Comments by Barry Parr
October 05, 2006
I don't know what Brian means by "anonymous complaints that disrupt private activities with no justifiable basis".
I'm not aware of any any activity was halted with no justifiable basis. In every case I'm aware of, there was a legitimate concern on the part of authorities. In my experience, the authorities dismiss complaints that have no justifiable basis without interrupting lawful activity.
Generally, these situations arise because someone is trying to short-circuit the process.
October 04, 2006
Yes, but the authorities aren't able to be out there checking on every project, especially if no permit has been applied for. The only way that code enforcement is going to know what's going on is for someone to tell them it's happening. Let's also not forget that at Wavecrest, the place was surrounded by rental cops. No conversation was going to take place. On occasions when I've had the opportunity to talk to the guys on the scene, they're hired hands who don't speak a lot of English and whose…
October 04, 2006
Citizens are not law enforcement officers. If you believe that someone is breaking the law, or a building code, and you're not already on a speaking basis with them, any conversation is likely to be fruitless. If they tell you they have a permit, what then? Do you demand to see it? Will you be able to correctly interpret the terms of the permit? What if they tell you they have a verbal OK from an anonymous employee of the city planning department? What if they show you a letter from their attorney…
October 04, 2006
There's a crucial difference here. Reporting suspected thought crimes to a dictorship is reprehensible. Reporting suspected property crimes in a democracy is good citizenship.
October 03, 2006
Click on the link in the photo caption to see the damage from the riprip. For another view, take a look at this Google satellite map:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Moss+Beach,+CA+94038&ie=UTF8&z=19&ll=37.524688,-122.517613&spn=0.001021,0.002704&t=k&om=1
Not only is the cliff to the north of the riprap eroded, but the beach in front of the riprap has become noticeably concave as a result of wave action.
October 02, 2006
Ray and Kevin, you're still talking about motives. My point is that I don't care whether someone is going to make a profit, or if someone else's only concern is whether their view is being blocked. Those are both ad hominem arguments. No law is black or white. That's why we have courts and lawyers. That's the reason everything is so contentious here and that the answers will often be far from clear. Take a look at the Boys and Girls Club. They graded the property they lease from the city three months…
September 25, 2006
Mike's point is well taken. I should have asked Leonard to remove that sentence in moderation.
If Coastsider is about anything, it's about our right as citizens to challenge the authorities and question the experts. It's always better to stand on the facts and not on your reputation as an authority. Of course, Leonard did follow through with lots of hard data.
September 24, 2006
Terry: I think you have to answer the question "How small a scale is too small for a service district?" because you' seem to think the districts should be merged.
The argument that MWSD is the right size is that Montara/Moss Beach is distinct community, we draw all our water from our watershed, it's geographically compact enough for anyone who wants to run for the board, and we undertook to buy our water company.
September 24, 2006
I'm on the fence about consolidating districts, but I do know that economies of scale is a terrible argument. The pursuit of economies of scale has made interaction with most corporations simply impossible. I'd argue that the economies are illusory at a certain point. The closer your elected representatives live to you, the more responsive they're likely to be. The Coastside has zero influence on County government. The closest thing we have to a Coastside-wide government is CUSD. Does anybody find…
September 24, 2006
Carl raises an important point about unintended consequences. We do a lousy job of understanding the impacts of seemingly logical incremental choices. As we add lights and shopping centers, a huge, speedy tunnel, and other improvements, what are the ripples throughout the community?
What is this place going to look like in 15 years? A new & improved Coastside, or an upmarket Pacifica? Or maybe those are the same thing.
We don't seem to have learned anything about how this process works.
September 21, 2006
I'll let LCP answer for themselves, but this is awfully light on substance, and awfully confused. I'm not even sure how they'd go about refuting it because I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. You quote from the LCP's self-description; “We defend the coast by supporting those who uphold the spirit and substance of the California Coastal Act.” Then you complain, "Seems that the Coastal Act is used simply as a tool to try to control City affairs from an “environmental” perspective."…
September 20, 2006
If Concar is conducting agriculture at a loss, it raises some serious questions about their motivations for disking up the land. I would think that would be important information to any agency considering their application for a permit. I agree with Brian that "How fully Concar has to answer them is debatable" and I asked Jo Ginsberg about that. She replied that Wavecrest's application had been before the Coastal Commission for "some time". I think the implication is that failure to respond might…
September 17, 2006
You can't defend a strategy simply labeling it Smart Growth or say that people who haven't read the canonical works can't participate in the conversation.
Your strategy has to make sense as a whole and stand on its own as a coherent plan.
As I said, Kunstler informs my thinking. But every situation is unique and we need to be sensitive to the things that make this place unique. So, I think it's important to address the issues that are being raised here.
September 17, 2006
It's good to see a reference to Jim Kunstler's Geography of Nowhere, which is one of the most influential books I have ever read. Along with Jane Jacobs's Death and Life of Great American Cities and Chris Alexander's A Pattern Language, Coastsider is deeply influenced by Kunstler's book. There's a lot here that Coastsiders on both sides of the development debates would agree with, including: good planning, emphasis on walking and biking over car traffic, concentration of development in designated…
September 16, 2006
Dean: Plenty of busing proponents supported Measure S. I'm one of them. Many of us begged the district to include busing in the Measure S. The anonymous Measure S political committee chose not to do so. We believe it might well have passed if they had. In my editorial endorsing S, I clearly stated "I’ve been critical of our school board in the past. If you don’t like the way they’ve been running the district, you’ll get an opportunity to deal with them (or at least three of them) in November.…
September 15, 2006
Part of the problem is that we built ourselves a community for people who don't have cars (Moonridge) in a place where they can't walk to school or downtown. The other issue -- which I continue to find astonishing -- is that members of our community, including members of the school board, are out promoting a wasteful and unbuildable bypass, rather than support the public transportation (and school schedules) that will help solve our morning traffic mess. Anybody looking forward to the commute when…
September 05, 2006
Charlie: This is a conversation, not a cross-examination.
September 04, 2006
Here's why I think it's news: * The owners of Wavecrest have a history of disking the property without warning, requiring intervention from the city, state and federal authorities. * Disking (or bulldozing) without warning under the guise of agriculture is a long-standing practice for Coastside developers with problematic property * The feds have asked Wavecrest's developers not to cultivate once already and have identified the property as containing threatened species habitat * The equipment showed…
September 02, 2006
To be clear, the "individual's alleged observation" was a documented sighting and photograph by a biologist. I spoke to him myself shortly after his observation.
We should also keep in mind that USFWS found red-legged frog habitat on the site. It's the presence of habitat, not frogs, that is the issue as far as they are concerned.
Finally, is it a "ruse" to expect corporations to obey the law?
September 01, 2006
I think a more apt analogy would be strongly suggesting that Arthur Andersen not destroy evidence. If someone had given them that advice and they had taken it, that would have saved them a lot of heartache. And money, too.
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