The Chronicle profiled the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society on its fortieth anniversary last Sunday, as well as its owner Pete Douglas.  Some of my favorite moments have been Sunday afternoons at the Bach.

The 40-year anniversary will be marked today with a screening of "Jazz on the West Coast: The Lighthouse," a 77-minute documentary chronicling the famed Lighthouse jazz club in Hermosa Beach. Stars of the so-called L.A. "Cool" style like Bud Shank and Shorty Rogers first gained prominence in now-legendary 1950s Lighthouse jam sessions led by bassist Howard Rumsey. The Lighthouse just happens to be where a teenage Pete Douglas first caught the jazz bug.
...
Douglas, 76, is solidly built, with a weathered face and gray hair partially covered by a knit cap, He blends an easy, raspy laugh and a sly sense of humor that he often turns on himself. Dressed in blue jeans and a dark work shirt, Douglas looks indeed the "old Beat hipster type," as he describes himself. Davis grew up near the beaches around Los Angeles. Discharged from the army after service in the Korean War, and armed only with a sociology degree, in 1957 Douglas took a position as a San Mateo County probation officer, a job he hated.

This is a must-read.

Darin Bovile

Click on the image to see the full-size version.

Montara-based photographer Darin Boville sent us this beautiful image taken from just above Farallone View Elementary in Montara on Sunday night. Darin says, "We don’t get as many of them here as in other parts of the country—not enough dust blowing up due to the ocean, I suppose."

Be sure to click on the image to see the full-size version. You’ll be glad you did.

The US Fish & Wildlife Service has announced its new designated critical habitat for the western snowy plover, and they have reduced the area by 40% [USFWS Plover website]. None of the critical habitat in Half Moon Bay has been eliminated.

The reductions were taken primarily as a result of an economic analysis of the impact of the designation

Some 2,859 acres of proposed critical habitat in six units were deleted based on the projected cost of designating critical habitat. An economic analysis prepared by Industrial Economics Inc. projected that critical habitat could cost between $273 million and $645 million, with the biggest costs due to beach recreation losses. More than three-quarters of the loss was found to occur in five proposed California critical habitat units, located on Coronado’s Silver Strand, Morro Bay, Pismo Beach, and two on Monterey Bay.

In addition, 615 acres were deleted because of management plans and commitments—such as Habitat Conservation Plans—and 1,621 acres were deleted because they are covered by military land management plans or national security needs.

The Service also is conducting a status review of the Pacific Coast population of the western snowy plover, to comply with two petitions to de-list the species and also to comply with the requirement that species status be reviewed in five-year intervals. The Service expects to complete that review next spring.

The rule is scheduled to be published Thursday in the Federal Register, and will take effect 30 days after publication.

This week it’s a warrant arrest in El Granada for a San Fracisco prostitution charge and tales of drunks and ill-advised BB gun horseplay in Princeton.

Click "read more" to see the details

Coastside kids are invited to bring their teddy bears and stuffed toys to the Seton Medical Center Coastside on Sunday.  Doctors, nurses, and volunteers will be on hand to diagnose and treat the stuffed toys.  This fun event helps familiarize children with a hospital setting.  The event will be from 11am to 3pm at: Seton Medical Center Coastside, 600 Marine Blvd. in Moss Beach.
                                               
Also, we will have there a life flight helicopter, boating safety, a Station 44 fire truck, ambulance and police vehicle demonstrations, as well as children’s photo ID’s and fingerprinting.

The Coastside is going to change a lot in the next 20 years. If we don’t have a shared vision of our community, we’re going shift strategies and make incremental decisions until we have a random collection of houses and strip malls connected only by roads.

A recent survey of downtown merchants helped me understand the issues that they confront every day. And it made me realize how fragile downtown is. Everyone says they love downtown Half Moon Bay, but we haven’t really discussed what we want it to look like.  It’s important for all of us, and it’s a matter and life and death for the merchants who have invested in it.

The researchers were the downtown merchants themselves. And, although the survey was a little rough in spots, 96 of 108 surveys were returned.

Nearly half (48%) of the merchants who responded to the survey said they had been struggling to some degree over the last three years. Three-quarters depend on their spouses, savings, or even loans, to keep going. A quarter said that their business was taking a toll on their health.

It’s challenging to set up shop in Half Moon Bay. About a third say that rent is one of their biggest challenges and another 20% feel it’s hard to find the right help on the Coastside.

With Highway 92 often jammed to capacity on weekends and the price of gas steadily increasing, downtown Half Moon Bay and Coastsiders need one another more than ever.

For some reason many Coastsiders prefer the shopping centers, like Linda Mar in Pacifica and Strawflower Village. And two-thirds of downtown merchants are certain that the unfinished Harbor Village in Princeton will cost them even more customers. I’m just grateful that no more retail space is planned for Wavecrest.

Despite these obstacles, about half (46%) the downtown merchants feel that the key to their success is bringing more Coastsiders downtown. Whenever you ask people what will bring Coastsiders to downtown Half Moon Bay, you hear answers like shoes, clothing, or underwear. These items showed up in the survey, as well. That seems like an improbable solution.

Downtown Half Moon Bay is already the heart of the Coastside community.  We need to emphasize that link. For many of us who live outside of Half Moon Bay, our main connection is through Cunha or the high school.

Parents and kids spend time downtown before and after school. I became a regular member of the downtown scene when I started dropping my daughter off at Cunha. Cunha kids walk to the high school and vice versa.  If the middle school is replaced with an elementary school that serves families who already live near downtown, it could be devastating.

The kinds of activities that bring people downtown are entertainment, recreation, meeting friends, and sharing meals. Our new park, within walking distance of downtown, is critical to downtown’s success.

We need a movie theater, but we don’t need big concrete box surrounded by a parking lot in what used to be an empty field. That’s not going to bring anyone downtown. It could keep them away.  We need an old-fashioned movie theatre that opens on the Main Street sidewalk.

We have already made some mistakes, mainly in our support of cars downtown. The Bank of America Building intimidates pedestrians by turning the sidewalk into a busy intersection for their parking lot. The CCWD building is a block-long blank wall leading to another parking lot intersection. Half Moon Bay’s post office is designed to work like a freeway interchange. We can do better.

We should be thinking about people and not cars. A downtown designed for smooth traffic flow will keep us all off the sidewalk. More than half the merchants seemed to think parking downtown was inadequate.  But you can usually find a space within a couple of blocks of your destination and everyone who gets out of their car and walks a couple of blocks adds to activity on the sidewalk in a positive way.

A downtown designed for entertainment and walking will keep Baysiders in town after dark, instead of sending them home at the first whiff of fog.

Special events, like the Halloween and Fourth of July parades, Wine Walk, Pumpkin Festival, and Night of Lights should be part of our strategy for reorienting the community to downtown. But many of the merchants are alienated from them, saying they don’t generate enough foot traffic or sales. These events should be planned with downtown merchants in mind. After all, the merchants are what makes downtown a desirable place to hold these events.

The only other alternative is to become like Carmel, filled with art galleries that don’t even pay sales tax because they ship out of state. The locals in Carmel have lost their downtown. They shop in the strip malls on the edge.

Please think about what you want downtown to look like. Let’s keep it friendly to pedestrians, welcoming to locals, and open to our children. Let’s meet our friends and celebrate our successes in local restaurants. Let’s fill it with special events and remember that the downtown merchants are our hosts, and not simply a backdrop for our parties.  Buy your meat, fish, bread, and vegetables for dinner in downtown shops. And focus on keeping downtown at the heart of our community.

What’s your vision of downtown Half Moon Bay? Or downtown Montara, Moss Beach or El Granada for that matter. Please share your responses and ideas by clicking on the comment link below the headline.

About a dozen students from Mr. Ward’s Drama class at Cunha Middle School did their homework at the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society this evening.  Homework consisted of a run-though of the poetry of Shel Silverstein in preparation for the Patron of the Arts scholarship fundraiser to be held at the Bach tomorrow night at 7:30pm.

The Patron of the Arts is an annual fundraising event with all proceeds going directly to Half Moon Bay High School Performing Arts scholarship.  Tomorrow night’s event will be sponsored by the Ocean View Odd Fellow Lodge #143 and the Pilarcitos Rebekah Lodge #286, and the use of the Bach facility was donated by Pete Douglas, a long time supporter of Coastside music events

Tomorrow nights program consists entirely of middle and high-school students and will include performances by:  Coastside A Capella, The Shelly Pack Dancers, Lisa Specter, Pianist, Dramatic Theater Presentation by Cunha School Drama group, The Lisa Fraser Band featuring Cunha an d HMB High school musicians, HMB High Dramatic Theatre, The Sambalita Belly Dancers, The Robin Campbell Band and All Dance.

Tickets are $10.00 at the door.  More information can be found at http://www.bachddsoc.org or by calling (650) 726-4143.

A person or person who prefer(s) to remain anonymous is funding a survey of Coastside voters to determine their appetite for yet another parcel tax to support Cabrillo Unified School District.

The questionnaire was developed by a polling firm. While it is not a project of the CUSD board or the school district staff, it was developed with input from CUSD board members Dwight Wilson and Jolanda Schreurs, according to Wilson.

I had an opportunity to answer the questions myself when the survey house called me at home between the time when I called Wilson for comment and when we were able to connect.

The survey asks respondents whether they would support a tax of $250 per parcel per year, and also asks for their reaction to variations such as exempting taxpayers over 55, basing the tax on square footage, or exempting undeveloped parcels. It also tests voters’ interest in a citizen committee to oversee the spending of the money.  [A smartass would say that in many communities, such a committee is called a "school board".]

The survey also tests pitches for selling the tax to voters, including resumption of school bus service, reduced class sizes, saving sports or arts instruction, recruiting and retaining quality teachers, and blaming the state for the district’s financial problems.

It also recognizes that the still-undecided location of the new middle school may be a significant hurdle to getting the measure approved. There are several questions testing respondents knowledge of and interest in the middle school question.

Wilson acknowledged that the middle school site would be an issue in any parcel tax election and said that the goal was to decide on the site at the October board meeting and then on the parcel tax in November or December.  The decision on the parcel tax would have to be made in time to meet the deadline for putting measures on the ballot. Wilson told me that the election could be held in March, April, or June in order to appear on property tax bills.

Parcel taxes have been defeated four times in the last six years:

• November, 1999: $125/parcel for 4 years
• March, 2002:  $75/parcel for 3 years
• March, 2003: $250/parcel for 5 years
• June, 2003:  $250/parcel for 5 years

The results of the survey may only be available to its funders until it is presented to the school board in November or December. Wilson told me that even then individual results would not be given to the school board and they would only see the compiled information. However, the survey house is keeping track of the names and answers of individual respondents and verifying them at the end of the survey. This would be extremely useful in any campaign for a parcel tax.

The Rotary Club of Half Moon Bay is providing financial support to six students in Kenya who otherwise could not afford to attend high school.  “Each child receives $650 per year for the next four years,” said Rotary President Ginger Minoletti.  “The grants are primarily for tuition but also pay for incidentals such as clothing.”

Natasha Martin of Half Moon Bay is the founder of G.R.A.C.E., Grassroots Alliance for Community Education.  She accepted the donation, totaling $3,900 annually for the next four years, describing how these poverty stricken children from a country ravaged by AIDS will apply their education to become the leaders of tomorrow.  Martin told the Half Moon Bay Rotary Club “G.R.A.C.E. works with communities in sub-Saharan Africa to mitigate the effects of HIV/AIDS. Our mission is to help grassroots community-based organizations implement locally determined and sustainable initiatives in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.” Education is a key element to the organization’s mission.

Click "read more" to see Natasha’s outline of the history of each child.

The California Department of Education announced Tuesday that Alvin S. Hatch Elementary School in Half Moon Bay failed to make "adequate yearly progress" for a second year, according to the County Times. Hatch was the only school added to the list in San Mateo County this year.

That means for those two years, too few students were proficient in math and English or on state standardized tests, or the school simply didn’t test the required 95 percent of students.
                                               
Statewide, 1,772 schools are on this list. This year, 320 schools were added to the list of schools in "program improvement," while 121 got off the list by posting two consecutive years of adequate progress.

The article describes a progressive set of sanctions that schools face if they continue be on the "program improvement list".

UPDATE:  Cabrillo Unified School District is one of ten local education agencies that have put into Program Improvement this year [California Dept. of Education release].