Firefighters, Sheriff’s deputies and Highway Patrol responded to a report of a motorcycle over a cliff on Highway 1 just north of Pescadero Saturday night.  As of 10pm, the rider still had not been found, despite assistance from a helicopter equipped with infrared sensing equipment. Personnel on the scene were still uncertain whether the rider had ended up in the surf, or someone had dumped the motorcycle.

Review publisher Debra Godshall has a blog. Good for her. But she has posted to her blog exactly twice in the year she’s had it.  Once to chide a guy named John Lynch on technicalities of residency in Half Moon Bay. And this afternoon she used it to ridicule Mr. Lynch’s circulation of a petition supporting the Pilarcitos Creek park site.

She gives Mr. Lynch what-for, saying that the only way that Half Moon Bay is going to get a park will be through private charity and that he should be raising money, not signatures.

Whatever happened to the idea that real communities figure out how to pay for their own public improvements? Besides, supporters of the park have already said that private fundraising should contribute to the cost of some amenities on the site, along several other public and private sources. And the immediate cost of a park financed with bonds, developed incrementally, and properly funded will be a heck of a lot less than the scary $12 million she cites.

But the immediate priority is to make sure the city council doesn’t kill the possibility of any park forever. Ms. Godshall knows that, so her blog entry today looks more like misdirection than any attempt at a conversation about community priorities.

What disturbs me most is that of all the things that she could comment on from her position in leadership in our community, she chooses to ridicule a citizen on the sidewalk with a petition in his hand.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I’m proud to call John Lynch my friend.

Visit the antiques and collectibles fair in the Half Moon Bay City Hall parking lot on Main Street the Saturday, June 16 from 9am to 3pm. Estate jewelry, silver, glass, china, antique furniture, and more.  Find the perfect gift or treasure from various vendors, including the Senior Coastsiders Thrift Store.  This event benefits Senior Coastsiders.

Reader polls have been on my "to do" list since before I launched Coastsider three years ago, but I’ve held off because I anticipated some serious problems. The Review’s poll this past week on what to do with the Pilarcitos Creek park site points out exactly how easy it is to go wrong.

I’ve received plenty of email from various sources urging people to vote, and asking me to point to the poll. But it is so easy to vote more than once on the Review’s site that the whole thing is worse than meaningless. It gives a very concrete but utterly false sense of what people are thinking. No disclaimer in the world will keep people from being influenced by a graph of the results.

It’s too easy to vote more than once on the Review’s poll. They’re not even setting cookies properly, let alone using IP addresses to prevent cheating. For you non-geeks out there, they’re not only leaving the front door unlocked, they’ve left it wide open. I still plan to do polls in the future, but when I do, I’ll have some safeguards in place to cut down on cheating, and I’ll be careful about what questions I ask.

Watching the vote for "sell the site" drop from about 45% to 33% on Saturday, and then rally back to the mid-40s, it’s clear that we’re not seeing a random sampling of anything. Everybody’s cheating on the poll.  Considering the stakes, they’d be crazy not to.

Alexa Weber Morales melds warm acoustic jazz with flavors from across the vast spectrum of Latin, Cuban, Brazilian, and African music for a mix that’s at once rootsy and cosmopolitan, street-wise and sophisticated. The singer’s dynamic vocals, innovative rhythmic sense, and emotive phrasing bring a sizzling, soulful power to every note she sings.  with Murray Low, piano; Sam Bevan, bass; Edgardo Cambon, percussion, David Flores, drumset
 
Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society
307 Mirada Road, Half Moon Bay, CA  94019
$30.  Tickets at the door.
Sunday, June 17
Doors Open at 3 PM, Music from 4:30 to 7:30 PM, with intermission.

Join Melissa Amarello for an introduction to the diverse community of local reptiles, presented by the Pescadero Conservation Alliance. Learn of Melissa’s efforts to study their natural history and the effects of prescribed burning along the San Mateo coast. She is currently conducting research on snake conservation in the area as part of a fellowship sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the US Geological Survey.

Melissa will present a slideshow and lecture with live animals at the Native Sons Hall in Pescadero. Afterward, she will lead a field trip to nearby spots where some of the local species can be found.

1:30 pm for lecture at Native Sons Hall, Stage Rd, Pescadero (next to post office), field trip to follow
$5 suggested donation per person or family
Children welcome if they do not interrupt the speaker’s presentation
                                                               
For Lecture Take Hwy.1 to Pescadero Creek Road, an intersection marked by a flashing light.
Travel into Pescadero to the stop sign at the center of town, by the flag pole.
Turn south onto Stage Road. Native Sons Hall is just past the Post Office.
Allow about 30 minutes travel time from Half Moon Bay, or 45 minutes from Santa Cruz.

Reader Barbara Kossy recommends that Coastsiders check out the new website for the PlantRight campaign. PlantRight is the result of the partnership of the California Invasive Plants Council and Cal-HIP (Horticultural Invasive Prevention). The campaign encourages growers, retailers, landscape professionals and gardeners to avoid invasive plants.

The June 20 public meeting on the Midcoast Recreation Implementation Plan has been canceled.  The next public meeting will be held on July 31 from 7 to 9pm at the Harbor House Conference Center located at 346 Princeton Ave. in Princeton.

The next Midcoast Recreation Action Plan Committee meeting is scheduled for July 10 from 7 to 9pm at the Harbor House Conference Center in Princeton.  The committee meetings will not be open for public participation; however, the public may observe the meetings. 

If you have any questions, please contact Senior Park Planner Sam Herzberg at 650.363-1823.