Coastsider’s Calendar is back online, including the listing of the week’s events on the right-hand column of every page.  It has been down for repairs and upgrades for about a week.

As one of its creators and as executive director of the Coastal Commission since 1985, Peter Douglas he has been protecting the coast for decades, according to a very good profile in Capital Weekly.

Douglas’ attitude has made him many enemies, especially among property-rights advocacy groups. Ron Zumbrun, who founded the Pacific Legal Foundation and now heads a private firm, lost a long legal battle year that reached to the state Supreme Court. Zumbrun challenged the constitutionality of the commission’s structure, and said Douglas was a dictator who pushed his own ideas of what was right for the coast.

"He has an extreme goal for protecting the coast," Zumbrun said. "He does not really recognize the right to own and use private property. He’s from a different philosophy."

But even most of Douglas’ enemies admire him for his independence and determination. A former Coastal Commission member who asked not to be identified said, "[Douglas] is somebody who really believes in what he does. He’s not a hired gun. The downside of that is he is an ideologue, an extremist who has allowed his ideology to trump everything else, including logic."

In an dramatic turn of events, the Half Moon Bay City Council has compromised on the membership of the city’s Planning Commission, rather than change the number of commission members and their terms. McClung made the proposal at the meeting, and the details were worked out by the City Council. Council members David Gorn and Bonnie McClung had discussed this compromise (which McClung had proposed earlier) before the meeting.

Under the compromise, all planning commissioners have been asked to resign.  Each City Council member will nominate one member. Of the two members chosen by the council as a whole, one will be nominated by council members McClung, Patridge, and Fraser. The other will be nominated by Gorn and Grady.  The result should be a board with four members nominated by the new council majority, and three nominated by the new minority.

The council voted 4 to 0, with Naomi Patridge abstaining, to table the ordinance; and 5 to 0 to ask for the resignations of current commissioners and advertise the two positions to be chosen by the council as a whole.

David Gorn told me he wanted to avoid six months of fighting in the run-up to a referendum on the ordinance and untold months of bad feelings after the vote. "We couldn’t pass a parcel tax or a bond for the library or the police station in that kind of atmosphere," he said.

Bonnie McClung said, "We talked it out in front of the people and I like that sense of openness.  I’m proud of the entire City Council."

This also ends the promised referendum effort by Half Moon Bay resident John Lynch, who spearheaded a referendum that ended a 1998 attempt to restructure the planning commission.

We’ll post more details on this story later. The tape of the meeting, which promises to be interesting viewing, will be shown on MCTV, cable Channel 6, tonight at 7pm.

Click "read more" for a detailed account of the meeting.

This week features a boat burglarized in Princeton, possession of illegal swords and hashish at Pescadero State Beach, warrant arrests in Montara and Pillar Ridge mobile home park, gang graffiti on a dumpster in Moonridge, John Rademaker of Montara has been reported missing, and a home burglary in Skyline.

Click "read more" for details.

"Artists reach areas far beyond the reach of politicians. Art, especially entertainment and music, is understood by everybody and it lifts the spirits and the morale of those who hear it."  Nelson Mandela

Come immerse yourself in the sights and sounds of the many cultures of Africa.  Africa: The Musical Continent helps us understand Africa’s diversity by studying its indigenous music and the people and political forces that shaped the music.

The tour begins with the griot musicians of Senegal.  We then caravan across the ancient deserts of Mali and Burkina Faso with nomads who have been trading music and exotic instruments for thousands of years. Just south of the desert, we encounter the juju music of Nigeria. We then jump to the East coast to experience the music of Ethiopia and down to South Africa, sampling music and meeting music makers as we go.

What we end up with is a grand symphony of the music of this influential continent as interpreted by legendary African artists such as juju star King Sunny Ade, Senegal’s Baaba Maal, Afro-pop artist Salif Keita, Miriam Makeba, Nigeria’s rebel star Fela Kuti and Cesoria Evora of the Canary Islands.

The movie includes footage taken from 10 documentary films about the African musical stars whose performances are featured.  That footage is put into context using documentary footage captured expressly to provide a historical perspective about where the music came from.

A half an hour before the feature and during the post screening program the audience will be able enjoy an exhibition of African instruments and artwork while listing to African music.  The artwork comes from Sujaro, Half Moon Bay’s new African import boutique. The music comes from the CD produced as a companion to our feature.  Among the presenters for this part of the program will be our own Luanne Paul King, Film Club Board Member and former founder of the Music Conservatory of Tanzania.

To see a video excerpt of this program and to peruse more information see: www.hmbfilm.org

Friday, Jan 20
Feature starts at 8:00
Preshow at 7:30

Community Methodist Sanctuary,  Half Moon Bay
777 Miramontes, Half Moon Bay
Corner of Johnston & Miramontes.

$6.00 donation per person

At tonight’s meeting, the Half Moon Bay City Council will conduct the "first reading" ordinance to reduce the number of members in the Planning Commission [PDF of agenda] and make their terms concurrent with those council members appointing them.

The ordinance will require a second reading before it takes effect. At that point, opponents of the ordinance who want a referendum on the ordinance have 30 days to gather the necessary signatures.

J. Edmond (Jed) Cyr, Jr. was last night unanimously elected President of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District’s Board of Directors for a one-year term. Also elected were Directors Ken Nitz as the District’s Vice President, Mary Davey as Treasurer, and Nonette Hanko as Secretary.

Jed Cyr has lived in Sunnyvale for 38 years and represented its residents on the Board of Directors since 1996 when he was first elected to a seat on the Open Space District’s Board.
"There are three clear goals I will work toward as President," Cyr said. "Implementing the Coastside Protection Program, balancing District lands for multiple uses, and improving resource management."

A dedicated user of the District’s preserves, Cyr will chair tonight’s special Board meeting where District history could be made if Directors vote to purchase the 3,681-acre POST Driscoll Ranch, the single largest purchase in the District’s history.

"This will be an important milestone for the District, the coastside, and the entire region," Cyr said. "The purchase of more than five square miles of coastside land allows us to help preserve the coastside’s precious agricultural land while protecting water quality and threatened species."
Jed Cyr thanked outgoing President Larry Hassett for his leadership during an important year for the District in which the agency purchased four properties on the coastside and held a number of public meetings to revise its Good Neighbor Policy.

Jed Cyr was born in San Francisco in 1941 and raised in Colma, CA. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Sciences and a Master’s degree in U.S. History and Geography from San Jose State University. Now retired, Jed taught in the Social Sciences field at the middle school level in Sunnyvale for 37 years.

Pescadero (and San Mateo County) turns 150 years old this year.  Jackson Robertson will be organizing a team of people to help prepare a celebration for Pescadero’s birthday.  If you have something you want to contribute, or if you’d like to help out, please contact Jackson.

The regularly-schedule Midcoast Community Council meeting for Wednesday, Jan 11, has been cancelled.

Last Wednesday, the Half Moon Bay Review, for the first time we remember, took a fond look at the history and possible future of Cunha Intermediate School. However, they got their facts wrong on why the district was unable to build its middle school at Wavecrest:

The decision to build a new middle school at the Cunha site came almost 10 years after voters approved a 1996 bond measure that would provide funds to build a brand new middle school.

Initially the district planned to build at the Wavecrest development, but years of litigation regarding environmental issues have brought construction to a halt. That left the decision about where to build the new middle school up in the air for years afterward.

This gives the false impression that environmental litigation was the reason the school was never built at Wavecrest.

First, there has been no litigation. The closest that Wavecrest ever got to a courtroom was when Wavecrest Village LLC sued the city of Half Moon Bay, which had found the project to be out of compliance with its original development agreement. The suit was never litigated, and has since been settled.

Second, neither the lawsuit nor the original appeal to the Coastal Commission was over environmental issues. The former was over compliance with the original development agreement, while the latter was a quarrel between developers over development priorities.

Last, construction could hardly have been brought to a halt, since it has never been close to starting.

There are environmental issues with the Wavecrest project. The developers have not addressed the issues of endangered species habitat on the property, and have failed to bring the project into compliance with the Coastal Act and the HMB LCP. But all scheduled hearings before the Coastal Commission have been cancelled at the request of the developers. For a more complete history, see Coastsider’s chronologies of the Wavecrest and middle school projects.

This is not a small distinction. The Review’s story perpetuates the myth that "environmentalists" and "no-growthers" held up these projects. Like all myths, it’s charming but false.