Bring your friends and neighbors, gloves and sun cream for a day of trash cleanup and non-native plant removal near Pilarcitos Creek. We’ll talk about our local flora and fauna and how we can continue to ensure the protection of open space in Half Moon Bay. We’ll trade restoration stories and share the fun of keeping the sensitive habitat areas of our town clean.
Meet at 10 am in the parking lot of the Stone Pine office park, 120 Stone Pine Rd, Half Moon Bay
We’ll provide the gloves and trash bags. Wear layers and sturdy shoes

We have very competitive races for both the Cabrillo Unified School District (five candidates for three positions) and Harbor District (five candidates for two positions) boards this year. Also, only one incumbent is running in each race. There is an genuine opportunity to make a real difference in the makeup of each board.

We’re taking reader recommendations for questions they want Coastsider to ask the candidates.

What questions do you want to see the candidates answer?

The Cabrillo Unified School District is now taking applications for district residents interested in serving on the Parcel Tax Oversight Committee. The deadline is Friday, Sept 3.

The committee will report to the public at least once a year on whether the parcel tax funds are being spent in a way that’s consistent with the ballot language.

The committee consist of at least seven members, including:

• one representative of the local business community
• one person active in a senior citizens’ organization
• one member from each of the two represented bargaining units
• three additional “at large appointees” as selected by the Board of Trustees, at least one of whom shall have a child enrolled in the District. 

You can download the application and committee bylaws from Coastsider.

Coming at the end of the summer beach season and right near the start of the school year,Coastal Cleanup Day takes place every year on the third Saturday of September, from 9 a.m. to Noon. The 2010 Cleanup will take place on the fourth Saturday of September so as not to conflict with Yom Kippur.

Summer is drawing to a close, and school is just around the corner.

To make sure that all the children in our community are ready for school and have what they need to learn, Holy Family Episcopal Church, Community United Methodist Church, Coastside Jewish Community, Coastside Lutheran Church,  AAUW,  St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Pacifica, Catholic Workers, and other community groups are working together to collect school supplies and fill backpacks for local children who can not afford them.

Working together, we distributed 370 backpacks to local children last year. We are hoping to distribute more backpacks this year, and we need your help. Here are some ways to help:

If you’d like to fill backpacks with supplies, please come to the Methodist Church on Saturday, August 14th at 8:30am. Distribution of backpacks will take place at 12:30pm that afternoon.

If you’d like to donate supplies, please drop them off at the office of the Methodist Church at 777 Miramontes Ave., from 10am-4pm this week, or 8:30am-12:30pm Saturday. Backpacks for K-5th are urgently needed as well as college and wide-ruled paper, colored markers, colored pencils, dividers, and binders.

The Backpack Project is low on funding this year.  If you would like to donate, please follow this link, and click on the yellow “Donate” button:

http://www.holyfamilyhmb.org/School_Backpacks/school_backpacks.html

Donations to the Backpack Project are tax-deductible.

If you prefer to send a check, please indicate “BACKPACKS” on the memo line, and send to

Holy Family Episcopal Church
1590 Cabrillo Hwy S
Half Moon Bay, CA 94019

Thank you for your time and please join us in this worthy cause in whatever way you can.

Jennifer Brey and Dan Blick

The need for a special meeting is to review, revise, and approve or deny a proposed draft Midcoast Community Council’s letter in response to the Negative Declaration public comment period which runs through 5:00 p.m. that same day.

The public is encouraged to attend the meeting to provide comments and input on the letter.

The meeting details are as follows:

Monday Aug 16, 2010 from 12 noon to 1pm
San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office
Sheriff’s North Coast Substation
Conference Room
500 California Ave
Moss Beach, CA 94038
650-573-2801 (Office)

The draft of that letter to be discussed is provided after the jump. Here’s the conclusion:

Although the proposed negative declaration has not found significant public support, the process itself has been illuminating and some excellent ideas were put forth in terms of compromise solutions involving alternative, permeable trail surfaces, different replacement footbridge configurations, and changes to the ramp down to the tidepools that likely could garner broad public support.

By including the public in the process, we believe that there is a win-win situation here that will allow a narrower trail with permeable surfacing and more narrow footbridge in line with the current configuration that would be welcomed by the majority of residents and still provide the much needed accessibility and usability improvements sought by the County and consistent with Fitzgerald Marine Reserve’s master plan.

For these reasons, we take our position against the current Negative Declaration for PLN 2010-00093 but look forward to being involved in helping to revise and build support for a revised set of plans for this area.

Neil’s guest is Matt Grocott, the San Carlos councilman who ran this year for a seat on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors. Matt didn’t make it to the run-off but he did manage to obtain almost every newspaper endorsement in the County. (The Half Moon Bay Review was one of two newspapers which did not endorse Grocott). Matt talks about the race, his views on planning and his vision for the coast. The video runs about twenty minutes.

The Fitzgerald Marine Reserve is one of the richest, most biodiverse environments in California.

The County of San Mateo is planning to pave a 14’ foot wide asphalt road through the FMR. The plans include building a massive 12’ wide x 60’ foot long bridge over a small creek.

Help convince the County of San Mateo not to bulldoze and pave the Dardenelle Trail.

Please SIGN THE PETITION: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-the-FMR/

If approved this project would have negative impacts on wildlife, plants, trees and a Native American Archeological site near San Vicente Creek.

Thank you,
AREA29
www.thepelicaneye.com

There was only one auto burglary last week: Someone smashed a car window and removed a computer bag from the trunk of a vehicle. Stashing your valuables in the trunk is a good idea, but won’t necessarily save you.

The week also featured public drunkenness and a break-in at a bank-owned house in Montara, a couple of DUI’s, and this:

Deputies stopped the vehicle and found that the driver was not a licensed driver, did not have proof of insurance or registration and he gave the Deputies a false name. He told the Deputies that the vehicle belonged to a family member and he pleaded with the Deputies to let him go so he could to pick up the family member.

These record-breaking chill days of this particular "summer" continue to inspire fantastic outfits of many layers, and have me thinking that looking to  traditional summer comforts like refreshing sorbets or rich, cool gazpacho for relief from the weather’s insults may not be the best course of action if recovery from chill-blains is my goal.  Which it is.

As most all of us have surely noticed there is not much of a need to cool off these days, but the tomatoes are coming on anyway, albeit slower than in years past, spinach has had little reason or opportunity to bolt and so is lush and plentiful as are the summer squashes, eggplants and multi-hued potatoes.  Access to that spectacular palate of flavors and colors (and a v-blade slicer from Toque Blanche)  make for quite colorful way to layer up a fresh lasagne,  serious bucket of ratatouille or a tricolor potato gratin topped with slow-roasted heirloom tomatoes.  

Now, in normal years I’d be waiting to make dishes like these until fall when the days are shorter,  the nights a bit cooler but the tag ends of later tomatoes are still coming to Market; full-hipped, ripe and tasty, but a bit blowsily past their prime, kinda like your hostess. But in a year like this when most folks can’t seem to coax their zucchini to blossom let alone overproduce, it seems like a good idea to move the comfort food season into what one Mr Clemens referred to as the Coldest Winter he ever spent anywhere.