The US Fish and Wildlife Service has responded to an opinion piece in the Half Moon Bay Review. The agency has sent a letter to Julie Baigent, counsel to Wavecrest partner Concar Enterprises, in response to Baigent’s column in last Wednesday’s Review. Baigent’s opinion piece was intended to "correct several wrong or misleading statements in a Review article headlined ‘Wavecrest’s sensitive habitat partially tilled’."

In the letter, Cay C. Goude, Assistant Field Supervisor at USFWS noted that, contrary to Baigent’s statement in the Review, that Concar was aware that all of Wavecrest is considered sensitive habitat for endangered species, the dead snakes found after the disking were not found to be common garter snakes, and that Concar’s safeguards were inadequate to protect endangered species on the property [PDF of letter].

Baigent wrote in the Review:

...the US Fish and Wildlife Service had not made an "August determination" that the North Wavecrest property "is habitat for the California red-legged frog" as reported in the newspaper. The US Fish and Wildlife Service had expressed an opinion that portions of the property appeared to be "suitable habitat" for red-legged frogs, but has not made any formal determination that the property does in fact constitute sensitive habitat.

...

At no time did I say that Concar was aware that the property has been "deemed red-legged frog habitat", because, as I said before, Concar has been informed of no such formal designation.

But the USFWS remembers this differently. Goude’s letter says, "The Service would like to reiterate our formal determination, as reflected in both our August 24, 2004 and November 16, 2004 letters, that the entire Wavecrest site, including the portion owned by Concar Enterprises, is suitable habitat for both the threatened California red-legged frog (Rana aurora draytonii) (red-legged frog) and the endangered San Francisco garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia) and should be considered sensitive habitat for both species."

Later in the article, Baigent said:

We understand that the USFWS has determined that a dead snake alleged to have been found on the Wavecrest site was a common coast garter snake and not a special status species, and although there was no intent to injure any animal, if one in fact has been injured, this was not the species the monitoring biologist was charged to avoid.

Goude notes, "The Service would also like to clarify that the dead snake found on the Wavecrest site after the disking activity, and referenced in your piece, has not yet been positively identified as to the exact species.  The snake is being sent for analysis to determine if it is the endangered San Francisco garter snake, a coast garter snake, or a hybrid of the two species.  The Service would also like to stress that the presence of a biological monitor during disking activities (or other surface-disturbing activities) will not insure that take of red-legged frogs or San Francisco garter snakes will not occur. "

A vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian at the crossing of Highway 1 and Spindrift Way [map] in Half Moon Bay Friday night. The pedestrian was crossing Highway 1, and the vehicle was traveling north.  The Half Moon Bay Police responded to the call at 6:44pm. The victim was pronounced dead on the scene, and was transported the San Mateo County Coroner’s Office. The Coroner’s Office would not identify the victim at 1pm Saturday, pending notification of next of kin.

The driver was uninjured and the accident is under investigation by the Half Moon Bay Police.

Alana Freiberg, charged with abducting her daughter, has been committed to inpatient mental health treatment.

On the recommendation of a third psychiatrist, after the first two disagreed on her competence to stand trial, the judge ordered Freiberg to spend up to 24 days in an inpatient psychiatric treatment facility. Her husband asked that she be sent to a local hospital so that he and the couple’s daughter could visit.

Her treatment could be extended, and criminal proceedings will be suspended until she is found competent to stand trial.

Jeff Gilmore of Coastside Peace has written a creepy portrait of what the Coastside would be like under an Iraq-style occupation for the San Fransciso Bay Guardian.

HALF MOON BAY – It’s been another rough week here on the Coastside. Seven more people were killed, four of them kids, when the Coalition Forces dropped a 500-pound bomb on a house in El Granada. They claimed there were "pro-Bush insurgents" living in the house, but it was just Mrs. Norris and that group of kids she’s been trying to take care of since their parents were all killed in the "shock and awe" campaign last year.  [Continued at SF Bay Guardian]

The San Mateo County Times has a soft-focus portrait of Lt. Steve Shively, the new head of the Sheriff’s substation in Moss Beach. Shively previously patrolled the Coastside as a deputy in the 1980’s.

The Cabrillo Unified School District has published its application for people wanting to serve on strategy committees.  The committee process is a critical link between CUSD’s board and the community it serves, and I encourage you to participate.

The committees are the next step in the District’s strategic planning process.

Community members can sign up for a committee covering diversity, student achievement, parent/community engagement, curriculum and instruction, or revenue.  Committee members will be called on to share their ideas for the development of an action plan to accomplish their strategy.  Each committee is expected to meet eight to ten times between January and March, 2005. 

The deadline for applications is December 15, 2004.

The Bush administration is proposing to reduce by 80% the designated habitat for endangered Pacific salmon and steelhead.

On the Coastside, concerns about the fish have affected how local streams can be used.  Most of the coastal rivers in California were considered critical habitat for salmon and steelhead before 2002.

The plan was prompted by a lawsuit from the National Association of Homebuilders. It would remove protection from private lands where developers have made conservation deals with the government, as well as millions of acres of national forests in northwestern California through western Oregon and Washington.

Not only have the critical habitats been reduced significantly by the NMFS, but the agency is now saying that economic impacts would be considered when designating critical habitat.

There will be a 60-day public comment period, and the final decision is expected by June 2005.

The following is the text of my letter to the editor in today’s Review—with one small but important update. [strong]The next CUSD meeting is next Thursday, December 9[/strong], not December 2. Apologies.

I wanted to share this with Coastsider’s readers and give them a chance to add comments.

Dear Editor:

Next Thursday, December 9, the Cabrillo Unified School District governing board will elect its next president.

There are two members of the Board who should not be considered for that position.  Board members Jolanda Schreurs and Charles Gardner participated in a deceit on the community during the November election.

Charles Gardner allowed a small group that included Jolanda Schreurs (who had loaned over $2000 to his campaign) to use his reserved advertising space in the Review, next to the ad of one of his opponents.  Using Gardner’s space, Schreurs’s team ran an ad attacking Gardner’s opponent. The ad was designed by Schreurs to mimic the design of the victim’s own ad. Disguising themselves as "Citizens for Coastside Schools", the team hid behind a fictitious "pending" state campaign ID.

The Review exposed this attempted deception, but only after the election.

Perhaps understandably, other members of board have been reluctant to criticize their fellow members for this stunt. But they should not reward them for it either.

The election of either Jolanda Schreurs or Charles Gardner to the position of president of the board would be a slap in the face of the community and would teach our children the wrong lesson about the district’s idea of ethics, vision of democracy, and choice of leadership.

Cheri Parr
Montara

The recent disking of the Wavecrest property was being done by a farmer who is leasing the land from owners Concar Enterprises in order to grow hay, according to Concar counsel Julie Baigent. The land was used to grow hay before it was targeted for development.

Unirrigated cropland in San Mateo County leases for an average $50 to $100 per acre per year. Vivian Soffa of the US Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency in Salinas gave me that estimate based on the USDA’s annual survey of county farm and ranch land values. This is consistent with some information I got from the San Mateo County Farm Bureau.

How much land did Concar lease for farming?  Of Wavecrest’s 206 acres, 108 acres belong to Concar, according to the San Mateo County Assessor’s database. This property runs from Highway 1 to the blufftops.

Concar would stand to make between $5,000 and $10,000 per year from leasing this land to grow hay, assuming all of it could be farmed.