Comments by Dennis Paull

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

Hi Steve et al, It was the judge that caused the city to be in debt to Keenan. It was not the city's fault. Let's not go blaming the Council for the unsupportable conclusions of Judge Walker. Walker choose to ignore all the arguments and evidence presented by the city's legal team and he choose to accept all of Keenan's team's illogic. The verdict was only about whether the city CAUSED the wetlands to develop on supposedly otherwise perfectly buildable land. Which of the folks who have lived here…

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

Everyone, If the city defaults and has to pay the $18M, it would take ownership of the Beachwood property. A previous Council had approved 19 homes on the property without violating any environmental laws. I would expect that the city could sell those 19 lots for at least $5M and reduce the debt substantially. Dennis Paull

Photo: Inspecting Francis Beach

I am a volunteer at Francis Beach and also patrolled Francis Beach on Sat and Sunday and found no tar balls. However, several beach visitors showed me a small sealion pup on the beach Sunday afternoon that seemed undernourished and in some distress. The pup stayed in one spot for about 45 minutes and then worked its way toward the retreating surf line so that he would be washed by the highest incoming waves. The Marine Mammal Center had been called by a Park Aide and they responded in about 1.5 hours.…

Coastside election results

Kevin, I tend to agree with your concerns. But voting should be for as many folks as possible. The problems come when equipment designed for voters with certain capabilities are used by others, either more or less nimble. I'm pretty sure we don't want to limit voting to only those who have some semblance of knowledge of the relevant issues. Still, .......

Coastside election results

Joe, can you give us a quick rundown on how long the blackout lasted, how long after it started you were able to get voting (on paper) operational, how long before the portable lights came and how many voters went away because of the confusion? I think it was exciting to be able to keep the process going even during a blackout. That is kind of a worst case that I hope I never have to deal with.

Coastside election results

Hi Bill et al, As to the select wheel and touchscreens. Many current DRE voting systems do use a touchscreen that is subject to calibration errors. That is due to the vendors' poor choice of screen design. There were products available a decade ago that I used for designing some systems that had no alignment issues. They were a bit more expensive but well worth it in my mind. I had 109 voters at my polling place and 70 of them used the eSlate DRE. All voters were offered the option of paper or electronic…

Coastside election results

Hi Bill et al, I have yet to hear of a way to vote over the internet that is not wide open to fraud. I think that most businesses don't really care how their shareholders vote since the wishes of all the big shareholders are already known. They are simply following the law. Federal elections have a huge economic and 'power' outcome. The incentive to bend the results is overwhelming. If a system is devised that any competant teenager from some remote country can fudge, they will. This is in addition…

Coastside election results

I am the Inspector at precinct 3324 (Hatch School) and very involved locally and statewide with voting machine and voting systems issues. From what I heard, the power outage at the mobile home park, precinct 3301/3302, was handled well under the circumstances. The only better method would have been to have a portable generator there along with portable lights. That's not anything the County is going to fund. But given the frequent power outages in Moss Beach and Montara, maybe the folks there could…

Letter: Peak Oil is here. What does this mean for the Coastside?

Darin suggest that there is oil that is currently too expensive to extract but will be produced when prices go up. That is very true but there is also a different 'expense' that needs to be considered. That is EROEI, Energy Return on Energy Invested. A hundred years ago, one could invest 1 barrel of oil in building a well, pipelines and refineries and get 100 barrels worth of energy out. The EROEI was 100. Today, oil is harder to find, harder to extract and in many cases, of lower grade. We get an…

Letter: Peak Oil is here. What does this mean for the Coastside?

Barry brings up the trade deficit. I find this crucial. We currently finance our trade deficit but selling our bonds to foreigners, mostly central banks. What will happen when these banks decide not to buy our bonds? The answer will be higher costs for foreign goods, which will mean a lower standard of living for US consumers since almost all our grocery and hardware stores sell mainly Asian made goods. We have exported our manufacturing to foreign lands. Our main domestic prodict is debt. Our government…

HMB’s biggest farmers upset with LCP revision

Dear Editor, I am not familiar with the zoning restrictions on ag properties. Would it be appropriate to set the zoning such that there could be one residence on each parcel of xx acres, maybe 20-40 acres for example? That would allow a farmer to live on his/her land and still not allow the land to be developed. I don't know what qualifies as a 'hobby farm'. We will be needing locally grown food and using the ag zoned properties for growing something else seems counter-productive to the community…

HMB’s biggest farmers upset with LCP revision

Dear Coastsider, The availability of locally grown food will likely become a major issue here on the coastside. As the cost of transporting food drives food prices higher at the markets, locally grown produce will become a mainstay. I don't know how to arrange it, but I encourage the City Council to find a way to encourage our local farm families to stay in the farming business. I have no problem with keeping the farms from becoming new housing developments, but keeping farmers from living on their…

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