Water rates?

Here are a few more thoughts on this subject:

Measure V authorized up to $19,000,000 in bonds to be sold by the Montara Water and Sanitary District. The Board of Directors kept the actual bond issue to $17,500,000, which resulted in an 8% lower tax rate immediately.

The Tax Rate Statement from the bond measure (see link given above by Scott Boyd) estimated that the tax rate would be 24.4 cents per $100 assessed valuation in 2003/2004, and that the highest tax rate would be 24.4 cents per $100.

The actual highest tax rate was 16.85 cents per $100 in fiscal year 2004/2005. Rates have come down every year since then. For the current year, FY 2007/2008, the rate is 13.50 cents per $100.

The assessed valuation within the District has increased at an average annual rate of 7.25%. Although past performance cannot predict future trends, and the current crisis in the mortgage market may affect assessed values in the short term, if we project the historic rate to 2012, we might see a tax rate of about 10 cents per $100.

In my opinion, the MWSD Board has acted to keep costs to the community both on your property taxes and in your water rates as low as possible.

After acquiring the water system, we instituted tiered water rates (similar to Coastside County Water District and North Coast County Water District). The base tier residential customer today pays only 10.9% more per hundred cubic feet of water than in August 2003. Rates in the surrounding districts have gone up 33.5% for CCWD and 52.5% for NCCWD during the same period.

Paul Perkovic, MWSD board member

Coastside PAC’s endorse candidates

[This is a continuation of the previous comment, which should be read first for the background.]

Next, let’s turn to the insinuations. It is simply a falsehood - i.e., an outright, blatant lie - that “no one has ever broached this topic,” as Mr. Bulan asserts. The current board and staff have investigated several wells in private ownership within the District that have higher output than the typical residential well. None of these wells proved suitable for public use.

The “Why not?” part of Mr. Bulan’s political propaganda site suggests that the current board is not trying to solve the water shortage. This insinuation is offensive to everyone at MWSD - our board, staff, and consultants - who have worked as hard as we can to get new water sources online. It should be offensive to our voters, as well.

Mr. Bulan’s entire campaign has been designed to create fear and doubt among the voters and ratepayers in the Montara / Moss Beach area, with the hope that those voters will fall for the lies, distortions, and misrepresentations made by Mr. Bulan and his supporters, and elect an unknown who has proven ethical and financial problems.

Our constituency is smarter than that.

We should be working together to foster consensus in the community, not trying to turn one neighbor against another.

“Put Community First”? What a joke!

Paul Perkovic

[For identification only, Paul Perkovic is a board member on the Montara Water and Sanitary District. These comments reflect his own views only, and not necessarily those of any other board members or those of the District.]

Coastside PAC’s endorse candidates

The idea that “Put Community First” is truly interested in meeting community needs is demonstrably ludicrous. They would do better to keep the acronym, but change their name to “Political Conflict First” or maybe “Put Construction First” or even “Profits Come First”.

But definitely not “Put Community First”.

As an example, go to Richard Bulan’s election campaign site http://www.richardbulan.org/index.html and read this claim: “Many local private wells are known to produce 60-100 gallons per minute. These could provide alternative sources for regular or emergency purposes, yet no one has ever broached this topic. Why not?”

The implication is that there is plenty of water in the community to eliminate the water shortage, lift the moratorium, and solve all problems. (And, of course, that voters merely need put Mr. Bulan on the board and he will get those wells online right away.)

The insinuation is that the current Montara Water and Sanitary District (MWSD) board is either incompetent (they didn’t know about such wells) or obstructive (they knew about such wells, but refused to consider using them).

Let’s begin with the implication. Suppose it really is true that these alleged wells exist, that they are suitable for a pubic water supply, and that their owners are willing to make those wells available to the community. Accept this as true for a moment, and also that Richard Bulan knows all of this.

Why, if PCF and Mr. Bulan genuinely have the community interest first, have they been hiding this critical information from MWSD until time for an election campaign, rather than coming forward immediately with this information?

Why have they been harping on the unfortunate situation with the Skowrons, if they know of water sources already available that could help the Skowrons?

I raised this issue as part of my series, “What Would Bulan Do?”, on the Half Moon Bay Review TalkAbout discussion site. The specific topic is: “WWBD: Where Are All The High-Producing Private Wells? How Will You Bring Them Into the MWSD System?”
http://talkabout.hmbreview.com/topic.php?t=784&c=4&d;=

The questions that I posed in that TalkAbout topic will help interested community members understand that it takes more than a few months, even if a well is already drilled and pumping, to bring it online as part of the public water supply.

We’ll turn to the insinuations in the next comment.

Paul Perkovic

[For identification only, Paul Perkovic is a board member on the Montara Water and Sanitary District. These comments reflect his own views only, and not necessarily those of any other board members or those of the District.]

Coastsider endorses Leland Yee for state senate

To be a bit more complete, voters who are registered as “Decline to State” may select a non-partisan ballot, or (for this election only) choose a ballot for a party primary that allows non-party affiliated voters access to their primary. That includes the Democratic, Republican, and American Independent parties.

Because the registration deadline for this election has already passed (I think it was May 22), if you are registered in another political party it is too late to change your registration to another party or to Decline to State for purposes of voting in the June 6 election.

The Sheriff’s emergency line is 650.363.4911

Brief Comparison of Emergency Systems (Part III)

This is a very brief comparison of the existing 911 emergency systems, from my viewpoint as an acknowledged non-expert. Technical terminology has been avoided as much as possible; many simplifications and probably some errors are also included. This part addresses your typical cell phone emergency call.

PROPOSED FAIL-SAFER 911 CALL FROM CELL PHONE:

(1) Same as above.

(2) Same as above, except the MSC that serves Coastside cell sites is located on the coast (and thus is tracking all of the cellular phones currently within range of any Coastside cells). Actually, this could be a “mini-MSC” that normally passes requests to the existing MSC for initial verification, “roaming” verification with out-of-area customers, etc., but then can follow cell phones within the coastal area.

(3) Same as above, except if the Coastside is cut off from the rest of the world, cell calls could only reach other cell phones on the Coastside or land-line phones that can still be reached from the Coastside.

(4) Same as above.

(5) Same as above, except the MSC (or mini-MSC) would be here on the Coastside and much less susceptible to failure.

(6) The Coastside MSC would route your 911 call to San Mateo County’s emergency dispatch center, if communications links to that facility were still in operation, or fail-safe to a Coastside emergency location (e.g., HMB Fire or Police).

(7) Same as above, except there are far fewer links and far fewer vulnerable points of failure.

(8) You would be talking to a San Mateo County or Coastside dispatcher, already knowledgeable about our area and in radio contact with emergency services.

(9) Not needed - there would be no handoff from Vallejo to San Mateo County, no repetition of details of the emergency situation and location, no dependency on additional communication circuits or computer networking systems.

(10) Same as above, or if the San Mateo County dispatch center cannot be reached, you would automatically reach a Coastside emergency center.

(11) You are, mercifully, much more likely to be saved.

When your life depends on it, which system do you think will work more reliably?

Telephone switching centers, cell company computer centers, emergency dispatch centers, etc., are all “earthquake proof”, of course. And as we know, the “earthquake proof” and “fireproof” Palace Hotel did not fare well in 1906; the “unsinkable” Titanic lost against an iceberg; etc. Catastrophes have a way of forgetting to check with human engineers and planners about things that are impossible, and inevitably cause failures we haven’t anticipated.

We need a simple, RELIABLE emergency system for civilian use, designed with the expectation that anything in it can fail, but it can still function. Our current system is so complex and dependent on so many single-point-of-failure bottlenecks that it is almost guaranteed to fail.

For those technical experts out there who think I’ve grossly misrepresented things (either making it seem too complex and unreliable, or naively thinking it is as straightforward as I’ve outlined, when the real situation is much worse . . . feel free to provide appropriate updates, corrections, clarifications, or rebuttals.

The Sheriff’s emergency line is 650.363.4911

Brief Comparison of Emergency Systems (Part II)

This is a very brief comparison of the existing 911 emergency systems, from my viewpoint as an acknowledged non-expert. Technical terminology has been avoided as much as possible; many simplifications and probably some errors are also included. This part addresses your typical cell phone emergency call.

EXISTING 911 CALL FROM CELL PHONE:

(1) Your cell phone listens for a radio message from a nearby cellular antenna, and when it finds one on the appropriate frequency for your cell phone carrier, sends back a radio message containing your cellular telephone number (and various other identification information).

(2) The cell site packages up your registration request and sends it via dedicated circuits (leased by the cellular carrier from the regular phone company) to the Master Switching Center that serves your area. This message may travel via overhead or underground facilities, just like the circuit to San Mateo County’s emergency dispatch center. However, it must go much further and through many other switching centers along the way. For example, one carrier that serves the Coastside has its MSC in San Jose. A portion of this circuit might also go via microwave. [Note: I am using “circuit” in the sense of a virtual connection from one point to another, recognizing that the actual message may be going through various packet-switched network components and different portions of a call might be carried over physically different wires, fiber cables, etc., and multiplexed with many other calls over some of these facilities.]

(3) The MSC looks up your cell telephone number and other identifying information, verifies that you are a valid customer, notes if your cell number belongs to a different area of the country (e.g., you are “roaming"), and a lot of other housekeeping. Meanwhile, your cell phone is saying “Searching for network” or something similar, until your registration is completed.

(4) If you move from the range of one cell site to another, you are handed off from cell to cell, so that at all times the MSC “knows” which cell tower can reach your cell number.

(5) You enter 911 on your cell phone and press the “call” button. Your request goes by radio to the nearby cell tower, and then again to the MSC over all the land-lines susceptible to failure noted earlier.

(6) The MSC recognizes that you are calling 911 and needs to route your call to Vallejo. Who knows exactly what this entails? But suffice it to say that it is highly unlikely that there is a microwave tower at the MSC location with direct line-of-sight to the Vallejo 911 dispatch center; hence, once again, your call probably goes via leased land-line circuits from the MSC (perhaps in San Jose) through many dozens of miles of cables, fiber links, etc., and many more switching centers. Indeed, Vallejo is in a different Area Code, so the virtual circuit might take an even more circuitous route via the phone company’s long distance switching centers.

(7) The MSC tracks your location as you move from cell to cell, and keeps your voice communication to the Vallejo dispatcher seamless, even though lots of technical magic is happening.

(8) The Vallejo emergency dispatcher asks you who you are, where you are, what the nature of the emergency is, etc., and probably has never heard of Moss Beach or Princeton. You have to explain you are in San Mateo County. The Vallejo dispatcher eventually determines where to route your call, and hands you off to the San Mateo County emergency dispatch center. Alternatively, the Vallejo dispatcher might be able to enter your emergency information into her/his computer system and have the message transmitted to San Mateo County. [Sorry, I don’t know any details here.]

(9a) If you are handed off by voice to the San Mateo County dispatcher, you probably have to repeat all of the same information about who you are, where you are, what the emergency is, etc. Meanwhile, your call has to go from Vallejo to San Mateo County, again adding many dozens of miles of vulnerable physical circuits, more switching centers, etc.

(9b) If Vallejo can send a computerized message, that message could either travel over a dedicated private network connection (using, of course, dozens of miles of circuits, switching centers, etc., plus lots of computerized components and routers), or over the Internet (using dozens or perhaps thousands of miles of circuits, switching centers, routers, interties between Internet Service Providers, etc.).

(10) San Mateo County’s dispatch center contacts the Coastside agency by radio, as in the prior scenario.

(11) You are, mercifully, saved . . . if everything works along the way.

[Commentary in next part.]

The Sheriff’s emergency line is 650.363.4911

Brief Comparison of Emergency Systems (Part I)

This is a very brief comparison of the existing 911 emergency systems, from my viewpoint as an acknowledged non-expert. Technical terminology has been avoided as much as possible; many simplifications and probably some errors are also included. This part addresses your typical home or business land-line emergency call.

EXISTING 911 CALL FROM HOME LAND-LINE PHONE:

(1) You pick up your real land-line phone connected directly to your “local loop” and receive a dial tone from the Central Office in Moss Beach or Half Moon Bay. [Your mobile phone probably won’t work if electrical power is out at your home or business, but the central offices have battery back-up to serve you even after a widespread power failure.]

(2) You dial 911. Your call is carried by old-fashioned twisted-pair copper technology from your home (or office), probably via overhead lines and cables, then underground cables, to your Central Office. The CO switch recognizes it as a 911 call and routes it to the County’s emergency dispatch center, probably over some combination of underground or overhead copper cable, fiber optic cable, or perhaps microwave links. The circuit goes through various switching centers along the way, each of which presents vulnerabilities, until the call reaches a dispatcher.

(3) The dispatcher determines your location and the nature of your emergency, and then notifies the appropriate agency or agencies (e.g., fire, police, ambulance). This notification is most likely by radio, which should work as long as all intermediate points have power or backup power and the facilities were not damaged by earthquake, landslide, fire, etc.

(4) The emergency folks arrive on your doorstep to dig you out of your collapsed house, provide medical support, extinguish the fire, and handle the police matters involved. Everyone is happy that you have been saved.

As you can see, this is a relatively simple system, with only a few dozen major vulnerable points and perhaps 30 miles of cabling that might be taken out by falling trees, landslides, fault movement, etc. Also, at least some of the switching centers have redundant routing available in the event of cable breaks.

PROPOSED FAIL-SAFE LAND-LINE SYSTEM:

(1) Same as above. You dial the familiar 911.

(2) Same as above, except when your Central Office cannot reach the County emergency dispatch center, the call fails over to a Coastside emergency facility.

(3) The Coastside agency determines your needs and notifies other Coastside agencies by radio.

(4) You are once again saved. Whatever problems may exist in the outside world do not matter.

[Cell phone scenario discussed in Part II.]

The Sheriff’s emergency line is 650.363.4911

[Continuation of Perk’s rant, Part II.]

(6) Fragmenting “Ma Bell” has, in many ways, been a disaster. In the old days, when “We may be the only phone company in town, but we try not to act like it” was AT&T’s advertising slogan, network planners did a very good job of building a reliable, resilient, universally-compatible network. (It had to be able to survive an nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union and still work, remember?) Today, with “free market competition”, we have redundant cell-phone carriers duplicating facilities like cell sites, towers, antennas, electronic gear, backup power, etc., and fragmenting the total call volume among many carriers. One cell phone won’t work on a competitor’s network. It isn’t economically feasible for any one carrier to put a Master Switching Center (which EVERY cell call needs to go through, apparently) out here on the Coastside, so EVERY cell call for EVERY competing carrier must get over to the Bayside for completion, even if you are calling the person sitting at the next table at Mezza Luna. As a consequence, we are left with “single point of failure” designs. These are probably unintentional - when Cingular or Sprint or Verizon leases a T1 circuit between its Montara cellular antenna and its own MSC over the hill, how likely are they to make sure that their circuit doesn’t share the same cable, fiber, routing, etc., as every other cellular carrier? But because ALL cell traffic apparently went over the same vulnerable fiber cables in a landslide prone area, the Coastside cell service was effectively cut off entirely. We really need a Coastside-based MSC for cell calls, or enough redundancy in the existing design so that contact with each carrier’s MSC won’t be lost. [Apologies for the subtle technical points that are probably incorrect in the explanation above - and yes, I know that some users with different technology and frequencies (e.g., GSM) were still able to reach towers near Skylawn or on Montara Mountain, and complete cell calls.]

Here’s my wishlist design:

(1) Make land-line 911 calls go to the County’s emergency dispatch center, as they do now; but if those circuits are unavailable, fail over to Coastside emergency centers. If necessary, that may mean staffing some Coastside emergency facilities 24 hours a day. When all else fails, a LOCAL call reporting a LOCAL emergency should be able to reach a LOCAL emergency responding agency (which is either the one you need, or has radio links to the other Coastside services). We need this in case the Big One wipes out everything east of the San Andreas Fault all the way to Japan, and we are the only bit of civilization left on earth. It would be handy even if the Big One only disables all links to the County emergency dispatch center, or takes out that facility.

(2) Make ALL cellular calls on the Coastside able to reach any other cellular phone that is currently here on the Coastside, without depending on getting a circuit across to Concord or Pleasanton or San Jose or some other distant place where your particular carrier’s cell switching center is located, and then connected via another circuit to another cell company’s master switching center, and then making it back to a cell tower near your neighbor, before finally connecting you to your neighbor.

(3) Make cellular 911 calls go to the appropriate 911 emergency center that covers the geographical location from which the emergency call originates. Make cellular 911 calls fail over to the local land-line exchange’s 911 service if the cell company’s link to the County dispatch center is compromised.

I know that having a distributed, redundant, local switching system will make it more difficult for the CIA and NSA to go to one centralized point and suck up all of our phone conversations, but doesn’t Homeland Security also mean that our communities are robust and resilient against natural disasters, which are far more likely and far more devastating than the most extreme plausible terrorist threats?

[End of this particular rant. More to follow.]

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