Soon it will be time for wildflowers on the coastside.  And, with some good rains already this winter, we should have an abundance of color.  Already the brilliant yellow oxalis is spreading in the fields across from the airport, and soon we’ll have Montara Mountain Blue Lupine (pictured here) on the hills.

After your next hike on Montara Mountain, you can click to plants.montara.com to identify some of the beautiful flowers you enjoyed on your walk.  (Thanks to Chuck Kozak for this resource.)

Our Local Headlines section has local coastside news from other Web sites.

On this page, you’ll get the most recent stories featuring coastside communities from the Mercury News, San Mateo Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and a lot of other sources. We use Google News, which is entirely automated, so sometimes the stories may not be on-target, but it’s amazing how many interesting local stories it turns up. This page also contains a link to our RSS feed of local headlines.

We also link directly to Google news from our navigation bar on the left side of every page.

Welcome to Coastsider, a new web site for the San Mateo county coastside community. Our goal is to create a place where you can go to find out what’s happening now in this amazing community, dig deeper into topics that interest you, and discuss these things with your fellow residents.

The site is very open and it costs nothing to become a member. And you don’t have to join to use the site.

We’ve moved Coastsider’s calendars to Google Calendar.  This will give us a bunch of advantages. You will be able to subscribe to Coastsider’s calendars more easily in iCal, your RSS reader, or your own Google calendar.

There’s a lot more detail on our entries. Click on entries to see the detail. Experiment with the links to see what happens. You have a lot of control over how the calendar is displayed on Coastsider’s pages. Click on the links in the calendar header to see what you can do. You can take advantage of Google Calendar’s other features to add individual events to your own calendar or schedule reminders of particular events.

Soon, we will be able to integrate your organization’s calendar into Coastsider’s calendars. This means you’ll be able to update your own events on Coastsider’s pages by yourself.

We’re still working on updating the calendar, so please check all events with the organizer.

• Bach Dancing and Dyamite
• Cetrella
• Coastal Repertory Theater
• HMB Brewing Company
• HMB Chamber of Commerce
• HMB Review Events Section
• Coastside Film Society

• Local Government Master Calendar (unofficial)
• Midcoast Community TV Schedule
• California Coastal Commission

• Cabrillo Unified School District

• Cabrillo Unified School District events calendar

We’ll be releasing an entirely new advertising program shortly.

Please check to make sure you entered the address correctly.

• We don’t run pop ups, pop unders, or any other kind of intrusive ads.
• We don’t share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.
• We don’t engage in cross-marketing or link-referral programs with other sites.
• We don’t send you unsolicited communications for marketing purposes.
• We offer email anonymization & relay, to reduce 3rd party harvesting & spam.
• Account information is password-protected. Keep your password safe.
• Forums use basic webserver authentication. Close your browser to log out.
• Coastsider, or people who post on Coastsider, may provide links to third party websites, which may have different privacy practices. We are not responsible for, nor have any control over, the privacy policies of those third party websites, and encourage all users to read the privacy policies of each and every website visited.

• We sometimes collect your email address, for purposes such as sending confirmation emails, authenticating user accounts, providing subscription email services, registering for forums, etc.
• For paid postings, we collect contact information, such as name(s), phone/fax number(s), and address for billing purposes. You may need to provide additional information about your organization if you wish to qualify for a non-profit job posting account.
Coastsider has established this privacy policy to explain to you how your information is protected, collected and used, which may be updated by Coastsider from time to time. Coastsider will provide notice of materially significant changes to this privacy policy by posting notice on the Coastsider site.

• We may collect personal information if you provide it in feedback or comments, post it on our classifieds or interactive forums, or if you contact us directly. Please do not post any personal information on Coastsider’s forums or classifieds that you expect to keep private.
• Our web logs collect standard web log entries for each page served, including your IP address, page URL, and timestamp. Web logs help us to diagnose problems with our server, to administer the Coastsider site, and to otherwise provide our service to you.

• All classified and forum postings are stored in our database, even after "deletion," and may be archived elsewhere.
• Our web logs and other records are stored indefinitely.
• Registered job posters can access and update their account information.
• Although we make good faith efforts to store the information in a secure operating environment that is not available to the public, we cannot guarantee complete security.

Search engines and other sites not affiliated with Coastsider - including archive.org, google.com, andgroups.yahoo.com - archive or otherwise make available Coastsider postings.

• Coastsider may disclose information about its users if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to respond to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process.
• Coastsider may also disclose information about its users to law enforcement officers or others, in the good faith belief that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to: enforce our Terms of Use; respond to claims that any posting or other content violates the rights of third-parties; or protect the rights, property, or personal safety of Coastsider, its users or the general public.

By visiting our web site and providing us with data, you acknowledge and agree that due to the international dimension of Coastsider we may use the data collected in the course of our relationship for the purposes identified in this policy or in our other communications with you, including the transmission of information outside your resident jurisdiction. In addition, please understand that such data may be stored on servers located in the United States. By providing us with your data, you consent to the transfer of such data.

We welcome your feedback on this document.

What is Coastsider?

Coastsider is a community news, information, and discussion site for coastal San Mateo County.

We encourage readers to post stories that they have a personal interest in, whether they think they can add something new to the conversation, or want to ask question on our Coastsider Insider forum. Other readers can comment or answer questions.

You need to be registered member of Insider to post stories or comments. There is no charge or any other requirements for membership, except for a valid email address and your real name.

Who’s behind Coastsider?

Coastsider was created in 2004 by Barry Parr, who lives and works at home in Montara.

Barry was one of the architects of the San Jose Mercury News and News.com websites. Barry also writes the media weblog MediaSavvy. His goal was to apply what he has learned about building news sites to the coastside community. He’s currently a media analyst with a technology market research firm.

What are the rules on Coastsider?

Please read Coastsider’s common-sense Terms of Use.

How do I contact Coastsider?

You can address all comments and questions to [email protected]

Snail mail:
Coastsider
PO Box 370551
Montara, CA 94037

Who owns the information posted on Coastsider?

You own your own words, but you give us permission to reproduce them. Coastsider is also covered by a Creative Commons license that gives others permission to reproduce our content as long as they give us credit. However, information and pictures that do not originate on Coastsider may have other licensing terms. Please inquire before reproducing.

What’s your editorial policy?

Coastsider is for everyone who cares about the coastside. We will review stories for consistency with or editorial policy. We will remove articles and comments that are spam, false, disrepectful, or illegal. We’ll use our best judgement, but it’s at our discretion.

As for our posters, we recommend writing about others the way you’d want them to write about you. Be respectful and fair.

Please email additions, corrections, or comments to Barry Parr.