Comments by Leonard Woren

HMB mayor, attorney say Coastal Commission staff is lying to legislature

May 28, 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_truth

Local Government Committee passes AB1991—next stop: Appropriations Committee

May 16, 2008
Years ago the CCC approved the project, allowing 19 houses to be built on the portion of the property which they determined wasn't wetlands. The developer didn't like that (his net profit would only be $10M instead of $40M on the whole deal) so he sued (I think the CCC and HMB). Regardless, the project has already received approval for a 19 house version. Does that count as "stated in the law"? Oh and by the way, that's not "deciding that 20 homes can be built on the wetland" -- the reason the CCC…

Local Government Committee passes AB1991—next stop: Appropriations Committee

May 15, 2008
Ray, the Coastal Commission is not "dictating" anything -- they are nothing more than the executive body for the Coastal Act. The Coastal Act was passed by the Legislature in 1976 in order to continue the protections implemented by a popular vote of the people of California when they passed the Coastal Initiative in 1972. The Coastal Initiative was passed specifically to preserve California's coast for all people of California, not just those of us lucky enough to be able to live here. Think of it…

Local Government Committee passes AB1991—next stop: Appropriations Committee

May 11, 2008
Steve Hyman wrote "This like so many other projects here are 10-20 year battles with millions spent on lawyers and endless studies." I propose the following rule of thumb: If you need to hire lawyers to ramrod a project through, maybe the project shouldn't be built in the first place. What fraction of the total number of projects built require lawyers? It's a vanishingly small percent. Later, Steve wrote "But in all seriousness, its so sad to see massive amounts of money and time being wasted on…

HMB to Sacramento: If you don’t support AB1991, we’ll kill this dog

April 20, 2008
Steve, you dodged answering my question (no surprise). Please describe where there are wetlands that you think should be protected. Please do not refer to any location that you think shouldn't be protected. Also note that regardless of whether what's growing there are "weeds", a pejorative that you use to denigrate those who believe there is valuable habitat there, some of the "weeds" aren't necessarily the most important part -- they are an indicator of the presence or possible presence of wetlands.…

HMB to Sacramento: If you don’t support AB1991, we’ll kill this dog

April 19, 2008
Everyone is ignoring HMB's attorney's answer to a question I asked at the appeal workshop. My question was "What happens if the City simply refuses to pay?" The answer, from the attorney, was essentially "Nothing -- they can't take money that the city needs for provision of city services." Since HMB's budget (as nearly all government budgets) is basically hand-to-mouth, there is no extra money beyond what's needed to provide services, therefore the judgment would have been a hollow victory. Under…

Is MCTV worth saving? Part II: Follow the money

April 13, 2008
Vince, one of Connie's arbitrary and capricious "rules" is that MCTV will only run content recorded by MCTV employees using MCTV equipment. For quite a while GSD paid one of our own employees to do the recording and just paid MCTV a $50 playback fee. When PMFPD was being asked to video their meetings and they were griping about the cost, I suggested that PMFPD do it GSD's way. Connie's immediate response was to change the rules. This pretty much proves that it's a profit center for MCTV. Oh, and…

HMB settlement gives Keenan 129 houses on Beachwood and Glencree—and more

April 07, 2008
Maybe the 4 wanted to lock in the 129 houses just in case they don't get re-elected, to make sure that a future city council can't stop the houses? I think that's a key reason for the $18M poison pill. I'm still trying to understand how giving the developer everything he wanted and more is a negotiated settlement. What tangibles does the city get from this settlement? A relatively piddly amount of money (the net profit from 3-5 of those houses) that might cover most of the city's near-term costs…

Is MCTV worth saving? Part I:  MCTV privatizes the public record

April 07, 2008
MCTV has come up with a new way to be annoying. It's not bad enough that they insist on claiming copyright to meetings that they are paid to record (a claim that they have no moral right to), now they've placed an irritating MCTV logo in the lower corner, just like the big guys who don't care about the viewers. On a side note, since MCTV got automated playback equipment a while ago, why is it that playback now almost always starts either 3 minutes early or 3 minutes late, but virtually never on time?…

Stop SB 1295: Defend Coastal Commission

March 28, 2008
Greg seems to think that appeals are filed just to delay projects. While I personally have filed very appeals (due to the excessive appeal fees), I can state that none of mine and none that I'm aware of were filed just to delay a project. Every appeal that I know of was a legitimate gripe that the appellant felt had merit for stopping the project, not simply delaying it. What good does it do to delay a project? Why would anyone want to spend money just to annoy the applicant with a delay that won't…

Stop SB 1295: Defend Coastal Commission

March 28, 2008
Greg wrote "I feel that if someone has an issue with a Project, they should be willing to put their money where there feelings are." Why should requesting that the law (zoning, LCP, Coastal Act) be followed be any different from requesting that any other law be followed? Does the police department ask you to pay to enforce the law against somebody who robs you or who assaults you? Appeal fees should be capped at a $5 paperwork submittal fee. The County's current appeal fee is downright punitive and…

Is MCTV worth saving? Part I:  MCTV privatizes the public record

March 27, 2008
MCTV is a community access station. MCTV should run anything that is submitted to them which won't get them in legal trouble for running it. (Think SNL's "Wayne's World.") Instead, everything which doesn't meet Connie's "standards" is summarily rejected. The rule that MCTV only runs stuff made on their equipment by their paid staff is arbitrary and capricious, and ignored when it suits Connie to ignore it. Fundamentally, there's nothing wrong with MCTV which can't be cured by replacing the management…

MCC takes up Seal Cove street repairs Wednesday

March 04, 2008
As Coastsider's unofficial proofreader, and also being the author of the MCC agenda item, I must point out that the word "information" above is supposed to be "informal." These meetings are "Town Hall" format rather than a traditional meeting with council members on one side of a table and the rest of the community members as the "audience." The official agenda, such as it is, is available on the Agendas tab at http://mcc.sanmateo.org To receive agendas and other MCC announcements, anyone may sign…

Video: MWSD considers webcasting, copyright issues

February 27, 2008
I ran across an interesting editorial in the L.A. Times regarding copyright: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-healey18feb18,0,5092348.story At the end it refers to Article I of the Constitution. I located the relevant part: Section 8 "Patents and Copyrights" -- To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; (Apparently when Congress extended copyright to the author's…

Why the Coastside Fire Board should keep the copyright to tapes of its meetings

February 20, 2008
It is ludicrous that an entity paid with public money should claim a restrictive exclusive copyright to those recordings. Isn't MCTV a "public benefit corporation"? They are not acting in the public interest. One claim that was made at the Fire board meeting is that the charges don't pay the full cost. Really? Prove it! The camera operator is paid basically minimum wage or close to it, from the almost $300 which the local agencies are charged for the recording. Playback is via automated equipment,…

Comment: MCC member looking for insights and suggestions

February 20, 2008
The MCC Planning and Zoning Committee hasn't met in quite some time. The Council has discussed committees, but no firm decisions have been made yet. Stay tuned and/or express your opinion to the Council. Councilmember contact information is on a page at http://mcc.sanmateo.org , or you can come to a Council meeting and speak to the Council. We're still getting up to speed on the minutes. Minutes from this year are pending approval. I am planning on putting approved minutes up on the MCC web site.…

Comment: MCC member looking for insights and suggestions

February 19, 2008
Since I became webmaster for the MCC website around a year ago I think I've been pretty good about getting the agendas online. http://mcc.sanmateo.org While it has been suggested that we host forums there, there are technical and logistical reasons why that's probably not going to happen. I think it's perfectly reasonable to use Town Hall on Coastsider for any such discussions. For those (like me) who don't want to have to remember to go check the web site periodically for agendas , I have set up…

Coastside firefighters’ pay averaged $155,000 per year in 2007

February 06, 2008
Kevin, you might want to ask how many times per year the Coastside Fire Protection District actually has to unroll hoses and squirt water on a fire. Hint: the vast majority of their calls are medical.

Coastside firefighters’ pay averaged $155,000 per year in 2007

February 04, 2008
Since our firefighters are "making a salary that allows them the opportunity to live in the community they serve", why do approximately half of them live elsewhere, some as far away as Utah? And from looking at the numbers, they're clearly making more far more than the average of those who live here. It just hit me why some government agencies subsidize local housing for their employees instead of paying them more so that they can afford local non-subsidized housing.

Devil’s Slide is closed

January 26, 2008
KNTV 11 pm news reported that the slide was "opened 2 hours ago" which would have been 9 pm. BTW, their reporter made reference to a posting which is clearly Linda C.'s [first] comment here on this story. Coastsider.com is a reference for TV news reporters!

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