The Cabrillo Unified School District is taking a close look at buying three lots on Kelly Stratas part of its imminent decision Thursday to renovate the current middle school.

Thursday’s meeting includes a closed session where the board will consider buying lots located at 500, 510, 514, and 520 Kelly Avenue, at the corner of Kelly and Highway 1 [Google satellite photo].  Members of the board raised the need to acquire these properties, which would give the school a much more rectangular site, almost as soon as it became clear that the Cunha site was the clear winner among the four site options evaluated.

The most prominent of building on these lots is the Victorian building at 520 Kelly Avenue that houses the Half Moon Bay Coastside Chamber of Commerce, which the Chamber describes on its website: "Our offices are located in the historic Alves House (originally known as the Ben Cunha House), built in 1908. This prominent Half Moon Bay landmark is an elegant house that was built in very late Eastlake style architecture - note the scalloped shingles and the polygonal tower."

Mike Ferreira is running for re-election to the Half Moon Bay City Council. Coastsider welcomes letters and comments from all candidates for Coastside offices.

I’d like to offer the following observations and suggestions regarding the recent results of the CUSD’s Committee of Experts which appear to overwhelmingly endorse the Cunha site as faster and cheaper.

1.) �This is not the same Board as that which made the Wavecrest decision in the mid 90’s.

2.) �Key assumptions about the environmental facts on the ground are not the same as they were in the mid 90’s.

3.) �In the mid 90’s, Court decisions (such as "Bolsa Chica" in 1998) had not yet refined and strengthened wetland/ESHA protections.

4.) �The Coastal Commission that was in place in the mid 90’s (Governor Wilson) was a much different Commission than that which took shape in 1999 (Governor Davis) and lord-only-knows what kind of Commission we have now (Governor Schwarzenegger).

No, I’m not exonerating the prior Board completely. �I still believe that less recriminatory and more analytical responses to new information might have gotten the community to this point much earlier.

But I do want to offer respect to the current Board for demonstrating leadership and no small amount of courage by putting a process in place that had a reasonable likelihood of producing a politically uncomfortable result, which it did. �They were willing to take substantial �political risk, and I think that, boiling it right down, they did it out of altruism, i.e., For The Kids. Genuinely. �For The Kids.

So, let’s get behind them. �Let’s pitch in and see if we can’t help them beat their schedule. �Not only will it feel good to take old estrangements and animosities out of our kit bag, but won’t it feel even greater to have both political camps (the bulk of each, anyway) pulling together on something that we’re all doing for one overriding motive….For the Kids?

Mike Ferreira

The agenda for Thursday’s meeting of the Cabrillo Unified School District includes a vote on a resolution to go ahead and renovate Cunha for the district’s middle school. The resolution includes an admission that Measure K does not require them to build on new site, reversing what has been an article of faith for some or all members of the board pretty much since the measure was adopted nine years ago. You can download the entire resolution from Coastsider [MSWord file], but the key clauses are here:

WHEREAS, the Board evaluated its options in light of the Committee’s findings and determined that the Cunha site represents the most cost-effective and timely solution for meeting the District’s educational need for housing the District’s middle school students;

WHEREAS, the Board finds that proceeds of the general obligation bonds issued on behalf of the District pursuant to Measure K, the bond authorization received from the voters on June 4, 1996, may be expended for new construction and modernization of existing facilities at the Cunha site;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Board directs the Superintendent to proceed with planning for new construction and reconstruction of existing buildings to create a new middle school campus on the Cunha site.

Half Moon Bay police arrested 18-year-old Michael Alexander for intentionally setting fire to his family’s home at 736 Toulouse Court in Frenchman’s Creek at about 1:10am, according to the Examiner. There were no injuries and the damage was restricted to a bathroom.

The governor has signed a bill that will allow San Mateo County to put a sales tax to support its parks on the ballot, according to the Daily Journal.  It is expected to raise $13 to $16 million each year.  This would contribute to Half Moon Bay’s efforts to build its new park.

A stolen cell phone is used to run up $1,000 in calls, nine men brutally beat one guy in Pescadero, and a landlord-tenant dispute results in a warrant arrest.

Click "read more" for details.

This summer while camping on our family’s coastal land, I thought it would be a good idea to get a fire pit to help keep our campfires contained.  It seemed like a good idea at the time. Who could object?  I was trying to help keep our fires safe, reduce the damage to the land by having only one "mom approved" place for a fire.

I had heard both the good and bad stories about the coastal commission: the need to get a permit to put up a fence, move your gate, repair your porch, etc.  This lead me to the question, do I need a permit to install my fire pit?

According to the local Planning and Building department, I would need what is called a "CDP" or coastal development permit.  Ok, I said what will that cost me?  About $1,000 was the nice planners answer. Agast, I asked how long will it take?  Typically CDPs take about a year (so much for the 2005 season).  Still game but disbelieving, I asked what do I need to do to get one of these CDP’s?

Here is the list I was given:

Geotechnical Survey cost about $5,000
Botanical Survey cost about $3,000
Wetland Survey cost about $3,000
Archeological Survey cost about $2,500
Permit Cost about $1,000

To help keep my property safe and my neighbors safe from fire, I would need to spend about $15,000, wait one year, hire an attorney to argue my need for a firepit, and then just maybe, I’ll get a permit to go BUY a fire pit for $149.00.

Oh, I almost forgot. The planner also said that most coastal properties are subject to attacks for prescriptive rights trails to the ocean (you cannot get to the ocean from my property).  So, I could spend $15,000, loose my property rights, and all to help do what I think is right: buy a fire pit to help keep our lands safe from fire.

I’ve gone from supporting the coastal commision believing they do good work, to well, believing they are out of control and creating problems for the average person who is just trying to do a good thing.

I think that if we as Californian’s want to protect our coastline, we should.  If a property is important enough to have then California should buy it.

How would you lay out a new middle school at Cunha? The full report of the middle school site expert committee contains an interesting diagram of what a new middle school at Cunha might look like.  It’s clearly only a conceptual diagram, but it gives you an idea of the possibilities of the site and how a new middle school would relate to the community. Of course, the CUSD board still has not voted on the site. Cunha’s not a done deal until then.

Cabrillo Unified School District

Cabrillo Unified School District (CUSD) has been removed from the California Department of Education’s list of school districts on Program Improvement (PI). CUSD Superintendent John Bayless appealed the listing when it was announced that CUSD was one of ten districts added to the list on September 20.  However,  Alvin S. Hatch Elementary School has not been removed from the list.

Schools are added to the PI list when the fail to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) set by the state for two years in a row. Program Improvement is a multiyear process which places increasingly severe sanctions on schools and districts if they stay on the list. The only way to get off the list is to meet AYP goals for two years in a row.

Bayless sent a state a letter on September 29 appealing the determination because the District had made significant improvements in performance in the last three years [PDF of Bayless’s letter], across many subgroups of students. Bayless’s letter includes several graphs showing this progress.

The Department of Education accepted Bayless’s appeal for the district and has taken it off the Program Improvement list.

However, the department has not removed Hatch from Program Improvement.  Bayless says that a significant portion of the school’s shortfall can be attributed to the very high participation rate in the the school’s popular Spanish language immersion program.  A third (35%) of the school’s students are in the program, which gives them a serious disadvantage on English-language tests.

The San Mateo County Transportation Authority board voted unanimously Thursday to advance $3.8 million to Half Moon Bay for its Main Street/Highway 92 project. This is a tremendous relief for a city that has been struggling for years to fix a traffic bottleneck.

This advance fills the gap created earlier this year when the state "reprogrammed" the money for the project until 2007.  The project is now fully funded and bids can be solicited.  Acquisition of additional rights-of-way by eminent domain is already in progress.

The funding is also a huge political win for the current city council. Getting funding for the on-again, off-again highway project before the election gives incumbents Jim Grady and Mike Ferreira bragging rights.  For a while, it looked as if the decision would be delayed until after the election. Mayor Grady worked with county supervisor Rich Gordon to keep the decision on schedule and deliver the goods before the election.

The vote followed the recommendation of the SMCTA staff and the unanimous recommendation of its Citizen’s Advisory Committee. Mayor Jim Grady, Councilmember Mike Ferreira, City Manager Debra Ryan, Public Works Director Paul Nagengast, and property owner Keet Nerhan attended the meeting.  Grady and Nerhan addressed the board prior to the vote and urged adoption.

Board Members voting yes were Supervisors Mark Church and Rich Gordon, and Councilmembers Joe Galligan of Burlingame, John Lee of San Mateo, Lee Panza of Brisbane and Roseanne Foust of Redwood City.

This is the first time that the SMCTA has advanced money to cover the shortfall of another agency. Earlier in the year, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission awarded $2.4 million in additional funding to the Main Street/Highway 92 project to cover cost escalations.