Comments by Carl May

Loving Fitzgerald too much?

December 20, 2011
It's way simple. If the natural features of the marine reserve cannot be protected, it should be closed. I imagine it breaks the heart of Bob Breen and the other good county staff that has worked at Fitzgerald over the years to see ignorance among county politicians and bureaucrats dominating the discussion. (Not that the same corrupted money sources could be used, but you could pay for a full-time staff person for ten years at Fitzgerald for what is going to be thrown away on an urban "coastal trail"…

Loving Fitzgerald too much?

December 01, 2011
Overpopulation here may be self-correcting if families are encouraged to play more in the polluted creek.

Haggerty, Ketcham,elected to MCC; Write-in candidate Stein holds tenuous lead

November 09, 2011
There will be updates on the results at https://www.shapethefuture.org/ tomorrow (Thurs.) at 4:30 PM and again next Tuesday and Thursday at 4:30 PM. Candidates or their representatives will probably be hanging out at the elections office to watch the counts being made. The rest of us can make our guesses about which ways the paper ballots and the provisional ballots are likely to trend.

Don’t forget to vote

November 08, 2011
At 11:30 AM, only 12 people had voted at the polling place on Carlos in Moss Beach. Realizing a lot of people now vote by mail, that is still stunningly few. Very few votes can swing elections with low turnouts, and there are distinct differences among some of the candidates running for the MCC, so take a few minutes of your precious time to vote if you haven't already done so, dammit.

Billionaire owner of Martin’s Beach willing to fight Coastal Commission in court

November 06, 2011
Some good issues for those willing to duke it out with Khosla: prescriptive rights (was control of the private road and required parking fee for all those years maintained by the property owner and sufficient and continuous enough to negate the rights for the commonly used route), the right of property owners not to be landlocked out of their property (in this case, the public being kept away from publicly owned tidelands below mean high tide level), etc. The experience of anyone going to Martin's…

Federal Grant available for San Mateo County waterways projects

November 05, 2011
With all the chip seal and asphalt paving on the midcoast recently, there are obviously opportunities for projects that would tap this grant money.

Farmer John to speak on Coastside agriculture since 1950

September 05, 2011
I wonder if he will include the development of the almost ubiquitous coastside farmer's retirement plan: sell your property for development or to an open space group wanting to prevent development?

MCC moves forward with incorporation/annexation study

September 03, 2011
Joel, I took up residence on the coastside a few years after Joni Mitchell wrote "Big Yellow Taxi" (about a visit to Hawaii she made, but universal as a comment on unthinking wipeout of places for the sake of a few short-term dollars). The chorus lives on as a comment on the disengagement from petty political shenanigans that many of us coastsiders prefer and the shock we feel when slickly manuevered development trashes a piece of our place: "Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've…

MCC moves forward with incorporation/annexation study

September 02, 2011
Joel, The revived subject of annexation or incorporation involves myriad considerations and local attitudes. If you want to delve into every political and developer money-grubbing aspect of it, the effort could easily eat your life. The county supervisors and bureaucrats consider themselves our rulers, not our public servants. Horsley included, as was entirely clear during his campaign to become a supe. The frustration is that annexation to Pacifica or Half Moon Bay would be just as bad or worse…

MCC moves forward with incorporation/annexation study

August 30, 2011
Joel, You are right. This is a huge can of worms for those of us who live here, with few possible upside outcomes and many possible downsiders for anyone who appreciates the positive aspects of our unincorporated setting and communities. The subject is re-raised around here every decade, or so, stimulated by the lousy, mismanaged, undemocratic control of our area by the county. Some of the major considerations in the potential process are the county-politician-dictated LAFCO, which, among other imperious…

Pot on public lands - the questions need to change

August 25, 2011
Using down-home characters and local issues in the Emerald Triangle for supporting examples, a recent article by Matt Jenkins in High Country News does a nice job of summarizing developments for California's top cash crop since state-level approval of medical marijuana and, more recently, voter rejection of overall legalization of pot. (The "High" in the periodical's title has nothing to do with drugs, by the way.) Subscribers can read it online. Georgia politely avoids mentioning that many of the…

The Nascent Financial Crisis at Coastside Fire

August 22, 2011
Of course, one would expect a major promoter of consolidation of the fire districts to defend it, even though we are now seeing one of the downfalls of such move. Interesting that constituents should be raised as a concern when Point Montara Fire constituents were given no alternatives (such as another parcel tax to cover the nut) and no opportunity to vote on the fire consolidation. Montara and Moss Beach voters have been notably ready to take responsibility for themselves and their communities…

Mapping party in HMB, Saturday

June 14, 2011
Fact is, existing roads and, in a few short stretches, former roads that are, together, continuous along the ridge could be used for almost all of the Bay Area Ridge Trail north of 92. There would be no new devegetation or runoff beyond what exists now in the watersheds, including those for Pilarcitos Lake and San Andreas Lake. At the northern end, the hookup is with the existing Sweeney Ridge Trail via Whiting Ridge. This has been looked at and plotted for the BART multiple times by multiple committees…

Steelhead Festival, May 28 in Pescadero

May 23, 2011
An interesting bit of trivia is that John Holdren, Science Adviser to Obama, fished in Pescadero Marsh when he was a kid.

Video: Coastside traffic & trails planning, April, presentation of concepts Thursday

May 23, 2011
Weird pavement schemes with poor approaches to the actual problems of safe crossings and traffic alleviation--all in the interest of changing the character of the communities and facilitating Southern-California-coastal-style urbanization of the midcoast. Ironic, with the energy costs involved in the pavement, increased short-term pulses of runoff damaging watercourses, and polluted runoff from pavement carrying vehicles, that San Mateo County is applying for several million dollars supposedly fight…

Ask Comcast for reasonable Basic Cable service

May 23, 2011
As long as San Mateo County is "negotiating" our local cable monopoly from Redwood City, nothing will get substantially better. The most satisfied TV watchers on the coastside seem to be those who switched to Dish or DirectTV.

Traffic & Trails in Montara, Moss Beach, Thursday & Saturday, April 28 & 30

April 25, 2011
Given the past failures of this controlled, slanted approach to channeling the public into a predetermined agenda that ignores past local efforts on the same subjects and the LCP (both existing and proposed revision), why bother?

Supervisors unanimously approve Big Wave permits

March 29, 2011
Any remaining questions about Horsley's willingness to recognize and protect coastal values and uphold the LCP? This guy will roll in a second for the Gordon/Hill LCP revision that will do so much to lessen what weak coastal protections we now have. Certain to be another decade of appealing everything significant to the Coastal Commission.

Montara hosts big-name Tea Party fundraiser

March 25, 2011
Goshes, I once talked for ten minutes with Sheriff Joe and the former mayor of Fountain Hills, AZ. Didn't cost me a cent. (Subject was incorporated cities contracting with counties for law enforcement services.) Now I'm wondering what to do with the thousands I saved. This was at an art fair where Sheriff Joe shows up in the Chamber of Commerce booth every year to sign pink underpants of the kind male inmates are forced to wear in his jail. Didn't pop for a pair of those, so there's another $500…

Montara residents should review the GGNRA proposed access portal

March 23, 2011
Blow a million and a half unnecessarily on grossly overdeveloped California Coastal Trail scams at Mirada Surf West and Fitzgerald Marine Reserve but avoid spending money on the parallel trail next to the highway that we all could use for safe, direct, alternative transportation between and within our communities? This is not as difficult as everyone seems to believe offhand. And yes, it has been considered several times over in the past--to the point of locating bikepath/trail routes. No charette…

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