Comments by Leonard Woren
July 05, 2006
If George Muteff is a moderate, could someone name some extremists on the development/property rights side? It is certainly much more appropriate to refer to Mike Ferreira as a moderate than to refer to George Muteff as such. Mike and I are on the same side more often than not, but that's exactly my point -- Mike does try to find a workable middle ground and we often disagree on where that middle should be. To people like George, it's binary: either you think that anyone should be allowed to do whatever…
July 01, 2006
Smart Growth is an oxymoron.
June 20, 2006
The Yamagiwa legal mess is one of the more convoluted things we'll ever see. Everything in this comment is my opinion or my recollection or my guess, any of which might be wrong in this case. As to "precedent", it says at the very top that it cannot be cited. This means that it has no effect on any other situation. It seems to me that I read this decision when it came out, and had someone more familar with it explain it to me back then. If people want to ask focused questions, I'll see what I can…
June 19, 2006
As a Sewer Authority Midcoastside (SAM) director, I've driven past this property at least once a month for 9 years, and from casual observation, I'd say it looks quite likely to contain some wetlands. I'll have to look through my photos to see if I have any of that area with standing water weeks after rains stopped, an important wetlands hint. 20 feet north, on the other side of Sewer Plant Road, 7 acres owned by SAM is virtually all Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area (ESHA) and unbuildable.…
July 20, 2006
... continuation of response to Ray ... As for highway 1.. We need to create overpasses just for foot/bike traffic. This is done all the time on highway 1 in Southern Cal. so it can be done. Agreed. However, you'll discover as I did that there are some very vocal opponents to overpasses. The locations will be difficult so that views aren't blocked, particularly in El Granada and probably some parts of Moss Beach and Montara. With some very careful and sensitive analysis of the view issue, and minimalist…
July 20, 2006
Responding to Ray Olson's comments of July 17 (in two parts due to length limit) (not length rate!): So maybe there is a semantic issue when you say Growth Limit? I don't consider it semantics. There is a specific amount of growth allowed. The total amount of growth allowed is the limit. Limit = how far can you drive on a tank of gas? Rate = how fast can you empty the tank? Are you saying that HMB cannot buildout more than 4,000 homes, and the unincorporated areas cannot build out more than 4,000…
July 14, 2006
Ray, you are still not making the correct distinction between growth rate and growth limit. The rate is the 1% (HMB) or 3% (County). The limits are the 4000 more houses in HMB and 4000 more in the unincorporated area. I am saying that 8000 more houses is too much and the Land Use Plans need to be revised to reduce those numbers. That 8000 additional houses number has nothing to do with the 1% and 3% growth rates. Reducing the number of additional houses to be built is not "negative growth". Negative…
July 13, 2006
Matt Wrublewski - when you drove down SR 1, did you conveniently skip Santa Monica / Venice / Marina del Rey and Manhattan Beach / Redondo Beach / Hermosa Beach? They are all examples of packing too much development (too many people) into an area. And if I recall correctly, Lincoln Blvd is SR 1 and it's 6 (sometimes 4) lanes, and nearly always totally jammed. In fact, *every* through N/S street in the above list of cities and communities is virtually always jammed. And it was that way 12 years ago…
July 13, 2006
On July 5 Ray Olson wrote: Leonard: I’ve read your post above. It seems that you keep falling back to the “too many houses, too many people, too many cars, etc” argument. I don’t see it that way, since all these things will be happening, regardless of a bypass. You missed my point entirely. The land use plans need to be revised to reduce the final buildout numbers down to something which can be handled by the amount of resources we have and the amount of infrastructure which can be built…
July 04, 2006
On June 23, Mary Bordi mused about what are streets vs roads, etc. I don't have an answer to that, but maybe we can use the California Vehicle Code definitions. "Road" is defined in VC 527: http://leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=04869711091+1+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve (scroll down to Sec 527.) "Street" is defined in VC 590 (same URL, scroll further down.) One notable difference in the definitions is that a "street" is "publicly maintained and open to the use of the public." Also, "Street…
June 22, 2006
Ray, 1% is the rate at which you speed towards the train wreck. Adding houses increases the size of the train wreck.
The growth rate and the growth limit are two totally different, nearly unrelated concepts.
The repeated claims that the 1% growth rate protects HMB from overbuilding are simply incorrect. All the 1% limit does is delay the disaster by a few decades.
June 07, 2006
Brian Dantes writes "HMB resisted even the attempt to *try* a solution". Well of course they have to block the attempt to try it, because they know that it will in fact make a huge difference to the southbound commuters and then they'll be in an even bigger pickle trying to block it after people see how much of an improvement it makes. As to 92/Main during the evening commute, I just don't understand the merchant's issue. The traffic signal should be set to be always red for Main St. traffic for…
June 07, 2006
"For one hour of peak commute time, from 6am to 7am, the light would decrease the wait time for southbound commuters from 31 minutes to about 7 minutes. [...] Apparently, the decrease in traffic in the past few weeks has diminished the need for the light."
"Diminished" is not "eliminated". And cutting 24 minutes (77%) off of the northerner's commute time is substantial. Why is that being brushed off? Never mind... Brian Dantes explained it quite well.
June 17, 2006
In reference to Jonathan's "As on election night, both yes and no votes fell from 2003, but yes votes fell more than no votes." -- If anyone is going to do a poll, I'd suggest that one question be "did you change your vote this time compared to previous CUSD parcel tax measures, and if so, what influenced that change?" The neutral wording is required because it would be useful to know both yes->no and no->yes reasons.
June 09, 2006
Anyone who uses "liberal" as an epithet instantly loses all credibility and any possibility of respect from me. (I'm neither a liberal nor a conservative, or else I'm both. See the "World's Smallest Political Quiz" at http://www.theadvocates.org/ )
June 07, 2006
Jonathan Lundell writes "The 2006 numbers will rise a bit as some late ballots get counted, but that’s a serious drop in turnout, which would ideally be an ideal situation for the parcel tax measure. 30% of the 2003 no voters didn’t show up." But Jonathan, by my calculations from the numbers you supplied, 37% of the 2003 yes voters didn't show up. That said, I still don't know what to make of this other than what I replied on Midcoast-L (not yet posted), that nearly every measure which cost money…
June 07, 2006
Regarding the Strawflower shopping center looking nicer than the Albertson's center, while that's true it does need to be pointed out that the traffic flow through the parking at Strawflower was designed by a total moron. The other center doesn't have that problem. Some people want a TJ's there, others say the space is too big, someone else suggests "copying SF’s new Embarcadero Ferry Building concept with many different gourmet specialty food shops". So, wouldn't it work to have a TJ's _and_ some…
June 07, 2006
I'm sure that if Albertson's isn't replaced by another market that Safeway will accomodate all right -- by raising prices to even more ridiculous levels.
Any item that is carried by both Target and Safeway is nearly double Target's price at Safeway.
July 05, 2006
A major part of the expense for Light Up the Sky Fourth of July is permits for closing SR 1 and especially for law enforcement to deal with doing so. My understanding is that almost half of the budget goes to these items. Could someone from the organization post a followup comment here with your full line-by-line budget? Thanks. The claim is that the highway has to be closed for safety reasons. Of course, nobody cares about the huge mess this creates in El Granada, particularly when the fireworks…
May 30, 2006
This video is not only way beyond anything that any other newspaper can or will do, but it's also beyond and much better than anything that TV news seems willing to do. Overall, TV news and all other media seem to have lost interest. I'll echo Kevin's thanks. But you guys didn't get a ride down in the tethered work platform... THAT would have been an unbeatable video. (There probably isn't enough money in the world to pay me to do that.) But the reporter (Barry) should have done a "60 minutes" style…
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