Comments by Leonard Woren
December 28, 2006
I gave Barry all of the photos I took, but many were not as good as I'd hoped so he selected some good ones. What I didn't factor in when I was steadying the camera on objects on the dock is that the boats and the dock are both moving, and not in sync. That's why the blue lights are streaked, but it does make an interesting effect. The pelican was in the cabin on the Fulmar, the new research vessel for the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. The middle two photos are two shots of one…
December 19, 2006
Ray Olson wrote "What if the owner was truly a farmer that raised crops each year on this property." Yes, what if? Unfortunately, that is not the case. If the owner's intent truly was farming for the long term, this discussion would not be taking place. The reason that this comment thread is so long is that it's painfully transparent what's going on here. "Would the owners actions be under a microscope like what we are seeing right now?" Of course not, and that's the whole point, which you obviously…
December 06, 2006
Terry Gossett asks: How many times can you cite, given your statement “Has POST ever refused to sell to a farmer? “ Terry, notice the question mark at the end? That makes it a question, not a statement. What I'm asking is for you to produce data showing that someone wanted to buy land in order to farm it and that POST refused to sell to them, since it was your original statement that I was responding to. Mary Bordi asks Isn’t logging sort of like farming? Well, that depends. Did the YMCA plant…
December 06, 2006
A more appropriate question would be "Has POST ever refused to sell land to a farmer?" POST does not buy land to hold it -- they buy land as a stop-gap to keep it from getting developed because they can act faster than government agencies. When POST buys land, it is always their intent to sell it to another entity which will keep it open, so that POST can recycle the money for another acquisition. If a farmer wants to buy land which has had the development rights stripped by POST via a permanent…
December 01, 2006
I think that disking of idle ag land should be allowed with a condition placed on it: no applications for development can be accepted or processed until 20 years after the most recently planted crop is harvested and sold. This would keep true ag land in production. Does anybody think that the Wavecrest "farmers" would agree to this? Darin is absolutely correct about those trying to change the topic. Dan Blick hits the nail on the head with his description of the federal administration and his implication…
November 30, 2006
A written statement's credibility depends almost solely on the reputation of the author, so author names make sense for posting. A photo speaks for itself. Consider TV news. There are named anchors. There are anonymous TV crews. I've seen some TV news stories which were narrated by the anchor because there was only a camera-person on site. The camera-person is never named. Ever seen a print newspaper photo captioned something like "AP News"? The Half Moon Bay Review does not credit all of their photos.…
November 29, 2006
Years ago, I took a shortcut across idle ag land to take some photos of questionable activity. (The land hadn't been farmed for years, in hopes of developing it. Those hopes have been permanently killed, and since then it's again being farmed continuously.) When I got home there was a threatening message from the property owner on my answering machine, which was interesting because he was not around that property. He was more upset by my taking photos of suspicious activities than by my trespass.…
November 16, 2006
Under the current COSC zoning, the minimum parcel size is 2 acres. That has not slowed down the County from accepting development applications and trying to railroad them past many many obstacles. In most of the unincorporated Midcoast, the residential zoning minimum is 5000 sq ft, yet the County gleefully approves applications to build on parcels as small as half that. In short, in San Mateo County, zoning minimums aren't worth the paper they're printed on. The change from a 2 acre minimum to a…
November 15, 2006
It's been stated that CalTrans isn't interested in small projects. This reminds me of one of the stories in Sam Levinson's book "Everything But Money" about growing up poor in New York City in the early 20th century. Sam wrote about trying to get the landlord to fix a hole in the wall. The response: "It's not worth fixing a hole that small." So they made it big enough to be worth fixing. What was the range of bids? Did the firm which earlier estimated $60M submit a bid? By the way, when Measure T…
November 09, 2006
I don't hear anyone griping that El Granada only has 1 "token" board member. And I'm not sure, but isn't John the only CUSD board member from El Granada in a very long time? And let's not forget the period of Ken Jones (HMB), Marina Stariha (HMB? or south), Ruth Palmer (HMB? or south). Considering that the northernmost board member is the most vociferous proponent of moving the middle school to the south end of town (Wavecrest), I don't see much point in dwelling on which communities the board members…
November 07, 2006
Upon rereading my recent post, it occurs to me that it might be possible to misinterpret my intended meaning in one particular sentence, so I'd like to adjust that sentence as follows: I will never support anyone's claim that they have a right to litter my car just because it’s parked somewhere where they can reach it. (The original wording could have allowed the interpretation that I wouldn't support someone in general just because they believed that littering car windshields is ok. That was not…
November 07, 2006
Regarding the post a few days ago about campaign contributions, it seems that 83% of Kirk Riemer's contribution dollars were from just two people. It would be instructive to know how many people contributed to Pam Fischer's "second place" dollar total. I'm betting that it's spread out a lot more than 83% from two people. Jonathan Lundell wrote: Counting Riemer, the incumbents are guaranteed a minimum of three of the five board seats. Do they deserve all five? I think not. Hello? I've seen at least…
November 06, 2006
Todd McGee wrote Did she place “no parking” fliers on windshields in the neighborhood? If so is it her position that it is lawful for her to do so? I would have thought that it was not but I have to admit to not being up on finer points of traffic control. I don't have time to research it now, but years ago, it was up to each local jurisdiction, so you'd need to check with Half Moon Bay. I used to live in a large city which made it illegal to flyer cars but allowed the pizza places to litter…
November 01, 2006
Consideration of whether something is growth inducing is fundamental in California Law -- look at the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). CEQA isn't exactly "new".
Given the excess of people over housing in California, there isn't a substantive difference between "require" and "facilitate". If you build it, they will come.
November 01, 2006
I haven't had time yet to watch the video. Did anyone ask when construction of the new middle school at Cunha is actually going to start? Throwing a spade of dirt doesn't count. I fear that they're waiting until after the election, and still hoping that they can build at Wavecrest. Didn't the Superintendent show a very quick timetable for this? Hasn't a good part of his timetable passed with essentially nothing happening? What exactly is the status of the rebuild? When is actual construction going…
October 30, 2006
Mr. Hawkins: If you are so confident of your solutions, please put together a budget for operation of the Coastside fire districts. For each shared service, which is where you seem to think all the savings will come from, show your estimate of those costs and some suggestions regarding who would provide each service. I'm sure that you can arrange with the editor of Coastsider.com to put it up as a file, since it may not be practical to include it in a text post. Or, to make it easier on you and us,…
October 29, 2006
(part 2 of 2) (As in part 1, italics are quotations from Ed Hawkins.) "The Half Moon Bay Fire Board is practicing back room politics at its worst." What exactly was done in the "back room"? "LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Commission) recommended San Mateo County Fire Departments merger [sic] with each other 30 years ago." Why is that relevant? Q: What did they recommend this year? A: contracting out to CDF. Ed Hawkins also says that doing this "is an extraodinary [sic] event". It can't be that "extraordinary"…
October 29, 2006
(In two parts due to length) The inflammatory terminology that Ed Hawkins persists in using is really irritating, in addition to being just plain wrong (all italicized text is quotations from Mr. Hawkins): - "surrender the fire department to state control" - "give up their responsiblity [sic] for running a fire department and hand over that responsibilty [sic] to the State of California" - "The fire board is hell-bent to sell out the fire department and stick it to their employees." - "a sellout…
October 27, 2006
Here's another interesting clash: The firefighters have taken the position "we don't want it contracted out but if it's going to be contracted out, it has to be with the City of San Mateo Fire Department and not with CDF". Ed Hawkins then tosses an opinion as if it were fact -- that CDF would fight termination of the contract. It must be noted that SMFD will only do the contract if they get an 8-10 year contract term. CDF will do it on a one year renewable contract. So here's what I want to know:…
October 27, 2006
This is not an attempt to take sides in this debate, but I just have to ask this question: why is it ok for people who live near the beach to object to beachgoers parking on "their" streets, but it's not ok for people living near an athletic field to object to people parking on "their" street? To an outsider (I'm only vaguely aware of the Highland neighborhood), it's pretty amusing to watch this "we don't want the Ailanto traffic on our streets" position intersect with "we don't want Pam Fisher because…
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