Two Midcoast tsunami sirens will be tested as they go online Thursday, February 28.  The sirens are located in El Granada and Princeton.  Each sirens will be tested for 15 seconds as the siren technicians from Hormann America complete the final installation process.  Hormann America could not provide a more definite time schedule for the tests.

Future siren tests will be conducted on the first Wednesday of each month at 10:00 a.m.  During regular monthly tests, the sirens will all sound simultaneously for 15 seconds.

The tsunami warning signal is a steady siren sound for 3 minutes.  If this should occur, residents are urged to tune their radios to the local Emergency Alert Station, KCBS 740 AM for official news and instructions.

Pacifica will also have its first two tsunami sirens connected this week with a similar 15 second installation test.  Pacifica will conduct its first regular monthly test next Wednesday, March 5 at 10:00 a.m., at which time both sirens, located at Rockaway Beach and Sharp Park, will sound for 15 seconds.

For more information, please contact the San Mateo County Office of Emergency Services at 363-4790.

Submitted by Jim Asche, Emergency Planner, San Mateo County OES.

There is a need for the tax-paying homeowner/residents in the Midcoast & HMB to put a stop to active attacks on the Coastside’s greenbelt/open space areas, now.

For instance, the Harbor District is attempting to sell areas of Burnham Buffer Strip in El Granada Zoned Community Open Space Conservation & is rural Land. This is wrong - it is a public greenbelt/open space area that is there by law to separate El Granada from SR1. The State Lands Commission has determined that the Harbor District manage it not, play real estate games with it. 

The Mirada Surf East greenbelt/open space that is there to separate one developed area (El Granada) from another (Miramar) & El Granada from SR1 which is RM/CZ & also rural land is also under attack.
This is the County’s urbanized Park/Rec Plan that threatens this treasured Greenbelt/Open Space Entity.
http://www.co.sanmateo.ca.us/vgn/images/portal/cit_609/5/41/1051973884Midcoast%20Parks%20Action%20Plan_new%20pics.pdf
The placement of a "Community Center" & Active Sports Fields would be totally inappropriate to put inside the Mirada Surf East Greenbelt/Open Space and a County Scenic Corridor with Riparian/Wetland/ESHA areas & rural land and a critical component of the Historic Burnham Street Plan and also the Mid-Coast’s Open Space Element that the County has no mention of in their fraudulent, exploitive "LCP Update" where development including Water/Sewer Infrastructure is prohibited.

The Farallone View Education Fund says they are one of the top 250 schools out of 15,000 nationally participating in a recent Safeway scrip promotion. This earned them an additional $1000 from Safeway, for a grand total of $4,105.

The Farallone View Education Fund group use their eScrip funds to pay the salaries for each 4th and 5th grade classroom aide, the librarian, and an additional office clerk.  Art, music, and physical education are also programs that the parents at Farallone View fund. The fund made over $35,000 last year from its eScrip program.

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.

The owner of New Leaf markets announced today that construction has started at the old Albertson’s location in Half Moon Bay. From the press release:

"This is going to be our flagship store," reports Scott Roseman, President of New Leaf Community Markets. "At 22,000 square feet we will be offering an expanded selection of prepared foods, gourmet cheeses, fine wines, and the best selection of organic fruits and vegetables on the San Mateo County coast." New Leaf is a leading natural foods retailer in Northern California, with five locations in and around the city of Santa Cruz, two of which have licensing agreements with New Leaf to use the name.

The Montara Water and Sanitary District is considering webcasting its meetings.  Two days after I appeared before the Coastside Fire Protection District to say that—regardless of whom they choose webcast their meetings—they should be certain that the public owns the copyright, I was before MWSD making virtually the same speech.

But there were two big differences. The big difference is that the MWSD board is clearly interested in keeping control of its meetings in the hands of the public. The other difference is that the meeting was captured by Scott Boyd’s camcorder, so we can bring it to you.

You can watch the entire hour and nine minutes or take your pick from the segments below.

• Review and Possible Action Concerning Alternatives for Showing Board Meetings on the Web [69 min]  | Quicktime | Flash | This same video broken into individual presentations below

• Introduction [6 min]  | Quicktime | Flash |
• Constance Malach, MCTV [8 min]  | Quicktime | Flash |
• Darin Boville, Montara Fog [9 min]  | Quicktime | Flash |
• Patrick Burns, MCTV [3 min]  | Quicktime | Flash |
• Michael Day, MCTV [7 min]  | Quicktime | Flash |
• Barry Parr, Coastsider [6 min]  | Quicktime | Flash |
• Darin Boville, correction [2 min]  | Quicktime | Flash |
• Board discussion [28 min]  | Quicktime | Flash |

• New business (click below for agenda) [30 min]  | Quicktime | Flash |

The county is beginning an effort to eradicated the Light Brown Apple Moth that will include distributing pheromone-coasted "twist-ties" this week, followed by aerial spraying in August, reports the County Times. 

Starting Monday officials with the California Department of Food and Agricultures will hang a series of red "twist ties" coated with the pheromone in trees along parts of Pescadero and Half Moon Bay where the moth has been found — 250 twist ties per acre in a 650-foot radius around each infested site.

Then, in August, the department plans to start aerial spraying of several Bay Area parks and cities where the incidence of the light brown apple moth is too high to make the twist-tie solution effective. Those locations include Daly City,
...
State officials received more than 600 reports of adverse health effects following two aerial spraying sessions that occurred late last year in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, where the light brown apple moth was endemic. Residents reported symptoms that included breathing problems, eye irritation, coughing and headaches.
...
Much of the concern around the Checkmate product does not focus on the pheromone itself — pheromones are a well-established method for fighting moth infestations — but on the inert ingredients that form the "capsule" around the chemical that allows it to take the form of a spray that falls to earth. The product manufacturer refused to disclose the inert ingredients until a judge ordered the CDFA to do so last October.

Be sure to read the original, highly-detailed story at he County Times.

There is a online petition for citizens who are concerned about the spraying and want it stopped.

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

Changes in the California Current are creating dead zones in the ocean off the Pacific Northwest, reports the Chronicle. The likely cause is global warming.

Video images scanned from the seafloor revealed a boneyard of crab skeletons, dead fish and other marine life smothered under a white mat of bacteria. At times, the camera’s unblinking eye revealed nothing - a barren undersea desert in waters renowned for their bounty of Dungeness crabs and fat rockfish.

"We couldn’t believe our eyes," Lubchenco said, recalling her initial impression of the carnage brought about by oxygen-starved waters. "It was so overwhelming and depressing. It appeared that everything that couldn’t swim or scuttle away had died."

Upon further study, Lubchenco and other marine ecologists at Oregon State University concluded that that the undersea plague appears to be a symptom of global warming. In a study published in the journal Science, the researchers note how these low-oxygen waters have expanded north into Washington and crept south as far as the California state line. And, they appear to be as regular as the tides, a cycle that has repeated itself every summer and fall since 2002.

"We seem to have crossed a tipping point," Lubchenco said. "Low-oxygen zones off the Northwest coast appear to be the new normal."