The Boys and Girls Club of the Coastside has used a bulldozer to grade approximately two acres that it leases from the city of Half Moon Bay.  The land that was graded is likely to have included wetlands, and the grading was done without the necessary permits.

"We’ve commenced an investigation," says City Manager Debra Auker. "It appears that work was done without any permits."  The city called Boys and Girls Club president David Cline on Friday and told him to stop work on the site.  Auker is reviewing city staff’s conversations with Cline as well as the terms of the city’s lease agreement with the organization.

"I talked with David Cline about the site a couple of months ago," Paul Nagengast, the city’s Director of Public Works, told Coastsider. "He asked about grading and I told him they needed a Coastal Development Permit."  A CDP would have required a biological assessment of the site. The land is very likely to have contained wetlands, especially on its eastern end, which would have been discovered in the permit process. 

Nagengast wanted to emphasize the importance of the permitting process.  "The process is not there to hurt people, but to make sure that things like this don’t happen. If there is a permit request, there will be a biological assessment and a review of any existing documentation." He noted that the city should have existing environmental reviews of the site from earlier plans for either a park or a corporation yard on the site.

The group leases the land from the city for a token payment as the proposed site of its long-sought headquarters on the Coastside [HMB Review]. The site, on the south side of Sewer Plant Road, is part of a 14-acre parcel acquired by the city as the future site of a city park.  The presence of wetlands was one of the issues that kept the park from being built.

The grading probably took place on Friday. The land is now flat and dry and has a sign on it saying that it is the future of site of the Boys and Girls Club Pumpkin Patch. When we revisited the site on Sunday, the bulldozer was gone, and the following notice was posted on small 8 1/2 by 11 inch signs on stakes in the ground.

We held this story, hoping to speak to David Cline, but he has not returned our calls to his voice mail.

The Boys and Girls Club leased the site in 1997 with the goal of building its headquarters there, but abandoned the site in favor of space at the proposed Wavecrest development. The co-location of the Boys and Girls Club was considered a selling point for putting the Coastside’s new middle school at Wavecrest.  The combination was considered a selling point for the development. Wavecrest was found to contain endangered species habitat, and the development is now tied up with federal agencies. The school district finally decided that it would be cheaper and faster to renovate Cunha than to continue with its plan to build at Wavecrest.

The Boys and Girls Club has recently told the city it is again interested in building on the site it leases from the city.

Click the link below to see more photos from the site, including the acknowledgement notice from the Boys and Girls Club.

The Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival is looking for a few good artists. This year, for the first time, graphic artists will have the chance to compete to have their artwork featured in the world-famous festival’s promotional campaign by entering the first annual Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival Poster Design Contest.

Musicians, artists and craftspeople will join together in La Honda to entertain and exhibit at the revival of the traditional annual La Honda Faire & Music Festival, Saturday and Sunday, June 24th and 25th, 2006. Featuring a stellar line up of 16 local and regional bands, an arts and crafts marketplace and delicious food, the festival will benefit the La Honda Elementary School.

The festivities will kick off at 10 a.m. with an extraordinary line up of regional bands including: The Banana Slug String Band, Gary Gates Band, David Elias and Xing, Mark Reid Band, Hip Pocket Jazz Quintet, Pacific Vibrations, Seconds on End and Lighthouse. The event takes place at the beautiful La Honda Gardens, located on Hwy 84 behind the Pioneer Market in La Honda Center, at 8865 La Honda Road. La Honda is located 10 miles south of Half Moon Bay and nine miles east of Highway 1 on Highway 84.

Erin Tormey is executive director of Back to Basics

In the face of the outcome of Measure S, we find ourselves fielding many versions of the "What now?" question.

Our response: ACT NOW.

If you were among the majority of voters who were willing to tax themselves for the sake of healthy schools for our community, we ask that you pledge the equivalent amount to Back to Basics - The Community Campaign for Quality Education, now, and help us ensure that this generation of schoolchildren receive the support they deserve.

We are pleased to announce that several Coastside families have combined resources to create a $100K challenge grant that will double the contributions made to Back to Basics by August 31st. Contribute now, and your donation will be matched dollar for dollar - doubling the impact of your contribution.

Coastside licensed ham radio operators will participate with other hams across North America in the annual ARRL Field Day. From 11:00 am Sat, June 24 through 11:00 am Sun, hams will practice contacting each other using a variety of radio frequencies and equipment. They will depend entirely on portable off-grid sources of electricity.

This year the local group will be set up at the North Venice Beach parking lot where they have operated for the last several years. There will be three short wave radios and a number of antennas. Most will be in use for the full 24 hours of the event. We expect to contact at least 500 or more other stations from all states and Canadian provinces.

The public is welcome to visit, even to get on the air themselves. As long as there is a licensed ham in control, anyone, regardless of age or experience, may participate. Most of the radio contacts will be using voice but Morse Code is still being used as well.

Hams tend to be pretty talkative and enjoy chatting with the public. So please stop by. Take Venice Road west from Hwy 1 and turn right at the kiosk.

We are pretty isolated here on the coast. Should an emergency such as an earthquake or flood occur, ham radio will be available for communicating with emergency agencies across the State and Country as well as providing communications between local agencies such as the Red Cross, Sheriff, Fire and Half Moon Bay Police and other city services. It can also provide a means to send messages to friends and family outside the emergency area.

The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD) has extended the deadline for comments on its proposed new Good Neighbor Policy from June 16 to July 7.

A final public workshop will be held after July 7 to provide an additional opportunity for comments. After this workshop the full Board will meet in a public meeting to discuss and vote on the revised policy.

Now is the time for all coastsiders to work towards getting Trader Joe’s to come to the coastside.
 
Please get behind an extensive and aggressive three-week campaign to gather a minimum of 5000 signed petitions to be delivered to Trader Joe’s Headquarters in early July 2006.
 
We will need coordinators and petition gatherers to walk their neighborhoods and sign up for two hour shifts at Albertson’s, drug stores, coffee houses and the post offices, as well as asking local businesses to display the petitions.
 
Contact me if you want to assist with coordination so we can coordinate shifts of petition gatherers. Additionally, contact me by phone or e-mail if you want to participate in this petition gathering effort.

This will be a great opportunity to show that we, as the coastside community, can come together on this most important issue.

Download your PDF copy of the petition form from Coastsider.

 
John Lynch
Frenchman’s Creek, HMB

[email protected]   
650-726-9280