I received word that a candidate from San Carlos has taken out papers to challenge the incumbent for the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District. His name is Nicholas Pegueros and he has a website up at http://www.votenick.org If you live in Ward 7, which includes parts of Redwood City, San Carlos and much of the northern San Mateo coast, including Half Moon Bay. Nick appears to be in favor of recreation on open space lands, including mountain biking and dogs. I really like the dogs part.

Featuring Eddie Gale "San Jose’s Ambassador of Jazz" (Trumpet), Kidd Jordan of New Orleans known as one of the busiest musicians in the world (Saxophone), Dick Griffin of New York formerly with Rasaahn Roland Kirk (Trombone), William Parker a leading avant garde New York bassist, Marcus Shelby who brings brings leadership to the big-band circuits of Northern California (Bass), and Joe Hodge of the South Bay formerly with Maynard Ferguson (Drums).
Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society
307 Mirada Road, Half Moon Bay, CA 94019
$30.  Tickets at the door. Reservations for members.
Doors Open at 3 PM, Music from 4:30 to 7:30 PM, with intermission.

At 7:30 pm on Saturday August 9th, The Visionary Edge will host a screening of Beyond Belief, an award-winning documentary by Beth Murphy at the Johnson House Depot in Half Moon Bay.

When terrorists shattered their lives on 9/11, two women set off on an extraordinary journey to rebuild themselves and the lives of women half a world away.  Susan Retck and Patti Quigley are two ordinary soccer moms living in the affluent suburbs of Boston until tragedy strikes.  Rather than turning inwards, grief compels these women to focus on the country where the terrorists who took their husbands’ lives were trained: Afghanistan.

Over the course of two years, as they copes with loss and struggle to raise their families as single mothers, these extraordinary women dedicate themselves to empowering Afghan widows whose lives have been ravaged by decades of war, poverty and oppression – factors they consider to be the root causes of terrorism.  As Susan and Patti make the courageous journey from their comfortable neighborhoods to the most desperate Afghan villages, they discover a powerful bond with each other, an unlikely kinship with widows halfway around the world, and a profound way to move beyond tragedy.

Several interesting philosophical questions have come out of discussions at CCWD and Jim Larimer’s recent postings on the Review’s website.

At the CCWD discussions on our third recent water rate increase, part of the "Blame" for the increase was put on the higher cost for the El Granada pipeline. As expected, the "Blame" for this increase was placed at the feet of those "No-growth environmentalists".

Let’s examine this premise.

Larimer’s argument on this and other projects is, in essence, "here is a perfect, community supported, beneficial, smart growth project. It is being appealed and delayed by the no-growthers.  All delays and extra costs are therefore their fault."

Did I get that right, Jim?

What Jim leaves out is that the projects he backs (Wavecrest, the El Granada pipeline, etc.) always have a fatal flaw. These projects do not conform to California laws.  Jim Larimer does not recognize the necessity to adhere to all California laws in planning a successful and beneficial project.

The Pipeline project had such a fatal flaw.  The larger pipe that was proposed without connection limits was considered by the Coastal Commission to be growth-inducing. The CCWD members of the time, including Ken Coverdell, were apprised of that. They chose to ignore the Coastal Commission and press forward anyway.  And then, of course, everything just stopped.

Four years later, after the Coastal Commission stepped in and took over the appeal, Jim Larimer was elected to the CCWD Board. The Board, as one must remember, has the sole power to propose or modify projects. The public can give opinions; only the Board decides. Upon taking office, Jim made clear his opinion of the Coastal Commission and its laws. He fought the CCC by refusing to answer their questions, and refusing to make the project compliant.  He even posted a letter in the Review attacking those who proposed the simple solution of putting connection limits on the bigger pipe. They were "putting the community in danger". When asked what danger he was talking about, he refused to clarify the remark.
After two more years of delays under Larimer’s watch, the CCC finally overrode him and imposed the connection limits he and the original project proposers had refused to accept. Six years were wasted by the original Board’s refusal to submit a conforming project.  Now Jim blames the watchdog group for pointing out that the project was poorly planned and contained fatal flaws that led to the delays.

What our community needs are well-planned projects that conform to California law and can be approved by the Coastal Commission.  How much easier life would be for the community if Jim and the CCWD Board would simply do the right thing up front. We know it’s not done out of ignorance of the law; it’s simply done out of disrespect for the law.  Jim’s experience has illustrated for us all the importance of following the law and the CCC’s recommendations.

Ric Lohman

Carrie Betti, who most recently served as Principal of the RISE (Raising Imaginative, Intuitive, Innovative Scholars and Explorers) Community School in Oakland Unified, was appointed by the Cabrillo Unified School District Board of Education Monday evening.

The selection process included a comprehensive file review and two rounds of interviews marked by strong school community involvement.  Betti was selected from a field of forty applicants.  Her past work experience includes service as a bilingual teacher at Turnbull Learning Academy in San Mateo and as a bilingual teacher, assessment coordinator, summer school director, and reform coordinator at Garfield Charter in Menlo Park.

Betti earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from San Francisco State University and her Master’s degree in Educational Leadership from California State-East Bay in collaboration with the Bay Area Coalition of Equitable Schools’ (BayCES) LEAD program.  The new El Granada Principal is also a fluent Spanish speaker.

Half Moon Bay has, in the name of progress, ruined a perfectly functioning traffic pattern and turned it into a parking lot. I refer to the new lane-usage arrows encountered when leaving the Safeway shopping center to exit onto Highway 92 and/or Highway 1.

By making the ‘right-turn only lane’ into a ‘right-turn or straight-ahead lane’ a traffic jam has been created. It is now possible to have to wait through two (or more) cycles of the long signal change in order to turn right.

Surely, Half Moon Bay, in analyzing what they have done, will quickly revert back to the original ‘right-turn only lane’ configuration.

Bob Look

Wednesday night after midnight, I happened to get up and looked out in my backyard only to see someone sleeping on my back lawn. I have a completely enclosed yard with a gate but I do live adjacent to a community walk through between Hwy 1 and Myrtle where I have seen homeless people living.

Has anyone had a similar experience? The police were responsive about coming out, but by then, the person was unfortunately gone.

I know that HMB is a safe city, on the whole. However, about a month ago, there were items thrown in the same part of my yard where this person was sleeping, and now someone actually in the yard makes me feel very uncomfortable.

The Coastal Commission is preparing for budget cuts driven by Gov. Schwartzenegger’s proposal to cut 10% from the state’s "bureaucracy", reports the Capitol Weekly. Layout notices have been sent to 46 members of its 125-person staff.  The staff says that there is a possibility to 19 to 25 layoffs.  At one time, the commission had a staff of 200.

"Budget cuts at these levels will devastate the Coastal Commission and critically impair implementation of the Coastal Act. The commission will not be able to work with local governments on LCP (Local Coastal Plan) issues…," Susan Hansch, the commission’s budget expert and chief deputy director, wrote in a July 8 memo to the commission’s employees.
...
The fundamental issue is that the commission is charged by law with protecting coastal lands, and it must make far-reaching decisions that often affect millions of dollars and the stewardship of the state’s majestic landscape.

"I don’t believe the system is designed to allow less scrutiny," said Andi Culbertson, an urban-planning consultant in Santa Ynez. "The time frames for processing projects have gone up and up because the staffing has gone down and down. They are barely able to make their own statutory time frames."

So what happens if the numbers of staff members get cut still more?

"There are only so many white mice and they can go only so fast. The Coastal Act is a very labor-intensive law, very evidence-intensive, and there is an awful lot of work to do," Culbertson said.

The article is pretty heavy on quotes from land use consultants and other folks who make their livings from coastal development and who aren’t shedding any tears for the commission’s staff.

At the July 28 meeting of the Sewer Authority MidCoastside (SAM), MWSD and GSD representatives, led by Scott Boyd, presented the basics of a new Fast Track Recycled Water Project.

The current project that is being pursued involves gathering all potential stakeholders, designing and building an extensive pipeline system, investigating the creation of an Irrigation District, and proving to many potential users that the water is safe to use in agricultural applications.
Needless to say, this could take many, many years, and, with annual warnings of potential droughts, the sooner this moves forward, the better.

Scott’s Fast Track proposal is to determine immediate willing clients, start with only half our recycled capacity, use an existing pipeline owned by the local golf course, and launch a pilot project. Several local farms could join this initial pilot by hooking up to this existing pipeline.
The benefits of this proposal are many:

1.  We actually start doing something we need to do.
2.  We can create our new marketable water product and test its contents.
3.  We can demonstrate its usability to additional clients.
4.  No significant costs are incurred for pipeline infrastructure.

The SAM Board authorized its staff to begin this investigation. The pilot project clients need to be contacted and the initial engineering designs need to be studied to determine if the full-sized project can be built in incremental stages.

We all hope this will accelerate this project and bring us additional resources to protect against future droughts.

Ric Lohman

Is August here already?  Enjoy summer by meeting up with your San Mateo County Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation and the Live 105 Action Team this Saturday, August 2, from 10 a.m. until Noon, at Sharp Park Beach in Pacifica.

Look for Steve and Surfer Spud at the Surfrider and LIVE 105 tables near the Pacifica pier.  We’ll provide gloves, bags, and free CDs from Weezer, Coldplay, Death Cab For Cutie, The Bravery, or The Kooks, (while supplies last). 

For more info, catch a wave on our website, E-mail, or call Surfer Spud at 415-402-6788.