Cheri Parr

Casey Sample presents a to-go dinner to a couple of Cunha students who are about to drive home from a long day at school.

Casey Sample, owner of Casey’s Café in Half Moon Bay, took the old adage of "Making Lemonaid out of Lemons" to a new level.  Surrounded by talk of failing businesses and the impact of the Devil’s slide outage on local commerce, Casey had an idea: turn the outage to an advantage. 

"I kept thinking about all those evening commuters, stuck in their cars for hours, facing cooking dinner and doing dishes when they got home.  Why not make their life a little easier? "  From that initial thought came "Deviled-to-Go"—daily specials to go for weary commuters.  In addition to making regular menu available to go, Casey has added a devilish twist: Deviled Crab Dip, Fallen Angel Hair Pasta, and that classic stand-by Deviled Eggs. Dinners cost from $10 -$16, tax included, and are ready for pick-up at the back of the café on Purissima Street. 

Casey tries not to think too far ahead, or guess when the slide will re-open.  She laughs,  "I just take it one day at a time and go from there.  As long as there is Devil’s food cake and Fire & Brimstone blackened tuna I’ll be here working in Hell’s kitchen!"

You can reach Casey for today’s special at 650-560-4880, or download a PDF of her devilish new menu from Coastsider.

BUSINESS OWNERS: Are you doing something creative to cope with the Slide crisis?  Let us know.

Back to Basics Night at Pac Bell Park is May 22, 2006, when the SF Giants play the St Louis Cardinals at 7:15pm.

The Giants donate the proceeds from as many seats as the community can fill.  The seats are together in the View Reserved section, so the whole community is seated to enjoy the game and the performances of their local musicians together.

It’s going to be a special evening for Coastsiders.

The community will be featured throughout the game with scoreboard and on camera recognition.  The Half Moon Bay High band will play the National Anthem, Cunha Middle School will perform ”Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the 7th inning stretch, and the Cabrillo Alumni band performs pre-game in Willie Mays Plaza.  A child from each of the elementary schools will have the memorable experience of being down on the field for batting practice, and one of our students will be awarded the chance to be the Junior Announcer, reading off the line-up during the 3rd inning.  Each Elementary school is devising its own contest to determine who the lucky child will be.

Tickets are $20. each, and must be purchased by May 8 to benefit Back to Basics.  Tickets can be purchased on line from Back to Basics, or by visiting the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, Cameron’s Restaurant, The Half Moon Bay Inn, San Benito House and Lighthouse Water.  To sponsor a block of 25 or more tickets,call Faham Zakariaei of The Giants at 415-972-2258.

For more information, call Erin Tormey at 726-4802.

Lisa Ketcham sent us this photo of a new slide behind Pillar Ridge Mobile Home Park.  This slide is just north of the slide we showed earlier behind the community center.  Google maps has a great satellite picture showing the relative positions of these two locations [Google maps].  These tanks are in the top center of the satellite photo and the pool of the community center can be seen just below it.

Lisa Ketcham

Caltrans stopped using explosives and has deployed a "spyder" to move loose rocks and boulders down the cliff.

Meanwhile, near Shamrock Ranch, Caltrans has built a temporary detour next to the southbound lane around the slipout in the northbound lane.

Caltrans says they are monitoring Highway 92 daily for slides and repairing potholes as they are found.  They plan to begin clearing draining channels overnight Sunday, Monday and early Tuesday morning, April 23 through April 25. One-way traffic control will be in effect from 8pm to 4:30am on Highway 92 on those days.

Caltrans

A "spyder" moves loose rocks and boulders down the cliff.

Caltrans

Near Shamrock Ranch, Caltrans has built a temporary detour next to the southbound lane.

The traffic mess, numerous inconveniences and myriad of consequences due to the closure of Highway 1 have left all of us on the Coastside under a shadow of malaise. 

But we need to separate our issues.

In reading various comments posted recently, it is obvious that people are looking for someplace to direct their understandable frustrations.  Unfortunately, some people are misdirecting their frustrations at the Cabrillo Unified School District.

Busing has always been an important issue to the CUSD.  In fact, the $250 parcel tax that lost by a very slight margin in 2003 would have indeed restored full busing.  The closure of Highway 1 may highlight the need for student transportation; however, that is not what Measure S, the $175 school parcel tax on the June ballot, is about.

The top priority of our school district - first and foremost - is to provide a high quality education to the children and young people of our community.  Measure S funds are dedicated solely to the mission of improving student academic achievement and to help our kids meet and exceed academic standards.  (To learn more about Measure S, visit www.pro-school.org ) .

Had we all known in early March when the measure had to be filed with the county in order to make it onto the June ballot that Devil’s Slide would go out, I might guess that the school district could have felt comfortable asking the community to approve a significantly higher parcel tax - more in the area of $290 - to restore full busing in addition to providing the resources needed to improve academic achievement.  But without the benefit of precognition or a crystal ball,  the school board chose to deal with its most important mission first and ask voters to approve a more modest dollar figure.

When Devil’s Slide did wreak its havoc, the school district responded immediately to the road closure. That first Monday afternoon, Superintendent John Bayless and the principals met to develop solutions. 

The result?  Throughout the duration of the closure, the school district will operate buses for Cunha Middle School students and has changed school start times in the morning to reduce traffic during commute hours.  Additionally, supervised child care will be provided at all elementary schools beginning at 6:30 AM so that commuting parents can bring their children to school as early as necessary.

Regardless of the status of Highway 1, however, the overall transportation needs of our community extend much further than student transportation.  Recognizing this - and well before the road was closed - the school board took a proactive approach to improve local transportation by initiating an active partnership with San Mateo County, SAMTRANS, the City of Half Moon Bay and the Coastside Opportunity Center to assess overall transportation needs and develop the best solution.

In a perfect world, we wouldn’t have to deal with road closures; our local schools would have the funding they need to provide the kind of education we all want for our community’s kids; and of course we would have school buses.

We all know that we don’t live in a perfect world.  But by pulling together to do the best we can to solve one problem at a time, the closer we’ll be to that world.

Darin Boville has made a video about life after the closure of Devil's Slide, or at least one aspect of it. All I'll tell you in advance is that it's sort of a music video.

Darin Boville

Click on the picture to see the video.

Congressman Tom Lantos visited both sides of the Slide today, touring businesses in Pacifica and Montara.  In Montara, he was hosted by Julie Lucchesi, owner of Caffe Lucca on Highway 1 at the entrance to town at noon today.

Lantos spent about an hour at the Caffe, enjoying a sandwich and conversation with Lucchesi and a couple of Montarans.  He expressed his concern and told them that he’d be taking their story back to DC.  In a postmodern moment, it became clear that the importance of the event was to focus the spotlight that follows a congressional visit on the ongoing impact of the closure on our community.  Would TV news have come to the Coastside this week, if they hadn’t had something to put on the screen?

Barry Parr

Inside the media bubble, Congressman Lantos talks to Caffe Lucca owner Julie Lucchesi about the effect of the closure on her business. The good news is that most of her weekday customers are locals.

Barry Parr

Outside the media bubble, Review photographer Leigh Ann Maze, KNTV NBC-11, an unidentified cameraperson, and KGO-TV Channel 7. Not shown: Coastsider photographer Barry Parr.

Frustration with the closure of Highway 1 on Devil’s Slide was evident in Tuesday night’s Half Moon Bay City Council meeting.

Representatives of State Senator Jackie Speier, Assembly Member Gene Mullin, Supervisor Rich Gordon, Caltrans, the County Sheriff, CHP, County Office of Emergency Services, SamTrans, HMB Fire Protection District, Cabrillo Unified School District, Harbor District, HMB Chamber of Commerce, and Community Transportation Collaborative all converged on the Adcock Center to tell a packed meeting what they were doing to alleviate the impact on the community, or (in the case of Caltrans) fix the Slide.

• The Harbor District is looking at making their parking lot at Princeton available for ride-sharers.
• The Fire District has had to adjust its dispatch to account for the fact that Pacifica fire engines are no longer available on the Coastside, working more closely with the Bayside departments and Pescadero.
• The City Council, as did the Midcoast Community Council, expressed concern about landslides and water running across the road on Highway 92.  We’re starting to see potholes on the Highway.

KTVU, Channel 2, was at the meeting and reported it as part of a relatively extensive report on the impact of the outage on the Coastside.  You’ll see some of your neighbors in the story. It also begins with an important message for those of you who are having difficulty deciding which toilet paper to buy.

Much later in the evening, the City Council announced $23,000 in 2006 Human Services funding:

• $5,000 Senior Coastsiders
• $5,000 Coastside Opportunity Center
• $5,000 Coastside Adult Day Care
• $4,000 Coastside Infant Toddler Center
• $3,000 Sonrisas
• $1,000 Coastside Parents’ Nursery School

The average guess in our "I know when Devil’s Slide will open!" contest was 103 days from its closure on Sunday, April 2. If you buy into "The Wisdom of Crowds", that’s as good an estimate as any in a world where Caltrans isn’t talking much.  Half of the estimates were greater than 92 days and half were less. If that estimate were correct, the Slide would be open July 17

14. [CORRECTION]

We had 171 entries, and to calculate the average, we eliminated four guesses that amounted to "never".

Coastsiders closer to the Slide were much more interested in the survey than those in Half Moon Bay. About 40% of the respondents were from Montara and Moss Beach, while about 30% of Coastsider readers come from those communities. Only 16% of the respondents were from Half Moon Bay, which contains half the Coastside’s population.

The survey took place after a week of horrible traffic. About half the respondents said they were responding to the traffic by leaving earlier in the morning, and we saw the traffic jams backing up earlier and earlier that week. A third are working at home, ten percent say they are carpooling, and none are taking public transportation.

The winner of our little contest receives a $100 gift certificate at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company.  We’ll announce the winner when the Slide has opened.

Click the link to find our how people are adjusting to the new commute, and some comments on how else losing the Slide has affected their lives.

DISCLOSURE: This isn’t science, this is a game.

Caltrans used explosives today loosen boulders from the cliffs above Highway 1 at Devil’s Slide.  Rocks and boulders tumbling on the road have been an ongoing danger to Caltrans work crews at the outage.  Caltrans used controlled blasts to loosen rock, and more will be dislodged manually by crews this week.  The rocks will be hauled to a dump site.

Click for video of the blast from Caltrans.  KTVU also has a nice video of the explosion with enough detail to show the boulders tumbling down the cliff. It begins with a short commercial for toilet paper,  featuring bears.

Liz Mangelsdorf/San Francisco Chronicle (pool photo)

Liz Mangelsdorf/San Francisco Chronicle (pool photo)