A mountain lion was spotted late Monday afternoon near a water tower about three blocks north of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office substation in Moss Beach, according to the San Mateo County Times.

This isn’t the only recent sighting in San Mateo County. On Nov. 21, a mountain lion was reported on Laurelwood Drive in San Mateo, headed toward Sugarloaf Mountain. "We’ve had about 400 sighting reports this year in California,"  a spokesman for the state Department of Fish and Game said. But only 3% result in any real threat.

Jonathan Lundell’s campaign has filed a complaint [PDF with a supplement] with the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

In a letter to the FPPC, Jo Chamberlain, Lundell’s campaign manager made two complaints:

• The advertisement was filed at the behest of Charles Gardner’s campaign, but was not reported a nonmonetary contribution, based on the fact that the Gardner campaign had to coordinate the transfer of its advertising space to the "Citizens for Coastside Schools".
• The ad falsely claimed that the sponsors had filed a Certificate of Organization, based on the fact that the ad claimed it has an "ID Pending".

The Review published an investigation after the election, reporting that the ad was the work of CUSD Board member Jolanda Schreurs, CCWD directors Jim Larimer and Chris Mickelson, and Kirk Riemer. Coastsider last week published Chamberlain’s chronology of the campaign’s dealings with the Review.

The third and final round of the state’s libary funding process ended without granting money for Half Moon Bay’s proposed new library.

The Office of Library Construction (OLC) is a division of the California State Library that was created to administer Proposition 14, the Library Bond Act of 2000.  OLC offered state grants for 65% of the building costs to cities, counties and library districts.

The city entered the process rather late, missing the first of the three rounds. While its proposal was rated "very good" in the second round and "outstanding" in the third, the odds of getting funding decreased as the the number of proposals increased and the amount of money dwindled. By round three, there were 72 proposals seeking $586 million, with only $80 left to be distributed. The 20 "outstanding" applications alone totaled $212 million.

One factor that may have hurt the city’s proposal is that two projects (San Mateo and Redwood Shores) had already been funded in San Mateo county.

The library proposal could be dusted off in a couple of years. The governor has signed a bill to put another, $300 million, library bond on the March 2006 ballot. Projects from this cycle would have priority in the next one.

The Christmas tree lots along Highway 92 are open for business.  The San Mateo County Times talked to Bob Lemos of Lemos Farm and Johnny Cozzolino of 4 C’s Christmas Trees.  Lemos was predicting a good season, but Cozzolino was reluctant to make a prediction. 

The waiting period for Mavericks begins Dec. 1, and surfers around the world will be prepared to come to Princeton on 24 hours notice.  The San Mateo County Times’ Amelia Hansen writes that the organizers are expecting "enormous" waves this season.  Last February’s competition was the first in three years.

San Mateo County may be the best place to watch birds in California and the Coastside may be the best place in the county. The San Mateo County Times followed Sequoia Audubon Society members to Pescadero State Beach and Pescadero Marsh Nature Preserve, where they spot 65 species of birds.

Comcast is raising cable rates by 5.7% for nearly all Bay Area communities in the new year, according to the SF Chronicle. This follows rate increases of 5.9% in November 2003 and 6.5% in January 2003, for an average annual increase of nearly 10%. Comcast has 1.6 million Bay Area customers in 128 municipalities, including the Coastside.

While some communities, notably San Jose, will be exempt from this increase, Comcast has not released a complete list of all the affected customers. Expect to be notified by mail whether the Coastside will get hit with an increase.

Comcast cited as justification availability of more programming choices, improvements in customer service and investments in technical upgrades to justify its price increase.  Consumer groups suggested it might have something to do with the fact that Comcast is an unregulated monopoly.

The California Department of Fish and Game has issued a letter recommending suspension of disking [pdf] and other potentially damaging agricultural activity at the Wavecrest site pending further evaluation by state and federal agencies.  Two weeks ago, the California Coastal Commission also asked for the disking to stop.

Addressed to Wavecrest attorneys and copied to a number of city, school district, state and federal authorities, the letter was prompted by extensive mowing and disking at the Wavecrest site two weeks ago in preparation for the cultivation of hay.

The property owners’ attorney says that the disking was monitored by a biologist and that they are "trying to be extra-specially careful".

The Department says that at this time of year any San Francisco garter snake on the property would likely be underground in burrows not visible to observers and unable to escape disking. The Department said that the biologist would have no real impact on the risk of killing snakes.

"(Our) concern is reinforced by reports that at least three garter snakes (species unknown) have already been killed by the discing carried out to date," wrote Robert Floerke, DFG regional manager for the Central Coast Region in the DFG letter, dated Nov. 22.

Under federal law, harming or killing an endangered species such the Red-Legged Frog (which has been found in a different part of Wavecrest) is illegal without a specifically designed plan that assesses and mitigates for "take" of protected animals. Under state law, any take of a San Francisco Garter Snake is illegal, except for scientific study or recovery purposes.

"Based on this information, the Department recommends that discing activities cease," the letter said, until the developer, the state DFG and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service evaluate the situation and agree upon a management plan consistent with applicable local, state and federal laws.

The letter in closing also clarified that putting the Wavecrest property into agricultural production did not "significantly change the Department’s existing evaluation that the site should be considered habitat ... based on a number of factors, only one of which is the actual physical condition of the property."