Comments by Barry Parr
December 05, 2006
Terry: It seems to me that Brian and Mary and you were the ones that wanted to take this into a discussion of the ethics of photography. I was trying to answer their concerns, but kept on saying that I thought it was a diversion from the issue at hand. I know that the Coastal Commission has asked Concar some pretty detailed questions about the economics of farming at Wavecrest: https://coastsider.com/index.php/site/news/1525/ I estimated a couple of years ago that the yield to Concar from leasing…
November 30, 2006
My position is similar to that of the fortieth president of the United States, "Trust, but verify."
That's the rule here at Coastsider, too. If you have a problem with the factual content of the story or the photos, feel free to share it. That's why we have comments. Otherwise, your obsession with the identity of the photographers looks like a diversion to me.
November 30, 2006
There is no doubt that the regulatory burdens on builders are high on the Coastside. I think that on balance it's a good thing. But people responsible for enforcement can't be everywhere at once. This flaw in the system can be exploited. If you're flouting the law as a business strategy, you must strike quickly and hide the evidence before anyone can contradict you. The existence of digital cameras in the hands of the citizenry makes it a lot harder to do that. Everyone should keep a digital camera…
November 30, 2006
Most likely, the guards were there to keep people off the property. Clearly this bit of plowing has generated a lot of interest among a lot of people. I can think of plenty of reasons, both reasonable and unreasonable for doing this. It would be a mistake to read motives into it either way. But I still don't understand why folks have worked themselves into a lather over the identities of the photographers. If we were talking about an eyewitness account, I can understand wanted to know whose description…
November 28, 2006
The farming isn't a "private activity". When you engage in an activity in an open field next to a busy highway you have no expectation of privacy, regardless of whether the open field is private property. Brian's conflating two entirely different definitions of the word "private".
November 28, 2006
Farming at Wavecrest is news. The owners have business before local, state, and federal agencies which is affected by agricultural activity.
As far as I can tell, the only reason someone would want to know the identity of the photographers is for purposes of intimidation. If not in this case, then as a warning to citizens who might contemplate photographing news events in the future.
November 28, 2006
Privacy is the goal. Anonymity is the means. Take another look at Terry Gossett's rant about anonymous canaries on Talkabout: http://talkabout.hmbreview.com/topic.php?t=30&c=8&d=m Or Mary Bordi's comment on that posting: "I uploaded the photos of Mr. Canary to a certain website, but then decided not to make it public. That seems sooo childish. (One was really clear and in the other one he was shielding his face with his hands--it's really quite amusing!)" Or this incident where a developer physically…
November 26, 2006
I'll always give credit to myself or anyone else who wants it.
Interestingly, these photos came from two different sources who prefered to keep their privacy. I took some photos, but there weren't as good as these.
November 17, 2006
I have received the following explanation of how the bids are evaluated from John Cunliffe at Caltrans: The bidder has to submit two parts in a bid: a dollar amount and a duration. In this case the lowest bidder submitted $272,366,000 and 1500 calendar days. The dollar amount is the estimated construction cost, referred to as Part A. Part B is a calculation. It is not an estimate of construction cost. Part B equals the estimated number of days multiplied by Caltrans' estimate of how much it costs…
November 09, 2006
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this piece said that no school board members are residents of HMB. I deleted the sentence because it turns out that one of them lives there.
November 07, 2006
Ray asked, "Can you give some background to your original editorial comment around Yolanda: "created an atmosphere of hostility and negativity around the district and its board."? 1. Jolanda Schreurs hired a lawyer and threatened a lawsuit in 2004 when many in the community were pressing for a reexamination of the Cunha site. 2. She played a key role in the anonymous attack ad on Jonathan Lundell. Ironically, it was this ad and not Lundell that made development an issue in the 2005 campaign. https://coastsider.com/index.php/site/news/277/…
November 07, 2006
I'll keep it short. As far as I can tell, all the attacks on Pam Fisher are coming from a handful of sports boosters who don't like the fact that she forced the district to get the correct permits and consider the neighbors when improving the sports fields.
That seems petty to me. I don't think I'm the only one.
At the same time, I think her experience strikes a sympathetic chord with parents and CUSD taxpayers who feel the district does not listen to them.
November 06, 2006
Regarding Pam Fisher's nonappearance, I should point out that none of the candidates (except Mr. Johnson) have made much of an appearance here. And we've been pretty tough on all of them.
The nature of the forum makes it tough for any candidate to participate here without being piled on. I'd like to see more participation by political candidates in online forums. The live forums are pretty useless for understanding what they're all about.
Maybe next year.
November 06, 2006
I still think that with her intelligence and experience as a school board member, speech pathologist, and neighbor of a school that Pam Fisher would make an excellent addition to the school board. Especially when you realize that the alternative to to accept the board's hand-picked replacement for Roy Salume. This board's record of failure on the middle school and parcel taxes makes that a non-starter regardless of who the candidate is. We need some fresh blood and new thinking, and Pam Fisher is…
November 06, 2006
I want to address a couple of Todd's questions. I don't speak for Pam Fisher, but I've been thinking about these questions myself lately. If Ms. Fisher was trying to document something happening in public (say how people were getting from the school to Highland), taking pictures should be permissible. To say that she can't take pictures for that purpose, simply because the participants are children, seems overly fussy at best. If it could be established (as has been suggested and gossiped about,…
November 04, 2006
Don forgot to mention that Coastsider had the only camera at the AAUW/LWV event, providing two hours of video of the full candidates' forum. MCTV wasn't there.
You can see the complete video here:
https://coastsider.com/index.php/site/news/1632/
November 04, 2006
I also failed to mention that the "growth-inducing" effect is not the best argument against widening the highway at that point. That's really only part of the problem. First, widening the highway won't work. Expanding highways just brings more traffic. It's a known problem. Second, it will lead to the continued degradation of Pacifica. Even sitting in a parked car waiting to make a turn on Hwy 1 will tell you that the speed and amount of traffic on that stretch of road must already be intolerable…
November 02, 2006
Ken's right. This might be a good moment to return to our discussion of the school board election.
Did anyone else see the incumbents' ad in Wednesday's Review -- the one where they said we should vote for them because they decided to build the middle school at Cunha?
November 02, 2006
Don Bacon says, "It is an irresponsible and baseless lie to state that CCF is “identical” to the national Republican party" On the 2004 voter registrations for CUSD, one can find the party affiliations of five of the seven members of the CCF board of directors: * Charles Gardner, President : Republican * Nathan Serdy, Treasurer : Not on the list * Stephen Wilson, Secretary : Republican * Don Bacon: Decline to state * Mary Bordi: Not on the list * Terry Gossett: Republican * Silvia Prewett: Republican…
November 02, 2006
I've released Don's comment because a request was made to substantiate the use of the word "lie". It's my fault for releasing the first comment to use that word. From now on, let's discuss the facts and assertions without calling one another liars. I believe that CCF has a problem with its claim on its website: "We are a group made up of a diverse range of people living here on the Coastside of San Mateo County." That does not square fully with what I have observed. The people may be diverse, but…
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