Community United Methodist Church is offering a rest area and a baby changing and nursing station at the church all weekend. And we’ll have live music too!
The church is located one block east of Main Street at 777 Miramontes Street. The Haunted House is right next door.
All are welcome. Come by and "Rest Your Weary Soles!"
Gayle Dee
Associate Pastor
Wednesday, October 15, 2008—San Mateo County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) today, in a surprise move, overruled its own Executive Officer’s recommendation to reduce Half Moon Bay’s "sphere of influence" to the current city limits, as supported by the Midcoast Community Council, and instead left in place a 1963 determination that gives Half Moon Bay a sphere of influence including the entire coastside.
The only municipal service that Half Moon Bay currently provides outside the city limits, to residents of the Midcoast, is park and recreation by allowing Midcoast residents to have access to HMB’s recreational programs. And for many Midcoast residents, HMB’s services are a meager substitute for local community parks and nearby recreation opportunities.
The entire purpose of LAFCo is to guide delivery of services through adoption of spheres of influence, which define the area in which each city or special district may offer services and delimit the anticipated future boundaries of each city or special district. LAFCo prevents duplication of service delivery by authorizing only one city or district to have active powers over a given territory.
Because Half Moon Bay is already delivering recreation services in its sphere of influence, it appears any proposal to form a community services district in the Midcoast for the same purpose is now dead, and would be rejected out of hand as a duplication of existing services.
Oddly, LAFCo spent a great deal of time pondering which water district was best able to serve a small area currently outside of the jurisdictional boundaries of both Montara Water and Sanitary District and Coastside County Water District, but overruled the LAFCo Executive Officer’s recommendation on Half Moon Bay’s sphere of influence without any consideration at all of whether or not Half Moon Bay had any plans for more extensive park and recreation services or financing in place to extend services within its sphere of influence, as a step toward future annexation.
As an interested and relatively well-informed observer, I’m really quite surprised by the outcome. It’s a shame, because so many people have worked hard for Midcoast parks and recreation, and now the continuation of an obsolete sphere of influence for Half Moon Bay may extinguish those hopes.
Paul Perkovic
A mountain lion was struck by a car on Highway 92 about half a mile west of the reservoir. The driver was unhurt, but the mountain Lion, is thought to be injured and was last seen entering the woods north of Highway 92.
Join guided hikes by naturalists of the Pedro Point Headlands in Pacifica. Pedro Point Headlands is one of the jewels of the San Mateo coast.
The Pacifica Land Trust & the Pedro Point Community Assoc. present a special opportunity to explore the Pedro Point Headlands and/or enjoy an evening at the Pedro Point Firehouse,
Acquired by the City of Pacifica and the California Coastal Conservancy over 10 years ago, Pedro Point Headlands is intended to become part of the Golden Gate National Park (GGNRA) and a crucial trail nexus tying together the southern Corral de Tierra-McNee Ranch State Park complex with Pacifica’s coastal trail and other GGNRA park lands. Although still not part of the GGNRA, Pedro Point Headlands is increasingly used by the public as a recreational resource.
Find out more about the unique Site Stewardship opportunities that are available in protecting and enjoying this beautiful open space, home to several unique micro-climates and ecosystems with rare and threatened plant and animal species including the Montara Mountain manzanita, the San Francisco garter snake, and the Mission Blue butterfly.
There will be three hikes through the trails of the Headlands, each led by a local naturalist: 3-hour hike, 1:00 to 4:00; 2-hour hike, 2:00 to 4:00; 1-hour hike, 3:00 to 4:00. Dinner. 5:30 pm
Donation: $25/person includes the dinner and your choice of hike.
Hike only: $5/person or $20/family
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The Midcoast Community Council recently held a candidate’s debate for this year’s school board election. Charlie Gardner made two defining comments during this debate.
First, he supported his vote backing the AB 1991 bailout attempt that has now cost the city about 20 million dollars. Many of Charlie’s supporters are members of the groups that demanded that the HMB City Council abandon a sound legal appeal and try an end run through the legislature to skirt Coastal Commission laws. This secretly negotiated attempt, which was backed by the developer suing the city, failed, and the city is now stuck with the bill. Just imagine what the city and schools could do with that money. Rather than focus the school board on education, Charlie helped it back another community-divisive issue.
Which brings us to Charlie’s second statement of claiming credit for getting the middle school built at Cunha. Charlie and the groups who support him are the folks that blocked the middle school construction for 9 years while the school board backed the big Wavecrest project. Eventually they were forced to build at the obvious location, Cunha. It takes a lot of guts to take credit for getting a school built after delaying that school for 9 years.
I think it’s time for the folks who stuck HMB for $20 Million dollars and blocked the middle school construction for 9 years to stand up and take responsibility for their actions.
We want to announce that the Coastside made breastfeeding history in the Breastfeeding Challenge, locally sponsored by mama to mama, a doula service.
With 12 moms and 13 babies, we placed in the top half of all the sites around the world who participated in the event, according to the Quintessence Foundation, organizers of the event. We want to thank Cindi Whittemore at Ink Spell Books for hosting our moms on Saturday.
In conjunction with the event, we also worked with 25 local businesses to begin displaying the Breastfeeding Friendly Logo. This sign lets moms know they are suppported by that business. If you are a business who would like to be known as mom and baby friendly, please go to ourwebsite to register with us at, www.mamatomama.com. We maintain a list of local businesses using the logo at the site.
Thanks to all the moms and babes who joined us.
Sara Russell
Breastfeeding Moms and their supports, please come by at 10:45 AM to Ink Spell Books and join in the Breastfeeding Challenge!
See article in the Half Moon Bay Review: http://www.hmbreview.com/articles/2008/10/08/community/doc48ed23041e5c1279878635.txt
Plus we’ll announce the 25 businesses on the coastside who have posted the Breastfeeding Friendly Logo at their work.
The governor has cut funding for the program that monitors water quality in San Mateo County’s creeks and beaches, report the County Times.
County officials learned of the $35,000 budget cut this week as part of a million-dollar line-item veto the governor exacted on the state’s entire ocean water-quality monitoring program, funded on a year-to-year basis through an appropriation facilitated by the Department of Public Health.[...]
State nonprofit group Heal the Bay won’t be able to collect crucial beach closure data for its annual "Beach Bummer" report, which this spring listed Half Moon Bay’s Venice Beach as one of the most polluted beaches in the state for the second year in a row.
Venice Beach is one of the locations that will lose its county monitors under the new regime. Other locations north of Half Moon Bay, such as Pillar Point Harbor and the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, will still receive testing thanks to the San Mateo County Resource Conservation District, an independent agency that recently obtained a one-year grant to coordinate a posse of "citizen scientists" who will perform water-quality tests throughout the midcoast area.
The cuts were retroactive to July 1, and the county must find $105,000 to cover the testing it has already been done.
Caffe Lucca presents an art show Sunday, October 12, 2008 From noon to 5pm. The show will feature oil paintings by Rudy Milante ; Claire Ellis, Eclarity Arts one-of-a-kind jewelry from silver, natural stones and beads; Nancy Wilder wraps, scarves and clothing. and live acoustic music.
Hwy.1 at 8th Street
Montara, CA. 94037
650.728.5229
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