Teacher Diana Purucker once again kicked off the new school year with a community huge garage sale to benefit the Farallone View Lit Club.  The Lit Club sale happens twice a year, in September and January, and all proceeds go to buy books for the kids at school. Typically, each sale raises about $1,000.

Each year I promise myself as I drop off donations that I won’t buy anything myself, and this year was no different. I headed home with two boxes of kids’ clothes, books and bike helmets.  So much for all the extra space in the garage!

UPDATE: Saturday’s Lit Club Garage Sale raised an amazing $1,700.

Ginny McShane is vice president of the Point Montara Fire Protection District board and is a candidate for reelection in November. Coastsider welcomes responses and letters from other candidates for the board.

The Point Montara Fire Protection District and the Half Moon Bay Fire Protection District have hired Robert Olson and Associates (ROA) to consult on preparing a Consolidation Application to be sent to the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo), in San Mateo County.

In the LAFCo process, the fire districts will hold a series of study sessions open to the public. The Consolidation application will include the current fiscal conditions of both districts,  financial projections of a consolidated district, recommendations for cost savings, a recommended capital replacement schedule, and fire district governance models.

Study sessions and committee meetings will be open to the public and properly noticed according to the Brown Act.  A consolidation application will be developed, and sent to LAFCo.

LAFCo than considers the application. If the application is approved, time is set aside for a protest hearing.  During this protest period, citizens can collect signatures to force a vote. Ultimately, the LAFCo executive officer shall make a finding about the protests submitted which will result in either a termination, an order to hold an election, or an order to find annexation complete.

As you can see, this process is comprehensive and includes everyone. Consolidation has the support of the firefighters’ union and both fire boards.

Geographically, the Coastside is separated from other fire service providers.  The Consolidation of these two districts would provide a single fire agency.

Please attend these meetings.  Your input is very important. Preparations are being made to televise these meetings on Channel 6.

The third and final issue of Voice of the Coast that I have to share with you is Volume 1, Number 16, from October 28, 1972.

It’s notable because the cover story is about why Coastsiders should vote for Proposition 20.  This initiative, which was passed by the voters, established the Coastal Commission temporarily, and it was made permanent by the legislature in 1976.  It’s a good reminder of the work that was necessary to make the Coastal Commission a reality.

If you have any additional copies of Voice of the Coast, or other interesting Coastside memorabilia or ephemera you want to share with your neighbors, please contact me using the link in the left-hand column.

The Hatch Elementary School landscape remodel on Saturday, September 24 will be a great opportunity for members of the Coastside community to turn out and support an extremely worthwhile school project. The project organizers, Sonja Myhre and Diana Inglis are working hard to pull together all of the materials and donations that will be needed to make this event a great success. Donors at various levels will be have the opportunity for permanent recognition in the landscape
design.

Volunteers with experience in construction/building/landscaping/gardening are needed. Contributions in the form of time, materials, or funds are also needed. Anyone who wishes to help can contact Sonja at: [email protected], ph:650-726-9089, or 650-544-7342 (cell), or Diana at: [email protected]

This week, Sheriff’s deputies found a stolen vehicle, drunks behind the wheel, camping in a park and at the beach in Princeton, a citizen’s arrest of a suspect loitering around the women’s restrooms in Princeton, a dog bite in Moss Beach and a warrant arrest in El Granada.

Click "read more" for the details

Save Our Shores has been selected as the San Mateo Countywide Coordinator for Coastal Cleanup Day to manage community clean ups throughout San Mateo county’s coast and Peninsula during the 21st annual event on Saturday, September 17 from 9 am to 12 noon.

For more information on joining Coastal Cleanup Day at specific site locations in San Mateo county, visit www.saveourshores.org, or call (831) 462-5660. 

Click "read more" to see the rest of the press release.

On Friday, September 9, The Reduced Shakespeare Company comes to the rescue with the film of a hilarious theatrical performance by three incredible actors.

All 37 of Shakespeareís plays are performed in just under 90 minutes. It starts with a hilarious send-up of "Romeo and Juliet" Next they cram all 17 of Shakespeare’s comedies into a single set, leaving more room for the tragedies—which are, after all, are much funnier.  Why truncate some of the greatest dramas in history?  Because life is short and the complete works of The Bard are long.

Local thespian, Tom Woosnam, will lead the post screening dialog. In addition to acting and directing in numerous Bay Area productions, Tom hails from England and proclaims a long-standing interest in the Shakespeare authorship question.

Parental warning—Performance includes ribald Shakespearean themes, cursing, fake vomiting, and some puppet on puppet love.  Kids will love it.

September 9, 2005 at 8:00 PM

Community United Methodist Church Sanctuary
777 Miramontes Half Moon Bay (corner of Johnston) Half Moon Bay
From Main Street in Half Moon Bay turn east on Miramontes to Johnston one block

Katherine Pettit, a Tulane Law School Student from Half Moon Bay, is now a student a at Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley. Twenty law students and fifty undergraduates from Tulane, which has been devasted by the flooding in New Orleans, have been offered positions at Berkeley, according to the Daily Cal.

When second-year Tulane Law School student Katherine Pettit relocated to Houston last Saturday with a backpack full of clothes, she was sure she would return within the next few days.

But Pettit’s expectations were swiftly swept away as flood waters from Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans last week, wiping out parts of Tulane and most of the city.

“It was really a shock,” Pettit said. “You know at the back of your head that it could be real, but it has never happened before. I woke up one morning (in Houston) and turned on the news, and all of a sudden the city was underwater and we couldn’t go back.”

The current phase of construction of the Devil’s Slide tunnel, which includes shaping Montara Mountain and widening the highway near Gray Whale Cove, will last until next spring, reports the County Times.

This will be followed by building a bridge to the tunnel entrance on the Pacifica side of the mountain, and the blasting of the tunnel itself. The tunnel is scheduled to be completed in 2010.

The article recounts some of the problems the tunnel already encountered with endangered species. Work had to be halted until a nestful of peregrine falcons were ready to leave home. And there are red-legged frogs all over the building site.

A wet-suited body spotted in the water north of the Pillar Point Harbor by a hiker has been identifed as a resident of Foster City, according to the Examiner.  It took Sheriff’s deputies about two hours to get the body out of the water.