State Senator Jackie Speier will be on the Coastside Tuesday, May 9 from 9am to 10:30am, to dine and "shop til she drops", according to her office.  The visit is designed to show the media that the Coastside is still open for business.  According to the Senator Speier’s office, she will be shopping with such local notables as Half Moon Bay Mayor Marina Frasier, Half Moon Bay Review Publisher Debra Godshall, and Charise McHugh, President and CEO of Half Moon Bay Chamber of Commerce.

So far, no one has volunteered to "commute till they drop".

Coastside schools need more money. And Measure S, the parcel tax, is the best means we have to get a little more money to our schools.

I’ve been critical of our school board in the past. If you don’t like the way they’ve been running the district, you’ll get an opportunity to deal with them (or at least three of them) in November. The issue on June 6 is how much money we’re going to give the schools. It is not a referendum on the school board.

There’s a hard core of Coastsiders who will vote against any tax for anything at any time. And the requirement that two thirds of voters approve the tax is designed to give them a veto.  To pass this parcel tax, the district needs the support of everyone who wishes our schools could be even a little bit better.  This tax has failed four times already since 1999, but it has never had a better chance of passing or broader support than it does now.  However, if the parcel tax going to pass, it needs more than your tacit support.  You need to go out and vote YES of Measure S.

Take a short drive down the coast, and stop by and visit the most lovely private gardens in Pescadero, Loma Mar, & La Honda.  Homeowners with incredible seaside gardens, mountain redwood gardens, sunny hilltop herbal and flower gardens have graciously opened up their personal gardens for our annual Gardens of the South Coast Garden Tour, Plant Sale & Wine Tasting - a benefit for La Honda & Pescadero Educational Foundations.

This self-guided tour allows the garden lover to visit gardens on Saturday, Sunday or both days, May 20-21, 2006 from 10 am til 4 pm.  On Saturday, pick up your tickets and tour booklet at the Information Booth, in front of the Pescadero Post Office.  The unique and exquisite gardens of Loma Mar and Pescadero will be featured on Saturday’s tour, winding down the day with a gardening lecture by Sunset Magazine’s master gardener, Jack McKinnon, and a Wine & Cheese reception, both at Harley Goat Farms, on North Street in Pescadero, from 4 - 6 pm.  Sunday’s tour will offer some beautiful sunny hillside gardens and rich redwood forest gardens of La Honda and Loma Mar to visitors.  Begin Sunday by stopping by to pick up tickets and tour booklet at the Information Booth in front of Coastside Veterinary Clinic (next to Post Office) in La Honda.

Click for details.

Mike Ferreira is a former member of the Half Moon Bay City Council and a former member of the city’s Planning Commission.  This is the first part of a three-part article.

There is nothing really new in CCF’s Bypass proposal. It’s an amalgam of proposals that failed in the 90s for a variety of legal,engineering, environmental, and financial reasons. Why is this being put forward in a time of transportation crisis with the near certainty of serial failure? Could it be politics?

Let’s start with basic traffic engineering. As has been publicly acknowledged in meeting after meeting on the fully-funded and soon-to-begin Main Street/Highway 92 Project the additional left turn lane from southbound Highway 1 and the additional through lane at Main will process more eastbound cars on Highway 92 than 92 can handle during peak commute times. It’s often the case now—without the improvements.

Either option of a new traffic signal at the Goat Farm for the outlet of Foothill Boulevard at Highway 92 or an underpass and eastbound merge would just serve as another interruption of the flow on 92 and create a new conga line of hopefuls trying to squeeze ahead of their fellow commuters queued up on 92.

One of the CCF proponents at the City Council meeting touted the benefits of accessing the high school via Highway 92. There are several possible, expensive mitigations which could improve the high school morning traffic mess (which I don’t have space for in this commentary). But I do know that putting any portion of the high school traffic into the Highway 92 morning commute should be a non-starter.

During the afternoon commute into Half Moon Bay, the Main Street/92 Project will provide an additional through lane and right turn lane at Main. This will increase peak commute efficiency, probably resulting in bigger backups at the Terrace merge and at the Frenchman’s Creek stoplight. Commuters who live south of Highway 92 will see an immediate benefit from the Main/92 project during the peak commute. But the northbound commuters are going to need further improvements to Highway 1 if they are going to get any net relief.

The light at Frenchman’s Creek was installed by Caltrans as a three-lane light on an emergency basis but actually needs to be widened to five necessitating a wider bridge. Doesn’t it make more sense to focus our attention on getting the funding and multi-agency permitting for those improvements to Highway 1 for the northbound commuters? Should we dissipate our energy on a mythical and prohibitively expensive bypass that will likely never be completed—and would likely just end up worsening the morning congestion on 92 if it were?

Caltrans will make a presentation about Devil’s Slide repair work at a public meeting in Pacifica, next Wednesday, May 10,  from 6:00pm to 7:30pm in the Pacifica City Council Chambers, 2212 Beach Boulevard [map].

Ever since I started Coastsider, I’ve been looking for a way to build a community calendar that everyone could contribute to.  That’s a difficult problem to solve gracefully.

A few weeks ago, Google introduced their calendar.  I think it’s a good solution to the problem.  Anyone can create a calendar for their organization or business and publish it for anyone to read. I also think it has an amazingly good user interface.  But what’s really exciting is that other people with Google or iCal calendars can subscribe to your calendar and have your events listed alongside their personal schedules.

I’d like to test out an idea.  What if every organization and business on the Coastside that maintains a public calendar had a public Google calendar?  I know that’s going to sound like a pain to some of you, but I think you’ll find that the benefits quickly outweigh the cost.  Google’s calendar is significantly easier to use and maintain than nearly all major calendars on the Web, and it’s easier to share than others.  The usefulness of everyone keeping their calendars in the same place grows quickly as the number of calendars increases.

Coastsider will support the effort. If you have a calendar to share and are interested playing, click the link to see the rest of the proposal.  Our goal is to add the items with the broadest appeal to Coastsider, but everyone in the community would be able to subscribe to more-specialized calendars alongside the most popular ones.

Charles Kight with Small Business Administration Disaster Assistance will be at the Chamber of Commerce office May 2 through May 18, Tuesdays through Thursdays, from 8:00am until noon. SBA loan applications can be found online at www.sba.gov or you can stop by the Chamber office to pick up an application packet to fill out before you stop by. No appointments are necessary. Call (800) 659-2955 for more information.

The Coastside Farmer’s Market returns to Cetrella this weekend, and continues every Saturday through November. Tomorrow’s market will feature tables from Coastside nonprofits and community organizations.