Comments by Jerry Steinberg
July 21, 2006
Ken, Please re-read my comments on July 19, 2006 entitled: “Can HMB Councilmembers tell city planners what to recommend?" I had requested Barry run this as a story but he felt “this question, which has been argued endlessly in the comments already, I’d (Barry Parr) like to get some answers about what this provision of the settlement really means.”…AND SO WOULD I. My July 19th post is my interpretation of what Adam verbally said to me at our meeting. Since Adam has completed all the research…
July 19, 2006
Can HMB Councilmembers tell city planners what to recommend? I had a meeting last week with Half Moon Bay's City Attorney, Adam Lindgren, to explore this question. Readers of coastsider.com are aware that the Pacific Ridge settlement agreement the City has with Ailanto (the developer) requires City planning staff to recommend approval of Ailanto's Terrace stoplight application, regardless of their prior opinions that Pacific Ridge needed its own access, or the findings of the environmental impact…
June 28, 2006
Ken, per your recent post I know you will applaud my recent submission of the “ ethical conflict” which is contained in the Ailanto/Pacific Ridge Settlement” to the National ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) Ethics Board for their review and comments. ASCE represents over 100,000 Civil Engineers. In another action which should please your suggestion of greater review of the issue I have submitted the following correspondence to CalTrans to alert them of the conflict in their consideration…
June 24, 2006
Why the “gag” rule is in direct conflict with the laws governing licensed engineers. On June 22nd the San Jose chapter of ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) sponsored an update presentation by CalTrans On the Tunnel Project at the Distillery. Representatives of the local community, Sierra Club and civil engineers from the local and San Jose area attended. At the meeting I had the opportunity to discuss with several engineers how they would react if they found themselves under a “gag”…
June 18, 2006
Mike, your post misses/ avoids and sidesteps the basic issue of my vote AGAINST the present “Out of Court Ailanto Settlement Agreement”. As a child growing up in New York City in a small apartment in a tenement building, I would sometimes be awakened at night by my Fathers screaming in his sleep. When asked about his “scary” dreams he would never talk about it. When I was 12 he died. At the funeral my mother took my brother and me aside and wanted us to know how fortunate we were to have…
June 18, 2006
Don, my vote is AGAINST the present “Out of Court Ailanto Settlement Agreement.. Your articulation of the issues is, in my opinion, accurate and focused. The Agreement needs to be re-negotiated for many reasons, including: 1. 2000+ users of Highway 1 have signed a petition asking the City Council of Half Moon Bay to NOT approve a traffic light at Terrace and Highway 1. 2. The traffic signal cannot be warranted based on safety. The CHP records indicate one injury accident during the past 10 years.…
June 03, 2006
Ken, I did not “discount economic considerations” for infrastructure projects. Quite the contrary I attempted to (as you used the term “obliquely”) indicate that perhaps “common sense” might have indicated that 300 million dollars could have been spread over a fully integrated coastside highway plan for enhancements to both routes over the hill. I agree with your statement in a previous post “that leaves us in the world of tradeoffs where we each have to decide what is best for our…
June 02, 2006
Ken, in order to follow Barry’s guidelines of avoiding “personal attacks” I phrased your usage of “Cargo Cult” as misleading rather than “self serving”. Your attempt at implying that a million links in a Google search was justifying not being “oblique” was again in my opinion “self serving”…and thus the comparision of many millions of links for the phrase, “common sense”. Google prides itself on showing relevant links on its first page of results…having started my college…
June 01, 2006
Cargo Cult Science I googled: Cargo Cult Science and it showed 566,000 links Cargo Cult Phenomenon and it showed 164,000 links Common Sense and it showed 294,000,000 links While pondering the significance of this large disparity I read with interest Richard Feynmans “Cargo Cult Science” commencement speech at Cal Tech in 1974. Ken, in my opinion your use of his phrase is misleading and misses Feynmans main thesis, "We've learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other experimenters…
May 31, 2006
Steve, I was disappointed in your not recognizing your “typo”, “the developer agreed to a reduction in housing density in exchange for an approval of their project” That is a “TYPO” statement. The developer maintained the SAME FAR (floor area ratio) of buildout. He “slickly” cut the number of houses in half but DOUBLED the size of each (up to 5000 SQUARE FEET) on the same 100x100 lot size. If you were in Real Estate would you consider that a reduction in density? I was encouraged…
May 27, 2006
Your welcome Steve …but didn’t you miss other “Typos” in your posts? You posted “The developer agreed to a reduction in housing density in exchange for an approval of their project”. That’s a “Typo” statement. The developer maintained the Same FAR (floor area ratio) of buildout. He “slickly” cut the number of houses in half but DOUBLED the size of each (up to 5000 SQUARE FEET) on the same 100x100 lot size. Please go to the “Pacific Ridge Settlement Agreement” as posted on…
May 22, 2006
Steve, Barry has requested that blog comments be as factually correct as possible. Soooo.... Point 1 The settlement agreement is shown on the Half Moon Bay City Site as: Pacific Ridge Settlement Agreement (March 2004) not Cypress Ridge project...unless there is some other Alianto project you are referring to? Point 2 Your reference to "Sounds like a win-win to me, Terrace Ave. resident issues notwithstanding. " is misleading. 2000 plus folks have signed a petition to negate this "out of Court Pacific…
May 16, 2006
Don, thanks for doing the research for an excellent critique of the ill conceived proposal for a signal light at Terrace avenue and Highway 1. In 1954 I graduated from High School and was fortunate to be the graduation class speaker. Being a first generation American my parents had instilled in me the importance of democracy and education. So my lead sentence was, “Education is the bulwark of democracy and the prelude to good living.” It’s over 50 years later, BS/MS from Berkeley, two well…
March 06, 2006
My wife rear-ended a pickup truck at a Traffic light on Hwy 92 last week and was not hurt but “totaled” our mini van. She was not prepared for the sudden change in the traffic light. It has been well documented by traffic engineers that this is a downside of intersection traffic lights. Reference: http://www.azdot.gov/Highways/traffic/Signal.asp#three http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/biz/trafficoperations/traffic/signals.htm This would be the time to have the professional traffic engineering firm doing…
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