A Napa beekeeper is gathering scarce and distinctive pumpkin honey from bees that have been pollinating pumpkins in Half Moon Bay, reports Julia Scott in the County Times.

But pumpkin blossoms produce so little nectar that finding a good pumpkin patch can make all the difference.

"It’s a lot of work and we get very little," said Marshall. "If you get 10 pounds a hive for pumpkins, you’re lucky." Other types of honey average 100 pounds per hive, he added.

The stuff sells for $20 a pound

Last Tuesday October 17 at 11am, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors held a public hearing to consider approval of the wide-ranging Midcoast Local Coastal Program (LCP) update project. Most ordinary Coastsiders don’t have the schedule to attend middle-of-the-day meetings like this, unlike the many pro-growth advocates who did attend and lobbied the Supervisors for more housing-related development.

Fortunately, we can watch a video of the proceedings that was kindly recorded by Darin Boville and posted here on Coastsider. Below is a summary and critique of what some people said at the hearing (in no particular order).

The first phase of the Highway 92 project begins tonight, reports the Daily Journal.

At 9:30 p.m. Sunday, Caltrans crews will close down a small part of State Route 92 for overnight trenching. It marks the first of six phases in the ambitious $21.8 million project, which is expected to finish by 2008. The expansion will ultimately improve traffic flow in Half Moon Bay near the intersection of Highway 1 and State Route 92.
...
The trenching work will begin at North Main Street and continue toward Pilarcitos Creek. The trenching will occur every night of the week except Saturday. Sunday work will begin at 9:30 p.m. and finish by 5:30 a.m. while work during the rest of the week will begin at 10:30 p.m. and end at 5:30 a.m., said Nancy Kyser, administrative assistant for Half Moon Bay Public Works Department.

The Chronicle has good story on the San Francisco YMCA’s plan to log the forest around Camp Jones Gulch.

YMCA officials on Friday told some of their most vocal critics that the nonprofit would work with them to allay their concerns.

"We are the stewards of some remarkable land," President and Chief Executive Officer Charles Collins told activists, who gave him a petition signed by 554 people urging the YMCA to kill the plan. "What we want to do, and what we are doing, is postponing any action on this (plan) to get more public input."

But reaching a consensus could be difficult, as a vocal contingent of activists wants the YMCA to kill the plan entirely and adopt one they feel would ensure greater protection for the forest and cause less harm to the land.

"We would like to see them withdraw the (plan) and show they will be better stewards of the land," said Patty Mayall, an environmental activist and La Honda resident who was among those who presented the petition.

Logging opponents want the YMCA to grant an conservation easement, and the group has said that it would examine the option. The public has until Nov. 15 to comment on the plan. 

The five candidates for the three vacancies on the Cabrillo Unified School District—Pamela Fisher, Ken Johnson, Kirk Riemer, Jolanda Schreurs and Dwight Wilson—will meet to discuss the issues at the General Meeting of the Half Moon Bay Branch of the American Association of University Women on Monday, October 30, at 7pm at the Community United Methodist Church, 777 Miramontes Street, Half Moon Bay. The public is invited to attend.

Pacifica Peace People and Veterans for Peace a sponsoring an evening of music and readings honoring peace and veterans Saturday, November 11, 7 to 10pm.  Country Joe McDonald, Bay Area musician known for many contributions including his "I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag," performs along with Joe "Hippie Billy" Paquin, formerly of country-and-western band Swift Current, and The Sundogs.  Jim Janko, author of Buffalo Boy and Geronimo, rounds out the evening with readings from his work, from the point of view of Vietnam-era GIs and Vietnamese civilians.

In New York Michele Rosewoman formed new ensembles and continued to present her original music as she nurtured associations with notable New York-based jazz artists and went on to perform with Gary Bartz, Jimmy Heath, Rufus Reid, Reggie Workman, Freddie Waits, James Spaulding, John Stubblefield, Billy Hart, Howard Johnson and Carlos Ward, among others.  She will perform at the Bach wiwtih Mark Shim tenor saxophone, Loren Stillman alto saxophone, Brad Jones bass, & Gene Jackson drums.

National Public Radio says: "An indomitable modern jazz pianist, her singular sound ideas expand readily to her dark, fiery ensembles.  So it all comes together, big, tight and flexible, rangy, spontaneous, serious and mysterious.  Rosewoman and her band are jazz believers, jazz devotees, keepers of the flame."
 
Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society
307 Mirada Road, Half Moon Bay
$30.  Tickets at the door. 
Doors Open at 3 PM, Music from 4:30 to 7:30 PM, with intermission. $30

Cheri Parr

Blue Moon performing The Ballad of Devil's Slide

A couple of weeks ago we were invited to party that represented a lot of the things we love about the Coastside. The party was a (somewhat late) Devil's Slide re-opening party by some folks we didn't know because a couple of them had re-connected through Coastsider for a Devil's Slide closure carpool. From the invitation:

I remember that first week - in fact within the first few days - you were the first newsperson I contacted to try to get help finding people to commute with, and you promptly created the link on the very front of your home page to connect people searching for alternatives. I want you to know that your posting was such a help, and also enabled a person from a car pool I was in years ago to find me and hook up again. She's one of the people still commuting with us now, and it looks like we'll all continue to do so. By the way, four of us are still commuting together, as it's worked out really well! We all survived and have forged lasting friendships in the process.

That really meant a lot to us and it turned out that the party was on the other side of our block, practically in our back yard. And it featured live music by the party-goers themselves. A real small-town experience in the shadow of San Francisco. One band, Blue Moon, performed an original song called "The Ballad of Devil's Slide" and an original poem "Stuck on 92".

I wasn't able to get a recording of the performance, but you can click the link below to see the lyrics to "The Ballad of Devil's Slide":

The fate of the Harbor District is being discussed by the county’s Local Area Formation Commission (LAFCO) and Board of Supervisors, reports the County Times.  The District is almost $20 million in debt, has numerous other delayed capital projects and is suffering a loss in revenue from the fishermen who are its primary customers. 

The Harbor District operates Pillar Point Harbor and Oyster Point Marina in South San Francisco. In addition to fees from users, it collects $3 million in property taxes from the entire county. The fact that the district collects property taxes county-wide, but only serves in a limited geographical area makes some people wonder whether it should be absorbed in to the county government. LAFCO recently released a report that considered the fate of the Harbor District.

Dissolution of the district, which encompasses Half Moon Bay’s Pillar Point Harbor and Oyster Point Marina in South San Francisco, was one of the financial remedies suggested by the LAFCo report, and it has been on the table before. The harbor district was dissolved in 1966 at the initiative of the County Board of Supervisors, but was reinstated on appeal by district officials in 1969.

Voters rejected another attempt by the Board of Supervisors to dissolve the district in 1970. Similar attempts to annex or dissolve the district failed in 1973, 1974, 1975, and 1991, according to LAFCo documents obtained by Peter Grenell, general manager of the harbor district.

The Daily Journal also covered the LAFCO meeting, and has a somewhat confusing discussion of the term of art "zero sphere of influence", which was used to describe the district.

Sherri Ballew, coach for the Jr Midget Cheerleaders, writes, "The girls had a competition this last weekend and they placed first in their division. The girls have made it to Nationals the past 2 years and we hope they do it again this year. They have 2 more competitions to go to and if the win off to Florida we are once again." We also have so great photos of the even-younger girls in the Pirates cheerleading team.

Sherri Ballew

Division champions.

Sherri Ballew

Some Pirates cheerleaders