Half Moon Bay recently reviewed its real estate holdings to see if there was anything they could sell. Darin Boville took a copy of the city’s presentation on the properties it holds and linked the properties to Google maps.

You can see the presentation here, but if you want more detail about their locations, see Darin’s story at Montara Fog. There are five more slides after the jump.

Following the first deadline for filing to run for office, there were three candidates for three seats on the Montara Water and Sanitary District (MWSD) board, and five candidates for three seats on the Granada Sanitary District board.  The three incumbents in MWSD will be seated without an election.

The deadline for the other Coastside boards with open seats has been extended until Wednesday, August 12, because at least one incumbent did not file to run by the end of the day on Friday, August 7. Those boards are: County Coastside Water District, Coastside Fire Protection District, Half Moon Bay City Council,  Midcoast Community Council.

Here are the current candidate lists for each board. Half Moon Bay has not yet posted their (incomplete) candidate list online.

County Coastside Water District (Two 4-Year Terms / closes Aug 12)

Jerry Donovan (Retired Police Officer) Half Moon Bay, 94019 (res.);  [email protected]; DCF 8/06

James D. Johnson (Management Consultant) DCF 7/16

Chris R. Mickelsen (Incumbent) DCF 8/06

Coastside Fire Protection District (Three 4-Year Terms / closes Aug 12)

Jeffrey B Cockrell (Appointed Incumbent) P O Box 1270, Montara, 94037 (mail);  [email protected]; (650) 728-3933 (day); (650) 728-3933 (eve); DCI 8/05

Max De Vos (Business Owner) DCF 8/05

David Eufusia (Retired Fire Chief) DCF 8/06

Gary Burke (Incumbent) 421 Greenbrier Road, Half Moon Bay, 94019 (res.); (650)  303-7144 (day); DCF 8/03

Charles Netherby (Retired Union Representative) Half Moon Bay, 94019 (res.);  [email protected]; (650) 712-1848 (day); (650) 712-1848 (eve); DCF 7/31

Ginny McShane (Incumbent) 723 Etheldore Street, Moss Beach, 94038 (res.);  [email protected]; (650) 728-3130 (day); DCF 8/04

Gary Riddell (Retired Firefighter) P.O. Box 370040, Montara, 94037 (mail); (650)  728-7809 (day); DCF 8/05

Granada Sanitary District (Three 4-Year Terms / FINAL)

Leonard Woren (Software Engineer) P.O. Box 1375, El Granada, 94018 (mail);  [email protected]; (650) 726-9647 (day); DCF 8/06

Lisa McCaffrey (Registered Nurse) P.O. Box 2384, El Granada, 94018 (mail);  [email protected]; (650) 712-0116 (day); DCF 8/07

Ric Lohman (Incumbent) 420 1st Avenue, El Granada, 94018 (res.);  [email protected]; (415) 734-2039 (day); (650) 726-9607 (eve); DCF 8/04

Bill Griffis (Residential Mortgage Consultant) P.O. Box 1792, El Granada, 94018 (mail); [email protected]; DCF 8/07

Gael Erickson (Incumbent) PO Box 2905, El Granada, 94018 (mail);  [email protected]; (650) 726-4416 (day); (650) 726-4416 (eve); DCF 8/06

Midcoast Community Council (Four 4-Year Terms / closes Aug 12)

Tim Payne (None) P.O. Box 370507, Montara, 94037 (mail); [email protected];  (650) 539-5678 (day); DCF 8/07

Len Erickson (None) P.O. Box 2905, El Granada, 94018 (mail);  [email protected]; (650) 400-3175 (day); DCF 8/06

Montara Water and Sanitary District (Three 4-Year Terms) (FINAL)

Bob Ptacek (Incumbent) P.O. Box 371441, Montara, 94037 (mail);  [email protected]; (650) 728-5958 (day); DCF 8/06

Jim Harvey (Incumbent) [email protected]; (650) 728-3665 (eve); DCF 7/13

Paul Perkovic (Incumbent) P.O. Box 371149, Montara, 94037-1149 (mail);  [email protected]; (415) 370-3897 (day); DCF 7/13

Legend: DCI=Declaration of Candidacy Issued; DCF=Declaration of Candidacy Filed;

Congresswoman Jackie Speier will be on the Coastside Sunday, Aug 23 11:00-12:30, for a town hall event in Moss Beach, followed by a special tour of the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve.
 
Cypress Meadows Conference Center
343 Cypress Avenue [Google map]
Moss Beach

Paul Perkovic is MWSD Board President but his letter expresses his individual opinion, not official Board or District policy. He’s running for re-election this year. Coastsider welcomes letters from all candidates for public office on the Coastside.

The risks resulting from San Mateo County allowing private wells without adequate groundwater studies are highlighted in the article “Midcoast water policies blamed for failing well” in last week’s Half Moon Bay Review and Pescadero Pebble.

Montara Water and Sanitary District, not the County, initiated Local Coastal Program changes to give existing homes priority for new public water connections when their wells fail. Coastal Commission action on that LCP amendment has been postponed again. Meanwhile, rather than moving other existing homes with wells to public water supplies before their wells fail, the County wants to reserve priority water for even more “affordable housing” – beyond the hundreds of units already proposed – before allowing new connections.

Contrary to the claim in the HMB Review article, MWSD has never “bailed out a private household well.” MWSD has operated the Montara / Moss Beach water system only since August 2003, during which time the District has developed a major new source of low-cost, high-quality drinking water, among many other improvements. The Review’s reporter asked me about an alleged case from the early 1990s, but that would have been considered by the California Public Utilities Commission regarding the prior corporate owner of the Montara water system, Citizens Utilities Company of California. I explained that I did not know the details of any exceptions to the moratorium considered by the CPUC.

Public water wells, as opposed to wells for single-family homes, must go through extensive environmental studies and monitoring to ensure they do not have adverse impacts. I support development of a groundwater management plan for the Midcoast that would determine safe yields from each of our many Coastal aquifers as a pre-requisite for permitting further private wells. As indicated in the recent Kleinfelder report to the Board of Supervisors, the cumulative effects of the County’s current policy could leave many homeowners with private wells in the same situation as the family in your article, if aquifers are overdrawn during an extended drought. The County has not studied the interactions of many wells in close proximity.

MWSD is working to bring existing well-based homeowners onto the public water system as soon as possible. Everyone in our community should enjoy adequate supplies of safe, reliable, high-quality water sufficient to meet their needs.

August 12 is the deadline for filing to run for the Midcoast Community Council (MCC). You should run.  Here are ten reasons why.

• The MCC advises the Board of Supervisors, who are the government for the unincorporated Midcoast on the issues on the Midcoast.
• At least one incumbent isn’t running this year, so the deadline for filing has been extended to August 12.
• It will be easy to get on the MCC this year because there are four open seats and there may not even be four candidates.
• The Board of Supervisors has forbidden elected officials from running for MCC for the first time in its history.
• The MCC played crucial role in creating the current Local Coastal Program, our key planning document. Ignore for the moment that the Supervisors rewrote it to be friendlier to developers and Realtors.
• Private wells in certain areas of the Midcoast may very well run dry because the Supes can’t stop themselves from approving new ones and they’re not collecting data on the ones we have.
• Our roads are miserable.
• Big Wave is coming.
• The Midcoast needs parks, trails, and better thinking about transportation.
• You’re tired of being treated like a colony of Redwood City.
• What’s your reason?

There’s a lot of information on the county’s website about how to run. Or, if you’re not sure what to do, I’ll get you in touch with someone who can help.

Lines are already being drawn in the next big battle over Beachwood. Half Moon Bay will take possession of the property at the end of August. At that point, the city will have a strong incentive to maximize development of the property.

On July 20, the Sierra Club’s Mark Massara has sent Half Moon Bay mayor John Muller a sharply-worded letter seeking clarification about quotes from Muller and city manager Michael Dolder about the future disposition of Beachwood in the County Times.

In particular, Massara took issue with Muller referring to the city’s 100 foot wetlands buffer as arbitrary and outrageous, and the city manager’s reference to repackaging Beachwood for sale.

You can see the letter after the jump.

The governor signed a budget today that takes an additional $6 million out of the state parks budget and eliminates Williamson Act funds to give landowners tax breaks for keeping their land as open space, reports the Sacramento Bee. The Bee says that as many as 100 of the state’s 279 parks could be closed in October.

To eliminate the $156 million deficit and create the $500 million reserve, Schwarzenegger made $489 million in additional cuts, borrowed $50 million from one of the state’s special funds and found about $117 million in savings from money not spent in the last fiscal year.

The biggest single cut was $80 million in funds allocated to counties to finance programs that investigate and remediate cases of child abuse and neglect. Administration officials said the program had been spared in earlier rounds of budget cuts.

"The situation has just gotten to the point we can’t exempt them anymore," said Mike Genest, Schwarzenegger’s finance director.

Other cuts include:

• $60.6 million from funds used to pay for Medi-Cal eligibility workers at the county level. Aid to recipients was not cut, but they will likely have to wait longer for service.

• $50 million from the Healthy Families Program, a 12-year-old program that provides low-cost medical insurance to low-income families that don’t qualify for Medi-Cal. New enrollments were frozen two weeks ago due to budget cuts; officials say that unless other funding is found, some families now on the program will be disenrolled.

• $52.1 million from the Office of AIDS Prevention and Treatment. Officials said the cut means the elimination of all services except providing drug assistance and monitoring the number of cases.

• $27.8 million from the Williamson Act program, which provides money to counties that give tax breaks to landowners who keep their land as open space. Because the governor couldn’t unilaterally abolish the program, he cut the budget to a token $1,000.

• $6.2 million from state parks. Coupled with earlier cuts, the added reduction could mean as many as 100 of the state’s 279 parks could close in October. But officials cautioned that local governments with nearby parks, or public-private partnerships, might save some parks.

Montara State Beach is one of the state parks with the lowest attendance in the Bay Area. This will be one of the factors in determining which parks are closed, reports the County Times.

The California Department of Parks and Recreation is not releasing a new list of sites that may be on the chopping block to avoid pointless speculation and panic among parks lovers, said spokesman Roy Stearns. The $9 million in cuts — $8 million to the department’s operating budget — will likely translate into 30 to 50 park closures across the state.

Had Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s original proposal to cut $70 million not been averted by drawing on new funding sources at the last minute, 220 of 279 state parks would have been closed and hundreds of parks employees laid off. ...

Any remaining park closures will be based at least partly on attendance as a major criterion, Stearns said. Bay Area parks with comparatively poor attendance include Portola Redwoods State Park and Montara State Beach in San Mateo County, Eastshore State Park in Berkeley, Angel Island State Park in Marin, and Henry W. Coe State Park in Morgan Hill.

This story is based on a report of state park attendance acquired by Julia Scott at the County Times. Here are the numbers for Coastside parks:

Although the final numbers aren’t known, $62 million of the $70 million taken from the state parks budget could be restored when the budget bill is finally passed, reports Capitol Weekly.

This means that there some state parks will close, perhaps one out of every five or six parks.

That leaves California’s state parks to handle a budget gap of $8 million.

This means that about 30 to 50 of California’s 279 state parks may have to close. The question now is which ones? That list is being put together. ...

Along with the proposed park closures, parks that do remain open will have to undergo significant management steps to save money. Park employees are already furloughed three Fridays out of the month, hours and days of operations will need to be shortened, and visiting fees will most likely increase. ...

In the unlikely event that California is completely unable to keep its parks open, some parks like San Francisco’s Angel Island, Point Sur State Historic Park and Fort Ord Dunes, could be taken back as federal land. ...

"If the land is reverted, it would revert to federal land reserves for re-disposal," said Siegenthaler, "and it would not necessarily remain a park."

For now, State Parks is working closely with the National Parks Service to make sure that land reversion does not happen.

CORRECTION: The original SF Gate story is out of date. We’ll post the correct, final list when it becomes available.

San Mateo’s state beaches, and the Montara lighthouse, are on the list for closure by the state, along with a host of parks in Santa Cruz county, as part of its current budget deal. From the Tom Stienstra in the Chron:

San Mateo County

Half Moon Bay State Beach: Protected beaches span four miles north, with the Coastside Trail extending all the way to Pillar Point Harbor.

Butano Redwoods State Park: Campsites nestled in redwoods, including the least-known trail camp in the Bay Area, along with outstanding hiking (redwood trails) and mountain biking (Butano Rim) make this one of my personal top favorites.

Others of note: Portola Redwoods State Park, Gray Whale Cove State Beach, Montara State Beach, Pescadero State Beach, Point Montara Light Station, Pomponio State Beach, San Gregorio State Beach, Bean Hollow State Beach.

Santa Cruz County

Año Nuevo State Natural Reserve: This is home of the largest mainland breeding colony of elephant seals on the Pacific Coast. One of the best easy wildlife walks in the state.

Big Basin Redwoods State Park: Here is the No. 1 year-round hiking park in California, with the prettiest series of waterfalls outside of Yosemite, outstanding campgrounds, including backpack sites, and the heart of the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail. Again, there’s no way anybody is going to keep me out.

Castle Rock State Park: Add it up: Goat Rock’s climbing and views, Castle Falls, Trail Camp, trailhead for Skyline-to-the Sea, picnic sites, views of Big Basin Redwoods and beyond to Monterey Bay. What more could you ask for?

Wilder Ranch State Park: This is the best mountain biking park in California, with a terraced foothill landscape that provides flat spots amid climbs (along with trail along ocean bluff). Access extends to UC Santa Cruz.

Others of note: Año Nuevo State Park, Burleigh H. Murray Ranch, Castro Adobe (Rancho San Andres), Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, Lighthouse Field State Beach, Manresa State Beach, Natural Bridges State Beach, New Brighton State Beach, Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park, Seacliff State Beach, Sunset State Beach, the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park, Thornton State Beach, Twin Lakes State Beach.