HMB relief bill fails to make it out of legislature by deadline

SB863, Senator Leland Yee’s bill to compensate Half Moon Bay with $10 million to buy Beachwood for parkland, failed to pass out of the state assembly before the end of the Labor Day weekend deadline, reports Julia Scott in the County Times. The city will owe $18 million to developer Charles "Chop" Keenan on June 20, 2009.

City officials have said the $18 million would take decades to repay. Contacted on Sunday, Half Moon Bay Councilman John Muller still hadn’t heard the news and reacted with sadness.

"I was afraid of that. I’m absolutely devastated, to be honest with you. We were working so hard for this, and we were anticipating that if we had to look for other funding to pay it off or declare bankruptcy, it’s going to take a long time to do," said Muller. The Half Moon Bay City Council was expected to discuss how to proceed at a scheduled meeting tonight .

Adam Keigwin, a spokesman for Yee’s office, suggested there would still be time to pass another bill by June 30, 2009, when the legislative session resumes in December. But it would need to start again with new language, new hearings and new letters of support. It will also need at least one new sponsor — Assemblyman Gene Mullin, D-South San Francisco, who championed an earlier, failed Beachwood bill, will be termed out at the end of 2008.

"It’s not an impossible deadline," declared Keigwin.