Big Wave is a proposed development on land adjacent to Airport Road and Princeton harbor. Developer Jeff Peck envisions building a set of residences there for developmentally disabled individuals and to support these individuals financially by building an office park next door. 

As you might imagine, the proposal has generated its share of controversy on the coast. 

In a new video, Neil Merrilees has a look at the Big Wave project and takes us on a visit to the site and helping us to visualize the structures. 

Video about the Big Wave Development Project: https://coastsider.com/index.php/site/news/video_understanding_the_big_wave_development_in_princeton/

San Mateo County’s Planning Department is looking to hear feedback on the Big Wave project by February 20.

The Midcoast Community Council, under new Chair Deborah Lardie, will be holding a discussion on Big Wave on Wednesday, February 11 at the regular meeting of the MCC.

The meeting will take place at 7:30 at Seton Hospital in Moss Beach (please park in the upper lot). 

Please share your thoughts on the Big Wave project with Camille Leung, the Planning Manager at the San Mateo County Planning Department by clicking here. 

Sabrina Brennan
Seal Cove-Moss Beach
Click here for the e-mails of the MCC members. 

Dear Mayor Muller and Council-members,
I am a 14-year resident of Half Moon Bay and retired business executive.  I have followed developments in the Beachwood matter and it seems clear that we are on the brink of discovering whether we can continue our normal Coastal lifestyle, in the City that we all love, or whether we are destined to be a bankrupt entity, with the stigma and financial stresses that are manifest in such an event.  I am a homeowner and I have little desire to see my home value decline, nor experience the loss of services and other negative impacts that would result from a City-filed bankruptcy.  I am sure that all responsible Half Moon Bay residents share these feelings.

Absent any fairy dust coming our way from either Sacramento or Washington, despite the large amounts being generated for other needs, it seems that we are on our own to resolve our situation.  "Our situation" is not only the Beachwood matter, but also the significant shortfall in budgeted operating revenues, already announced as $920,000, but which I suspect will creep much higher ($1,500,000?) given the stagnant state of the economy.  It could be, that on an annualized basis, we find ourselves $2,500,000 - $3,000,000 in the hole (half for the Beachwood settlement under the existing terms and half for the operating shortfall, in conservative round figures); at least we need to prepare contingency plans for such an eventuality, which I know that the City government is doing under the Council’s direction.  This potential $3,000,000 shortfall constitutes about 25% of the City’s 2008/2009 fiscal year budget (balanced on paper at $11.65 million) - a daunting prospect.

The budget document is a comprehensive booklet, but its utility is compromised by events.  No one could have predicted the economic meltdown that has overcome the nation and indeed the world, but the assumptions in the budget, in our own little backyard, seem surreal:
 

 

• No contingency plan for paying the Beachwood settlement; just a hopeful reliance on AB1991;

 

• Optimistic economic forecasts, including increased revenues from such forecasts (+10.5% over the previous year);

 

• Increased total spending, up about 5% (with total personnel costs up 12%, including 3% across-the-board pay increases for all personnel);

 

• Police services expenditures up 10.4%.

 

All in all, when Beachwood was looming and real, let alone the standard need for prudent budgeting, the budget represents a remarkably cavalier attitude.

Darin Boville, who publishes Montara Fog, is demanding a public apology from Mike Day, MCTV director and attorney. Day publicly accused Sewer Authority Midcoastside director Scott Boyd of helping Boville with a proposal to record the SAM board meetings.  Boville says Day’s accusation is "as false and insulting as it is reckless".

Half Moon Bay City Council member Marina Fraser, who has been Acting Chair of the Sewer Authority Midcoastside for the year since January 2008, is refusing to step down until she has been elected for a full one-year term as official chair. You may also want to read the Review’s account of the meeting, but there is no substitute for watching the video.

Fair warning: This is the most squirm-inducing video of a public meeting I’ve seen in years.

SAM is jointly operated by the city of Half Moon Bay, Granada Sanitary District, and the Montara Water and Sanitary District. Half Moon Bay’s two directors have half the votes on the SAM board, and the four directors from the two Midcoast agencies hold the other half of the votes. As long as the Half Moon Bay and the Midcoast directors vote as blocs, all votes end in a tie.

In January 2008, the Midcoast and Half Moon Bay directors were unable to agree on the election of a Chair, and Fraser, as Vice Chair, became Acting Chair, a position she has held for the last year.

Last Monday, Fraser said that she would refuse to the vacate the Acting Chair position until she is elected to a full one-year term as Chair of SAM.

Pressed for a reason to elect her to the Chair, said, "If you had just elected me as Chair, I would have been fine ... you denied me the respect of having a Chair position. So, this can go on if you’d like. Elect me as chair, and I’ll serve, and someone else can serve after me."

Half Moon Bay’s other SAM director, John Muller, is backing her up. At the meeting Muller said, "Give her an official year as chair, and in 2010 I’m ready to move on. ... If we cannot do that you have to realize Marina has thirty-four more months on the City Council. Thirty-four more months!"

Here is my interpretation of what I saw. You should watch the video and draw your own conclusions.

First, keep in mind that Fraser has been acting as Chair for the past year. Therefore, she’s refusing to vacate the position because either (1) the former Mayor of Half Moon Bay wants to remove the word "acting" from her resume, or (2) Half Moon Bay sees a strategic interest in controlling SAM for at least another year, if not longer, and is using this as a pretext.

The Midcoast directors are under no obligation to vote for Fraser now, or in 2008. That’s why there’s a vote. There’s nothing illegal about what Fraser and Muller are doing, but it raises the question of whether the city is acting in good faith.

Considering Fraser’s and Muller’s threat to never vacate the position unless Fraser is elected Chair, the Midcoast directors have no reason to believe that she will ever vacate the chair. Even if she’s elected to the position.

The state has released individual contribution data for supporters and opponents of Proposition 8 [SF Gate database], which put a ban on same-sex marriage in the California constitution.

While all Coastside communities contributed more against than for the proposition, they repeated the typical pattern of increasing progressivism the further north you go.

The Coastside contributed a total of $35,993 (75%) against and $12,120 (25%) for the proposition. 66% of the contributions from Half Moon Bay were against, as were 93% of those from Montara.

You can download a spreadsheet of all Coastside contributors and their amounts from Coastsider.

The Midcoast Parks & Recreation Committee will meet Monday night February 2 from 7 to 8:30pm at the Harbor House, 346 Princeton Ave, in Princeton [Google map] to discuss ten objectives:

• Coastal Trail: Completion from Mirada Surf, through Princeton, to the Pillar Point Bluff segment of the Trail.
• Mirada Surf West: Vault toilet on the Mirada Surf West portion of the coastal trail.
• Pillar Point: Replace old porta-potty with new vault toilet.
• Recreation Programs: The Midcoast should support and actively contribute to the Half Moon Bay Parks and Recreation department program framework.
• Moss Beach Park: Establish a restroom facility and drinking fountain at Moss Beach Park.  Create a go ahead plan that resolves the water issue.
• Farallone View School Playfield: implement the renovation project.
• Playfield Planning: Do preliminary planning to expand recreation resources adjacent to the school playfields.
• Highway 1 Corridor South:  This region extends from Miramar to the south edge of the airport.  A grant has been approved to develop a plan for highway crossings and trail alignment (including a bicycle commuter trail).
• Highway 1 Corridor North: Seek similar (see #8) grant for the northern corridor extending from the airport to the new tunnel.
• Governance: Provide Midcoast citizens with information regarding various parks and recreation governance options.  Provide an assessment of public response to governance options to determine the preferred option

MCTV director Mike Day (husband of executive director Connie Malach) hurled a startling, unsubstantiated accusation at Sewer Authority Midcoastside director Scott Boyd at the SAM meeting on Monday.

Just before a vote in which it was clear that SAM was going to award a contract for recording SAM meetings to MCTV, Day rose to the microphone and interrupted the vote to accuse Boyd of assisting Montara Fog’s Darin Boville in the preparation of his competing proposal. Day said that one of his camera people told him that Scott Boyd referred to Montara Fog’s proposal as "our" proposal, and inferred that Boyd had worked on the preparation of Boville’s proposal. He asked Boyd to recuse himself.

Boyd’s reaction to this accusation was strong and categorical, saying, "That is false. I said no such thing. ... I have no cooperation or interest, no business interest, no financial interest, no personal friendship interest" in the proposal, and that he had never seen it or discussed it with Boville.

The vote took place after Day’s accusation, and this was followed by further discussion in which SAM director Leonard Woren said Day’s accusation was "out of order and wrong from a legal point of view." and director Jim Harvey called Day’s statements "counterproductive" and "unnecessary".

Boyd concluded that Day’s charge "may well have been slanderous".

Like a lot of small town stuff, this is also really personal.  Darin Boville, Scott Boyd, and I ran for MCTV’s board of directors as a reform slate last year. Scott and Darin are both friends of mine, but they’re not friends with one another.

NOTE: This isn’t the only interesting thing that happened at the meeting. More on that later.

On Tuesday, January 27, the County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously (5-0) to restructure how the Midcoast Community Council will operate in the future. This was, unfortunately, not unexpected. Most supervisor’s votes appear to be "slam dunk" votes. It seems that they operate on the principle of "You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours."

This is such a minor restructuring as compared as what the BOS should do to get themselves on the same page as nearly all of the 58 counties in the state, including San Francisco.

They need to rethink how they should be elected to the board. A supervisor should only be elected to office by the voters in the district who they will represent…not countywide.

This would promote more discussion on issues and decrease the amount of "slam dunk" votes that currently seem to prevail.

My wish is that someone would fund a countywide initiative that would ask the voters two things:

• Should supervisors be elected to office only by the voters in the district that they will represent?

• Should any vacancies that occur must be filled only by the voters in the district where the vacancy occurs?

John Lynch
Half Moon Bay

The Pacifica Riptide says that our mutual state legislative team (Senator Leland Yee and newly-elected Assemblyman Jerry Hill) did merely OK when committe appointments were handed out.

Senator Leland Yee of San Francisco, who served in the largely ceremonial position of Assistant President Pro Tem last session, again chairs no committee. The position of Assistant Pro Tem appears to be of such significance that the Senate’s central office couldn’t recall whether anyone had been designated for that title this session. Yee is a member of four committees: Business and Professions (considered a "juice committee"—good for fundraising from special interests), Budget, Labor and Appropriations, (the most powerful of all the committees because virtually every bill must pass that committee). He is not a member of a budget subcommittee. He was removed from the Health Committee, where he killed a bill last year that would have required approval of rate increases sought by health insurers such as Blue Cross, which heavily opposed the measure.

Freshman Assemblyman Jerry Hill doesn’t chair a committee either, although that’s the norm for new members, few of whom win chairmanships. Hill is a member of the Budget Committee, and chairs its subcommittee on Health and Human Services. He also serves on Government Organization, which regulates gambling (major "juice") and Natural Resources, chaired by a newcomer from Berkeley.

The Legislature will start voting on bills in late March.

• Average population of a US congressional district: 646,952

• Population of San Mateo County: 705,499