An appeals court has granted Half Moon Bay firefighters’ request to halt contracting-out of district services until a final decision on their appeal, reports the County Times.

The firefighters union said it hopes to reverse an Aug. 8 ruling by San Mateo County Superior Court. Judge Marie S. Weiner ruled that the Half Moon Bay and Point Montara Fire Protection districts were within their rights to reject a petition submitted by firefighters who wanted a public referendum on the question of contracting with Cal Fire. In so doing, she cleared the way for the fire districts to proceed with a one-year contract with Cal Fire, to be signed on Oct. 1.

Five days later, the firefighters union appealed the decision.

The court’s stay order throws into question the immediate future plans of a fire district riven by discord between firefighters and the board of directors. Faced with high attrition and spiraling overtime expenses, the joint boards of directors chose to save up to a million dollars a year by contracting with Cal Fire.

The contract will be delayed until after the November election, where it is certain to be the central issue.

Wednesday, we spent the morning at Wavecrest with Audrey Rust and Walter Moore of the Peninsula Open Space Trust and Half Moon Bay City Council members Marina Fraser and Naomi Patridge, taping them for a video we’re producing about the site.

Wednesday as the kind of hot, sunny day we don’t get that often on the Coastside. We met at Smith Field, walked around the property and discussed the future of the property, POST’s relationship with the city, and the beauty of the site itself.

If you have only driven by Wavecrest, you owe it to yourself to visit so you can understand what we’re talking about. First, it’s huge. At Smith Field, you can’t see Highway 1, and you can’t see the ocean.  Second, although it’s mostly covered with dry grass right now, it’s teeming with life. Even casual observers can see a dozen raptors (hawks and kites) making a living on the property within minutes of arriving. Third, it’s crossed by many informal trails. There are plenty of different ways to experience Wavecrest.

This Labor Day weekend, it will be beautiful at the beach.  But it’s a three-day weekend and you should spend one of those days at Wavecrest.

The County Times covers Harbor Village, the hotel and retail development that is scheduled to open "around November 15".

The walls of the mall area will capture the harbor life motif with shingles and clapboard siding, said project marketing director Tony Canadas. The colors in the shops and the hotel rooms — beige, green and blue — follow the colors of the sea, while shingles, dormers and bay windows add to the look of an old seaport town.

The $20 million project is expected to generate between $1.5 million and $2 million a year in tax revenue for San Mateo County and will create between 150 and 175 jobs. Nerhan originally announced an opening date of May 2007. The delay was derived from problems getting all the steel in on time, he said.

Nerhan said half the boutiques were spoken for by future tenants of the mall, which will be a careful mix of retail shops, a delicatessen, clothing stores, a wine-and cheese shop, and other services. Many of the shops will be filled by spinoffs of local stores that have proven successful elsewhere on the coast, like Half Moon Bay’s Toque Blanche, a cooking tools store. Former San Francisco 49er Russ Francis will open a large surf shop, said Canadas.

With 450 parking spaces, the mall expects to get a significant amount of its revenue from Coastsiders looking for food, clothing, and housewares.

The anonymous letter-writer who has been hitting local government officials and media is back in action. The County Times has a good story on the latest anonymous attack, which is as ugly as anything we’ve seen so far.

The letter, faxed to City Hall, downtown merchants, Realtors, developers and members of local agencies, was written by "David Meir," the author of over a dozen missives since March. He accuses city officials of taking bribes from a local businessman who opposes the configuration of a gas station. He uses explicit sexual language to suggest a relationship between the city’s director of public works and city manager. Toward the end of the letter, he writes that he himself is in a sexual relationship with the director of public works and calls for his resignation.

On Monday, City Manager Marcia Raines issued a public letter defending her employees and challenging "Meir" to show his face.

The city’s letter reads, in part: "City staff respects a person’s right to their opinion under the Constitution, but the tone of the letters has become increasingly disgusting, and in some cases threatening, to both city staff and members of the public ... we categorically deny the allegations made about city employees and encourage those persons with issues or grievances to meet face-to-face with senior management staff."

Coastsider received a copy of the most recent letter. The letters do seem to be getting edgier.  The current letter moves in to some fairly personal territory and repeats the ongoing theme that the author is watching city hall and has informants in the building.

Fri Aug 31 at 7:30 pm
The Depot at Johnson House,
    Higgins-Purissima Road, Half Moon Bay
$6:00

Feature: XALA  (123 mins)
    French/Wolof w. English subtitles.

On Friday Aug 31 the Coastside Film Society will screen Ousmane Sembene’s savage and hilarious satire of the modern African bourgeoisie. Forsaking the more obvious (and politically acceptable) targets of European exploitation and racism, Sembene zeroes in on a far touchier subject: the entire blackfacing of white colonial policies after independence was granted.

Set in a newly independent Senegal, the story centers on self-satisfied, westernized Senegalese businessman who decides to take advantage of the rampant corruption in his country. He mines government accounts to come up with the funds he needs to marry his third (polygamous) wife.  His existing wives are less than enthusiastic. On his wedding night, he is suddenly struck down with the xala, an ancient Senegalese curse rendering him impotent. 

With his virility in question he embarks upon a campaign to find a cure. The attempted cures become increasingly ridiculous and bizarre leaving shamed and humiliated with a plummeting social stature.  This vain search for a cure becomes a metaphor for the impossibility of Africans ever achieving liberation through dependence on western technology and bureaucratic structures.

JENNY LAU, Associate Professor of Cinema at San Franciso State University will introduce the film and lead post screening discussion.

For more information and a streaming clip see Coastside Film Society.

Jazz Caliente founding Members Lee Waterman, Guitarist, Composer, Producer and Melecio Magdaluyo - Tenor and Soprano Sax, Flute, Clarinet, and Congas combine credits and credentials to this exciting and "caliente" sextet.  Lee has led several Bay-Area based combos throughout the last two decades, has performed with sax great John Handy, and opened for many headliners, including Tito Puente and Poncho Sanchez. Melecio has appeared and recorded with Ray Charles, Whitney Houston, Tito Puente, Eddy Palmieri, George Coates, Pete Escovedo and John Santos’ Machete Ensemble. Also performing are Michael Wilcox - Electric Bass, Tommy Kesecker-Vibraphone and percussion, Phil Thompson,  Drums and Steve Robertson, Agogo bells, Tamborim, Pandeiro, Triangle.

Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society
307 Mirada Road, Half Moon Bay, CA 94019
$30.  Tickets at the door – Reservations for Members
Doors Open at 3 PM, Music from 4:30 to 7:30 PM, with intermission.

HMB Review editor Clay Lambert says that Coastside County Water District director Chris Mickelson is the author of an anonymous letter sent to Half Moon Bay planning commissioner Kevin Lansing [HMB Review]. The letter was mailed to Lansing the day after he had filed a written complaint with the CCWD about Mickelsen’s behavior.  The anonymous note reads:

Wrong CCWD, you dumbshit! Guess that PhD from UCLA didn’t do you much good…besides that crappy dead end job at [Lansing’s employer]. Guess reading isn’t requiered (sic) at your loser position!

The letter, in an envelope mailed from San Francisco with no return address other than "Your Pal", was scrawled on a copy of document that Lansing had enclosed in his complaint to the CCWD: the code of ethics of the Contra Costa Water District.

Lansing’s complaint to the CCWD [pdf] said that at the Planning Commission meeting on August 24, 2006, which Mickelsen attended as a representative of the CCWD, "Mr. Mickelsen stood at the back of the room (off camera) and proceeded to extend his arm and finger to make a motion of shooting me with a gun. He then raised his hand in an obscene gesture." Lansing filed a complaint with the city of Half Moon Bay four days after the event on August 28, 2006. He says that after the city said it could do nothing about the incident, the wrote to the CCWD on August 23 of this year, so that the complaint would be filed within a year of the incident.

The anonymous letter was postmarked from San Francisco the next day.

Review editor Clay Lambert wrote today in his blog, "Mickelsen confessed, admitting to me that he wrote the profane missive." Lambert described the letter as "Much ado about nothing". The event has echoes of a 2004 event in which Mickelsen confessed to the Review that he bought an anonymous attack ad in that year’s campaign for the Cabrillo Unified School District board.

Lansing has submitted a new complaint to the CCWD regarding the anonymous letter [pdf], as well as to the Half Moon Bay Coastside Chamber of Commerce of which Mickelsen is a board member and past president [pdf].

We attempted to reach Mickelsen at his business this afternoon, but he has not returned our call.

At approximately 12:30 this afternoon, an empty car rolled across Highway 1 in Montara, and didn’t stop until it reached the rocks below. According to Officer P. O’Rourke the car was parked on the east side of the highway near the Army Navy store when it started rolling toward the ocean.  "Thankfully, no one was in the car when it went over," said O’Rourke as he waited for assistance in removing the vehicle from the cliffs below.

Michael Smookler passed away on August 18.  A resident of San Mateo County for over 20 years with passion for local history, is the author of three books on Montara, the San Mateo County Coast, and Colma. I met Michael in writing about his first book and greatly appreciated his work toward identifying the elements that made Montara a community.

Smookler retired in July 2004 after working for 27 years as an operating engineer and by December of that year, he had taken up writing and self-published Montara: A Pictorial History. Michael wrote one story for Coastsider on restaurants of Montara, which included some photos and ephemera.

With a master’s in history from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Smookler’s love of history lead him to author two more local history books with Arcadia Publishing:  San Mateo County Coast and Colma.  Even while battling cancer, he continued his enthusiasm for his books and attended a book signing in February for Colma and was presented with a key to the city. 

Smookler’s books, San Mateo County Coast and Colma, include images of himself and his family.

Smookler is survived by his wife, Suzanne Smookler, and children, Alexandra Smookler and Bennett Smookler, all of Montara.  He is also survived by his mother, Lorraine Smookler, of San Francisco.