This a personal endorsement. Normally, I wouldn’t be making an endorsement for a countywide position that should be appointed, rather than elected. But this time around, there is a candidate that I personally know to be the kind of person we need in county government.

I have known Dave Mandelkern for more than thirty years. Dave’s an entrepreneur and trustee of the San Mateo County Community College District. But, more importantly, I know Dave to be an honest advocate of good government. Dave has been working for years to improve the quality of government and elected officials in our county.

If you’re the kind of person who skips these races because you have no idea who to vote for or why you’re even voting, this is an opportunity to make a difference. I recommend you vote for Dave Mandelkern for Treasurer-Tax Collector this year.

The County Elections office has asked me to try to find some civic minded folks who would agree to spend Election Day, June 8th working at a polling place on the Coastside. At least 6 more workers are needed, maybe more.

The hours are from 6am to 9:30 pm with two one hour breaks. The pay is $125.

There are training classes in HMB on this Sat 11am to 1pm and on next Monday from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm. Training is mandatory. Training is also available at the Elections Office on Tower Rd in San Mateo almost every Mon - Sat up to the election.

I have been the head poll worker (Inspector) at Hatch School for the last 8 yrs and I recommend this work for anyone with the time and interest in supporting their community. Elections are very important in guaranteeing that the government is responsive to the people’s will. Please give it a try even if you haven’t ever done it before.

To volunteer, please call the election office at 650-312-5222, press "0" and ask for Iris.

If you have questions, I would be happy to chat. Give me a call at:  650-712-0498.

Dennis Paull

For the past few years Montara Fog has offered local candidates a free five minute video as a way for them to reach voters without a "media filter." These videos have been published not only on Montara Fog but also on the Half Moon Bay Review web site and on Coastsider.com, offering candidates complete coverage on the coast and maximizing voters’ chance to learn about the candidates.

This year we are expanding our candidate videos to include the race for the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors. Rich Gordon, who currently represents the Coastside, is "termed out" and his seat is up for grabs. Five candidates are running for that seat. Four of them participated in this project.

Each candidate chose their own location for the video shoot and followed a set of rules to ensure that all candidates were treated fairly. Weather was a factor in recent days—during one shoot I barely had enough time to throw my jacket over the video camera before a wall of rain drenched us. Thanks to the candidates for their enthusiasm and flexibility in overcoming these obstacles.

Click on each photo to play the video.

Candidate Jack Hickey did not participate in this project.

Videos by Darin Boville

Recommendations to the Board from Jim Eggemeyer, Interim Director of Community Development/Planning:

Accepting the CCC’s changes would not be in the best interest of the County, and would undermine the balanced approach developed by your Board through the local process. As expressed by the Board on April 13, 2010, negative consequences include:

Concerns regarding the lot retirement requirement, including the application of this requirement to Conditional Certificates of Compliance and the potential problems associated with long-term maintenance of retired lots;

Concerns about instituting a temporary prohibition on wells, particularly in light of the progress being made in advancing understanding and management of groundwater resources;

Concerns about applying the modified amendments to permit applications currently in process; and

Concerns regarding exposure to litigation if the County accepts and applies the modified policies.

In light of these concerns, and in the interest of implementing the beneficial changes included in the County approved amendments, staff recommends that the Board of Supervisors adopt the resolution directing staff to develop an amendment resubmittal that replaces the problematic modifications with alternative policies that are acceptable to the County, and to request an extension of the timeframe required to file the resubmittal. A meeting with CCC staff to discuss this approach occurred on April 30, 2010. At the meeting, CCC staff expressed its interest in working with the County through the resubmittal process to develop alternatives to the suggested modifications of concern to the County.

Shared Vision 2025: The resolution to resubmit an updated version of the amendments is consistent with Shared Vision 2025 because the modifications proposed by the CCC will reduce opportunities for infill development that promotes livable, healthy, and prosperous communities the vision supports. Resubmittal of the amendments also provides an opportunity to promote solutions to the issues identified by the CCC, consistent with Shared Vision 2025 objectives for a livable community.

This report was reviewed by County Counsel and determined to be acceptable in form and content.
FISCAL IMPACT
Resubmittal of the amendments will require the use of limited staff resources that will delay progress on other priority projects.

Link to Board of Supervisors meeting agenda: http://www.co.sanmateo.ca.us/bos.dir/BosAgendas/agendas2010/CurrentAgenda/Frame.htm
Read LCP Update agenda items 12, 13 and 14.
The supporting documents: Executive Summery, Memo, Resolution and Ordinance for each agenda item are included at the above link.

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

The county will be holding a budget forum in Monday, April 26, from 7:30 to 9:30pm at the Ted Adcock Center in Half Moon Bay.

The Board of Supervisors has already reduced the County’s budget by $23.5 million over the previous two years and the size of our workforce by more than 300 positions. Without further action the County’s structural budget deficit is expected to grow to $150 million within three years.

The Board reduced benefits for managers and is working with labor organizations to achieve savings in labor costs. A hiring freeze on most non-vital positions has been in force since 2007.

At the forum, the county will present more information on the budget and the steps it has already taken.

Citizens can post your ideas, discuss ideas with others and vote for your on the county’s online budget forum at http://smcbudget.ideascale.com/

Supervisor Rich Gordon’s office will be holding its Coastside office hours on Thursday, April 22 from 10am until noon at the Sheriff’s Substation in Moss Beach.

The San Mateo County Democratic Central Committee endorsed Coastside April Vargas for County Supervisor in District 3, the seat currently occupied by outgoing Supervisor Rich Gordon. The election will be Tuesday June 8. The supervisors race is non-partisan, so there is no primary. If one candidate does not win 50% + 1 of the vote on June 8, the top two contenders will compete in a run-off in November. (An earlier version of this story described the election as a primary.)

The committee also endorsed appointed incumbent Carole Groom. Appointed incumbents are heavily favored to win election to their seats. The Board of Supervisors’ practice of appointing members to open seats on the board has come under criticism by some members of the county’s Charter Review Committee and the county’s Civil Grand Jury.

The committee also endorsed Dave Mandelkern for the position of Treasurer-Tax Collector.  Mandelkern is a trustee of the San Mateo County Community College District.

April 7, 2010 Charter Review Committee meeting

The Charter Review Committee is a linchpin committee because it examines potential changes to the county charter through a series of public meeting and sub-committee meetings every 8 to 10 years. The process of evaluating the county charter is the equivalent of a local Constitutional Convention. Of the sixteen committee members, the Board of Supervisors appointed ten. Six members were appointed by: San Mateo County Central Labor Council; SamCEDA; Council of Cities; League of Women Voters; County School Boards Association; and Sustainable San Mateo County.

The agenda of the April 7, 2010 meeting held at the San Mateo Main Library included testimony by three guest speakers. The discussion focused on the issue of at-large elections versus district elections. As the election situation is now and has been from the start, County Supervisors are elected in at-large elections. This means that Supervisors, regardless of where they reside in the County, represent every district in the County. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how unfair this method might be. A Civil-Grand-Jury report, emphasizing the lack of minority representation in County at-large elections will in all likelihood lead to a court suit if the County doesn’t change to district elections. Should such a suit go forward, it will only waste taxpayer revenues and will doubtless end in a court order mandating district elections.

Featured speakers included former supervisor Mike Nevin, Executive Director of the Service League of San Mateo County, former supervisor candidate Jo Chamberlain, Executive Director of Coastside Land Trust, and a former supervisor who lost in his own district John Ward, now a revolving-door lobbyist for developers.

Mike Nevin kicked off the meeting by voicing staunch support for at-large elections. He said, "Of course I’m prejudiced…" towards the status quo and at-large elections. This was an interesting choice of words when you consider that The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, a San Francisco-based civil rights legal foundation, sent a letter dated March 24th 2010 informing the County that it is giving serious consideration to filing a lawsuit against the County for possible violations of the California’s Voting Rights Act. The lawsuit will zero in on the County’s use of at-large elections to elect San Mateo County Supervisors.

NOTE: This letter has been updated by the author.

Board of Supervisors Meeting - April 13, 2010
Agenda Item 11: Midcoast LCP Update

At the Board of Supervisors meeting today Supervisors Adrienne Tissier, Rose Jacobs Gibson and Mark Church showed their collective unwillingness to consider California Coastal Commission suggested modifications to the Midcoast Local Coastal Program.

Supervisor Tissier said, "Growth limits are a catch 22, it’s a no win situation." One wonders why that is a "no-win situation"; certainly there are gains for an entire community, and not just for a few developers, when growth is subject to intelligent controls.  Mark Church said, "The Coastal Commission recommendations are a subjective interpretation of the Coastal Act." This is a no-brainer; all interpretation from whomever is subjective because interpretation is a product of the human brain and imagination. The question that begs to be asked is: Are CCC’s suggested modifications responsible and intelligent.  Supervisor Jacobs Gibson supported Supervisor Tissier’s suggestion that the Board resubmit the LCP Update without any additional modifications.

Board President Rich Gordon, District 3 said he is very concerned about lot retirement leading to weed filled lots in residential areas. He did not evince any concerns about storm water flooding, salt water intrusion, water pollution in Pillar Point Harbor, sea-level rise, coastal erosion and limited traffic capacity on Highway 1. Supervisor Gordon shows due diligence to surface niceties; he cannot tolerate unsightly weeds growing in a few lots but he can, apparently, tolerate avoiding the significant challenges facing the Midcoast.

Supervisor Carol Groom said she would like to have one more meeting with Coastal Commission staff before making a decision. Supervisor Rich Gordon supported Grooms request for one more meeting.  Hopefully the two Supes will use the time with Coastal Commission staff to discuss ways to move the process forward rather than focusing on weed abatement. 

Supervisors Adrienne Tissier, Rose Jacobs Gibson and Mark Church made it clear that they were not interested in meeting with Coastal Commission staff.  Perhaps if they had attended the December 10, 2009 California Coastal Commissionhearing in San Francisco they might be better informed. To help them grasp the complexities of the LCP Update process, all three would benefit from meeting with Coastal Commission staff. If they had asked more specific questions of County Planning staff today they would have learned that resubmitting the LCP Update without any additional modifications is not a reasonable or appropriate next step.

The Supervisors’s fear of lawsuits initiated by developers was punctuated and highlighted by the angry tirade and finger pointing of local land use attorney David Byers. Intimidation is a standard tool in the lawyer’s bag of tricks.

The Supes habitually site the fear of lawsuits as an excuse to turn a blind eye to environmentally responsible land use policy. Fearful thinking is likely to continue ruling the decisions of the Board due to the loss of over 150 million tax payer dollars to Lehman Brothers.

Kicking coastal resources to the curb has short-term benefits for developers and real estate lobbyists. Enhanced coastal ecotourism, recreation, environmental education, and proactive sea-level rise planning provide long-term benefits to California residents.

The environmental catch 22 Supervisor Tissier invokes may be a win-win proposition for developers and supervisors with political aspirations, but it’s a losing proposition for thousands of County residents.