On Wednesday night, the county Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the last major permit for the Devil’s Slide bypass tunnel. Tunnel opponent Oscar Braun says he will file an appeal with the Board before the October 15 deadline.

The Mercury News reports that "Caltrans had to clear myriad hurdles ranging from protecting a shaggy wood rat that lives nearby, to bridging a red-legged frogs’ pond, to designing tunnel portals that satisfy nature-loving tastes of coastal residents. "

San Mateo County’s beaches did well in Heal the Bay‘s 2003-2004 Beach Report Card, with 80% of surveyed beaches receiving a grade of A in dry weather. Three beaches scored poorly in dry weather: Fitzgerald Marine Presearve, Pillar Point Harbor at Barbara’s Fish Trap, and Venice Beach at Frenchman’s Creek. According to the San Mateo County Health Services Agency, Venice Beach and the beach at Capistrano Boulevard in Princeton currently have elevated bacteria levels.

During wet weather, the impact of storm drains reduced the number of A-graded beaches to 50% of the total.

Twenty people who live on boats in Pillar Point Harbor were evacuated Tueday night when a thousand gallons of gas were spilled in Pillar Point Harbor Tuesday night,  according to The San Mateo County Times. The gas spilled from the fuel dock on the main pier.

The San Mateo County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) approved increasing the size of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District by a 6-1 vote, according to the Mercury News.

Opponents of the expansion are considering taking the matter to the voters, which would require getting a quarter of Coastside voters to sign petitions in the next 60 days. They’ve been talking up the need to put this question to a vote for a couple of weeks, in public meetings and the HMB Review.

What are objections to expanding the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District to the Coastside? The Almanac in Palo Alto lists and answers each of them.

The next LAFCo hearing on the plan will be 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 7, in Redwood City at the Board of Supervisors Chambers, 400 County Center, at the corner of Bradford Street and Hamilton Avenue.

The Mercury News discusses Oscar Braun’s struggle against the Devils’ Slide Tunnel, as well as his threat of a RICO suit against open space non-profits, county officials, county employees, and environmental activists. Braun describes himself as "very litigious".

Says Braun,  "Their motivation is as old as biblical times. It has to do with power. It has to do with corruption. It has to do with greed.’’

The Half Moon Bay Inn is closing after 33 years, according to the Oakland Tribune.  With it are going 12 residential hotel rooms and five apartments on the second floor. When it’s gone, you will no longer be able to buy a drink downtown at 6am.

"It’s the end of an era," said regular Ron Mazzanti, who stopped in Tuesday morning. "It’s hard to find a good dive bar anymore. When you find out where everybody’s going to go, let me know."
...

Other "dive bar" possibilities—the American Legion of Honor and the Old Princeton Landing—are both in Princeton, a few miles away. Having to drive to your favorite bar defeats the purpose, some say.

"Princeton might as well be in San Francisco," Mazzanti said.

The new owner plans to turn it into a "very elegant establishment".

After several months of beta testing among a few brave users, Coastsider is now open to the public for testing. For more information on the site, please see our earlier welcome message.

Please try out the site and let us know if you have any questions or problems by adding a comment to this message. We’ll try to resolve it as soon as possible.

Here’s a question for beta testers and early adopters.

I’m trying to decide how to deal with opinion pieces (versus purely factual items) on Coastsider. I’m considering two alternatives, but there may be more. The first is to create a separate section called Opinions, where all opinion pieces would reside. The second is to put them in the most appropriate section (Business, Community, Fun, Government).

In either case, opinion pieces should have an Opinion tag in the title (e.g. "Opinion: Secret meetings are good for the community"). I can see several types of opinion tags: Opinion, Coastsider Editorial, Column. Can anybody think of others?

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an Internet standard for making headlines available from web sites to users and other sites. If you look at our RSS feeds, they’re not going to seem very interesting, because they are designed to be read by computers.