Comments by Leonard Woren
April 13, 2007
I still say that all this talk about signal/no signal is a distraction from the real issue: the Vesting Tentative Map (VTM) is expired. There's a solid court decision saying so. Why doesn't the City and the Coastal Commission simply say to the developer "your subdivision is gone."? Oh, the developer will sue (again). Who cares? He'll lose (again). The Coastal Commission has money to defend that lawsuit, and they will prevail. If 0 houses are built instead of 63, the whole Terrace traffic issue disappears.…
April 09, 2007
Try a Google search for rising sea level evidence Read a few of the > 1 million hits. Next do a Google search for global warming evidence Read a few of the 8.5 million hits. Next search Google for increasing carbon dioxide evidence Read a few of the million hits. You can even skip all the ones which are blog entries. Heck, skip everything that isn't a university or science institute. (Include site:*.edu in the search terms to limit to just higher educational institutions in the USA. [That's a colon…
March 21, 2007
All real estate investment is speculation. And what speculation means is that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. But for some reason real estate speculators seem to think that they receive a guarantee of profit with the deed to their new property. There's a reason why Ken was able to acquire that property at such a low price -- the seller had to have known that it was undevelopable or nearly so. But in typical developer style, he thinks that he can bully his way through to making money on…
March 15, 2007
A significant part of this thread is basically a rerun of articles and letters in the Review some years back. At that time I wrote that there are businesses in HMB which have signs up which say "If you live here and work over the hill, we don't want your business." What's that, none of you have seen such a sign? Sure you have, only the text on it is actually "Open 9-5 Monday-Friday." John Lynch mentioned the lumberyard is gone. No offense meant to John, but who cares? They were the most blatant example…
March 01, 2007
KCBS radio reported rocks "the size of soccer balls" on the roadway. "One way traffic control" was a mis-statement -- it was mostly "no-way". Every now and then they let some cars through. The location is about 0.2 miles south of Linda Mar blvd. -- way past the slide. It appears that in a few hours today, they built a brand new retaining wall at the spot. (Too bad they're not motivated to move at that speed to get the tunnel built...) I was northbound there at the worst possible time. I got some…
February 19, 2007
Darin, maybe that was developers and bought-and-paid-for elected officials?
February 07, 2007
Mr. Ginna: In the Town Hall thread that you cite, I provided the actual text from the San Mateo County LCP regarding what's eligible for priority water. Would you please indicate which language in the LCP allows Big Wave to get priority water? If Big Wave isn't one of the enumerated uses, then even though the LCP doesn't contain the words "Big Wave is not eligible for priority water", it's not eligible for priority water. If it was, the proponents wouldn't be requesting an LCP amendment to allow…
February 06, 2007
A contributing factor to high land prices here is that the allowed house size is the second largest on the Peninsula, and the highest in unincorporated San Mateo County. Big houses also cost more to build. Double whammy. Want lower-cost housing? Reduce the size that's allowed. So what does the County propose in the LCP update? Giving a "size bonus" for building "affordable housing". I have yet to see an explanation of how building a bigger house helps make it "affordable". But of course Mary Ascher's…
January 27, 2007
Responding to both Darin and Carl -- In the absence of a contract stating something to the contrary, I'm still reasonably certain that whomever commissioned the work and paid for it is assumed to own the copyright. I assume that wedding photographers (an exception that I knew about) make you sign a contract stating that they own the originals (a crock if I ever heard one, but people do sign it.) So of course there can be a contract altering the situation. At my last salaried position they wanted…
January 27, 2007
I'm not a copyright lawyer, although I used to do consulting work for one and therefore have a bit more insight than many non-lawyers. Also, being a programmer, I've put serious time into looking at copyright law. My understanding of copyright law is that if you are paid to create a copyrightable work, unless there is explicit contract language to the contrary, the employer owns the copyright. Since MCTV is paid to tape meetings, MCTV does not own the copyright. For City Council meetings, MCTV is…
January 25, 2007
Carl, I haven't followed this closely enough to know what the upgrades to the treatment plant are about, but in regards to the first two projects you ask about -- increases in storage capacity -- how could they possibly facilitate more development? It has been repeatedly suggested to CCWD that they increase storage capacity to address (the straw man of) fire safety. To the best of my knowledge they have refused to consider it. Why? Because it doesn't forward their unstated goal of facilitating new…
January 17, 2007
I see that the HMB Review's proofreading standards were the same then as now.
January 16, 2007
Because there are no recreational services and minimal parks facilities in the unincorporated area, many residents of the unincorporated area utilize Half Moon Bay's recreation services. That would explain why one of the Commission positions is reserved for a non-resident.
There's also a "sphere of influence" consideration which is way beyond the scope of this reply.
As to the Midcoast Park Lands board, to my knowledge there is no residency requirement at all.
January 08, 2007
Before objecting to MWSD's high water rates, one might want to examine MWSD's budget and consider the deficiencies in the system that MWSD inherited from the absentee prior owners of the system. Do you want the system fixed? It takes money to bring the system up to decent standards. Without money to improve the system, the water will remain "barely potable". From what I see when I watch the televised MWSD meetings, the Board has an ambitious plan to upgrade the system. At some point I would expect…
January 08, 2007
For a few years now, all new houses in the unincorporated Midcoast have been required to have underground utilities. In the COSC zoning district (primarily the Burnham Strip in El Granada), underground utilities have always been required, and that area probably has one of the highest water tables in the area. When installed properly, underground utilities are in sealed conduits, so water should be a non-issue. My next-door neighbor has underground utilities, and this area floods during sustained…
January 05, 2007
Did it make a sound?
January 05, 2007
Kevin, you seem to be in the minority here. Notice that Brian Dantes and I are largely in agreement on this issue! Get with the program. Maybe you don't have power problems where you live in Half Moon Bay, but in the unincorporated areas just to the north of you it's a major problem. And by the way, moving to "one of those urban centers" isn't the answer. During the severe weather in winter 1995/1996 (I think it was), my supervisor who lived in a regular suburban area in Mountain View was without…
January 04, 2007
Well, no amount of tree trimming is going to keep animals off the lines. If you believe that story at all. Repeat after me: Undergrounding. (I've heard that rats can run down overhead wires into your house if the entry isn't properly sealed.) Years ago when Stanford had a long outage affecting Forsythe Hall (where the mainframes and many other servers are), the power people blamed it on a squirrel getting into the system. Someone remarked that the power guys "keep a supply of freeze-dried squirrels…
January 04, 2007
Brian, why do you think there's any connection between power and perceived deficiencies in other infrastructure? Which elected "do nothings" do you think have anything to do with our local power reliability problems? I, for one, would certainly fix the power if I could. We don't have to have third-world power in order to keep our rural ambiance. Our problems are specifically because there are no elected officials responsible. While the CPUC could probably do something, they're not elected, and I'm…
January 02, 2007
Darin wrote
"Very happy except when Comcast is down."
Which is why I won't be looking at VOIP unless/until I can get DSL.
Instead of adding a bunch of channels that nobody watches and services that nobody cares about, I'd rather that they just give us a good picture on the channels that we already have, and also fix their reliability issues.
In particular, it'll be a cold day in hell before I get Comcast's phone service.
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