Jonathan Michael Porter, 20, plead no contest to killing Gaylord the ostrich and being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to a year in jail Thursday.  His co-defendant Timothy McKevitt will continue to trial, reports the Daily Journal.

More than 100 supporters of Coastside Gourmet Coffee come to the Half Moon Bay City Council meeting Tuesday night to speak on behalf of the embattled coffee shop that may be evicted to make way for a Peet’s Coffee.  To keep things manageable, six people, including shop owner Raman Bechar, spoke on behalf of the shop. The primary theme was the importance of the shop to its patrons and the fear that local businesses will continue to be replaced by chain outlets.

Landlord Maher Shami made a surprise appearance at the meeting. Shami said that he can’t make his mortgage payments without more rent, but that he has discontinued his negotiations with Peet’s and has given Behar until Feb 15 to make an offer to pay a higher rent and upgrade the shop.

The County Times has a good account of the meeting by Julia Scott.

We will post the remainder of the city council meeting later.

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The Mercury News profiles a couple of local smoked-fish business, the challenges of the business, and problems with their supply of wild fish in the wake of restrictions on fishing.

The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors have voted unanimously to ban smoking at 17 parks, trails, and one beach (Fitzgerald Marine Reserve) managed by the County. This is a total of 15,000 acres of open space, reports the Chronicle.

The new law will go into effect in mid-March. Violators of the ban will be subject to a $100 fine for the first offense, $200 for the second offense and $300 for three or more in 12 months.

The next meeting of the California Coastal Commission, Feb 14 to 16 in San Diego [agenda], will be webcast live and gavel-to-gavel at http://www.cal-span.org

The public will also be able to download and view past meetings, which will be archived on the website. All meeting coverage will be gavel to gavel each day, but an advanced indexing system will allow viewers to go directly to items of interest, skip to the final vote or view the staff report.

The commission will hear an appeal of a permit to construct desalination test wells on San Simeon State Beach, a permit for a volleyball tournament in Hermosa Beach, an appeal of a cell phone tower on Trinidad Head in Humboldt County, numerous seawall applications and an annual permit review for off road vehicles use at Oceano Dunes, and dozens of other items.

There is an archive of selected meetings on the site as well.

Click to read the press release.

Kenny Barron, six-time Grammy nominee, appears Sunday in a solo performance at the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society.  This is a rare opportunity to get up close and personal with one of the top jazz pianists in the world.

Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society
307 Mirada Road, Half Moon Bay, CA  94019
$35.  Tickets at the door.
Doors Open at 3 PM, Music from 4:30 to 7:30 PM, with intermission.

A biologist at Año Nuevo Island Reserve discovered some tracking devices that had implanted in young salmon, according to a release from UC Santa Cruz. It sheds new light on what happens to young salmon after they leave our streams.

But the first logger Morris found on Año Nuevo Island told a fascinating story. Hayes and Bond implanted the logger in a hatchery-raised Coho salmon on March 15, 2006. That salmon swam down Scotts Creek to the lagoon, where it lasted 13 days. On March 28, the temperature logger records it was eaten by a warm-blooded predator. The logger emerged on top of Año Nuevo Island on March 29.

Because it showed up on top of the island, researchers can rule out the theory that an elephant seal or a harbor seal ate the Coho. Hayes and Bond say the guilty predator is probably a bird, but they can’t be sure.

"Unfortunately, the temperature loggers top out at about 25 degrees Celsius," Bond said. "The stomach temperature of the predator was much warmer than that. We never thought that we’d recover the tag of any of our fish that got eaten. We missed getting a good, precise measurement of the predator’s body temperature."

The chance discovery indicates that gulls may be a more important predator for young salmon than anyone thought.

Click below to read the press release.

Senior Coastsiders  will be presenting the plan for their new building, the Coastside Adult Community Center, to the Half Moon Bay Planning Commission on Thursday, February 8 at 7pm.  Senior Coastsiders will provide transportation to the meeting, which will take place at the Community/Senior Center located at 535 Kelly Avenue, Half Moon Bay, Call 726.9056 for a transportation reservation.

Pacific Gas & Electric has sent Coastsider a letter of apology to its Montara customers for its "numerous momentary and sustained power outages" in Montara.  PG&E blames debris falling from trees.  They plan the following improvements in 2007:

• Install two overhead switches that will be use to transfer about 280 customers to another circuit, in the event of an outage along Sunshine Valley.
• Replace 2,200 feet of overhead power lines along Sunshine Valley with special wire (tree wire) that will be more resistant to momentary outages caused by tree limbs or tree bark blowing on the power line.
• Trim or remove additional trees at four locations along Sunshine Valley.

Click below to read the entire letter.

There will be a community meeting Wednesday night of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD) board of directors at the Half Moon Bay firehouse, 1191 Main Street, from 7 to 9pm.  The board will discuss the purchase of Tunitas Creek Ranch from Peninsula Open Space Trust, the final draft of its Grazing Management Policy, and its Good Neighbor Policy.

More info: 650-691-1200,  [email protected]