Rate My Teachers gives students a chance to turn the tables and give their teachers a grade. There isn’t a lot of information there yet, so encourage your kids to reward their favorite teachers, or to warn their friends about the others.

• Half Moon Bay High
• Cunha Middle School
• Hatch Elementary
• El Granada Elementary
• Farallone View Elementary
• Kings Mountain Primary
• Pescadero Elementary
• Pescadero High

The Pigeon Point Lighthouse annual lighting will take place this Saturday.  This is an annual event on the birthday of the tallest lighthouse on the west coast, which is now 132 years old. The lighting will happen between 6 and 8 pm, rain or shine. Be sure to bring a flashlight for the walk back to your car.

Andrew Payne in La Honda caught these exciting pictures of a red tailed hawk at Poplar Beach [Aerial photo].

According to Andrew, "The hawk was just hanging out on a sign looking for food in the field. I didn’t have my big lens with me, but I was able to get very close to him. He wasn’t worried about me at all."

"I was being lazy with exposures since my dogs were in my truck whining to get out for their walk. So I just did the semi-auto "sport" setting which gave me like 1/1500 exposure at f 8 for most of the pics. I was using Canon’s 24-80mm lens which works out to more like a 38-128mm when adjusting for the different image area of the digital SLR."

Barbara Costa identified this bird as a subadult red-tailed hawk on the La Honda list and provided me with some additional detail, "The black patagial mark [only visible from below a bird in flight] is pretty diagnostic of red-tailed hawk.  Birds don’t attain the red tail until the second autumn of their lives, they can breed before they have a red tail. Sexes are alike. The red tailed hawk is the most common soaring hawk we have on the coast. The red shouldered hawk is second."

[From the press release] The San Mateo County chapter of Surfrider Foundation will be joined by founder Glenn R. Hening at the "Endless Winter" benefit event commemorating two decades of working to preserve our oceans, waves and beaches. 

The event will feature tasty fare, libations, a special presentation by Mr. Hening on the upcoming release of his new book Waves of Warning, and live surf sounds from local Bay Area bands. The event is sponsored in part by Pedro Point Surf Club and the Pacifica Beach Coalition.

Glenn is recognized for having earned a unique reputation as modern surfing’s most eloquent and incisive provocateur according to The Surfers Journal, the industry’s premier magazine. 

Click on "Read more" to see the press release.

The economics of the crab fishery and the struggle of crab fisherman to organize to negotiate a price for their catch is the subject of a good story in The San Mateo County Times.  Fishermen not only face dissension within their own ranks, but competition in their fisheries from larger operators from Oregon and Washington. Maintaining discipline is not always pretty:

In 2002, local fisherman John Dooley—widely despised for his blatant disregard of association action—refused to participate in a three-week crab-fishing strike. The lines to 400 of his traps were cut.

The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD) has chosen to divide up the coastside between two existing wards. The downside to this arrangement is that it splits the already small coastside community into really tiny constituencies.  From MROSD’s press release:

A total of about 30 people attended the public meetings and personally gave input on the redistricting alternatives to include the Coastside Protection Area, and another 20 people provided input via a survey on the District’s Web site. Results of the public comment clearly showed the one-Ward and two-Ward scenarios were the top choices of coastsiders for democratic representation of their community.

Ward 6 Director Larry Hassett, whose ward would include San Gregorio and La Honda under the new plan, said "Although the one-ward scenario was a consideration among coastside residents, the two-ward scenario is a tribute to the coast. Receiving many inquiries from the public during this process made me realize that having two directors represent the coastside would allow the sharing of the workload and provide greater Board availability and access for coastside residents."

According to MROSD, the San Mateo County Farm Bureau echoed a similar opinion and supported the two-Ward scenario because under this configuration there would be a Board member election every two years, rather than every four years, providing greater opportunity for a coastside resident to become a District Board member.

Reading between the lines suggests that coastsiders who expressed an opinion preferred the one-ward alternative. The upside of this arrangement for the MROSD board is that it assures bayside control of the wards and decreases the likelihood any incumbents needing to campaign on the coast. Director Hassett’s explanation of this as a "tribute" to the coastside sounds patronizing to my ear and I’d like to talk to some folks at MROSD about it. With the holiday tomorrow, I may not be able to get them on the phone til Monday.  I’ll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, please share your reaction to the new ward boundaries in the comments on this story.

Click on the "Read more" link to see the MROSD press release.

Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) purchased a conservation easement, as well as a trail easement, on the 624-acre Redgate Ranch for $1 million. POST describes the price as "an amount well below market". The land is immediately adjacent to another POST property, Driscoll Ranch [annoying but useful Flash map of POST land].

“When POST purchased the neighboring Driscoll Ranch, I decided to look into what this organization was all about,” said Greg Jones in the POST press release. “We found that POST’ s vision of land preservation and conservation is closely align with our own, so we approached them to explore how we might work together.”

According to POST, the Redgate Ranch is a highly visible stretch of land along Highway 84 that contains open grasslands, encompassing a major ridge and a narrow interior valley, , northern coastal scrub, coastal oaks, and mixed conifer woodland.  Part of the San Gregorio watershed, the property is bounded by two direct tributaries to San Gregorio Creek: Bogess Creek to the east and El Corte de Madera to the west [topographical map of the area]. San Mateo County has identified these waterways as containing habitats for a number of rare and unique species, such as the federally threatened steelhead trout.

Click "Read more" to see the POST press release.

The Coastside Chess Club will kick off its 2004-2005 season with an open chess meet at the Adcock Center in Half Moon Bay on December 12, from 1pm to 5pm.  Chess sets and timers will be provided.

In order to encourage participation, we’ve lowered the fee to a requested five dollar donation, so that all of our local kids can take part. This is a great opportunity for local chess players to meet and even receive some free coaching.

Until recently, chess has been available at most Coastside schools. Right now, chess is only offered in the GATE program at Farallone View. To compensate, the Coastside Chess club will try to have more frequent meetings to meet the needs of all of the young players on the Coastside. We hope that some scholastic groups can be set up to offset the loss of chess in the schools this year.

Coastside Chess Club is directed by Dr. Eric Schiller, the Coastside’s only professional chess player, and an internationally ranked chess master. He’s written dozens of books on chess and taught in Coastside schools.

The club is looking for some help from parents, both to spread the word about our meetings and also to help a little bit with setup. Anyone who is interested in helping our club grow should contact Dr. Eric Schiller at [email protected]

Coastsider was designed to be created by contributions from the community.

We’re looking for all kinds of contributions: links to coastside-related stories on other Web sites, first-hand accounts of coastside events (especially if you have pictures), descriptions of recreational opportunities (hiking, biking, picnicking, surfing, etc) on the coastside, opinion pieces from all viewpoints, and news. The only requirement is that it be directly related to our community.

To contribute all you have to do is join the site—it’s free and it’s private—by clicking on the "Register" link at the top of the left-hand column.  You can then send us your story by clicking on the "Submit a story to Coastsider" link that will appear once you’re logged on.

Once we’ve reviewed your story and checked your spelling, it will appear online.

If there is anything I can do to make this easier or less intimidating, email me using the "Email Barry Parr" link on the left-hand column.