Comments Archive

I think this raises the bigger question of whether we’re going to be able to improve test scores at all without significantly changing education in California, and whether any district can realistically be expected to do any more than hold its own.…

Alpine County up in the mountains is currently the least populated county in California, with nearly 1,600 residents.  Its size exceeds the area of “The Hamlets”.  Secession movements in California have had mixed results in recent…

City-County Part 2 According to Braun: “The hamlets are under attack”.  I agree, by market forces.  Look whats happening in a place, such as Montara.  New home sizes get bigger and bigger.  More people fill the houses. …

A City - County Makes More Sense (Pt. 1) I’m intrigued by Oscar Braun’s proposal. I don’t want to boo-hoo it like some people have.  I think it has many merits.  This has been brought up in the past, it needs to be looked at…

Missing from the Times article is any context for the $180M figure. What share of county-wide business revenue does it represent? How has that share changed over time? Was agriculture ever a significant part of the county’s economy? (Oracle, for…

The judge had more choice comments. I think he asked the county to attach a photocopy of the respective signature ( from theregistered voter database) to each and every ‘insufficient’ protest. He also said that he IS an expert in handwriting…

It matters not if it’s a rat, bird, fish or whatever, it’s an endangered species and it’s protected for a good reason. If these people destroyed it’s nest and habitat they should be punished to the full extent of the law....

It’s a lot more complicated than that. My sense is that the jury is still out on whether the rats are protected.  But the landowner didn’t wait for the verdict. There’s a long-standing tradition in development of digging holes that…

You have got to be kidding me! Rats have more rights than landowners. Utterly amazing!...

Thanks for this report. It really helped clarify the trial, the issues, and next steps. It seems to me that when a judge suggests that county elections officials aren’t being impartial when they’re counting petitions, that’s headline…

I am curious about the headline.  I did not hear that specific point made by Judge Holm.  The case was delayed so the opposing attorney could submit written briefs. Terry Gossett and Jeff Allen spent time on the witness stand claiming that observers…

Well, (after previously telling Judge Forcum that July 22 was the deadline to make the ballot for the November general election), today the county proclaimed that August 6th was the real deadline. After today’s judge then selected August 5, Ms. Woodward…

It is truly amazing how many houses sprang up in a little over thirty years....

Here is some more detailed info on the RLF from enature.com California Red-legged Frog Rana aurora draytonii Habitat: Usually found near sheltered ponds or other permanent water with extensive vegetation. Also seen during rains traveling over land between…

Can anybody comment on the migration habits of the RLF? Given that it was found near the drainage ditch and connected parts of that same ditch run very close to the proposed housing development, what are the chances of finding RLF on other areas of the…

I’ve been told there is more information about Wavecrest at:   http://wavecrest.sanmateo.org/ ...as well as some very wet-looking photos of Wavecrest at:   http://wavecrest.sanmateo.org/wetwavecrest/wetwavecrest.html  ...

You wrote ” AT&T has two networks, TDMA (“analog”) and GSM (“digital”). Sorry to be picky but this is confusing enough already. TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) is AT&T’s older network but it is a digital…

You’re right. That was an exaggeration born of my surprise at how empty the fields were to the west of Hwy 1, and trying to convey it at 1am.  It now reads “Half Moon Bay has only begun to sprawl across Highway 1”. The low-density…

Yes, a useful resource for comparison. But, you should either do a little research or be a bit more specific before making a sweeping statement such as (in 1972) “Half Moon Bay has yet to sprawl across Highway 1”. I’m sure many long-time…

A much more objective description of the proceedings in Judge Forcum’s court may be found at: http://www.sanmateocountytimes.com/Stories/0,1413,87~11268~2271219,00.html The court-ordered re-evaluation of the rejected protest petitions began at 3PM…

The following eyewitness account of the hearing was emailed to me by Kathryn Slater-Carter: I attended the hearing in Half Moon Bay Foundation v. LAFCo hearing in Redwood City yesterday.  It went on from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with a break from about…

According to the certification by the county, 5,340 protests were delivered and 5,340 were verified. Of those 3583 were found sufficient and 1,757 were found “not sufficient” and reasons were given. But you’re right that 1,757 is 32.9%…

Doesn’t anyone do math these days? All the news reports I’ve seen so far claim that 5340 signatures were turned in and that 34% were found to be “invalid” or some such thing. What is 34% of 5340? It’s 1816. Huh? The articles…

It is a problem. We have two pretty big pines in our yard which we have been told by a ‘tree specialist’ will have to come down within a year or two (at the cost of $3000), the reason is ‘Monterey beatle’, he said it is rampant…

Says the judge, ``The right to vote is the most cherished right we have in this country. We have people dying in foreign countries for this right.’’ That’s true. They’re there because a lot of people in Florida were denied their…

Today Judge Forcum did issue a temporary restraining order against LAFCO proceeding any further with the matter, pending a hearing regarding the handling of the protest petitions at SMC Elections department. He said that the plaintiffs had demonstrated…

You’re right about the count. I corrected it. I’m looking forward to see how this turns out....

Ms Woodward expressed forcefully in court on July 8,  that no decision had been made, no petitions have been declared invalid, etc. That job by law goes to the LAFCO Executive. Presumably Mr. Slocum affixed his signature somewhat later in the day…

Actually, the complete proposal can be found at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html You then need to enter in the search term “red legged frog” and the first result should be “Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Proposed”…

The link to the Sentinal article doesn’t go into as much depth (IMHO) as this one in the Hollister Freelance (It affects San Benito County also.): http://tinyurl.com/2f8rr  I had a hard time finding the text of the proposal. How are we supposed…

Ironically, people interested in a seat on the CUSD board will have to choose between this meeting and the budget-adoption meeting of the CUSD board. The July meeting ends up on 6/30, since that’s the deadline for passing the next-year budget....

I’ve decided that this kind of news is indeed important, but I don’t expect to do much more than supply headlines and pointers to coverage elsewhere. The real need for expanded coverage isn’t on tragedies like this. I think the Review…

I feel that the story is very important.  It is true that the HMB Review is lacking in its duty of reporting the news.  Events of local interest occur everyday, yet the paper comes out once a week.  For example a long time resident being…

This is great news, much tighter controls are need to monitor what gets dumped in the ocean along our shores. KJS...

The idea for the Montara Beach Coalition came about after a Save Our Shores beach clean up we attended at Montara. We were chatting with one of the organizers after the event and telling them how we picked litter up on a regular basis ourselves at the…

I’ve also noticed that in the last few weeks, message notification has broken down for me.  I don’t get notified of new voice mail messages until 24 hours after they’re left in many cases. I’m not sure if this is an AT&T…

    AT&T is in a state of flux right now. They’re in the process of being bought by Cingular. All AT&T customers are moving to Cingular’s network.  T-Mobile is buying AT&T’s tower network, so historical experiences…

Hello, I think stories such as the incident on airport road and bodies washing up on the beach should be a high priority for your web site. Fortunately, these type incidents are rare, but I think local residents would like to be informed of these tragedies…

I appreciated BP’s comments, and regret my clumsy public probing of the rules re:  false or disrespectful statements. The CROS pledge to stay below 50% ( and performance under that pledge) are a matter of public record, as are the frequently…

I’m not sure what relevance parsing the sentences has.  The facts remain the same: deceptive tactics were employed, because those employing them had something to hide. We already had this vote, right?  One side lost.  The other side…

Not quite on topic, but the local-headlines link <https://coastsider.com/localheadlines.php> is 404....

I like the map link, by the way. I think there’s room for coverage of locally signficant events that are ephemeral news stories. What were all those sirens about? What was the cause of the power outage? Midcoast-L is sometimes useful in that regard,…

The Mercury News reported this story on Friday night.  Still no word from the San Mateo County Times. The Merc notes that LAFCO has 30 days to tabulate the signatures....

As I said, I opposed the petition because I didn’t think there should be an election, not because of the tiny, but troubling, risk of the decision being overturned without a vote. What I was trying to say above is that a lot of people are scared…

Also, your sentence just after the link ( to the ‘kill the program’  phrase),  reads; “While they may be sincere, MROSD opponents have been using scare tactics. Probably because they’re scared.” So,  apparently…

Incidentally, the linked article on the excellence of MROSD as a neighbor,  does include yet another repetition of the jingoistic phrase, “Opponents of open space are currently trying to collect enough signatures by June 11 for a petition that…

Does anyone know why we didn’t get any voter information in the mail as occurs when a local agency has some significant question on which we must decide? in particular, an ‘impartial analysis’ would have gone a long way to make the entire…

Heh. I wasn’t sure at first what Jonathan meant by that comment.  Yes, I lived in southern California for about four years, but how did he know? I sent him an email, and and he said that it was my use of “the 92” that gave me away....

Hey, Barry, I didn’t realize you were from southern California. Whereabouts?...

If you’re interested in more information on why RSS feeds matter and why you should start using them to read news on the Web, see this page:   http://blog.contentious.com/archives/000038.html This article is really comprehensive and addresses…

WRT your two options, why not both, if the software supports it? Maybe not ideal for RSS, unless one of the copies could be suppressed, but some blog software has provision for filing an article in different places (chronologically, by topic, etc). (Secret…

There is a another good article about RSS on Slate:   http://slate.msn.com/id/2096660/ ...

This is great..nice look and feel…A challenge will be content, including news and opinion….Jack McCarthy...

Is this the oxalis that Chuck’s site calls “Alien - Invasive: Nearing out-of-control status”? Spreading is right… Good article anyway....