Barack Obama has received the highest environmental rating of all the presidential candidates from the League of Conservation Voters. Check out the results at http://presidentialprofiles2008.org

then…

Join other Obama activists at an important and enjoyable meet-up on Monday, September 24 at 7:00pm in Half Moon Bay. We will share reports on local campaign activities and graduates from Camp Obama San Francisco will lead an outreach training session, giving us the tools we need to organize the Coastside for an Obama victory. Come meet with other locals who are embracing Obama and his message of Hope, Action and Change for America. 

For meeting location, please respond directly to April Vargas at [email protected]

April Vargas

Do you ever worry about ocean pollution? Here is a great opportunity to do something about it! Each year, the first rain event of the season washes urban pollutants off of the streets and into storm drains, eventually entering the Monterey Bay and Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuaries.

We need your help to collect water samples from storm drain outfalls in Half Moon Bay and El Granada during the first major rain of the season. No experience is necessary. We need many volunteers to collect water samples (day or night)!

Join us for the training in Half Moon Bay on Sunday, September 23 from 1 to 4pm. During the training, volunteers will be informed about common urban pollutants, and how to collect samples and use monitoring equipment. For more information or to participate, contact Christy Walker at (650) 712-8948.

Christy Walker
Education Specialist
Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary

Saturday, Coastsiders can can drop off electronic waste anytime Saturday at the Coastside Farmer’s Market at Shoreline Station from 8:30am to 2pm, or one hour after the market closes.

They will accept all home electronic devices, TV’s, VCR’s, stereo equipment—but the focus is on computer equipment. Most people don’t know they can recycle all those advertising CD’s, old floppies, TV remotes, charger packs for phones they don’t have anymore—the electro-junk that fills their drawers and garages. Do you have old fax machines, printers or scanners lying around they don’t quite know what to do with? Here is your chance to make some space in the kitchen drawer for the can openers—or on your desk for photos of Spot and Rex.

This is a terrific service to the community that you should take advantage of. If you miss this event, you should also know that the Goodwill station near the Linda Mar shopping center in Pacifica also takes electronics for recycling.

The Board of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District will consider adopting the District’s revised Good Neighbor Policy [info page and pdf link] at a public meeting on September 26, 2007 in Los Altos.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007
7:30 p.m.
330 Distel Circle
Los Altos, CA 94022

According to MROSD’s press release:

The District’s current Good Neighbor Policy was adopted by the Board of Directors in October 1988 and amended in August 1996. The revised Policy was drafted with the extensive help of local communities. It covers a variety of topics, including the protection of privacy on adjoining private lands, public involvement in policy development and the use and management decision-making process, and natural resource management issues, such as controlling invasive, non-native species.

Yesterday morning I walked from the Poplar Ave parking lot to the big ravine a half mile south where the steps are planned to be built, and was surprised to see many dozens of Black Shouldered Kites [photo], easily 70 either sitting in groups of a dozen to three dozen (I’ve never seen this before with this species), while four or five other species of hawks also flew about or rested in the area: Northern harriers, Red tails, Red shouldered, Sharp shinned hawks and kestrels were all on display.

Well worth your time to see this amazing occurrence that may not last long—there can’t possibly be enough game to sustain the numbers for any time at all. Take a good pair of binocs.

Ken King
Half Moon Bay

Farallone View Elementary School’s annual fundraising pancake breakfast will be this Saturday, Sept 15. The event will be held in the school’s multipurpose room from 7:30 to 11am. Tickets: Adults $5, Child $3, Family $15 (4 or more) Enjoy sausage, fresh fruit, drinks, and of course pancakes.  This event is sponsored by the Farallone View Education fund.

...on my morning commute to SF on Skyline (northbound) between Hwy 1 and the Westmoor light.

I’ve only lived in Pacifica for 6 months, and this is the third major pile-up that I have been in the midst of at this section of road during foggy/slick conditions.

Please be careful while driving, nothing is worth the consequences of these accidents.

CHP closes Highway 1 connector near Daly City after 10-car crash

The connector between Highway 1 and Skyline Boulevard near Daly City is closed this morning because of heavy fog, officials said.

The weather contributed to several traffic accidents, including a 10-car crash near where the coastal highway meets Skyline, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Three people suffered minor injuries in the crash, which happened just before 8:30 a.m., CHP Officer Shawn Chase said.

This coming Saturday, Sep 15th, is the date for the Expo to be held at Half Moon Bay High School. A special exhibit will be a 100+ mile per gallon Plug-In Prius, one of only eight in the Bay Area. See: http://www.calcars.org/vehicles.html

This car has been retrofitted from a stock Prius. It has a much larger Lithium Ion battery pack and the engine controller allows the car to travel up to 40 miles on battery power alone. The gas engine is still there and will kick in as needed. It will allow the car to go an additional 350 miles on a tank, so range is not an issue.

The major benefit is that you can charge the batteries at night from an ordinary 110 V electrical outlet. That way, you are fueling up in the most environmentally friendly way, and when electricity rates are lowest.

Those of us with solar panels have a special advantage. We can generate power in the afternoon and sell it back to PG&E when rates are highest. Then, at night when rates are lower, we can buy back electricity from PG&E to charge our car.

California Coastal Cleanup Day is Saturday September 15 from 9am to noon. This is an important event in our community and we participate whenever we can at Montara State Beach.

California Coastal Cleanup Day is the premier volunteer event focused on the marine environment in the world. In 2006, a total of 358,617 volunteers pitched in with their precious time and effort to help clean 34,560 miles of shoreline of some seven million pounds of trash.

Wendy and Kevin Stokes of MontaraBeach.com are beach captains again this year for Montara State Beach. Kevin writes, "One notable change for this year is that we will be including Grey Whale Cove in the clean up, a beach always sadly neglected by such events."

The county coordinator is Sarah Pratt of the San Mateo Countywide Water Pollution Prevention Program (650) 599-1325 [email protected] A complete list of Coastside beaches and coordinators can be found on the program’s website.

At its September 4 meeting, the Half Moon Bay City Coucil approved council member John Muller’s replacement planning commissioner Kevin Lansing with at-large commissioner Linda Poncini.  The council also introduced an ordinance to reduce the Planning Commissions from seven members (two at-large and five serving terms staggered relative to the appointing council member) to five members serving concurrently with the appointing council member.  It would also link Parks and Recreation Commission members directly to the terms of appointing council members. If a council member leaves office, the member’s replacement would appoint a new commissioner to both the Planning and Parks and Recreation Commissions

John Muller appointed Mary Levin Butler to the Parks and Recreation Commission to replace Leslie McCarthy, who resigned from the commission.

All videos courtesy of Darin Boville of MontaraFog.

Presentations | Quicktime | Flash  |

Council Reports | Quicktime | Flash  |

Staff Reports | Quicktime | Flash  |

Oral communications | Quicktime | Flash  |

Consent Calendar | Quicktime | Flash  |

Amend Mobile Home Park zoning to comply with Coastal Commission | Quicktime | Flash  | Docs |

Removal of Planning Commission Kevin Lansing and appointment of Linda Poncini | Quicktime | Flash  | Doc |

Terms and number Planning and Parks & Recreation commission members syncronized with election of city council members | Quicktime | Flash  | Doc |

Appointment of Mary Levine Butler to Parks & Recreation Commission | Quicktime | Flash |

Highway Project update | Quicktime | Flash| Docs  |