UPDATE & CORRECTION: The two dogs were rescued by land on Monday. The original version of this story described the helicopter as a Blackhawk. I’ve taken down the specific reference, as it appears that this may not be correct and the original source is no longer calling it a Blackhawk.

Pacifica Riptide has the exciting story of a hiker rescued by a helicopter on Montara Mountain Saturday night.  His two dogs are still stuck near Brooks Falls. His cries for help were first heard by a park ranger.

A search party made up of 40 expert climbers and others from the Office of Emergency Services, Coast Guard, North County Fire Authority (Pacifica Fire), Humane Society, and others had been unable to rescue the man, so the helicopter was brought in.

Unfortunately, the rescued hiker’s two dogs are still stuck near Brooks Falls, unable to get up or down the steep, inaccessible granite slope, and rescuers are unable to reach the stranded dogs. At least the dogs have access to drinking water from the falls, but no food, almost 48 hours since they became stranded.

Authorities are asking people to stay away from the scene or attempting to rescue the dogs, as they may interfere with rescue efforts or become stuck themselves.

Whether you saw Wednesday’s fireworks display or regret you missed it, don’t miss Darin Boville’s re-imagining of the event over at Montara Fog. He took his excellent video of the display and overlayed and condensed it into something familiar, but totally new:

These are the Half Moon Bay fireworks as you’ve never seen them before. The video begins with the real grand finale and ends with a with a fantasy grand finale made up of the first forty minutes of fireworks transformed into a two minute spectacle. The whole thing is over in under five minutes.

Darin Boville’s Coastside Fantasy Fireworks Video [5 min]  | Quicktime | Flash  |

During the summer, its sometimes hard to remember flooding like this in Montara during the winter of 2005-06. Click the photo to see the complete album.

We just had a relatively dry winter, but drainage and flooding are major issues on the Coastside. The County Board of Supervisors has formed a committee of citizens and staff to identify drainage problems and propose solutions.

The first Midcoast Storm Drainage Committee meeting will take place Friday, July 13 from 10:30am to Noon at the Sheriff's Substation at 500 California Avenue, Moss Beach. The Board of Supervisors will appoint committee members at their July 10 regular meeting.

In reading a Q&A with New York Times Digital News Editor Jim Roberts, I was struck by how close the Times’s guidelines for readers posting comments are to the ones we use here at Coastsider. There’s nothing new in our guidelines or those of the Times. These principles are well known in the online community. However, other sites do operate under very different rules.

Early on, we tried running anonymous comments without prior moderation. We did get a lot more postings in those days. But Coastsider today feel more like a conversation among neighbors than a hit-and-run argument. Without these rules, comments tend to be anonymous, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

If you follow these rules, regardless of the forum you’re posting in, you’ll get more respect and better responses.

Unlike some other news sites, we review every single comment that readers send in. We have considered trying software that filters profanity or doing what other sites do and allowing readers to flag objectionable comments. But so far we have not found anything that substitutes for having trained editors or news assistants read each one to make sure it is suitable for publication.

So, what is suitable? Well, we do want to know what people think, and we grant our readers a degree of leeway in criticizing newsmakers and in finding fault with how we present the news. But we draw the line in these ways:

1. No profanity. No obscenity. No asterisks that take the place of letters in objectionable words.

2. No name calling or insults. I don’t like it when I see the words "idiot" or "moron" or "fascist." I can be somewhat tolerant of harsh criticism of public officials, but I am super-aggressive in deleting comments in which other commenters are being attacked. And while I don’t mind criticism of The New York Times, personal attacks on our reporters won’t be tolerated. And forget about ethnic, racial, religious or sexual slurs. Finally, try not to dominate the conversation so that other people have the opportunity to express their opinions even if they disagree with yours.

3. Stay on point. Comments that stray from the topic are pointless and will be bounced. And we tend to set the bar even higher when we have a huge flow on a certain subject and some of the sentiments seem repetitive.

4. Don’t bother sending press releases.

5. Don’t rage and don’t SHOUT. Lot’s of readers seem to think that UPPERCASE comments are more effective in getting their points across. We prefer a more tempered conversation.

6. Please use your real name. We don’t require this but we’d like to know who you are. If you sign your name Bill Clinton or Frank Zappa, we’ll in all likelihood delete it, unless we’re certain you’re the former president or the reincarnated Mother of Invention.

Whaler’s Cove, the beach below the Pigeon Point Lighthouse, is open once again after thirteen years, reports the Daily Journal.

The cove was purchased in 1981 with plans on building a private home on the site. Plans changed in 1994 to build a nine-unit motel. Part of that deal required a 1.5 acre portion of the beach be given to the state. The owner, however, owned the access points which were blocked shortly after. In May 2000, the Peninsula Open Space Trust purchased the land to protect the views and historic values.

Before reopening, POST built stairs connecting the scenic bluff to the area below.

On a clear day, the views are completely breathtaking from the area before even reaching the top of the stairs. A short stroll down the 20 or so stairs opens up a calm beach, saved from the wind thanks to the large cliffs. Rocks in the water and occasionally along the beach add to the views as the water slowly creeps onto the soft sand.

"The Mystery of Half Moon Bay", a KCSM documentary first released in 1981, has been published free on the Web by producer Stewart Cheifet. The 60-minute documentary freezes Half Moon Bay and the Coastside at a moment shortly after the Coastal Act was enacted.

Tthe spotlight was on the eccentric characters who deeply loved rural Half Moon Bay. But there was also plenty of controversy. The show begins with the historic Chamarita, goes back to the Indians and the failed Ocean Shore Railrod and moves forward through the voices of 1980.

The Mystery of Half Moon Bay was written and produced by June Morrall, who writes the wonderful Half Moon Bay Memories blog.

The school district is holding public input meeting for the search firm it hired to find a new superintendent for CUSD. The meeting will be Tuesday, July 10 at 7pm in the Cunha Multi-Purpose Room. For more information,  call 650.726.7871

If you can’t attend the meeting, feel free to share your ideas here on Coastsider, by clicking "comments" just below the headline on this story.

Looking out our living room window this morning, I was greeted by a curious site. A bus stop sign in an orange bucket full of cement on the corner of the street.

Uh-oh, Montara N.I.M.B.Y. Alert (well actually, not in my front yard.)

SamTrans apparently placed signs overnight in Montara announcing it’s intent to extend it’s Bus Route 17 through the back streets of Montara beginning July 1.

Okay, so SamTrans has decided to turn Montara neighborhood streets into a full-time bus route without any neighborhood notification, or input.

I immediately called SamTrans looking for more information, they didn’t have any details. So I dug around on their website, and found information in the form of a hard to find route schedule and map PDF, buried deep in the site.

The intended route extension begins in Moss Beach at Etheldore St, travels along the back of Sunshine Valley Rd to Harte Street in Montara, then continues down the length 6th Street to Main Street, circling onto 7th Streets and Farallone Avenue, before returning back up Sixth Street towards Moss Beach.

The route is scheduled to operate hourly 7 days a week, 7am-8pm weekdays and 9am-8pm weekends. Highlights include 4 buses up and down 6th street 7am-8am every weekday.

So SamTrans has made up bus stop signs, printed up route maps, but they’re only just now getting around to letting residents know (via bucket), five days before daily, hourly service begins on their streets.

If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering why SamTrans would decide to run a bus route up the one-laned 6th Street through the back of Montara to Moss Beach, rather than along Highway 1 (as the rest of Route 17 runs.) And the other SamTrans bus routes use Highway 1 to Main Street in Montara. It would be less disruptive to quiet neighborhood streets, but who knows.

I don’t know yet. SamTrans hasn’t returned my phone call yet.

Concerned neighbors can contact Sam Trans at 800 660 4287, or contact Paul Lee directly at SamTrans at 650 508 6200.

Details of the Route 17 extension were hard to find on the SamsTrans website, but here is a link: http://www.samtrans.com/schedules.html#Coastside

Or here is a PDF of the Route 17 map and schedule.

It’s wonderful to have fireworks back on the Coastside for the Fourth of July. Half Moon Bay’s Fourth of July parade is a genuine small-town tradition and part of why we love living on the Coastside. But what’s the Fourth without fireworks? After a couple of years of confusion and rancor, American Legion Post 474 took over the tradition and have done an admirable job of restoring dignity to the event.

CLICK on the photo to see Elizabeth Boville’s album of photos from last night’s event.