Comments by Leonard Woren
October 06, 2006
I'm not going spend my time tracking down references for the following, but it's solidly documented science that: 1. riprap always causes loss of the beach 2. riprap always increases the erosion rate at one end at least, sometimes (often?) both ends 3. riprap (almost?) always fails eventually A now-retired geologist for USGS in Menlo Park spent decades documenting erosion of the San Mateo County coast. The three numbered statements above are approximately his statements. In geologic time, the San…
October 04, 2006
My understanding at the time was that the photos went to the CCC's code enforcement officer because the violation was regarding a previous settlement with the Coastal Commission, and that the local agency (I don't know if the property is within the city of HMB or is County) was not involved in the original enforcement action that was being violated. SM County has an explicit policy (which is supposedly being re-evaluated) that code enforcement takes no action except in response to complaints from…
October 04, 2006
Ok, people, let's stop beating around the bush. Terry Gossett doesn't like "anonymous canaries" for one reason and one reason only: people doing illegal things on their property have a much harder time intimidating/bullying the canaries when they're anonymous. I guess it's time for me to publicly relate a certain incident from a number of years ago. I was asked by another activist who didn't have a camera to go take pictures of some illegal activities and send them to the Coastal Commission's code…
September 30, 2006
Well this has been educational. First I learned a lot about George Orwell from the link to the Wikipedia article. Then I checked Wikipedia for "doublespeak" and surprisingly found out that the word does not appear in Orwell's "1984". Is it doublespeak to claim that a replacement of a 10" line with a 16" line is not an expansion" Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak and decide for yourself. Jim Larimer's calling it "infrastructure renewal" perfectly fits the Wikipedia definition of Doublespeak…
September 29, 2006
I recall watching a CCWD meeting where Director Larimer asked Counsel "What happens if we just ignore the [CCC] conditions [placed on the pipeline expansion]?" His line of questioning was exploring the possibility of claiming that CCWD agreed to the conditions under duress, and therefore didn't have to abide by them.
September 29, 2006
Not surprisingly, you have entirely missed my point. The reason that I didn't name Mike is that the particular nominee was irrelevant at the time and is irrelevant to my point now. The tradition is (was!) that councilmembers rubber-stamp each other's nominations. Violation of that tradition is what was polarizing. You should review the video of that and watch Grady's surprise at having his nominee rejected. As to whether Grady thinks it was a good idea, you'll have to ask him. Also, what happened…
September 29, 2006
"End polarization"? What about the tradition of approving a councilmember's nominee to the Planning Commission, which was violated by McClung not voting for Jim Grady's nominee? That "no" vote was more polarizing than anything else I can recall seeing the HMB City Council do in the 12 years that I've been here.
Just out of curiousity, could someone (Joel?) list the changes that have been made in the name of "open/transparent government practices"?
September 25, 2006
Terry writes "It is simply not clear to me why MWSD continues to run our water system in isolation from our neighbors, with little apparent interest in consolidation or integration,". I don't follow MWSD affairs very closely since by and large it's not my concern, but I'm going to give short answers to Terry's comment. 1) A pipeline from MWSD to NCCWD would be very expensive. This has been mentioned at multiple MWSD board meetings. I don't remember the cost of building a new water pipeline, but I'm…
September 25, 2006
Mike, thanks for the constructive criticism. I try to remember that, but as you see, sometimes I forget. You wrote "That�s an absolutist statement that Mr. Gossett can easily refute by showing knowledge of something, anything, regarding sanitary districts." Amusingly enough, he hasn't bothered to attempt even that minimal level. Nor do I expect that he will. Notice that we see from Terry's followup that he is still using only vague generalities, never providing any actual numbers to support…
September 25, 2006
Terry, it's obvious that you know nothing about running a sanitary district, have not looked at all at other district's rates, and are just huffing and puffing. I don't know where my copy of the California Sewer Service Charge Report is at the moment, but from my recollection, there are many hundreds of sanitary districts in the state in the size range of GSD and MWSD. (Side note: half of them are Community Services Districts also providing other functions, usually parks and rec.) Sewer costs in…
September 24, 2006
I agree 100% with Barry's 4:50 pm post. Every point is right-on. As to claimed economies of scale, I have yet to see any of the consolidation proponents supply dollar figures for cost savings. These need to be real, supportable figures, not just huffing and puffing as is currently the case, or numbers pulled out of a hat. GSD, MWSD, SAM, are all run rather lean already. Staff aren't sitting around staring at the ceiling, so a consolidation won't result in fewer staff. As to attorneys and general…
September 22, 2006
A seemingly minor but in fact very significant correction to part of what Kevin wrote: "the local version of the Coastal Act (called a Local Coastal Program) adapts the smart growth principles in the Coastal Act to the specific needs of each local jurisdiction." Although County staff made the same mistake, an LCP is not "the local version of the Coastal Act" -- it is the local implementation of the Coastal Act. This may seem like a nit, but it's a substantial difference, which the County does not…
September 19, 2006
In reference to Don's attempt to counter my "LAFCo has no regulatory authority", he mischaracterizes a section of state law. Yes, LAFCo has those authorities. No, those are not regulatory. Note that "LAFCo" is the "Local Agency Formation Commission. Further, while LAFCo has the authority to "initiate" certain proceedings, most such proceedings still require voter approval after LAFCo approval. Therefore, LAFCo's authority is narrow in scope and fairly weak, as it should be. That said, I believe that…
September 19, 2006
Piggybacking on Kevin's comment -- While the CCC may not have stopped some really bad projects (and during the Duckmejian years they rubber stamped everything), these days all one has to do is attend a Coastal Commission meeting to see how much worse these projects would be without the Commission reviewing them. Government agencies are loath to deny projects, no matter how bad they are. How many Coastside projects has San Mateo County denied in the last umpteen years? One. So what the Coastal Commission…
September 18, 2006
(continued, since I hit the length limit.)
Don, if you want to fix perceived problems with special districts, you should be rallying public support for incorporation, and that doesn't mean annexation which isn't likely to ever happen.
The next paragraph in the Community Plan reads "Community Appearance - maintenance of the community's small-town character is of prime importance [...]".
September 18, 2006
Don, you seem really committed to just wearing us down with all of the mis-information that you put out. I'm going to occasionally respond to bits of it, but I would like readers to understand that unchallenged points are not necessarily true just because nobody bothers to spend time responding. Here's a good one: "That means every year MWSD collects misallocated taxes, depriving other special districts of rightful tax revenue. It's a lot of money, especially when you look back 26 years. The amount…
September 17, 2006
There isn't much value in responding point by point to Don Bacon's article because his basic premise is fundamentally flawed -- Half Moon Bay and the unincorporated Midcoast are not appropriate areas for "concentrated growth", for these reasons: 1. The large amount of sensitive habitat. 2. The Coastal Act's requirement for visitor access precludes high resident density that would crowd out visitors. 3. There are no transportation hubs existing or even (financially) possible on the coastside. Quoting…
September 13, 2006
I don't know NYC so I don't know how far "little Italy to 6th Ave" is. Regardless, let me make it very clear: I'm not suggesting that any students walk or bicycle along highway 1. It's just too dangerous. Maybe someday when the Parallel Trail is completed, this will change. In the meantime, students who live in HMB should walk/bicycle to schools in HMB, students in El Granada should do the same to El Granada Elementary, and the same for students in Montara going to Farallone View. And come to think…
September 12, 2006
As I've mentioned publicly more than once, I walked to elementary school starting as soon as I was old enough to get there and back without getting lost. I went to an out of the area junior high school which was much too far to get to on my own (about the distance from Moss Beach to Cunha!), so we had a neighborhood carpool to get us there. When I started high school at age 14, I had two choices to get there: walk or bicycle. The district didn't have buses and there was no way on earth that my parents…
September 12, 2006
Oh. Darn. Looking around via Google, it appears that you're correct, and other newspapers got it right. I also found this: http://action.media-alliance.org/article.php?id=256 . It seems that Pacifica is working on their own to get it done much sooner. I think that overall, free universal wireless is a good thing, but I have a concern. We already have an excessive amount of overhead junk (particularly those ugly black canisters from the phone company). Does anyone know the size of the wireless antennas…
Page 11 of 17 pages ‹ First < 9 10 11 12 13 > Last ›
Facebook
Twitter
RSS