Comments by Leonard Woren
August 03, 2006
I just got this vision of Coastsider.com editor Barry Parr and HMB Review editor Clay Lambert running to their cars and racing off after the ribbon cutting, like a scene in an old-time movie. Apparently the trip to downtown HMB takes 9 minutes longer than the trip to Barry's house. (Clay's story was posted 9 minutes after Barry's.)
I have a more serious question. If the road was paved Tuesday, and the ribbon cutting was today, why isn't the road open now?
August 02, 2006
The claim that because the meeting notice stated an ending time that they had to adjourn at that time is just ludicrous. Counsel for each district was present and supported that claim, but I'm not convinced. (My dad liked to say "When you ask a lawyer 'how much is 2+2?', the response is 'How much do you want it to be?'") The boards got from counsel the answer they wanted. HMBFPD's counsel cited GC 54956 (in the Brown Act). Here is that section in its entirety: 54956. A special meeting may be called…
August 09, 2006
Ray, when comparing the cost of refurbing Cunha vs building new at Wavecrest, please compare apples to apples. Cunha has permanent buildings and I believe the new building will be a permanent building. If I understood correctly, ALL of the classroom buildings in the new middle school at Wavecrest are designed as modulars, which I don't consider permanent buildings. Only the admin building is permanent. If cost is an issue, why are modulars ok for the students but not for the admin staff?
August 03, 2006
One of the few things that I remember from statistics class in college is that a high positive correlation doesn't imply anything about cause and effect. For example, it could be that environmental-leaning voters are also supporters of school parcel taxes. Or it could be that supporters of school parcel taxes are more likely to also vote for environmental candidates. Or it could be that people with kids in the schools are more likely to vote for environmental candidates. Or that people who support…
July 26, 2006
[...]but food just naturally sticks in my mind.
I'm sure there's a joke there somewhere.
July 21, 2006
I think that CalTrans intentionally gave a public estimate much later than they expected, just so that people would be falling all over themselves with gratitude towards CalTrans for having it open "early".
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
July 26, 2006
I agree with Carl's point about "why consolidate" if it's all going to be contracted out. The only answer I've received is a weak "because the contracting agencies don't want to deal with two agencies over here." But Carl, when you point to small single engine companies in small towns, how recent is your knowledge? There have been requirements imposed from above which make it somewhere between difficult and impossible to run a small fire district. I've also been told that the small fire districts…
July 22, 2006
Linda Prieto asked a number of questions -- Leonard says thare are 18 firefighters for 20,000 people in Half Moon Bay while Point Montara has 8 firefighters for 5,000 people in the Montara area. Is he saying they should have four times as many firefighters as Point Montara since they have four times the population to cover? Is he saying they need 72 fire fighters to man the HMB service area. I'm not expressing any opinion regarding the appropriate staffing level, I'm just pointing out that per capita…
July 21, 2006
Vince wrote "According to the current draft agreement, the plan is to put all the existing revenue in to the common fund and provide uniform service, whether one resides on Tunitas Creek, Ocean Colony, Downtown HMB, El Granda, or the backside of Montara. If the Coastside FD runs out of funds in the future, presumably they will be able to raise the Measure H in the PMFPD service zone or raise the rates in the Comunity Facilities Districts(the details have not been worked out yet on the process Appendix…
July 20, 2006
To simplify Vince's numbers even more, the Point Montara Fire Protection District (PMFPD) serves 5,000 people with one fire station . The Half Moon Bay Fire Protection District (HMBFPD) serves 20,000 people with two fire stations. Of course costs are going to be substantially higher in PMFPD. And there's no reason that a merger should reduce costs in the PMFPD territory by increasing costs in the HMBFPD territory. Therefore even in the consolidated district there will be what's known under the law…
July 14, 2006
Kathryn -- The proposed scheme for getting from the 8 current board members to 5 is nothing but an incumbent protection plan. I've said so multiple times at fire board meetings. Otherwise, why not simply have only 1 seat up for re-election in the November 2007 election and then there will be 5 board members? (To reset to the required 3/2 election cycle it would be necessary to have one of the seats in 2009 be a 2 year seat, but that's a nit.) "It's unwise to cross a chasm in two leaps." Brent --…
July 17, 2006
Robert -- If you have read Dr. Hovland's report on the geology of the Slide area and how the level of the water table triggers a slide (basically, a lot of rain late in the season), you know that a permanent fix requires proper dewatering, forever. No amount of concrete and steel can be a permanent fix without proper dewatering. Few people believe that CalTrans' dewatering meets the requirements in Hovland's report. Second, I doubt if anyone will continue to maintain the dewatering system once that…
July 14, 2006
Oops... I forgot to include something in my previous comment. T was technically not a vote for the tunnel. T deleted the inland bypass as an allowed option for SR 1 and added a tunnel as an allowed option. My personal preference is the other allowed option -- permanent repair of highway 1. If you want talk scenic roads, the current alignment is much more scenic than the inland bypass could possibly have been.
July 14, 2006
Measure T was a county-wide vote because that portion of SR 1 is in unincorporated territory, controlled by the County LCP, and the only way to force the County to do something they don't want to do is via a county-wide initiative. There is no mechanism whatsoever for just one portion of the county to do an initiative against the county. If only it were so. Many people in the unincorporated Midcoast would dearly like to have a Midcoast-only vote on our LCP. Then we'd see a 1% growth rate here. I…
July 13, 2006
Kevin, the best way to resolve the disagreement over the free right turn is to try activating the signal for a few days. What are you afraid of? Your comment about some people making the U at Kelly and therefore there is equilibrium is simply false, because SB traffic is backed up way and you're not counting the time it takes to get TO the 92/1 intersection in order to continue on to Kelly and make the U. Again. All this intellectual pontificating could be resolved by simply running an experiment…
July 12, 2006
Brian Ginna wrote, in part: For some reason, that part of the “plan” seems to have a barricade to prohibit right turns from WB 92 to NB Main (along with cross traffic). That does not make sense. I haven't seen "the plan", but it probably makes some sense -- it's a fairly sharp right turn requiring most (sane) drivers to drastically slow down. Doing so impedes the traffic flow. I believe that this is one of the things that will be fixed with the 92/Main project. However, that said, I see no reason…
July 12, 2006
For the evening commute I still don't understand why the Westbound 92/Main signal isn't locked green but still allow the WB->SB left turn signal to happen. That will allow people to get to the HMB Main Street businesses and also allow traffic to flow freely. What would be the downside to implementing this?
July 14, 2006
Ray, a certain amount of growth is provided for in the planning documents -- the City's and the County's Local Coastal Programs. Anything which would support more growth than is spelled out in the LCPs is growth inducing. To approve a new subdivision, under state law the planning agency (city or county, accordingly) must make 4 findings. I don't remember all 4 and don't know how to find that code section, but two of those 4 required findings are that sewer and water capacity are available. So if…
July 13, 2006
No, insuring that something isn't growth-inducing is NOT the same as saying no-growth. Growth-inducing in our case would mean fueling even more growth than is currently allowed/planned. As conditioned by the CCC, the pipeline can provide service for the amount of growth allowed in the certified LCPs. The CCC-imposed restrictions that Jim Larimer objects to simply insure that CCWD can not use the expanded pipeline to service more than what they're currently allowed to serve. What they're currently…
July 13, 2006
Mr. Larimer: when responding to Hal Bogner's questions, perhaps you could also include an explanation of why the CCWD board is so upset with the conditions which the CCC imposed when granting approval of the El Granada pipeline. Those conditions were specifically to insure that it isn't growth-inducing. Since you claim that it's not growth-inducing, I don't see what's wrong with any conditions which insure that. The CCWD board has even discussed challenging or not complying with some of the conditions.
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