San Mateo County Deprives Unincorporated Midcoast of Federal Stimulus Funding

Cliff Notes: SMC requests, and receives, stimulus money for Half Moon Bay, Menlo Park, Pacifica and other parts of San Mateo County.

The unincorporated MidCoast gets none.

Let’s establish some context. Those of us on the Midcoast already know:

Our roads are in a sorry state (Ocean Blvd, what was once the main thoroughfare for Seal Cove in Moss Beach, for example is slipping into the sea and San Mateo County tries to asses residents to pay for its replacement). Surface streets, despite being in residential neighborhoods with home values north of $1M, wouldn’t look out of place in a war zone or third world country.

Our stretch of Highway 1 is sorely overtaxed with increasing resident and visitor-serving traffic.

Our utilities are badly in need of being updated including running unsightly and unreliable power lines underground since we lose power every winter when trees fall onto power lines (and residents lose appliances to brown outs and surges).

Public school buses stopped picking up our kids years ago due to lack of funding and all the additional cars on the road contribute to nightmarish commuter traffic.

We have no community center.

Bottom line: the Midcoast needs infrastructure funding and we need it yesterday.

Against this backdrop, what does SMC do?

They apply for no Federal Stimulus money for Moss Beach (and other Midcoast communities), while applying for, and receiving, significant funding for Half Moon Bay, Menlo Park, Pacifica and others.

See for yourselves: 

http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/home.aspx