Purchase Organic Starts for Your Spring Coastal Garden!

Planning a spring vegetable garden? Looking for organic starts? We feature crops that grow well on the coast all spring and summer, including green beans, peas, lettuce, spinach, squash, pumpkins, chard, beets and more!

WHEN: Three Saturdays
April 24 [Earth Day], May 1, and May 8
10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

WHERE: Pacifica Gardens behind the Linda Mar Education Center 830 Rosita Road, Pacifica, CA

For more info please contact Loretta O’Brien at (650) 296-9502, or visit www.pacifica-gardens.org

Damage to the pipes feeding the sprinkler system at the Three Bells nursing home in Montara flooded the space under the building on Easter Sunday. The Coastside Fire Protection and Montara Water and Sanitary Districts were on the scene to pump out the water and assess the problem. According to personnel on the scene, an engine is standing by while the facility is without the use of its sprinkler system and a determination will be made whether the facility’s 25 residents need to be evacuated until the sprinklers are fixed.

Along the San Mateo County coast, trained volunteers play a major role in protecting the Western Snowy Plover—a small shorebird that lays its eggs on the sand at a few California beaches every summer.

The snowy plovers, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, may be found on several local beaches during the winter months.  In the spring and summer, the plovers congregate on the few beaches that can provide safe nesting sites, including Half Moon Bay State Beach—a busy recreational beach where a protected habitat is set aside for the plovers to nest.

Volunteers in the Half Moon Bay State Beach Plover Watch program monitor the beach to help protect the plovers and point them out to beach visitors.  Public education—sometimes including presentations for school groups—is an important part of the volunteer program.

When volunteers find a plover nest—well-camouflaged eggs laid in a depression in the sand—they call in help to build a wire “exclosure” around it to prevent predators such as ravens and gulls from taking the eggs.  When the eggs hatch, about four weeks later, the plover chicks are cared for by the male parent for almost a month until they can fly (fledge).  The female parent often leaves for another beach where she may breed with another male.

A free, one-day training workshop for prospective Plover Watch volunteers will be offered on Saturday, April 10, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., at the Half Moon Bay State Beach office located at 95 Kelly Avenue, in Half Moon Bay.  To register for the workshop or for more information, call Ranger Nelle Lyons or volunteer Paul Langan at (650) 726-8804, voice mailbox 7 #, or e-mail [email protected].

A representative of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights will appear at the next meeting of the San Mateo County Charter Review Committee. The LCCR won a decision that at-large elections, such as those for the county’s Board of Supervisors, violated the California Voting Rights Act.

The Madera Unified School District case demonstrates that at-large elections can violate voters’ rights:

An injunction in the case is forcing Madera Unified, which is 82% Latino, to change the way it elects its board.

The decision has already begun to reshape school boards, city councils and special districts throughout California. Dozens of jurisdictions have Latino majorities with few, if any, Latino elected officials—the very conditions that led to the ruling that the Madera district’s electoral system had fostered "racially polarized voting" in violation of the California Voting Rights Act.

"I think what we’re looking at is a quiet revolution," said Robert Rubin, an attorney with the San Francisco-based Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, which brought the Madera case. "I think this will sort of usher in the transfer of power from the Anglo community to the Latino community . . . with fair and equitable voting procedures."

The next meeting of the Charter Review Committee will be:

April 7, 2010
5:30 to 7:30pm
San Mateo Main Library, Oak Room
55 West Third Ave.
San Mateo

State Assemblymember Jerry Hill be in Half Moon Bay Thursday from 7:30 to 9:30am for coffee and conversation.  Bring your ideas, questions and concerns about legislative issues affecting the community.  Coffee will be provided by Jerry Hill at no taxpayer expense. He will be at Moonside Bakery & Cafe, 604 Main Street, Half Moon Bay, located in La Piazza.
 
You are welcome to sit down and stay a while or just drop in for a brief chat. No appointment is necessary. For more information, visit www.asm.ca.gov/hill or call Assemblymember Hill’s District Office at (650) 349-1900.

Supervisors Richard Gordon today invited members of the public to a meeting Monday, April 5, to discuss public safety at the Mavericks big wave surf contest.
 
The meeting is an opportunity for the public to comment on this year’s event and to provide ideas on how to improve public safety in the future. Following this year’s contest where several spectators were injured due to large waves, Gordon had pledged to invite the public to discuss public safety and offer ideas for improvement.
 
The annual contest is sponsored by Mavericks Surf Ventures. Local, county, state and federal public agencies work with the sponsor to develop a public safety plan. Gordon’s supervisorial district includes the coastal areas nearest the famed surf break.
 
The public meeting will take place at 6:30 p.m.  April 5 at the conference room at the Comfort Inn,  2930 Cabrillo Highway North, Half Moon Bay, 94019

Get your veggie garden off to a great start at the Master Gardener plant sale at CSM on April 10 from 9am to 1pm. Choose from dozens of tomato and pepper varieties selected especially for local success! 

The Master Gardeners of San Mateo and SF Counties, based in Half Moon Bay, will be offering popular and unusual varieties of tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, and more — including many that do well in cool and foggy areas.  We’ve grown all these plants ourselves, and they look great - and are ready to come home with you. We’ll be sure to share our tips for growing them so you can have a successful harvest.

Plenty of Master Gardener volunteers, including a number from the coastside, will be on hand to answer your gardening questions.  Students from the CSM Horticulture program will be demonstrating the making of hand-tied bouquets, also for sale, and we’ll also have some gently-used garden supplies for sale at our "Green Elephant" table. And the Master Composters will be demonstrating compost-making techniques.  This will be a fun event you don’t want to miss!
Sales will be cash or check only.

Directions to College of San Mateo, 1700 West Hillsdale Boulevard, San Mateo
From Highway 92, exit West Hillsdale Boulevard, Turn left at the traffic light at the end of the exit ramp onto West Hillsdale Boulevard. Continue up the hill through second and third sets of traffic lights. Follow the Master Gardener signs! Park in Galileo Lot 6 or Bulldog Lot 9 and proceed to the greenhouse, building 20.   

The proceeds of the sale benefit our program, the Master Gardeners of San Mateo & San Francisco Counties, part of the UC Cooperative Extension program.  Certified Master Gardener volunteers, trained by UC, provide garden and pest information to home gardeners, promoting sustainable gardening and a healthy environment. The Plant Sale is co-sponsored by the College of San Mateo.  For more information, visit our website.
Ask a Master Gardener! Call our garden and pest helpline at 650-726-9059 x 107 or email [email protected].

Two juvenile walkaways left the San Francisco Log Cabin Ranch juvenile facility at about 6:10 pm Sunday.  Both were last seen getting into a Blue Toyota Corolla or similar at the log cabin.

The first walkaway is a 17 year old black male, 5’ 11", 160 lbs, black hair, brown eyes. He was wearing a blue sweat shirt, blue jeans and black tennis shoes.

The second walkaway is 16 year old hispanic male, 5’ 6", 110 lbs, black hair, brown eyes, wearing a white T-shirt, khaki pants and white tennis shoes.

Report any suspicious activity and/or persons to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office at 650-363-4911

A woman was swept away by a wave a little before 1:45pm at Sharp Park Beach in Pacifica, reports Bay Cities News. The woman was found floating face down about 35 feet from the shore. She was removed from the water by two members of the fire department and taken to Seton Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

After talking with family members and witnesses at the scene, investigators determined the woman had entered the water to rescue one of her dogs and was knocked down by a large wave and swept away from the beach. Family members and witnesses were unable to reach her in the heavy surf.

The dog was able to swim back to shore, police said.

The woman, whose name is not being released until her family is notified of the death, drowned in the same area where a 44-year-old man is presumed to have drowned less than two weeks ago.

On March 18, Richard Serrano Jr. entered the waters off Sharp Park Beach and was knocked down by several waves. He never resurfaced and his body has not been found.

PODCAST Planning Commission Hearing: 3.5 hours:
http://web.me.com/sabrinabrennan/Critical_Coastal_AREA29/March_24,_2010.html

Big Wave Project highlights from the Planning Commission Hearing:

• Lennie Roberts comments starts 6:38 minutes into the hearing
• Sabrina Brennan comments starts 10:44 minutes into the hearing
• Jim Eggemeyer, Planning Director and John Nibbelin, County Counsel discussion starts 3:02:28

During the March 24, 2010 Planning Commission Hearing Jim Eggemeyer, County Planning Director informed the Planning Commissioners that the Big Wave Project developers are “collaborating” with the Planning Department by responding to 245 public comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) themselves.  Eggemeyer also said that the Big Wave Project developers are unable to continue funding the environmental consultants (CAJA).

The Planning Commission Site Visit will be Monday, April 26 at 3:30pm

The Planning Commission Hearing is April 28th at 6:30pm at HMB High School.

On March 25th, Scott Holmes had the following to say in an interview with Montara Fog:

“We had an agreement with the County and we are sticking with it.”

“The only difference,” between the old process with the consultant and the new process without, “is that I will have to help more in the organization of the document. This is also the case for the County. They will have to expend considerably more time and effort to make sure their review is thorough and the final document is professionally organized.”

“While Big Wave will contribute first round responses and organization of the document,” Holmes says, “the County will have final review and authority over every aspect of the final document…all information provided by Big Wave [will] go through a ‘filter’ and review process, as the County will have final review and authority over every aspect of the final document.”

Download Planning Commission Hearing recording 3.5 hours: http://rcpt.yousendit.com/843840307/437a7fe203358b300f70b57be941bfae