The Big Wave live/work project will be the subject of tonight’s hearing of the San Mateo County Planning & Building Division at 7pm at El Granada Elementary School. The project will be located near Half Moon Bay Airport, next to the Pillar Ridge mobile home community. The project will include five lots for an office park (four office buildings plus a common area), wellness center, and housing units for disabled adults.

This is not an approval hearing. It is a meeting between the applicant and the county staff to discuss what is required before the application will be consider complete and eligible to start down the road to approval or disapproval.

More than 2,200 riders took Highway 92 through Half Moon Bay on the way to Santa Cruz in the fifth annual AIDS/LifeCycle Sunday. It was the first day of a week-long, 585-mile bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, which raises millions of dollars for AIDS-related services. Riders must commit to raising at least $2,500. Each day, hundreds of volunteers provide food, maintenance, first aid, and other services along the route.

Cheri Parr

Cheri Parr

Cheri Parr

Cheri Parr

Questions have arisen in postings here on Coastsider about Measure S and the senior exemption and it’s important that the public understands how it works.

The June 15 deadline to file the exemption is as late as it can possibly be for the July 1 tax date.  The tight timeline this year is an unavoidable situation with a June election.  Any senior who isn’t able to file their exemption before the deadline this year can contact Superintendent John Bayless directly at the district office and he will work with the individual to ensure that he or she does not have to pay the tax.

Personal identification is not required after the first year the exemption is filed - just a resubmission of the exemption form and verification of ownership.  Exemptions must be filed yearly simply to verify that the person who filed for exemption the previous year still retains ownership of the property.

To make this process as easy as possible for seniors, the district office in March of each tax year will contact seniors who filed for exemption the previous year to assist them in resubmitting for the new tax year.

Six former former employees of Money’s Mushrooms in Pescadero have bought the company and are leasing the property from the Hong Kong investment company that bought the bankrupt mushroom farm.  They mortgaged their homes to do it, reports the County Times.

"We wanted to fight for this farm. Our lives were growing mushrooms. We knew that they could be profitable, or at least make jobs for people," said Teresa Godoy, now head grower at the newly renamed Pacific Coast Mushrooms.

Since the farm reopened in October 2005, it has rehired 120 workers and replanted three of the mushroom-growing warehouses on the 700-acre site. The company recently broke even and expects to make an $8 million to $10 million profit in the coming fiscal year, according to co-owner and marketing director Linda Tichenor.

I am supporting Leland Yee for State Senator because of his experience, his thoughtfulness, his commitment to healthcare, education, the environment, and to the broad community. 

Mike Nevin, in comparison, has consistently sided with pro-development/anti-citizen campaigns from his ties with Stockbridge Capital, the Bay Meadows racetrack developer to his ties to the developer trying to erect high-rises at Pete’s Harbor on the Redwood City Shores.

Nevin’s State Senate campaign manager is Seamus Murphy, who, according to the SF Business Times, "took a leave of absence from San Mateo Supervisor Mike Nevin’s office," to manage the developer’s campaign in Redwood City. The "Yes on Measure Q" campaign (about a million dollars of Glenborough-Pauls developer money) included attorney Russell Miller, who was also paid by the Bay Meadows developer to help quash our San Mateo citizen referendum. Miller, too, now works on Mike Nevin’s State Senate campaign.

A vote for Leland Yee will be a good start at cleaning up Peninsula politics.

Donna Bischoff
Member, Save Bay Meadows Citizens Group

Go to www.savebaymeadows.org for campaign contribution data.  Click on "Follow the Money"

This year’s salmon season, the shortest ever, is being shut down for a couple of months, reports the County Times. But it’s so bad, that maybe it’s just being put out of its misery.  Julia Scott’s report notes that relief for the fishermen is unlikely because the Republicans in Congress are loath to admit that the Bush administration mismanaged the Klamath River.

"It’s kind of been a bust so far. The only thing that’s kept us going has been the high price we’ve "I’ve been working my butt off, and I’m just losing money," said Matt Forve, a 30-year-old fishermen from Oregon. "I’ve caught 94 fish, and that doesn’t even pay for fuel. I haven’t paid my rent in two months."

Even in hard times, the salmon industry is a major economic boon to California. The $12 million value generated by commercial salmon stocks in 2005 doesn’t include the industry’s ripple effect on community businesses that also depend on a long and profitable season. Last year’s haul brought $20 million worth of business to the Bay Area alone, according to the Pacific Fishery Management Council. That number will shrink to $9 million after this year’s drastic cutbacks.

Responding to our transportation crisis, SamTrans is adding two buses in the morning and two in the afternoon to connect Coastside commuters to BART.  The new service will begin Monday, June 5 and will run until the Slide opens.  "The service is costing about $100,000 out of our very lean operating budget," said Christine Dunn, SamTrans spokesperson.  "It’s based on the assumption the Slide will be open at the end of September."

CORRECTION:  An earlier version of this story referred to these buses as expresses. They in fact stop at all SamTrans stops on the Coastside.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following letter to the editor of the Half Moon Bay Review is a response to an opinion column by Mark Simon of Caltrans in the May 17 issue of the Half Moon Bay Review.  Simon’s column was a response to a letter by Jo Chamberlain in the May 3 issue of the Review.  The Review inadvertently re-ran Chamberlain’s May 3 letter instead of this letter in Wednesday’s issue. We present it here because it deserves wider distribution before Tuesday’s election.  Jo Chamberlain is a candidate for San Mateo County Board of Supervisors.

Editor,

Thanks to Mark Simon for his response to my concerns regarding SamTrans service to the Coastside.

Those concerns, however, were not addressed. Why do we have two buses (294 and 17) and no express buses to BART and Caltrain from the Coastside? If we provide $6 million in equitable income for public transportation, we should have express buses that connect with all the assets we are paying for.

Mr Simon’s suggestion that coastsiders catch an express bus in Pacifica is, of course, little more than a cruel, if perhaps unintentional, joke. But even with Devil’s Slide open, current schedules make it impractical to use a chain of buses to get to work.

For commuting via public transit to really work, we need direct connections to BART, Caltrain, and the rest of the over-the-hill transit system, with consistent service at flexible hours (not everyone works 9-5).

Our unique geography isolates us from the rest of the county. Additionally, many of our low-income residents live in communities that are isolated from food, school and work.

The Route 17 mini-bus, transportation for Coastside students and workers along the north-south corridor, has been leaving passengers behind. Bus 17 requires large buses, and more of them that coincide with school and work schedules.

I thank SamTrans for the Sam Coast, para-transit and Redi-Wheels service. All are vital and needed on the Coastside.

Coastside transportation needs are especially acute right now because of the Devil’s Slide closure. But traffic will only get worse with the planned doubling of the coastside population, and better public transit is the only real alternative to paving the coast with a tangle of superhighways.

Jo Chamberlain
Lobitos Canyon

511.org has added travel times from Montara and El Granada to its database.  You can find the information on their database, or use the travel time links right-hand column of Coastsider.

Summer is finally here and now is the perfect time to check out the fun activities offered by the City of Half Moon Bay’s Recreation Division..  Our popular Camp-by-the-Sea is back and perfect summer fun for kids entering grades 1 – 8; our Red Cross Youth Swim Lessons have been improved by offering four, two week sessions of half-hour classes; your favorite sport camps are back plus new classes for adults and children.  For more information, check out the Recreation Activity Guide, the City’s website or give us a call at (650) 726-8297.

EDITOR’S NOTE: These programs are not only for residents of Half Moon Bay.