Comments by Carl May
January 25, 2008
When it was created, a few of the Supes were probably sincere; but some of the Supes may well have considered the MCC to be a place where midcoastsiders could talk amongst themselves and let off steam without interfering with the county's special-interest and sometimes bureaucracy-driven agendas. Some certainly seemed to be irritated and antagonistic over the years when they got much more from MCC members and the public who actually wanted to have the coastside governed well for what we have here.…
January 24, 2008
Maybe someone with a philosophy background can provide a label for our situation in which the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, a group with no demonstrated "usefulness" (taking "usefulness" in a positive sense) for the coastside now declares a local advisory group that it has largely stifled and/or ignored to be possibly not useful. Not useful in helping the Supes to be not useful? It's an inherent problem with all purely advisory groups--no decision-making authority, no teeth. We've had some…
January 16, 2008
Just saw a bit in the newspaper about interest in running against Speier on the part of a former winner of the TV show Survivor. This would potentially be in the Democratic primary.
Wonder if the cop who shot the tiger lives in the district. Might be attractive to the gun-nut part of the Republican base. If those young guys had been packing, they could have defended themselves.
Carl May
January 16, 2008
So, in addition to overlooking Lantos's refusal to help us over a couple of decades in our quest to prevent a totally unnecessary five-to-six-lane highway from being gouged through Montara Mountain, now we are supposed to reflect on his record as an international humanitarian? In the opinion of many, he has had his dark and ugly moments in that arena as well, especially in recent terms. But a road name designation seems hardly the place to slog through all of that. Like Chuck, my guess is that there…
January 14, 2008
"When a resolution names a highway or structure in honor of an individual, the designee must have been deceased for at least 18 months, except in the instance of elected officials, in which case they must be out of office."
"...In other words, elected officials are the only living human beings after whom roads and structures can be named."
Was going to make the obvious quip--but, nah, too easy.
Carl May
January 14, 2008
"In all the State of California, there are only three named-for tunnels: MacArthur, McClure, and Waldo, and yes, they are less-known as their “official name, but more often referred to as the Presidio, Santa Monica, and Rainbow." Good digging, Annaliese. Your finding of the naming regulations reminds one of all the laws and regulations that our dear politicians (state, county, and local) and highway bureaucrats attempted to honor in the breach while they were trying to blast, figuratively and…
January 13, 2008
Making it about money and maintenance of power isn't what is good about politics and governmental bureaucracy. Making it about money and power is what is bad about these controlling areas of our society. The least citizens who want something better can do is refuse to go along with the self-perpetuating game. There is a bit of an odor about Yee's proposed naming. First, he knows virtually nothing about the history of the hyped-up Devils Slide debate, not having been around for it. But more creepy…
January 12, 2008
Why not call the tunnels the "Devils Burrows"? Nutcases will misread this as the "Devils Boroughs," where the devils live, and refuse to drive through them, thus cutting down on some of the additional coastside traffic the tunnels will encourage.
Carl May
January 11, 2008
Much bigger chunks of lives were spent over decades trying to stop the bypass over several decades than have been spent since duping the public on a project that is more than twice as big, more destructive of natural features of the environment, and more than three times as expensive (no one will be surprised if that estimate proves to be on the low side in the end) as it was promoted to be during the Measure T campaign. And all that has nothing to say about the probability the tunnels may not have…
January 07, 2008
I really don't care what they call the twin tunnels fiasco/scam, but if people think Lantos was instrumental in addressing the highway situation at Devil's Slide, they simply don't know the history of the controversy. He was MIA until the twin tunnels project was railroaded into being, refusing to get involved in the road debate for, literally, decades. One gets the idea he would have done just as much to help obtain federal funding for the freeway bypass if that was the way the political mess shook…
December 22, 2007
Hal, I think we are smart enough to keep the specifics for this plot of land clear while also recognizing the attempted use of the situation as a stalking horse for related agendas (including the road/new congestion points on 1 and 92/overdevelopment desires of CCF or a ploy by Keenan's company to negotiate for development rights on other properties). In fact, it is important to not lose sight of the fact that this is yet another instance of HMB's urban sprawl process playing itself out--a process…
December 12, 2007
Although I have no actual knowledge of such, it is reasonable to speculate the pro-overdevelopment types in city government may be resistant to approving an appeal if they see this as an opportunity to wedge open a development door by way of a settlement with Keenan. All kinds of things might be "justified" in the guise of not bankrupting the city. I do know players in this kind of legal game seldom show all their cards at the outset.
Carl May
November 28, 2007
The legalities may be similar, but the people living in Pacifica's Shelter Cove are far from high profile and affluent. In the meantime, anyone who wants to visit the place can simply walk just above the waterline around the point during a low tide. It's a bit of a scramble on the rocks in places, but the distance is less than a half mile to get to the cove. This is the route to use to get to Pedro Rock south of the cove and to the beaches at the base of Devil's Slide (if you plan your tide and time…
November 20, 2007
Barry-->>"I would have phrased Paul’s question differently: 'Are anonymous forums a good idea?', which I think is an interesting question." I can only agree and find quite a few general points made by others in the above messages to be thought-provoking. Whatever a forum's policies may be, they should be clearly stated. Then a person can choose whether or not to participate. I understand the various stated concerns about retribution. People may also engender cyber-attacks of various sorts…
November 20, 2007
My DSL has been down for a couple of days, so maybe I missed it. Why am I supposed to care about how the Review's online forum is conducted?
Carl May
November 15, 2007
Note that two of the necessary votes for the new appointment were, themselves, just turned down for re-election by the voters (pending a possible recount, which probably won't change the election results). This amounts to flipping the bird to the public on their way out the door. Any newcomer to the coastside who believes members of the local fire boards are "jes' folks" serving their local communities and not representatives of political cliques with forceful agendas can learn from this hurried…
November 13, 2007
How could Woren's rationale, whatever it is, be any more curious than Larimer's dedicated, ongoing, and somewhat uninformed attempt to insert his boundless pomposity into the MWSD race? After all, we're dealing with someone who has long twisted language into a Mobius strip when attempting to confuse any distinction between the words "replacement" and "expansion." Their very pontifications show such people wish to become the topic of comment. The only thing I can see that might make lovers of the…
November 07, 2007
Was the polling place closed? It should not have been. There were optional paper ballots, you know; and these were collected in a box for later counting (not run through a machine as our paper ballots in the past).
Carl May
November 05, 2007
Lack of water capacity in the MWSD is not due to failure to turn on a magic water spigot somewhere (which is what the advocates for "change" imply). It is due to overpopulation/overdevelopment in Montara and Moss Beach for the water resources that are readily available in the geographic area. This overdevelopment took place long before, decades before, MWSD acquired the water system from the previous private absentee corporation four years ago. Our towns were already short of water resopurces needed…
November 04, 2007
With both of these outfits, we can add to the overwhelming evidence that politics, and in this case PACs in particular, are neither a very good way to deal with the real world nor reliable in terms of sticking to a stated philosophy. Same goes for party politics, of course.
Carl May
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