Applications are being accepted for prospective member of the San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury until April 18.  The next grand jury term runs from July 1 until June 30, 2009. The San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury is a volunteer fact finding body for the county.

Any resident of San Mateo County for more than one year who is a citizen of the United States, 18 years of age or older, of ordinary intelligence, sound judgment and good character, with sufficient knowledge of the English language is eligible for selection. Elected public officials are not eligible.

After the completion of an interview process by a judge, jurors will be selected through a random draw.

Application forms can be obtained by writing Grand Jury Clerk, Court Executive Office, 400 County Center, Redwood City, CA   94063 or telephoning (650) 599-1711.

Wednesday evening, the Midcoast Community Council will discuss the Coastal Trail, possible overcrossings on Hwy 1, funding, and other issues relating to future walking and biking paths on the Midcoast.  San Mateo County Parks Director David Holland will be on hand to share his vision and answer questions.  The meeting is at Seton Coastside in Moss Beach Wednesday at 7:30.  The pathways issue is the second item on the agenda and should start between 8:15 and 8:30.

Supervisor Rich Gordon will host his monthly office hours Thursday, February 28 from 10am until Noon at the Moss Beach Sheriff’s Substation. 

The California Report on KQED-FM today did a good story on the Beachwood tragedy in Half Moon Bay.  Most notable was a quote from the developer’s attorney that addresses the propaganda that the wetlands designation (and not Half Moon Bay’s bulldozers) was responsible for the judgement against the city:

"The government caused the damage to the private property as opposed to simply passing laws that would limit the ability to use the property."

This video was produced by Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor who has changed the way a lot of people think about intellectual property.  Last year, Lessig announced he was changing his focus to political corruption.  This year, with the death of Tom Lantos, Lessig has announced he’s considering running for the seat.  In the video, he discusses what he’d like to do and the extraordinary difficulty involved in taking on Jackie Speier in this election.

He’s not running yet, and I’m not endorsing him yet. But now would be a good time to watch the video, consider his message, and think about whether it makes sense to you.

NOTE: The Coastside Fire Protection District board is considering whether it should hire MCTV or Montara Fog to tape its meetings. This is my prepared statement to the board at its meeting Tuesday night.

In the four years that I have been publishing Coastsider, my priority has always been to cover all boards on the Coastside as honestly and fairly as possible. As part of that commitment, I have devoted a great deal of time and energy to taping public meetings which are also taped by MCTV.

I have had to do this because MCTV will not allow any Coastside news organization to reuse video of meetings they have taped.

Ultimately MCTV will have to acknowledge that tapes of elected boards that are paid for with public money are owned by the public and not by MCTV. But in the meantime, I recommend that regardless of which vendor the board chooses to tape its meetings, that the district insist that the vendor not interfere with public’s right to the contents of the tapes.

There is more than one way to do this, but MCTV’s current misguided policy is not in the public’s interest or that of the board, and is based strictly on the self-interest of the station itself.

The public is denied easy access to newsworthy events that happen in board meetings when they are buried in gavel-to-gavel coverage.

Boards are vulnerable to having their actions distorted by news reports and by political opponents when the actual proceedings are not freely available to the public.

And the community as a whole is impoverished when public property is treated as private property, even by a nonprofit organization.

Whichever vendor you choose to tape your meetings or to distribute them on the web, I urge the board to insist that the final product is the property of the public and available for reuse by anyone who wants it.

 

• Opening | Quicktime | Flash  |

 

• New Chamber of Commerce Commercials about Half Moon Bay| Quicktime | Flash  |

 

• Report out of closed session| Quicktime | Flash  |

 

• City Council reports | Quicktime | Flash  |

 

• Oral communications | Quicktime | Flash  |

 

• Strategic plan update from staff | Quicktime | Flash  |

 

• Consent calendar | Quicktime | Flash  |

 

• Rescind approval of CDP, etc for Magnolia & Second St.| Quicktime | Flash  |

 

• Appointments to Parks & Recreation and Planning Commissions | Quicktime | Flash  |

 

• Put Transient Occupany Tax increase on June 3 ballot| Quicktime | Flash  |

Representative Tom Lantos died today at the age of 80, reports the Chronicle.

Rep. Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress and for 27 years a champion of human rights as representative for a district stretching from San Francisco’s west side to San Carlos, died today of complications from esophageal cancer, his office said. He was 80.

The San Mateo Democrat was diagnosed with cancer in December but waited a month before revealing he was ill. He died this morning at Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Maryland, a spokeswoman said.

Before he was diagnosed, Lantos was making plans to run in November for his 15th House term. Just last year, he joked he was "in the mid-point of his career," and until recently swam at 5:30 a.m. every day in the House pool.

Lantos represents the Midcoast much of norther San Mateo County.

EDITOR’S NOTE: MCC member Deborah Lardie has posted a comment on the story of Rich Gordon’s disparagement of the Council. She’s looking for insights and suggestions, and I thought this would be a good time to continue the discussion.

As a newly elected member of the MCC, I thought I would throw in my rather belated two cents here-

When I ran for a seat on the Council it was with the, rather naïve as it turns out, thought of filling a need for participants.  As a relative newcomer to the coast I had little history and few preconceived notions about the Council- I saw what it was intended to be.  What I have been experiencing, as Vince aptly described, is at times political theater, and a lack of support from the local press, government and some community members (I am still pondering the roach motel concept).  Some of the most vocal critics, including this thread, cannot seem to express themselves without personally attacking the sanity, competence or integrity of council members. It is all a bit scary- government shouldn’t be this way.

Click to read the rest of Deborah’s comment and add your own.

OK, I’m at the tail end of the curve this time, but I just saw this video and was blown away. It’s genuinely moving, but entirely substance-free. Whatever. You must watch it.

This violates all my rules about running only local stories, but yesterday morning I was exhilarated for the first time in I don’t know how long to be voting. I have no clue if it’s the idea of having an exciting candidate for a change, or just the feeling that my voted mattered for the first time in a long time. The video was causing problems for some users, so I moved it off the front page.  Click below to see it.