Comments by Barry Parr
July 10, 2009
The first challenge is finding someone to talk to. The MCTV office in El Granada is not staffed for regular office hours, the phone always rolls over to voice mail, and MCTV management and board don't always answer their email. I have asked MCTV for information on their process and criteria for accepting content, but my requests have been ignored. I know people whose requests to air existing quality videos about the Coastside have been turned down with the excuse that MCTV doesn't have time on their…
July 10, 2009
Kevin didn't suggest that CCWD employees aren't working hard. But I'm not sure they work harder than any other Americans. Many CCWD rate payers work hard under difficult circumstances. A generous private sector pension plan these days is a matching contribution to a 401K plan, up to 10% of an employee's salary. I doubt more than a fraction of private sector employees are offered anything like that, and many that are don't have the money to take advantage of the program. A 12% rate increase is jaw-dropping…
July 09, 2009
I'm not ready for another redesign yet, but I'm sure there's room for improvement in the current layout.It's definitely a challenge to get the the important stuff where people can see it.
The current version of Coastsider was a radical redesign I did 18 months ago.
July 08, 2009
I'm not all that fond of the one MBC sticker I saw (on the handrail), but compared with the amount of work that the folks behind those stickers put into keeping our beach clean, it's pretty insignificant.
It sounds to me like you guys have more in common than not and that this might not be the right issue to get into a fight over.
June 30, 2009
Steve is drawing the wrong lesson from the Beachwood fiasco. He's not alone. The city blew an opportunity get relief from the settlement. They had a powerful friend in Sacramento, Gene Mullin, who was willing to carry their case to the legislature. They let their hatred and contempt for environmental regulations blind them to just how bad an idea AB1991 was. A more reasonable bill, made up of low interest debt and parks or affordable housing funds, probably could have passed in 2008 if they hadn't…
June 30, 2009
Actually, it shows how expensive it is to fight and then capitulate.
The city has now let us know that they have a glass jaw. It won't be long before someone else takes them up on their obvious inclination to fold like a card table.
June 30, 2009
The Review is reporting that the coroner has released the names of the victims: Indali Higgins and her mother Romila Higgins, both of Walnut Creek.
June 29, 2009
This piece of land is a lot more beautiful than many growthophiles would have you believe. But you won't be able to tell if you don't get out of your car and walk around in it.
June 26, 2009
I also strongly recommend watching the video on MCTV.
It's not just another boring meeting video. Early on, maybe 30 mins in, there is an excellent slide presentation of walkable street designs that will get you thinking about the possibilities for the Coastside.
June 26, 2009
I'll write more about this later, but for now, I just want to say that last night's session far exceeded my expectations.
Dan's presentation of walkable, bike-able, and traffic-calming street designs was excellent and really set the stage for the brainstorming session.
I would love to see some of this thinking translated into reality on the Coastside.
June 24, 2009
This could hardly be more timely. Yet another reason to rethink the way we elect the county Board of Supervisors.
If you agree, you should come to the meeting the Coastside Democrats are holding tonight on how to improve the election of Supervisors in San Mateo County.
June 22, 2009
Nothing has changed between April, 2008 and today. The city didn't fall into a pot of new money. It didn't get a new legal team with a fancy new interpretation of the bankruptcy law. God knows the bond market didn't get any more liquid. This was always Plan B. If the city and its investment bankers modeled out the scenarios, as they would have been irresponsible not to do, there was one called "AB1991 Fails", and it contained the following: Cut expenses Float a bond. Recoup a chunk of the money by…
June 22, 2009
An important point here is that in the selling of AB1991, right after the city agreed to the settlement, there was a great deal of talk about bankruptcy. It was one of the big reasons Senator Leland Yee cited for his initial support of the bill. In the last month, the city has revealed that it is nowhere near bankruptcy and that in the opinion of their attorneys, the same ones that put together the settlement, they never had a shot at legally declaring bankruptcy. The state has many cities on the…
June 22, 2009
I agree that the number of supervisor seats should be doubled, especially if with district elections.
Are there risks to proportional representation in races where the general level of interest is low, but special interest groups have a lot at stake?
County elections are currently dominated by certain unions and business interests that have broad memberships and clear economic interests. I'd worry that this might persist under a system of proportional representation.
June 19, 2009
This is great news. This park is one of the gems of the Coastside and we're over there all the time. The building of this park was one of the earliest stories we covered at Coastsider.
Interesting solution to determining whether there was a previous connection at that site.
June 19, 2009
This sounds like a great program and I'm really looking forward to it. This is a good time to remind you of the following:
Average population of a US
congressional district: 646,952
Population of San Mateo County:
705,499
You need to reach fewer voters to run for Congress than you do to run for the Board of Supervisors.
June 14, 2009
I saw whales off the Slide between Gray Whale Cove and Montara Beach on Saturday afternoon. Friends of mine saw a group off the Montara Post Office on about Thursday.
June 03, 2009
It's inappropriate to make judgements about anyone's decisions with respect to their family.
There's more to this story, which I left out because it was more personal than newsworthy, but that's not even the point.
June 03, 2009
Oasis could very well be a going business that cannot be sold within 60 days in the current economy. Which makes the current situation even more unfortunate both for Frank and community.
What kind of downtown is going to be left by the time the recession has run its course?
New Leaf is putting a lot of pressure on Cunha's (and I imagine Oasis), and Harbor Village represents a lot of unused retail capacity. These and other factors would make things difficult for downtown in a good year.
May 30, 2009
I think bold or even ital would suffice for titles. Most Internet style guides will tell you that all-caps is bad form. I'm probably more obsessive about caps than most folks, which is why I use sentence case, rather than title case, or headlines on Coastsider.
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