Don’t tell the CCWD, but a water connection from a condemned building in Bolinas is up for auction and the price is expected to top $500,000. That’s just the hookup, not the land. There has been a moratorium on water connections in Bolinas since 1971.  The hookup is owned by an affordable housing group.

The annual Children’s Day event will be at Quarry Park in El Granada on Sunday from 10am to 2pm. It will be held on the quarry floor (a "pleasant walk" from the parking lot) and is sponsored by Midcoast Park Lands.  The event features trail walks, hot dogs, snacks, face painting, a jumpy, games and general fun. if you’re like me, you always get lost in El Granada, so here are the directions:

-  Turn off Highway 1 at the street light at Coronado St.
-  Turn left at Ave. Alhambra.
-  Turn right at Ave. Cabrillo.
-  Turn left just before the traffic circle onto Columbus St.
-  Continue on Columbus St.  to Quarry Park.

Parking is available at the nearby El Granada School parking lot.

This week’s crime wave: vandalism of a public payphone, public drunkeness at a camp on Pescadero Creek Road, arrest of an embezzler at an El Granada pest-control company, and a person under the influence of drugs parked on Devil’s Slide.

Click "read more" for details.

The Daily Journal has a nice article on the 29th Annual San Francisco International Comedy Competition.

The competition is held at various venues, but the last round of the semi-finals will be held on October 2, 4:30 p.m., at the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, 311 Mirada Road, Half Moon Bay. Tickets are $28.

Kevin Stokes has been pushing for some traffic calming on Fourth Street in Montara for the last few weeks. The speed humps that were added to Third Street have increased the amount and speed of traffic on Fourth, as residents of the back end of Montara speed to and from the highway. Recently, a dog who lives on Fourth was was badly injured when he was hit by a speeding car.

Kevin just received the following email from the San Mateo County Department of Public Works, which confirms some of the needed changes are already planned:

Thank you for your email. The Board of Supervisors approved the installation of stop signs at 4th & East, 6th and East and Main at 2nd. They also approved the installation of speed humps on 5th between Farallone and East that were requested by the property owners along 5th. We hope that these additional traffic controls will address the concerns expressed by many area residents, including you.

The stop signs are scheduled for installation some time in October or earlier. The speed humps should be constructed in October or November.

Thank you again for your input.

Lisa Ekers, Road Operations Manager
San Mateo County Department of Public Works

UPDATE: Kill Your Speed, the organization that is pushing for traffic calming and better behavior on Montara’s streets just released their new website, killyourspeed.montarabeach.com

A PG&E truck flipped over on its side Sunday morning when it drove off the road on Pescadero Road near Loma Mar.

The truck was on the road to repair a powerline that had been knocked to the road, blocking traffic for three hours.

The driver was transported to an area hospital by ground ambulance and the incident is being investigated by the California High Way Patrol.

All across America, it is Saturday, and most of the population is either sleeping in or watching TV. Well, on the Coastside, life is a little different. Many on the coast woke up early to go to the beach. Why? Because it is beach cleanup day! Today, the people of the coast got together and collected trash hidden away on the beach, so when people come, they don’t think it is all about just bringing your stuff and leaving it wherever you please.

You have to admit there has been one time where you or a friend has been to the beach, and just left something there. Well, it’s not safe for a number of reasons. By leaving stuff on the beach, you are leaving stuff that is harmful to other people, and even creatures of the ocean. For example, if you were a smoker, and you just dropped your cigarettes wherever you darn well pleased on the beach, a child could have picked it up and eaten it.

When my family and I went to Montara beach to clean part of it up, we found some of the most disgusting stuff all over it. The first thing I found was a ton of bottle caps, food wrappers, and popsicle sticks. My mom found about three large liquor bottles and many cups lodged into a crack in the rocks. Although, when it came to finding disgusting things, my dad won. He found a condom, a used condom. Listen, we’re glad that you’re using protection, but please pick it up—for the sake of all things right.

After we were all done cleaning our part of the beach, we went back to the meeting place, and turned in our bags. I learned from the people working there that 200 pounds of trash had already been turned in—all just one beach. Think about it, if 200 pounds came from one beach, how many pounds would come from the whole coast? A lot of people would shudder just thinking about it. Keep in mind also, that most of the trash you find on the beach is little bottle caps and plastic bottles. It takes a lot of small pieces of trash to come up with a big number like that.

Anyone can pick up trash! I saw a wide variety of people down on the beach today. Couples, dog walkers, and even little kids all joined together to help out. No one was in a bad mood, and everyone wanted to help. It shows that if my little sister, who’s 3, can help out, then so can you. It never hurts to show you care.

Here is the way that I think about it: If you are going to take the time to try to hide the trash that you brought down to the beach, it would probably take just as much energy to carry it up off the beach to throw it away. If you love the coast, and you love going down to visit the beach for a day, then you should care enough to pick up your trash and throw it away. It also wouldn’t take up a lot of room to bring a trash bag, so you could put your trash in there and then just carry that up. Maybe you pick out more then you came with, just to be helpful too.

No matter how big or how small the trash is your leaving on the beach, it is still trash, and still needs to be thrown away.

Here’s the final count of material collected from Montara State Beach this morning, from Kevin Stokes of MontaraBeach.com, who led the cleanup at that beach.

Number of volunteers: 24

Weight of Trash collected: 200lbs

Weight of recyclable materials: 60lbs

Trash collected included:

• 8 condoms
• 150 plastic lids
• 424 cigarette butts
• 241 plastic bags
• 72 glass bottles
• 70 plastic bags

Meanwhile, the Mercury News reports that statewide, "More than 40,000 volunteers collected an excess of 715,000 pounds of trash, of which about 62,000 pounds are recyclable, said Eben Schwartz, who runs the event for the state coastal commission. And those are just the early projections, he said."

Click "read more" to see the grossest things we found on the beach. Remember, you were warned!

The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors is studying whether to approve a $470,600 proposal to increase planning staff and prepare a reorganization of its Planning and Building Division.  The division is responsible for planning in the unincorporated Coastside (i.e. everything not in Half Moon Bay.

Under the proposal, two additional staff members would be hired in order to reduce planners’ caseloads by half. Contractors and interns would also be used to clear the existing backlog.  Planners would be given more leeway to make administrative decisions on small projects. Also, a recommendation for a complete reorganization would be completed by December.

Grade the News reports that the San Francisco Examiner and Independent have agreed to label as advertising a restaurant news column that has been running in the papers for years.

Great quotes:

• "Yes, I use the column as an initiative to get advertisers to run an ad," Mr. Habit said. "The paper gives me a free rein."
• Mr. Habit said he occasionally writes about restaurants that he has no hope of selling an ad to. "I do that to have the pages look more ethical," he said.
• Mr. Habit said that when he started working for the now-defunct Peninsula Times-Tribune, "It let me do it without any advertising label on top." The paper at the time was owned by the Tribune Company. "And the Chicago Tribune, that’s an ethical operation."

Despite what it described as a tough budget year, the Midpeninsula Open Space District (MROSD) has increased the salary of its general manager, Craig Britton by 11.4 percent to $165,420, retroactive to March. In a harshly-worded unbylined article, the Merc says,

Hassett, who owns Palo Alto Hardware and Ocean Shore Hardware in Half Moon Bay, said the raise reflects merit pay for a job well done. Still, he said, Britton makes less than other similar public officials, citing a study the district did.

Trouble is, the only two parks managers in the survey who made more than Britton have much larger departments. East Bay Regional Parks General Manager Pat O’Brien makes $167,316, for example. While Britton manages 80 employees and a $23 million budget, O’Brien has 677 employees and a $130 million budget. Same story for San Jose’s city parks department, where Director Sara Hensley makes $173,000, and has 736 employees and a $149 million budget.

Even U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein makes less: $158,100 a year.