Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (CA-district 14) will hold a Town Hall meeting in Half Moon Bay next Monday, April 18th. Rep. Eshoo will discuss her work on the Intelligence and Energy and Commerce Committees, including critical federal issues such as proposed changes to Social Security and the on-going situation in Iraq. All constituents are invited to attend and share their concerns with Rep. Eshoo.

This location is wheelchair accessible and will have special parking. For more information on this event, including assistance with directions, please contact Rep. Eshoo’s district office at (650) 323-2984.

Monday, April 18th

7:00 - 8:30 p.m.

IDES Hall

735 Main Street

Half Moon Bay

In a 3 to 1 vote, the Half Moon Bay City Council selected David Gorn to serve the remainder of Sid McCausland’s term.  Jim Grady, Toni Taylor and Mike Ferreira voted for Gorn, and Marina Fraser voted for the only other candidate, former HMB mayor Naomi Patridge.

Gorn’s term will expire in November 2007.

David Gorn, former editor of the Half Moon Bay Review, has applied to be appointed to the seat vacated by HMB City Council member Sid McCausland. Gorn has lived in Half Moon Bay nine years.  He left the Review just about a year ago, in March 2004.  He’s currently working as a producer for KQED-FM, and has produced many features for them about the Coastside. When I was in Phoenix last week, I heard his story about giant squid on the local NPR affiliate.

He joins Naomi Patridge, 44-year resident, City Council member from 1985 to 2001, and former four-term HMB Mayor, as the second applicant for the job. The Review spent a lot of time on Patridge in a front-page story last week’s paper.

In his application, Gorn lists what he sees as the big ongoing issues for the City Council: "adding those lanes to Highway 92, building a new police station, a new library, adding parkland, building trails, getting the middle school and the Boys and Girls Club built in our lifetime." Gorn positions himself as someone who can "bridge the gap between the two political factions on the Coastside".

Patridge’s much shorter statement focused on her remarkable experience and concluded: "I was and still am committed to the residents of the city. While on the council I always listened to residents and did what I thought was best for the city. There should always be respect between the council and residents despite their differences."

Backstory (inside baseball, mostly opinion and unsourced): If, like me, you’re a newcomer to the Coastside, you’re probably shrugging and asking yourself, "What’s this really about?  There’s clearly more to this than meets the eye, but I’m not sure I should even care." Gorn is well-regarded by supporters of the current slowish-growth City Council majority, as well as by those who don’t identify with either that group or with the faction who used to run the city (the "Old Guard").  Many of them miss Gorn’s more even-handed influence at the Review, which seems more wildly partisan every week.  Patridge is regarded as the candidate of the Old Guard. Patridge’s opposition to buying the 22 acres for a park coincided with a switch to more negative coverage of the park by the city’s newspaper of record.  Both Gorn’s and Patridge’s statements, as well as the Review’s coverage, take on a whole new perspective if analyzed in this context.

The Merc has a story about Larry Hassett, owner of Ocean Shore Hardware and president of the MROSD. It covers a lot of the same ground as the County Times story, including his journey from critic to president of the district. It includes a short sidebar of vital facts.

As a homeowner on rural Skyline Boulevard, he feared the district would use its powers to forcibly acquire his land—and the energy-efficient home he notched into the hillside and covered with earth. He led the opposition that persuaded the district to limit private property acquisition.

The Half Moon Bay City Council unanimously decided to appoint a replacement for the remaining 2 1/2 years of Sid McCausland’s term.

McCausland formally resigned at last night’s meeting, clearing the way for his replacement.

There will be a notice (and presumably an article) in next Wednesday’s Half Moon Bay Review.  The Review is a local newspaper that is published on most Wednesdays. However, the process is already known.

Anyone wishing to serve in McCausland’s seat needs to go to City Hall and fill out a form stating they are willing to serve, attaching information about their background, especially in public service, and a short statement of why they want to be a member of the City Council. Applications are due by Wednesday, March 23.

There will be a special meeting on Monday, March 28 at 7pm to interview candidates and choose a replacement. If necessary, the process can continue to the regular City Council meeting the following night. The replacement must be chosen within 30 days of the vacancy, which would be March 31.

In other business, the City Council voted unanimously to support Keet Nerhan’s application to add a drive-thru restaurant to his gas station at the intersection of Highways 1 and 92.  The application will come back to the Council next month for final review in a month.  There had been a dispute between the Planning Commission and Nerhan over whether earlier traffic studies had been adequate to approve the drive-thru.

"I think the Planning Commission did its job," Mayor Jim Grady told me. "They need to be conservative."

According to one observer, Council member Mike Ferreira joked that the station would probably cause more traffic than the drive-thru if Keet would lower his prices.  Toni Taylor loosened things up further, noting that everyone in the room was laughing except Keet.

Mayor Jim Grady told me that there will be a report from City Attorney Adam Lindgren at the next meeting on Tuesday, March 1 regarding procedures for replacing a City Council member. The expectation is that a decision will be made at that meeting about what to do next, but no one’s making any promises at this stage.

Sid McCausland says,  "I’ll miss the Coastside, but not Coastside politics" in a good article about his promised resignation in the SM County Times.

Half Moon Bay City Council Member Sid McCausland announced his intention to resign, as soon as a replacement is found, at last night’s meeting.  He’s moving out of town, citing his need to retire some place with lower housing costs. 

In his prepared statement, McCausland warned against pro-development forces that will leave "Half Moon Bay looking like any other overcrowded California beach town", including the Half Moon Bay Review among the forces attempting to "distort every issue and twist every fact in an effort to undermine the credibility of those of us who support controlled growth".

I’ll have more on this later. But for now, here’s McCausland’s announcement.

February 15, 2005

Honorable Jim Grady, Mayor

City Council

City of Half Moon Bay

Dear Jim:

It has been my great personal privilege to serve on our City Council while Mike and Jim and Toni and Marina and I and our City staff have been accomplishing great things. I am proud to have played a small role in our accomplishments as a City Council.

63% of the votes cast by our voters in 1999 approved Half Moon Bay’s 1% per year limit on growth.  All of us have been working hard to abide by the voters’ mandate.  I extend my deepest thanks to the vast majority of our City’s residents for their support for our efforts. 

But let me sound an alarm for all of the residents of our community who believe in controlled growth. 

There are two major forces at work in our community:  there are those who are “pro-growth” and there are those who support “controlled growth”. 

In spite of the 63% vote for controlled growth, we hear every week from a very loud minority that is intent on undermining our growth controls.  During my 40-year career on the fringes of politics I have never encountered such widespread disrespect for the truth as I have encountered from Half Moon Bay’s pro-growthers.  The pro-growthers, which includes the local paper, routinely distort every issue and twist every fact in an effort to undermine the credibility of those of us who support controlled growth. 

Do not be fooled by the lies of those who seek to destroy your personal commitment to our City’s future.  The elections coming up in November 2005 will decide the fate of our 1% controlled growth limit once and for all.  The pro-growthers want you to be so confused by their propaganda that you forget what the election is really about.

If you sit on your hands, we will loose everything that our Neighborhood Alliance, our League for Coastside Protection and our City Council have been fighting to protect.  If you sit on your hands, you will find Half Moon Bay looking like any other overcrowded California beach town.  I hope you will fight for the Half Moon Bay you want to live in.

I hereby submit formal notice that I will resign my seat on the City Council as soon as my successor is named.

I retire as Chief Executive Officer of the San Mateo County Employees’ Retirement Association March 31st and my retirement income necessitates our move to a region with lower housing costs.

Suzanne and I have enjoyed our eleven years here and will cherish many wonderful memories.  I will always remember the dedicated efforts of my fellow Council members and our hard working City staff.

Respectfully,

Sid McCausland

409 Washington Boulevard

Half Moon Bay

 

The SamTrans board adopted a policy to strive to diversify its board geographically, ethnically and by sex. However, the policy applies only to the three public seats out of nine on the board.  Former Supervisor Mike Nevin, whose appointment to one of the public seats ignited demands for greater diversity, says he’ll step down from the board at the end of the year. One public seat is reserved for a Coastside resident.

In an editorial, the San Mateo County Times suggests that the SamTrans by-laws be changed so as to insure that future Samtrans appointments are done fairly, honestly and in the open.

This week, with supervisors Mark Church and Rich Gordon dissenting, the board selected Supervisor Adrienne Tissier to fill a seat on the SamTrans board left vacant by Mike Nevin.

In so doing, the board has perpetuated a more than six-year inequality that finds Daly City residents occupying four of the board’s nine seats.

If you agree, and want to be part of an effort to change the SamTrans by-laws, e-mail me your name.  If there is enough support them perhaps we can put together a groups who could petition the various San Mateo County legislators (Leland Yee, Gene Mullin, Ira Ruskin, Jackie Speier and Joe Simitian) and ask that they change the law.

Richard L. Silver
[email protected]

EDITOR’S NOTE:  I don’t know Ric, so I had some questions about his involvement.  The San Mateo County Times’ Insider column answered some of my questions:  "RAIL activist, political consultant and former county Board of Supervisors clerk Ric Silver is starting a group to lobby for changes to the SamTrans board after recent flaps over appointments. ...Some see Silver’s interest in the issue at this time as curious, since he has not been active on other local transportation issues such as Measure A. Silver said he’s simply interested in the SamTrans board because its budget decisions have a large impact on Caltrain."

Supervisor Adrienne Tissier will attend Wednesday’s Midcoast Community Council meeting to introduce herself and to hear from all of us.

This first Midcoast Community Council meeting in 2004 will have several other items of wide ranging interest:  We will have a presentation by the Sheriff’s Dept. Office of Emergency Personnel giving their presentation on the tsunami warning system and a discussion on the Granada Sanitary District reorganization to a community services district.

The meeting will be Wednesday, January 12 at 7:30pm at Seton Hospital in Moss Beach.