Comments by jlundell

CUSD “pink slip” list released

April 01, 2009
The governor will propose a revised budget in May (the "May revise"), and the legislature is supposed to pass a budget by June 30. In recent history, the June 30 date has slipped by weeks or months, due to the way the budget process tends to provoke deadlock. Regardless, the district must approve a budget by the end of June, and they do that based on their best (typically conservative) guess as to how the state budget will work out. While this budget is nominally approved by the board, it's a product…

Letter: Delicious food at 7th Street Montara—locals’ discounts, too

March 20, 2009
I don't see a good answer. There are surely places on the coastside that it'd be good to hear more about. OTOH, even setting the claque problem aside (impossible), even the crappy joints have their fans. I'd like to hear a little more about why a place deserves attention—the more substantive and articulate and specific the better.

Mac users can’t pay traffic tickets online in San Mateo County

March 10, 2009
Well, don't get a traffic ticket, then.... It looks to me like the browser warning is static. Maybe it works with Safari/Firefox anyway?

Rain may return Wednesday night

February 03, 2009
So far the forecast seems to be holding up. http://lobitos.net/wx?loc=94019 Not a huge storm, but they're talking about an inch, which is an improvement from earlier forecasts.

How many people does a Supervisor represent?

January 30, 2009
On the side of district elections, it's worth observing that it's very expensive to run a competitive countywide campaign. Just sending a well-produced mail piece to all the voters will run a quarter of a million dollars, and one mailing does not a successful campaign make. Like district elections, PR can significantly reduce the cost of running. Without going into the technical details, a PR seat in San Mateo County would probably take 15-20,000 votes to win, depending on turnout; fewer if there…

How many people does a Supervisor represent?

January 30, 2009
The coastside wouldn't have all that much weight in a district election either, though, unless we had more seats and smaller districts. There are about 16,000 registered voters on the coastside (using CUSD and LHPUSD as my definition of the coastside) and about 357,000 in the county. So that's 4.5% of the county, but still only 22% of a single district, assuming five districts. A little more influence, to be sure, but hardly "direct control", especially considering that the coastside is pretty evenly…

How many people does a Supervisor represent?

January 30, 2009
But this goes right back to where we disagree—I see the new MCC rule (should it pass) as a step away from an unhealthy concentration of power on the Midcoast and a near-complete lack of credibility of MCC. I'm confused (and I'm not being facetious here) by Darin's mention of the MCC and "power on the Midcoast" in the same sentence.

Coastsider endorses John Moseley for school board

October 24, 2008
Barry, I'm sure you must have just overlooked mentioning the "concrete proposals for improving the schools" that justified your endorsement of John Moseley over Ken Johnson. The CUSD board could have benefited from at least one gadfly on the board for many years now. I'll be voting for the gadfly, Ken Johnson.

Photos: A pumpkin, larger than others, wins prize

October 13, 2008
Best headline yet. But where's the Most Beautiful photo?

Video: School board candidates debate

October 08, 2008
Charlie and friends certainly dragged their feet back in 2005, but the real blame goes back to 1996, when the construction money was first available and the choice of the Cunha site was already a no-brainer. (Speaking of no-brainers, I see over at the Review that CUSD had some $1.15 million in unsecured Lehman Bros paper. Ouch. Was that construction money, Charlie?)

Video: School board candidates debate

October 07, 2008
The most striking aspect of the Wavecrest delay as I look back on it is the peculiar reluctance of the developer to move the project along (you may recall that their original environmental survey found, rather implausibly, no wetlands at all on the property). Or maybe not so peculiar; maybe they were simply in no hurry, given the changing state of the real estate market over those years. In retrospect, their slow pace worked out well for them. The problem, of course, was that CUSD was in no position…

Letter: Thanks to the pilots who flew over today….......

September 22, 2008
500 to 1000, depending on one's definition of "congested". However, a) 500' isn't very high, and b) there's an exception: "except where necessary for takeoff and landing". I posted a link in this thread a while back to maps of the designated traffic patterns and such.

Letter: Just a thought

September 08, 2008
The quote below was in the county aviation newsletter in June. The regular guidelines and map are here. Procedures like this are going to be a marginal improvement at best, though, for nearby residents, even when they're carefully observed. WRT real estate, a buyer's agent should do more than check a box for airport noise, but obviously there are other motivations present.... Half Moon Bay Airport Noise Abatement Reminder We have recently received an increase in the number of noise complaints from…

Letter: Just a thought

September 06, 2008
Or learn to fly. When I earned my pilot's license, I lived half an hour from the airport I flew out of, adding an hour to each of my lessons. The HMB airport is indeed a popular place for flyers on nice days. Most small-plane pilots aren't licensed to fly in the fog, so they take advantage of clear days on the coast. So the beautiful days like today attract pilots too. I don't really know the real estate market up there, but I assume that houses under the airport flight pattern sell for a little…

Analysis: CUSD likely to start growing soon, becoming majority Hispanic

August 10, 2008
Hey, Darin, Thanks for the chance to provide a few footnotes. Yes, the projections are my own. They're a simple extrapolation of the last ten years of change, which have been fairly steady. This is essentially the methodology used by the district's 1996 master plan. I'd take it with a large grain of salt, especially given our experience with *those* projections, which turned out to be wrong. I don't claim any special powers of prediction here. If you like, read my projections this way: *if* current…

Who do you believe: the developer, or the lobbyist?

August 08, 2008
I'd call it a contradiction, not a paradox. As for how much consulting Keenan got, it's clear from his quote that he was paying to be consulted, to "give guidance", not to consult.

Coastal Commission faces budget cuts

August 04, 2008
> The longer the time period, the more questionable the results. Lereah's book, *Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust - And How You Can Profit from It: How to Build Wealth in Today's Expanding Real Estate Market*, appeared in Feb 2006. He didn't need a very long time period for a rather questionable result. In Sept 2006 he was calling economists who foresaw the crash "Chicken Littles". In Sept 2007 he told us that the housing market had hit bottom. This guy was the "chief economist" for the National…

HMB High’s dropout rate soars under new reporting system

August 03, 2008
My point was the differences in communities. Those who post here don't seem to be at all aware of the actual groups of children who go to these schools. EG has a different group of ESL students than the other schools. Less newcomers, more bilingual students. Just as Hatch has more newcomers because the students at that school are often students of farm workers. That's interesting to hear, and I'd like to follow it up. Can you point me, please, to the data you're using? I've been trying to find data…

Coastal Commission faces budget cuts

August 03, 2008
I heard a good realtor joke the other day: David Lereah.

HMB High’s dropout rate soars under new reporting system

August 01, 2008
I agree that the school board deserves little credit or blame for academic performance in the district; it's largely a function of staff and state law, and the board doesn't have much to say about it. The point of the dropout rate reporting reform is that school districts, including (especially, it seems) CUSD, have been underreporting dropouts. Hopefully that's fixed (the reporting, that is, not the rate, which obviously isn't fixed). I think you're mistaken, Aime, on the question of FV's mainstreaming.…

Page 4 of 13 pages ‹ First  < 2 3 4 5 6 >  Last ›