Tuesday night at 6:30pm, the Half Moon Bay City Council will hold special meeting to interview candidates to replace David Gorn and appoint one of them to fill his position.

 

• 6:45   John Muller

 

• 7:00   George Muteff

 

• 7:15   Kevin Lansing

 

• 7:30   Jim Marsh

 

• 7:45   Jack McCarthy

 

• 8:00   Susan Suer

 

• 8:15   Denis O’Sullivan

The council will also review the Highway 92 and Main Street project costs at the meeting.

Half Moon Bay Planning Director Jack Liebster has resigned his position. His last day will be July 31.  In his resignation letter to city manager Debra Auker, Liebster said, "The long hours, magnified by the long commute, have taken a toll, and I look forward to a chance to recharge and retool, and spend some much-missed time with my family. "

UPDATE: City Manager Debra Auker says that it will take about three to four months to fill the position and that she will ask the city council whether it wants to use an executive search firm to fill the position. An interim director will be appointed until the position is filled. The city manager will fill the position and the amount of input from the community and city council is yet to be determined.

Our album of nearly 300 photos from the Fourth of July Parade is now online.  Click on any of the pictures below to see the album.  The album includes photos by Cheri Parr (preparation for the parade), Barry Parr (shots of the spectators taken from our "float" in the parade), and Lori Boville (shots of the parade itself taken from the audience perspective).

Cheri Parr

Lori Boville

Cheri Parr

Cheri Parr

My wife, kids, and I thought—since there are no official coastside fireworks this 4th—to drive about in search of "outlaw" fireworks shows.  Here we have three shots from our trusty Pillar Point outlaws. Last year this group put on a show that rivaled the official fireworks that were being shot off just a few hundred feet away. This time they were all alone.

These photos are "composite photos." That means they are made using the digital equivalent of the common technique of opening the camera shutter and putting the lens cap on and off to achieve what amounts to a multiple exposure.

Leni Schultz is a resident of El Granada

The Burnham Strip Committee (BSC) of MidCoast Park Lands (MPL) in El Granada is busy again! We’re up and running to preserve as parkland the open space and ocean views El Granada is blessed with and to save the historic 1906 community design by Daniel Burnham.

Continuing a 15 year effort by concerned local citizens, the Burnham Strip Committee is seeking methods and means to preserve the community open space at the front of El Granada, the oceanside view corridor so beloved by locals and visitors alike. The Committee believes the time for a serious effort to save The Strip is now, because a central portion of the property has come on the market. An 8/10 acre parcel in the middle of the Strip is available for purchase and preservation and MPL’s Burnham Strip Committee is reaching out to the community to preserve this priceless public resource.

The "Burnham Strip" is the still mostly open space between Highway 1 and the developed portions of El Granada. The BSC’s goal is to preserve the views afforded by the Strip and to assure preservation of this key open space for our children and posterity. Ultimately the BSC wants to see the entire Strip as permanently protected open space/ parkland under public management.

The Burnham Strip Committee is actively seeking additional volunteers, public participation, donations, pledges, grants, and ideas to help preserve this vital public open space. Please contact BSC Chair Leni Schultz at 650-712-8368 or www.SAVETHESTRIP.org for information and to help

One well-known candidate (John Muller) has already thrown his hat into the ring (if that’s the correct metaphor for an appointed position) to replace David Gorn on the Half Moon Bay City Council. The deadline for applications is Thursday, July 6, and candidates will be interviewed on Tuesday, July 11.

Independence Day Eve is as good an occasion as any to start a discussion of what kind of person, and specifically who, should be appointed to fill the position.  It is a better occasion than most to remind everyone that we’re going to be enforcing strict civility rules in this discussion. 

New and infrequent posters are especially welcome to participate.  You must be a registered user to post, and must use your real, full name.  Once you’re registered, click on the "comments" link under the headline of this story.

The Nature Conservancy has purchased six federal trawling permits and four trawling vessels from commercial fishermen in Morro Bay.  The deal is the result of a three-year process of negotiation with fishermen, and trawl permit owners in Monterey, Moss Landing and Half Moon Bay have also expressed an interest in selling their permits and vessels.

The Conservancy initiated the trawler buy-out program at Morro Bay as a pilot project three years ago. Concerned by a National Academy of Sciences report that documented the negative environmental effects of bottom trawling, the Conservancy and its nonprofit partner, Environmental Defense, approached Morro Bay trawl fishermen and harbormasters about developing a market-based plan that would protect seafloor communities and help boost a troubled fishery.

Trawlers drag large, weighted nets along the sea bottom, damage habitat and scoop up fish and other creatures not targeted by the fisherman. The catch they produce is high in volume but often low in value, and it puts pressure on several other species.

Revenues from Pacific groundfish trawling fell from $110 million in 1987 to $35 million in 2003.  Fishermen and the Conservancy worked together to identify areas that would be off limits to trawling and submit them to the Pacific Fishery Management Council.  In June 2005, the council approved the no-trawl map covering 3.8 million acres of ocean between Santa Barbara to south of Monterey Bay [PDF of map].

Martha Bruce Photography will be photographing kids eating their favorite fruit or vegetable for a children’s book on nutritious foods on Saturday, July 8, from 10am to 4pm, at Sweet Peas organic produce stand in Montara.

Parents who donate nonperishable food to their collection for the Coastside Opportunity Center, will receive a free 5 x 7 print of their child’s portrait.

Sweet Peas is located on Highway 1 in Montara, between Eighth and Ninth Streets, next to Caffe Lucca. Call 415.822.7581 to reserve a session time.

In a newly released report called the Bay Area Smart Growth Scorecard put out by Greenbelt Alliance, a Bay Area non-profit that focuses on land conservation and urban planning, San Mateo County was the only one of eight counties in the Bay Area to score 0% in the category of Growth Management�primarily because of its lack of "any effective growth management policy." From page 22 of the 44 page report (emphasis added):

Seven of eight counties have policies intended to prevent urban development on greenbelt lands outside their cities. However, their effectiveness varies greatly, splitting the counties into two distinct tiers. The four higher-scoring counties�Napa (90%), Alameda (75%), Contra Costa (75%), and Solano (65%)�have growth management policies established through voter-approved ordinances. Lower-scoring counties, including Marin (40%), Sonoma (30%), and Santa Clara (30%), have only general plan policies or map designations to manage growth. San Mateo scores 0% as the only Bay Area county without any effective growth management policy. While the San Mateo County General Plan does establish an �urban-rural boundary� around existing cities, it permits development at urban densities on rural lands.

The study was an effort to assess how the Bay Area will handle the expected growth of one million people over the next 15 years. The report concludes that the region is ill-prepared for that growth. A press release put out by the organization states that "the Bay Area Smart Growth Scorecard is the first attempt to evaluate the policies of every city and county to see how well the region will accommodate growth." "If it's done right, new growth can make the Bay Area a better place to live," said Tom Steinbach, Greenbelt Alliance's Executive Director, in its press release. "But right now, the region doesn't have the policies in place to make sure that happens."