You are invited to a meeting to learn about San Mateo County’s watersheds and to participate in the development of recommendations to protect and enhance watersheds, including a potential ordinance.

San Mateo County Hall of Justice
Monday, April 7, 7:00 p.m.
Board of Supervisors Chambers
400 County Center, Redwood City

County staff will present information about San Mateo County’s 34 watersheds, threats to the watersheds, current and anticipated regulations and potential actions to enhance watershed protection.

Following the presentation, members of the public are encouraged to comment and make recommendations.

The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors in December 2007 directed staff to engage the public with a series of workshops. Following these meetings in Spring 2008, staff will present public comments and recommendations to the Board of Supervisors at a public meeting.

To facilitate the outreach process, staff will present concepts that:

 

• Focus on activities such as grading on hillsides with slopes over 10 percent and in areas near streams.

 

• Apply existing County requirements, like the Local Coastal Program riparian policies, to all unincorporated areas to ensure consistency and reduce unnecessary new or duplicating requirements on property owners.

 

• Use a simple permit system that addresses environmental concerns but still allows most activities.

 

• Use a fair and reasonable approach for existing development on slopes and near hillsides, such as grandfathering in structures and activities that exist at the time the regulation is adopted.

 

• Allow reasonable exemptions for matters like routine maintenance, existing agricultural work outside riparian areas, or those activities that are already subject to comparable state, federal or local permit conditions.

For more information, please visit www.co.sanmateo.ca.us/OurWatersheds or call the County Manager’s Office at (650) 363-4123. The site also provides the opportunity for members of the public to comment and to view comments from previous meetings.

Please note that visitors to the Hall of Justice are required to pass through airport-style security.

The California Senate today unanimously passed legislation to name the Devil’s Slide tunnel in honor of the late Congressman Tom Lantos, according to a press release from the office of Senator Leland Yee, who authored the legislation. The legislation must still pass the State Assembly, which Yee’s office described as "likely".

The Cabrillo Unified School District must cut 10 percent of its budget for the coming year as a result of the governor’s proposed budget, reports the County Times.

If the state passes the governor’s budget proposal as-is, the Cabrillo Unified School District stands to lose $2.1 million of its $31 million budget next year. The district already plans to cut $600,000 next year through a variety of measures, including shrinking spending on supplies and conferences and maximizing class sizes, according to Superintendent Rob Gaskill.

The rest of the savings will come from eliminating three full-time English teachers — two at Cunha Middle School, one at Half Moon Bay High. Gaskill hopes at least one of the teachers will be reinstated next year, depending on whether any other teachers resign or retire.

Gaskill said the rest of the cuts would come out of the district’s reserve fund, which would be cut in half under Schwarzenegger’s proposal.

Oceans need our help now more than ever. Declining fisheries, increasing quantities of marine debris, erosion problems, and oil and toxins polluting near shore waters are just a few of the threats facing our oceans today.  Save Our Shores, a Santa Cruz-based non-profit that once had an office in El Granada,  held a 4-day Ocean Leadership Conference from March 12-22 in order to provide a forum for those interested in engaging with these issues.

The Conference agenda included discussions on Marine Protected Areas, problems and consequences of marine debris, as well as more regionally-focused issues such as dredging at the Pillar Point Harbor, water contamination of local coastal watersheds, and the debris problem in Pilarcitos Creek.

The conference also engaged Coastside residents in a community assessment exercise that encouraged residents to identify local areas for concern and ways they wanted to see them addressed.  Some of the more prevalent issues discussed included the amount of trash on local beaches and creeks, the need for more educational resources focused on the hazards of marine debris, the need to identify point and non-point sources of pollution in the watershed, and the lack of coordination between local environmental organizations.

Conference participants will now work with Save Our Shores staff to further assess the needs of Coastside communities and then design and implement activities to engage their community in ocean conservation. 

In order to help address one of the more pressing issues, marine debris in the local watershed, Save Our Shores staff along with conference participants will be hosting a creek cleanup at Pilarcitos Creek on May 17th from 9am-1pm.  This event will be the first of many efforts to help address community needs and is a great opportunity to get involved and have your voice heard. 

Save Our Shores has been successful in coordinating thousands of volunteers in Santa Cruz County to remove marine debris from creeks and beaches.  They have also developed educational curriculum that is an interactive and informative approach to teaching youth and adults about the importance of marine conservation. Strengthened from the core, Save Our Shores now has the resources and programmatic capacity to provide valuable tools to Coastside residents who are interested in becoming more actively involved in the fight to save our precious marine environment.

Please come and lend a hand at the May 17th Pilarcitos Creek Cleanup. Save Our Shores staff are excited to work with Coastside residents and hope to engage with many more volunteers and concerned community members.

People interested in learning more about the Leadership Conference and the issues and concerns that were voiced can find speaker notes on the Save Our Shores website at http://saveourshores.org or call Emily Glanville the Programs Coordinator and Half Moon Bay contact at Save Our Shores (831) 462-5660 ext. 6.

In honor of International Women’s Day, The Visionary Edge will host Paolo Gianturco as a quest speaker and presenter of her recently released fourth book entitled Women Who Light the Dark. The event will be held on Saturday, March 29th at the Johnson House Depot.  Doors will open at 7:00pm, event begins at 7:30.  Moon News will provide books for a book-signing after Ms.Gianturco’s presentation.

Since her retirement from the marketing and advertising business over 10 years ago, Paolo has dedicated her life to documenting the work of women in third world countries around the world.  She has published 4 exquisite full color photography books to date, donating all royalties to carefully chosen organizations that empower women in the countries in which she works. 

All proceeds go to The Global Fund for Women, a San Francisco based non-profit which provides grants to women in third world countries so they can take charge of their destiny by starting their own businesses.  Over the past twenty years The Global Fund for Women has provided over 5,000 grants in 164 countries.  Suggested donation at the door is $15, more if you are able.  No one turned away for lack of funds. Call 650-560-0200 for information and reservations.

Join us on Thursday, March 27 at 5:45 PM in the HMB High School gym.
Listen to speakers from the University of California, California State University and Community College systems. Ask questions of the HMBHS Student Alumni Panel from UC Santa Cruz, Berkeley and San Diego, Sonoma and Sacramento State Univs. USC, and more! Chat with representatives from Notre Dame de Namur, Menlo College, SF Academy of Art, SF City College Culinary Academy, UC Santa Cruz, SF State Univ. College of San Mateo, Western New England College, ROP, AAUW and more.

There will be free pizza and iPod raffle.  Questions?  Call Jan Clark, PAC President @ 712-9596.

Next month, the State Park and Recreation Commission will be holding a hearing in San Jose to take public testimony about the park closures and lifeguard staffing reductions.

In San Mateo County, Portola Redwoods State Park is also threatened with closure.  This park includes stands of virgin redwoods and its trails provide essential links with other parts of the open space system in our area. Check Bay Area Hiker for a hike you may want to take while you still can. There’s a great story about the potential closure of this park by Julia Scott on the Palo Alto Daily News site:

"There are so few opportunities to camp in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Unless you go all the way down to Castle Rock State Park, or Big Basin Redwoods State Park or Butano State Park (the only other campground in the county). It’s much more accessible to folks on the Peninsula side," said Bill Young, who leads hikes through Portola Redwoods and other local parks for the Loma Prieta chapter of the Sierra Club

Among the 48 parks targeted for closure, the largest is Henry Coe State Park, which is mostly in Santa Clara County.  At 87,000 acres it is the largest State Park in Northern California and the second-largest in the State.

The public hearing will be on Tuesday, April 15 at 6pm at the Santa Clara County Government Center, 70 West Hedding Street, San Jose.  You will have a chance to speak and also to submit written comments.

Our governor has dropped a couple of his (ultra-prominent) appointees to the State Parks Commission for their opposition to running a toll road through a state beach, reports the LA Times.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has dropped his brother-in-law, Bobby Shriver, and fellow action hero Clint Eastwood from the state parks commission after their vigorous opposition helped derail a plan for a toll road through San Onofre State Beach in San Diego County.

The decision not to renew the commissioners’ terms, which expired last week, surprised observers and sent a strong signal that the governor expects loyalty from political appointees.

"This is a warning shot from the governor’s office to all of his appointees: Do what I say, no matter how stupid it is," said Joel Reynolds, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Los Angeles. "And I know of no project more destructive to the California coast than this toll road project."