It is truly unbelievable. Have they have no morals, no honesty, no sense of decency?

As a volunteer for State Assemblymen Leland Yee, who is running against Mike Nevin and Lou Papan for State Senator, I have been posting Leland’s signs. It seems that we can’t prevent signs from being stolen whether it be local or statewide issues.

On Friday March 24th, with the permission of the owner, we posted a large 4’ X 6’ Leland Yee sign on the property west of Tom and Pete’s (Southeast corner of Hwy. 1 and Hwy. 92). There was a much smaller sign at that location for Mike Nevin which we did not touch or interfere with.

By noontime Monday Yee’s sign had been removed. Mike Nevin’s sign was still there. A check with both the Half Moon Bay and CalTrans corporation yards established that they had not removed the sign—-thus it was stolen.

The value of each sign is in excess of $80—-this constitutes grand theft-larceny.

Another identical sign was posted at the same location at mid-afternoon Saturday. April 1st. On each lower corner of the sign stated in large bold letters "Posted with owner’s permission-Removal constitutes grand theft-larceny". By mid-day today, Monday, April 3rd the sign had again been taken. Mike Nevin’s sign is still there and untouched.

Immediately I went to the Half Moon Bay police to report the theft. Case No. 06-488. I was advised to put up a third sign at that location, advise the police when it is posted and they will monitor and patrol at that location.

Is this democracy in action?

John F.  Lynch
Half Moon Bay

The San Mateo County Transit District Board of Directors is looking for applicants for its Citizens Advisory Committees. CAC member responsibilities include providing input to the board on current and potential transit needs. CAC members play a vital role in the development of transit and transportation related issues throughout San Mateo County.

The  SamTrans CAC is comprised of 15 volunteer members, who represent a specific segment of the community. This recruitment seeks to fill five member positions, which will serve until April 2009.

• Two Community representatives
• Two Bus Rider representatives
• One Multimodal representative

The CAC meets on the first Wednesday of each month at 6:30 p.m. in San Carlos. Applicants will be interviewed by a board subcommittee, with the whole board approving the successful candidates. Interested persons can download an application from the SamTrans Web site at www.samtrans.com or contact the board secretary at 650-508-6279. Application deadline is Friday, April 14, 2006 at 5:00 p.m.

The San Mateo County Transit District manages the fixed-route bus and Redi-Wheels paratransit services; administers Caltrain rail service which is governed by the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board; operates a shuttle program; and is a partner in operating the BART-SFO extension.

Tuesday night, after a night of public interviews on Monday, the Half Moon Bay City Council reaffirmed its decision to select Jeff Allis and Linda Poncini for the two at-large positions on its planning commission.

That’s the boring part of this story.

The important, and interesting, part was the difference between a public interview of the candidates and the private telephone interviews that some city council members said they made before the previous vote on February 22.

In a small, crowded room in the Adcock Center Monday night, the city council interviewed ten candidates over the course of two hours. The questions were routine, and so were the responses for the most part. But we got to know the candidates, and some interesting patterns emerged.

I didn’t think the two candidates selected were the strongest. But they weren’t the weakest. And they weren’t most pro-development of the candidates, either. And I wouldn’t have known even that much about either of them if they hadn’t been interviewed publicly.

Linda Poncini would not have been selected this time without the votes of David Gorn and Jim Grady, who abstained during the last vote.

At least one candidate, Bob Feldman—a recent arrival in Half Moon Bay—appeared to be unfamiliar with the deep political chasm he was attempting to traverse. While he wasn’t familiar with planning per se, his intelligence and engagement came through.  Tuesday night, Jim Grady nominated him for one of the at-large planning commission slots.  While only Marina Fraser voted for him, he was later selected for an open seat on the Architectural Review Committee. And that’s something else that would not have happened if there had been no public hearings.

The council did the right thing in holding public interviews. And although it was painfully clear that there is still plenty of unhappiness at the table, they won a couple of minor victories and showed why it’s a good thing to operate in the open.

For the record: McClung, Fraser, and Patridge voted for Allis.  Gorn, McClung, and Grady voted for Poncini. Gorn and Grady voted for Jack McCarthy. Fraser voted for Bob Feldman. And Patridge voted for David Meir. And everything after the first paragraph is more opinion than news.

Assemblyman Gene Mullin, whose 19th District includes Half Moon Bay and the coastside, spoke to members of the Cañada Cove Homeowners Association Sunday afternoon.

Cañada Cove is one of two mobile home parks in Half Moon Bay and is a senior-only complex. The park consists of 360 homes and has one of the highest voter turnouts of any precinct on the San Mateo County coastside.

Assemblyman Mullin is the chair of the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee which oversees legislation affecting quality of living issues for mobilehome park residents.

"I believe it is important to protect and guarantee a suitable quality of life for mobile home residents and I have supported legislation to protect and expand residents’ rights,"  Mullin told the supportive audience.

Mullin also commented on AB 197, a bill which would have provided resident organizations with the right of first refusal to purchase a mobilehome park if the owner decided to sell the park. Although Assemblyman Mullin supported the bill it lost by one vote in committee.

The Half Moon Bay City Council will be interviewing candidates for the at-large positions on the city’s planning commission on Monday, March 20 at 7pm in the Adcock Center.  It could be fun. Or it could be ugly. Or it could have all the drama and unpredictability of a meeting of the Brezhnev-era Supreme Soviet.

A couple of weeks ago, the city council discovered that the majority’s decision to vote on candidates without interviews was in violation of its own procedures.

Bonnie McClung voted against reopening the nominations, reports the County Times.

"I don’t want these interviews to become a charade. There’s a good chance the result will end up the same," said McClung. "If the results are different, I would be pretty embarrassed. I don’t want to jerk people around."

McClung said she would have preferred to suspend the resolution for a month in order to seat all seven planning commissioners.

"I feel like we made a good decision and we have a balanced group of people," she said. Gorn agreed with McClung that the interviews were likely a foregone conclusion, but only because she, Fraser and Patridge would see to it that they got who they wanted.

"Everyone in town knows there won’t be any change in those two at-larges," said Gorn. "They’ve made no secret of the fact that there’s a (council) majority, and the process be damned."

Of the 17 people who originally applied for the positions, only eight have said they will be there next Monday.  One of those eight is Mike Ferreira, whose nomination by Jim Grady and rejection by the majority without an interview or discussion led to current ill will among the members of the city council.

Coastsider Jo Chamberlain is running against Supervisor Rich Gordon, who represents the Coastside on the county Board of Supervisors, according to the Daily Journal.  Although Gordon’s seat represents the Coastside, all seats on the board are elected at large, by everyone in San Mateo County.  The two people opposing Gordon are from the Libertarian and Green Parties. The Republicans haven’t bothered to field a candidate this year.

“The countywide Democratic Party decides who will have the seat and tells the candidate to toe the line if he wants to keep it,” Chamberlain said….

The battle for the third supervisorial seat is the only contested race on the board and one of the few for an elected county position. Supervisor Jerry Hill is also up for re-election but faces no challengers. Positions on the board are rarely filled with newcomers and, even then, typically only the exit of a member facilitates the shake up.

Supervisor Adrienne Tissier, a former Daly City councilwoman, was the last new face on the board. She ran unopposed for the vacant seat left when Supervisor Mike Nevin was ousted by term limits. Previously, Supervisor Rose Jacobs Gibson was appointed to the board and has easily won re-election since.

The last time Gordon’s seat was up for grabs, he was challenged by Hickey but held firm. Gordon received 70.1 percent of the vote while Hickey netted 29.83 percent.

Gordon thinks his seat is usually the one contested because his district covers 95 percent of the unincorporated area. Without city councils, residents are more limited in how to jump into government.

That unincorporated area controlled by the supervisors includes Montara, Moss Beach, El Granada, and everything south of Half Moon Bay.

The Half Moon Bay City Council violated its own procedures when it appointed two at-large members on Tuesday, February 22, without public interviews.  This departure from past practice was questioned by council members Gorn and Grady at the time, but they were overruled.

According to a resolution passed by the city council in 1998,  and signed by then-mayor Naomi Patridge, "Nominations shall be accepted only of applications who have been interviewed by the city council prior to such nomination." [PDF of procedure] The five "councilmember-designee" positions do not require interviews.  The resolution was discovered by city council staff after the meeting.

This puts the city council in an embarrassing situation that they will have to rectify at their next meeting, probably by rewriting the policy after the fact.

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, council members will receive a list of all projects City Hall staff are currently working on. [PDF of priorities]  The city council members will discuss additions or deletions to the list. They’ll get the amended list on March 16 and have until March 23 to individually select the most and least important projects and return the list to staff, which will compile the results and present them at the April 4 meeting of the city council.

At the Half Moon Bay City Council meeting on Tuesday, February 22, all attempts to bring about civility in government broke down.  If you haven’t seen the video yet, take the time to do so.  What happened on that night will hang over Half Moon Bay politics for the next two years. 

We’ll be talking about this more, but here are some things to watch for in the movie, along with the times in minutes and seconds when they take place.  I’ve heard different interpretations of this from both sides of the divide before I saw the actual video.  But one thing is very clear here: David Gorn and Jim Grady are very suprised and angry at what happens here. The video is almost exactly one hour long.

Mayor Marina Fraser is presiding. City manager Deborah Ryan outlines the selection process.

David Gorn expresses surprise that no interviews would be conducted, and says that he expected to interview the candidates for the planning commission at the meeting, as it was done by the city council in the past. [6:25]  Naomi Patridge says she interviewed candidates over the weekend [8:00]. Marina Fraser says she did as well.  Jim Grady says he also was expecting to interview candidates at the meeting [9:30].  Fraser says they could wait to interview at-large candidates. Patridge interrupts her to say that she doesn’t want to wait. Bonnie McClung agrees.  [11:30]

This is the first point where the audience becomes boisterous.  It’s muted on the tape, because MCTV uses the council members’ microphones, but it’s clear that a large contingent from one side showed up for this city council meeting.

During the public comment section, Terry Gossett, a resident of Moss Beach, describes the outgoing Planning Commission as "irresponsible and incompetent" and says "all sitting commissioners betrayed the will of the voters for a non-growth agenda". [20:30]

Sofia Freer, an outgoing planning commissioner asks that copies of the candidates’ "Willing to Serve" forms be made available to the audience during the meeting. She’s told they can be found at City Hall.

Jim Grady notes that there is no information the "Willing to Serve" forms of many of the candidates and that he’s uncomfortable voting on these people for the planning commission. [24:30] Bonnie McClung says that the process was emailed to the council members and that Grady should have let the city manager know ahead of time if he was uncomfortable with the process.

Marina Fraser begins the process of individual nominations with David Gorn, who nominates Kevin Lansing. [28:00] Gorn nominates Mike Ferreira. McClung nominates Doug Snow. Patridge nominates Patric Jonsson, and Fraser Tom Roman. Marina Fraser asks for comments on the nominations. There is none.

Kevin Lansing is approved 5-0.  [39:40]

The vote is held on Grady’s nomination of Mike Ferreira.  [39:50] Note Grady’s and Gorn’s surprise, which is noticeable even on this tiny video, when McClung votes "no".  Gorn yells, "Whoa" and notes that there was no discussion of Ferreira’s merits. Without missing a beat, Marina Fraser says, "That is correct." Listen to the hubbub from the audience. Gorn: "That’s really tricky. That’s really sneaky."  This is where the meeting begins to break down.  Bonnie counters Jim by saying she does not think Mike is a fit for the planning commission and the audience erupts into applause. Grady withdraws his nomination.

After a long discussion, Fraser moves on to the next nomination. Gorn and Grady abstain. After the vote on Patridge’s nomination (Gorn and Grady abstain), the audience erupts into applause. In response to the vote and the applause from the audience, Gorn yells sarcastically, "Let the healing begin!" [41:50]

After the vote on the members’ individual nominations, Grady says he’s withholding his nomination until a later date.  [42:30]

The nomination of the at-large members proceeds without participation from Gorn and Grady. During the discussion, Gorn, getting no help from the chair, asks the audience to be quiet while he’s speaking. [48:20].

As the voting on at-large candidates begins [54:00], Gorn declares the process a "charade". McClung, clearly distracted by what’s happening, becomes disoriented during the vote first vote.  Gorn and Grady abstain on all votes. During the voting, Gorn has to ask two people in the audience to "Stop making fun of us."  On the final vote, for Linda Poncini, McClung looks very relieved and says, "Finally, yes!"

Grady takes exception to Patridge’s declaration that "You guys attacked me" and Patridge replies.  [58:36].

A note of thanks: Coastsider has been working for nearly two weeks to get this video online. It’s the first video that Coastsider has streamed and we learned a lot by trial and error. But it would have been impossible without the help of several volunteers who helped us encode and upload MCTV’s video of the meeting to our server. Please let us know if you have problems with the video. This video has been tested on Mac Safari and Firefox, and Windows Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Zoe Kersteen-Tucker of Moss Beach has been named to fill the Coastside seat on the nine-member SamTrans board, which oversees local bus service, as well as Caltrain, according to the County Times. Keersteen-Tucker was one of eight Coastside applicants.

Tucker holds a doctoral degree in experimental neuropsychology from the UC Berkeley and serves as vice president for the environmental group Committee for Green Foothills. She’s also a co-founder of Friends of Coastal Open Space and serves on the Devil’s Slide Tunnel Advisory Committee and the Peninsula Policy Partnership board of directors.

At last night’s Half Moon Bay City Council meeting, the nascent compromise between the two factions on the City Council completely broke down. The issue was Mike Ferreira’s appointment to the Planning Commission, but the implications are much broader.

The video of the meeting airs tonight at 7pm on MCTV, channel 6, and by all accounts you should program your Tivo, dust off your VCR, or turn on your TV, and check it out.

Despite Bonnie McClung’s willingness to compromise on the size of the Planning Commission and her apparent good relationship with former city Council member Mike Ferreira, she voted with Naomi Patridge and Marina Fraser to deny Ferreira an appointment to the Planning Commission.  Ferreira is a former planning commissioner. Following this vote, David Gorn and Jim Grady disengaged from the meeting, declining to participate in the nomination process and abstaining on all subsequent votes.

"I’m disappointed that they [Grady and Gorn] decided to pull out out of the process," McClung told Coastsider, saying that her vote was within the spirit of the compromise. "I didn’t see that Mike was a fit at this time because he’s a lightning rod for both sides."

"It’s a sad day for Half Moon Bay," City Council member David Gorn told me, saying that the spirit of the compromise, which was designed to avoid dividing the town politically, had been broken. "After this huge compromise, we have this mean-spirited political nastiness," said Gorn.

In response to a question, Gorn agreed that under the circumstances, it may have been preferable to let the majority remake the Planning Commission and take it to referendum.

Asked if this could be seen as an attempt to keep him out of circulation, Ferreira said, "I don’t need their help to circulate."

Here’s how it went down:

Gorn nominated current planning commissioner Kevin Lansing - approved 5-0

Grady nominated Mike Ferreira - denied 2-3 (Grady, Gorn ayes)

"You could hear a pin drop during the roll call", one observer told me.

Grady withdrew his nomination and asserted his right to withhold his nomination to a later date. The seat will remain vacant for now.

McClung nominated Doug Snow - approved 3-0-2 (Grady, Gorn abstaining)

Patridge nominated Patric Jonsson - approved 3-0-2 (Grady, Gorn abstaining)

Fraser nominated Thomas Roman - approved 3-0-2 (Grady, Gorn abstaining)

The council then moved to the at-large seats - Grady and Gorn did not nominate or participate.

Patridge nominated Jeff Allis, David Mier and Bob Feldman.

Fraser nominated Linda Poncini.

Jeff Allis - approved 3-0-2 (Grady, Gorn abstaining)

Bob Feldman - denied 0-3-2 (Grady, Gorn abstaining)

David Mier - denied 1-2-2 (Patridge aye, Grady, Gorn abstaining)

Linda Poncini - approved 2-1-2 (Fraser, McClung ayes, Grady, Gorn abstaining)

Technically, according to the ordinance, a majority of 3 votes is required for approval, but at this point everyone was so tired that they accepted Allis and Poncini for the two remaining seats.

As HMB Review Managing Editor Clay Lambert put it in his eerie signed column about McClung and Ferreira’s new-found friendship:

There are those in town who, for reasons I’ll never understand, are vested in continuing this Hatfield-and-McCoy feud between the so-called "no-growthers," which Ferreira was supposed to represent, and the "old guard," which is supposed to be the natural base for McClung. I’m sure there are supporters of each who think that fraternizing with the enemy is high treason.

He may be right.