Thursday at 5pm, there will be a critical meeting of the Half Moon Bay and Point Montara Fire Protection Districts.

Everyone who cares about fire protection and how their taxes are spent should be at this meeting. Very few citizens have been attending the fire board meetings—except for firefighters, who have their own interest in the outcome. Thursday, the boards could make a decision that will affect every household on the Coastside.  Unfortunately, the board meetings have not been broadcast on MCTV, and it has been difficult to get information on what’s happening without attending the meetings. You can download the proposals from Coastsider:

• California Department of Forestry
• San Mateo Fire Department

The numbers are pretty clear. The request for proposal was jointly created by both the HMBFD and PMFPD district boards. All numbers below are for service to both districts.  They include full staffing at all 3 stations (Half Moon Bay, El Granada, and Moss Beach).

• Total projected revenue for HMBFD for the 2006/2007 year budget: $7,116,307.
• Total projected expenditures for HMBFD for the 2006/2007 year budget: $7,302,484 ($185,177 more than the projected income)
• California Dept of Forestry (CDF) proposal: $6,906,766 ($395,718 under budget)
• City of San Mateo (CSM) option 1: $7,253,707 ($48,777 under budget)
• City of San Mateo (CSM) option 2: $7,753,512 ($451,028 over budget)

Capital Improvements: None of the options includes capital improvements.  The 2006/2007 HMB budget has no contribution to financial reserves for major equipment purchases or facility improvement in Half Moon Bay.  If the CDF proposal is accepted, the difference between the current HMB budget and the CDF proposal can be used for capital improvements, equipment purchases, or tax rebates.

Term: CDF will contract for as little as 1 year.  CSM calls for an 8 to 10 year contract.

Firefighters: Both CDF and CSM will hire the entire firefighting and paramedic staff currently employed by HMBFD. PMFPD has no employees, it contracts with HMB.  Under both offers our firefighters are assured the same or higher salary.  CDF will accept the current salaries of firefighters who transfer to CDF.  The cost savings are largely due to shifts in the work week (including more hours for firefighters) and economies in administration and training.

Volunteers: CDF has an adult volunteer firefighter program. CSM has volunteer programs for students.

Merging the districts: Both contract offers assume the two districts will merge.  A service contract and consolidation have been recommended by the independent reviews of the San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury and the Local Area Formation Commission (LAFCo).  The stations and equipment will stay in local ownership of the fire districts.

Standards: Emergency service standards are set by the state and federal governments.  Both agencies making proposals are well qualified. 

The decision taxpayers need to make is how much you want to pay for emergency services and how much more you want to pay in the future.

Please attend the meeting on Aug. 17 - it begins at 5:00 p.m at the Half Moon Bay fire station, 1191 Main St.

Please fax or send your opinion, before Thursday, Aug 17, 2006 to HMBFD, 1191 Main St., HMB 94019. The fax number is 726-0132.

The California Fish and Game Commisssion plans to ban or severely limit fishing in 18 percent of California’s oceans from Half Moon Bay to Santa Barbara, reports the Mercury News in an extensive report.

The plan ranks as one of the most significant ocean protection measures in the state since Congress established the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary in 1992, which banned offshore oil drilling from San Francisco to Hearst Castle in San Simeon.
The five-member commission considered four options, each with complex maps and rules, drawn during the past two years amid public meetings and scientific studies.

The option supported by fishermen would have put 5 percent of central coast waters off-limits to commercial and recreational fishing. The environmentalists’ plan went furthest, setting 13 percent off-limits. In the middle, a plan drawn up by a blue-ribbon task force appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would have placed 10 percent off-limits. And the state Department of Fish and Game staff recommended putting 8 percent off-limits. New fishing limits were put in place in an additional 6 percent to 10 percent under each plan.

The final plan was a compromise between the blue ribbon option and the Fish and Game staff version.

A University of California-Davis researcher estimated each option would cost commercial fishermen about $1 million a year.

The Half Moon Bay City Council has taken steps to deal with the Miramontes Hoop Crisis of 2006 at Tuesday’s meeting.

Although not on the agenda, the Miramontes residents made such a strong case during Public Comment that the Council directed that the matter be brought to the Council’s Enforcement Committee. The committee (Councilmembers Patridge and Muller) will review the matter before it’s brought back to the council as an agendized matter - and the basketball hoop enforcement letters are in abeyance until then.

UNDER THE RAINBOW (Niji No Shita Ni.)—75 mins—is an outsider’s, inside view of modern Japanese life. Director J.R. Heffelfinger is an 25 year old American from Brooklyn who moved to Japan to make a film.  He spent two years in Japan raising the money he needed to produce his film by working as a school teacher and paid medical subject.

With no crew, save for the friend who was free one day to hold the boom mike, Heffelfinger single-handedly put this picture together. OK some great actors helped.  Despite the challenges and responsibilities of being, the writer, director, producer, cinematographer, editor even the location scout and craft services person, he was able to create a great film.

The plot? The story focuses on Yasuda, an aging salesman who works for Rainbow Travel in Tokyo.  At home, Yasuda lives in a fantasy world of pop music, pachinko parlors and stories of tragic teenage despair.  Through the dreams of this very Western Director we get real a glimpse of modern Japanese society.

Director, J.R. HEFFELFINGER is flying in from Japan for the screening of his film.

Friday August 18, 8:00 pm
Community Methodist Sanctuary,  Half Moon Bay
777 Miramontes, Half Moon Bay
$6.00 donation per person

In the latest reduction of personal freedom to come from the HMB City Council, the residents of the Alsace Lorraine neighborhood have been ordered to remove basketball hoops from the curbs in front of their houses by August 23 or face citations and fines.  Citing the classic twin excuses common to all civic scoundrels, “a number of complaints” and “zoning ordinance compliance”, our intrepid city council has leapt into action by issuing warning letters to every miscreant resident in the neighborhood. 

It seems that after decades of having hoops and hockey nets in the streets of our neighborhood, the “zoning compliance” bug has suddenly bitten the backsides of our vigilant council members.  The purported reason that we remove the blight of recreational equipment from our streets is this: “to create a healthier, safer, more attractive environment for residents and visitors in our City.”  What a complete and utter load!

The only people this will benefit are the angry selfish drivers of the neighborhood who will now be able to zoom through the streets unimpeded by the presence of pesky children at play.  With no sidewalks or parks in this town, where exactly are the neighborhood kids supposed to play except in the street?  Sorry, not everyone wants to troupe up to one of our sad schoolyards to play.  Most kids want to play with their friends right near their houses—like they have for decades, and like they do in other towns in America.

How ironic is it that the City wants to ensure a “more attractive environment” for our “visitors” by starting in the middle of a residential neighborhood?  How about starting at the city limits where the quaint rural landscapes of Highway 92 give way to the blight of the abandoned pesticide field (earmarked for an expensive park which will never happen); a trailer park; a forlorn and completely destitute old cemetery; and not one, but two, cheesy fourth-rate “shopping centers”, one of which features a large, ugly abandoned grocery store?  How about starting there, if you want to make things more attractive to residents and touristas?  Naw, much easier to take away the harmless hoops of some neighborhood kids, right?  “We’re winning the war on unattractive streets!”

Any tourist traffic that finds its way down into the Alsace Lorraine neighborhood and Miramontes Ave. is most likely lost anyway.  Most of them are looking for the Ritz, which is on Miramontes POINT Road on the way out of town. (How a town with about 100 streets can’t come up with non-duplicative street names is another HMB mystery.)

Oh, and why is this “zoning compliance” only being enforced in the middle of one residential neighborhood?  If it’s such an all-fired important issue, the City should be cracking down everywhere.  By the way, the “nudge” that the City will employ to get us to move the hoops is a $100 a day fine—completely arbitrary and vindictive.  But, really, why waste any time on this?  Find something better to get worked up about and leave our kids alone.

Frankly, the entire city council should resign their posts and go back to what they do best: shilling real estate to retirees.

Tired of it,

Mike Nouaux
Alsace Lorraine
Half Moon Bay

Only two candidates have filed to run for two open positions on the La Honda-Pescadero School District board.  Because one of the incumbents whose terms is expiring (Mark Graff) is not running this year, the deadline for filing will be extended until 5pm on Wednesday. If no more candidates file to run, there will not be an election.

• Heather McAvoy (Appointed Incumbent) La Honda
• Andy Wilson (Self-Employed Small Businessman) Pescadero

Mark Graff has been trying to find more candidates to run and has posted an one-page outline for potential candidates called "So You Want To Be a School Board Trustee". 

Five candidates, including two incumbents, have filed the paperwork to run for three open seats on the Cabrillo Unified School District board as of the initial filing deadline at 5pm Friday. Because incumbent Roy Salume has not filed to run, the deadline for filing will be extended five days to 5pm on Wednesday, August 16.

Incumbents Jolanda Schreurs of Montara and Dwight Wilson of Moss Beach are running.

New faces are Pamela Fisher, Ken Johnson, and Kirk Riemer, all of Half Moon Bay.

• Pamela L. Fisher (Speech Pathologist), Half Moon Bay
• Dwight Wilson (Incumbent), Moss Beach
• Jolanda Schreurs (Incumbent), Montara
• Ken Johnson (Consultant)  Half Moon Bay
• Kirk Riemer (University Research Scientist), Half Moon Bay

Gaby’s mother sells tamales to make ends meet.  Several days a week, she approaches businesses and individuals throughout the community, selling a couple here, a dozen there.  At $1.50 each, money is not pouring into the household.  Gaby’s mother is just one of many immigrants who works creatively to support their families.  (Not that it matters to us, but Gaby’s mother is in the United States WITH papers.) 

Gaby has an older sister and brother.  Her father was killed in a car accident a couple years ago, but the social security check does not go very far.  There is rent, food and other bills to pay.  No money for "extras" and a new backpack for school is one of those.

But due to the efforts of the Coastside Catholic Worker and many supporting organizations, businesses and individuals, Gaby and her siblings will start out the new school year with brand new backpacks filled with all the notebooks, pens, pencils, crayons, glue, paper and other school supplies that are recommended by the school district for each student according to their grade.  The annual Backpack Giveaway, in its sixth year under the organizing of Magdalene House and the Coastside Catholic Worker, helps ensure that the start of the new school year is a time to be looked forward to, not dreaded.  The highly anticipated event helps to shine a light on school and reinforce the idea of a positive educational experience.  By supplying backpacks filled with school supplies to the children from needy families on the Coast, no one has to do without the basics. 

In past years, from 400 to 600 children from the first grade to seniors in high school have received a backpack with school supplies.  With only a week to go before the day volunteers gather to stuff the packs to prepare for distribution (scheduled for Saturday, August 19 at the Methodist Church in Half Moon Bay, beginning at 9 a.m.), only a handful have been collected.  Yet over a hundred families with more than 300 children have already signed up for the program.

Once the backpacks and school supplies are distributed at the start of school, the Catholic Worker gives extras to other youth programs on the Coast.  Past beneficiaries have included the Sheriff’s Activity Leagues, the Boys and Girls Club, the Migrant Education Program and others.

In the past, those who have supported the efforts of the Catholic Worker by providing backpacks, school supplies, financial support and/or volunteers have included the Coastside Jewish Community, Coastside Lutheran Church, Community United Methodist Church (C.U.M.C.) of Half Moon Bay, Holy Family Episcopal Church of H.M.B., St. Peter Catholic Church in Pacifica, Companions on the Journey Catholic Community of Palo Alto, St. Charles Catholic Church of San Carlos and St. Luke Catholic Church of Foster City, Coastside Mothers Club, Mothers Club of Pacifica, Curves of Half Moon Bay, Half Moon Bay Starbucks and the JustFaith group from Fremont.

To read about a past year, go to the Coastside Catholic Worker website.  For more information or to arrange to donate, call Mike Niece at Magdalene House (726-6606).  Thanks in advance for your help in nurturing a culture of education among our young people on the Coast.

A logging plan has been submitted to the California Department of Forestry (CDF) by the YMCA San Francisco, owners of Jones Gulch. The organization plans to log 733 acres of the 907 acre property, cutting 60% of redwood and fir trees 18 inches in diameter or larger, on slopes of 5% to 80%.

Though old growth (40+ inches) would likely be excluded in the first round of cutting, the permit would be in perpetuity, and every 15 years another round of logging could occur with no more public input, and old growth could be cut then.

The proposed logging would result in ten truckloads per day for 8-10 weeks, winter harvesting, impacts to local creeks and to our community.

The CDF’s only public meeting will be Thursday, August 17,  at 7pm at the La Honda Fire Station. CDF just sent out public notices for this meeting and would not postpone it, so PLEASE  ATTEND!

Tell them what you think: YMCA Camp Jones Gulch: phone 650-747-1200. Fax 650-747-0986.

Patty Mayall
La Honda

Deane Little, who has represented Mountain View and Los Altos on the Board of Directors of the Midpeninsula Open Space District since 1998, last night announced that he will resign his seat, effective Friday, August 11, 2006, in order to move to Colorado to pursue new professional opportunities and to be closer to his family and his parents who are in their eighties.

"I love what the District has done to preserve our beautiful coastal mountain landscapes, and I’m honored to have served with all of you and the District staff,"  Little wrote in a letter to the Board.  "You should all be proud of what we have accomplished in recent years."

A biologist by training, Little is a passionate advocate for the preservation of California’s wild lands, which he sees as the most important legacy that his generation can leave to future generations.  As a Board member, Little promoted the growth of native plants, preserving wildlife, and controlling or removing non-native species on open space lands.

Because Director Little made his decision to move to Colorado only in recent weeks, his seat cannot be filled at the next regularly scheduled election in November 2006. Little would have had to resign by late June 2006 in order for the Board to have been able to call a November election for his seat.  Therefore, the other six Board members will soon consider whether to hold a special election, at a District cost of about $800,000, for the remainder of Little’s term, which expires in November 2008, or whether to appoint a replacement for the next two years.

The Board is expected to address this matter at their August 23, 2006 Board meeting.