It’s not too late the apply for one of the two open positions on the Midcoast Community Council, but it will be soon. The deadline is Tuesday, September 2. The two positions will be filled by appointment, due to the resignations of two elected members. You can apply online on the county’s website.

The MCC is an advisory body to the Board of Supervisors. The supervisors are the governing body for the unincorporated Midcoast, but since the supervisors are elected at large by the voters of the county, our voice counts for little in Redwood City.

The MCC has the potential to make the community’s voice heard on issues such as parks and trails, community center development, planning and zoning.

For more information you can contact Supervisor Rich Gordon’s assistant, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), at 650-363-4528.

Saving the city of Half Moon Bay from itself is a dirty, thankless job.

You’re likely to be slammed for "public relations" by the Review’s editor and for being "morally bankrupt" by the anonymous wingnuts on its website when you propose a decent, practical plan for helping the city.

Senator Leland Yee’s SB863 will allocate $10 million to help the city buy as parkland Beachwood and the 22 acres on Pilarcitos Creek financed by the Peninsula Open Space Trust.

The city will still be out a few million in the Beachwood lawsuit. That sounds about right. The city’s strategy for getting out its obligations by gutting decades of environmental law was appallingly cynical.  That the Review’s editor calls it "wise" says a lot about his notion of wisdom.

Yee’s bill will buy the land, but not build the parks for the city. But there’s no reason it should. It does leave Half Moon Bay with the ability to finance its new park development—if it has the will. It’s time for the city to commit to building decent parks for its residents, rather than dithering over who gets the credit.

The parks money the city is receiving was intended to complement and encourage affordable housing. That seems fair. Half Moon Bay already has one of the highest affordable housing rates in the county, but it has little real parkland.

Yee did more than right by Half Moon Bay, when you consider their behavior in the last six months. The city misled Yee about its threat of bankruptcy, blindsided him with a toxic bill designed to enrich a single individual at the expense of the law, slandered the Coastal Commission staff, and secretly shared the expenses for its Sacramento disinformation campaign with another interested party.

There are cities all over California that are needier than Half Moon Bay. If their Sacramento delegation can get SB863 passed, AB1991’s supporters should stop whining and say thank you.

Supervisor Rich Gordon’s office is holding office hours in Moss Beach on Thursday from 10am to Noon at the Sheriff’s Substation in Moss Beach. 

The next two months, September and October, the office hours’ date will be moved from fourth Thursday to fourth Friday of the month.  The new dates are Friday September 26 at 10am and Friday, October 24 at 10am.

Len Erickson, Secretary of Midcoast Park Lands, will make a presentation on Quarry Park to the Midcoast Community Council tonight, Wednesday, at 7:45pm. MPL is in the process of turning over the park to the county.

MCC meets at Seton Medical Center Coastside, Marine Blvd & Etheldore, Moss Beach. Take Highway 1 to Marine Blvd and follow the signs uphill. Please park in the upper parking lot.

Senator Leland Yee has offered to sponsor a bill to allocate $10 million in parks bond money to the city of Half Moon Bay to assist in the acquisition of Beachwood from developer Charles "Chop" Keenan.

With the defeat of AB1991, the city is required by its settlement with Keenan to buy the Beachwood property from him for $18 million. The proposed bill, which Yee’s office says faces no opposition from environmental organizations, would provide the city with up to $10 million in Proposition 1C (2006) money to create a public park on the site.

Although this would prevent the city from building houses on the site, the city has already said that it would lose money if it had to build houses. In June the city released a financial analysis that claimed it would lose $35 million if it could develop as many as 50 houses on the site.

It is unknown how much of the site, which contains wetlands, could be turned into usable park space.

I spoke with Adam Keigwin in Senator Yee’s office and he said that although this was a new proposal, it was still possible to get the bill through the Legislature in the current session.

In June, the city received $5 million from the Association of Bay Area Governments insurance pool as a result of its loss of the Beachwood suit.

In today’s County Times, Julia Scott quotes developer Chop Keenan say that his payments to Half Moon Bay’s lobbyists were intended to support lobbying for AB1991. This is consistent with his statements to the Review, but not those to Capitol Weekly on Friday.

If he was paying for consulting, as California Strategies (and later Keenan) insists, he says he received a phone call every couple of weeks for his $50,000.

"I think it’s pretty clear that AB1991 is in both of our interests, so I don’t know where the conflict is. It’s not like the city or I am telling them how to do their job. Every couple weeks somebody calls (from the firm) and tells me what’s going on," said Keenan, who said he decided to support the city’s efforts at an early meeting with the city manager and representatives of California Strategies at the law offices of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, the city’s legal team.

"It was very informal and I decided it was in my self-interest to put some horsepower behind California Strategies’ efforts," he said.

That’s a juicy new detail: the arrangement was worked out at a meeting at the offices of the city’s attorneys between California Strategies, city manager Marcia Raines, and Keenan.

Half Moon Bay Councilmember John Muller said none of his colleagues on the council knew of Keenan’s payments prior to Tuesday’s meeting, but that he was neither surprised nor troubled by them.

"It wasn’t like he was opposing us in the settlement agreement. We agreed he would support us in passing AB1991. That’s all in the agreement. It says he’s going to help us pass the legislation," Muller said.

Capitol Weekly, Aug 8:

Keenan confirmed Kinney’s version of his deal with California Strategies. He contracted for two and a half months of consulting services at $20,000 a month, for a total payment of $50,000. The deal expired on July 1. Lobbyist filings on the Secretary of State’s website disclose no lobbying payments from Keenan to California Strategies.

"It’s in the city’s interest to get AB 1991 passed," Keenan said. "It’s also in my interests. We have a community of interest. The way Jason characterized it is exactly right." When asked why he needed consulting services, Keenan said, "I’m just really not clear on how thing works up there. I felt I needed guidance."

HMB Review, Aug 8, 12:54 PM PDT

In interviews on Wednesday and Thursday, Keenan did not distinguish between the city’s lobbying contract and his consulting contract with California Strategies, saying that he and the city "collectively" hired the firm.

According to Keenan, he had no control over the firm’s activities. He said he would occasionally receive feedback on the legislative proceedings in Sacramento.

From the Half Moon Bay Review, Aug 6:

Keenan confirmed Wednesday that he has been paying $20,000 to help get AB 1991 passed, along with providing attorneys to help draft AB 1991.

"We helped pay the city’s lobbying bill," Keenan said. "Also AB 1991 involves some technical land-use issues so we gave them guidance on that."

From Capitol Weekly, Aug 8:

[California Strategies’ Jason] Kinney said it was inaccurate to say that Keenan was paying the city’s lobbying bills.  He also said that both sides were were aware of the lobbying and consulting operations surrounding the issue.

"I understand the confusion, because the early media report mischaracterized the nature of these separate agreements," Kinney said.

I’m willing to bet that Chop Keenan knows exactly what he’s paying for. I’m also willing to bet California Strategies knows exactly who’s paying them to do what.

We’re working on our own story about this situation, but in the meantime, read the story at Capitol Weekly and the one at the Half Moon Bay Review.  We’ll post a link to the County Times story when it appears.

At Tuesday’s city council meeting, after questioning by council member Jim Grady, it was revealed that Half Moon Bay’s lobbyist in its efforts to get AB1991 passed was also being paid by developer Charles "Chop" Keenan. This revelation has damaged the city’s chances of getting any sort of relief from the state toward the $18 million settlement it has agreed to pay Keenan.

The city council authorized city manager Marcia Raines to pay California Strategies up $100,000 to lobby for the passage of the bill that would ease its settlement with Keenan in the Beachwood lawsuit.  AB1991 was intended to remove environmental and other regulatory restrictions that were keeping Keenan from developing the parcel. Raines agreed to pay Capital Strategies $20,000 a month beginning in mid-April.

What the city council apparently didn’t know until Tuesday night was that Keenan was also paying California Strategies $20,000 a month, reports the Capitol Weekly:

This allegation drew a sharp rebuke from [State Senator Leland] Yee. While Yee said "you could paint a pretty picture" about how the city and Keenan are now working together to pass a bill that will work in both of their interest, he was troubled that California Strategies lobbyist Rusty Areias met with him in May and June without disclosing they were also being paid by Keenan.

"I was shocked and dismayed that something like that would have happened," Yee said. "At the very least, you would think that California Strategies would reveal their potential conflict of interests."

Yee also noted that until the bill took its final form, it wasn’t clear that the city’s and Keenan’s interests were identical. California Strategies says it wasn’t being paid by Keenan to lobby:

California Strategies, he said, maintains separate consulting and lobbying businesses. Areias and other lobbyists have been working to ensure the passage of AB 1991. Meanwhile, the settlement agreement with the city required Keenan to work to make sure the settlement is successful. His development company signed a separate consulting agreement with consulting side of California Strategies. Kinney said they talked to Keenan about the "legal principles" of the agreement and what "would pass policy muster."

This mess further clouds the future of AB1991, which now sits in the Senate Rules Committee, with the legislative clock running out. According to Capitol Weekly, Yee said the bill will likely have to be amended in order to get out of the Senate.

And the city’s bill is unlikely to go any anywhere without the support of the Half Moon Bay’s senator, Leland Yee.

Quarry Park is the only community park in unincorporated Midcoast that is operated by Midcoast Park Lands (MPL) a local organization.  MPL is in the process of transferring management of Quarry Park to the county and terminating a lease agreement with the county.

If 39.5-acre Quarry Park were combined with the adjacent 473-acre Wicklow property owned by Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) the Midcoast would have a much larger community park.  In a recent interview Dave Holland, MPL Board Member and County Parks & Recreation Director suggested combining Quarry Park with the Wicklow property to make one huge coastal parkland corridor. With MPL currently in the process of transferring management of Quarry Park to the county it looks like the Midcoast will soon lose a community park rather than gaining a larger community park.  What the Midcoast will soon end up with is another poorly maintained county park.

Keet Nerhan sold Quarry Park to the county in 1995. In Nerhan’s deed agreement with the county he specified that the county would transfer the park to a public entity. Quarry Park and Moss Beach Park are the only community parks on the Midcoast.

At the July 21, 2008 MPL board meeting Fran Pollard moved to rescind the offer to transfer Quarry Park to the county.  Fran suggested delaying the transfer a couple months to give Granada Sanitary District an opportunity to reorganize into a Community Services District that would provide recreation services in addition to current GSD services. 

At the meeting board member Len Erickson explained that one of the fundamental reasons MPL has been pushing for the transfer is that Dave Holland said that the county would not take acquisition of the Wicklow property unless MPL transferred the Quarry Park lease to the county.  Fran responded by saying she spoke with Rich Gordon recently and Rich said the county could take acquisition of the Wicklow property and not Quarry Park.  MPL board members did not support Fran’s motion to rescind the transfer.

More recently the MPL board has decided to focus its energy on working with Dave Holland on developing the El Granada median strips into parks.  The county owns the El Granada median strip property.

If you don’t live in El Granada the overgrown media strips might be slightly less important than a larger park deeded to the county specifically for use as a Midcoast community park. 

MPL meetings are not open to the public.  If they were and agendas were posted community members might have an opportunity to participate in meetings.  This participation might take the form of funding the Quarry Park insurance payments and provide the energy needed to combine lower Wicklow and Quarry Park into one larger community park. 

With the failure of Measure O the county might be willing to concentrate its efforts on the upper area of the Wicklow property and allow the local community to operate the lower area.

The MPL board of directors includes: Jim Blanchard, Dave Holland, Len Erickson, Gael Erickson, Chris Vogel, Sandy Emerson, Fran Pollard, Ron Fenech and Marty Kingshill. 

Sabrina Brennan