a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e Wednesday, May 19, 2010 Volume ıı2 Number 4 | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com Editorial a 4A | Weather & Tides a 5A | Police Log a 5A | A&E a 2B | Sports a 5B | Real Estate a 1C | Classifieds a 3C Montara $88.97 Burlingame $62.20 Hillsborough $53.03 Millbrae $50.17 Palo Alto $43.89 Redwood City $38.73 Mountain View $29.25 Menlo Park $20.37 $90 $80 $70 $60 $50 $40 $30 $20 $10 $0 Coastside County WD $49.40 Monthly Single Family Residential Water Rates, Dec 2009 Based on 9 hcf * of monthly winter water use HMB High ponders security SCHOOL EXPECTS CLOSED CAMPUS, NEW CAMERAS By Mark Noack [ [email protected] ] Strapped for cash and staff, Half Moon Bay High School administrators are looking for ways to boost campus secu- rity by stretching their dollars along with surveillance of stu- dents. High school officials say one low-cost way to keep tight- er reins on students is to keep them on campus. School ad- ministrators are indicating they want to end the open-cam- pus policy, which allowed stu- dents to wander off the school grounds during lunchtime. School officials say having hundreds of students rushing off campus during the 40-min- ute lunch period has become a liability. During that time the high school is unable to moni- tor its students, but school of- ficials remain technically in charge of them, said Principal Mary Streshly. “We’re responsible for the kids the whole school day,” Streshly said. “A strong per- centage of my staff thinks end- ing the open campus will help end truancy and get students more ready to learn.” The high school occasionally hears about a student shoplift- ing from a local store or draw- ing graffiti while off-campus. But for the most part, students have not been behaving any worse than previous years even though security is lighter this year, according to school and police officials. Last year, the Half Moon Bay Police Depart- ment reduced the amount of time its school-resource officer could spend at local schools. “There’s nothing that jumps out at us to say that there’s a dramatic increase in crime,” said Police Chief Don O’Keefe. “But that’s anecdotally, that’s without going through the [ tour of california ] COUNTY: FARM EXPOSED WORKERS TO NITRATES By Mark Noack [ [email protected] ] The discovery of danger- ously contaminated water be- ing piped into workers’ homes at Marchi Central Farms in Pescadero had led San Mateo County health inspectors to be- gin evicting dozens of farm la- borers and their families. About 40 tenants living at the farm, including many chil- dren, were being exposed to a high level of toxic nitrates, a chemical known to deplete ox- ygen in blood, which can be fa- tal in high doses, according to county investigators. A routine check revealed water at the farm’s employee housing had a nitrate concen- tration six times higher than the legal limit for potable wa- ter. “(At a level this high) it’s immediately dangerous,” said Dean Peterson, direc- tor of the San Mateo County Department of Environmen- tal Health. “This is water peo- ple could have been drinking, cooking with, showering in, bathing in. The levels were too high, and we needed them to move out immediately.” No tenants at the farm re- ported health problems from exposure to the water, accord- ing to county officials. Farm laborers and other tenants liv- ing in the domiciles reported- ly noticed the tap water in their building tasted funny, and they primarily drank bottled water. Farm co-owner Natalino Marchi said he was baffled when he learned his water sup- ply was contaminated. “I never dreamed the ni- trate levels were that high,” the 75-year-old farmer said. “If I had ever known there were ni- TOXIC WATER PROMPTS FARM EVICTION See MARCHI a 7A See CAMPUS a 7A Photo courtesy Kirk Moore Amgen Tour of California racers stream past Surfer’s Beach Tuesday as one of the world’s premier cycling events snaked between San Francisco and Santa Cruz. [ utilities ] MWSD SAYS INCREASE NEEDED TO COVER COSTS By Lily Bixler [ [email protected] ] Montara Water and Sanitary District is in the process of raising sewerage rates by 41 percent over the next four years. The increase, which is based on household water usage, would be tacked onto Midcoast residents’ prop- erty tax bills, effective July 1. MWSD board President Paul Perkovic said this would be an in- crease of less than 10 percent per year. “Our philosophy is to do small- Sewer rates may rise on Midcoast HUNDREDS WATCH AS WORLD’S BEST TAKE TWO-WHEELED TOUR By Mark Noack [ [email protected] ] Welcome back, Tour of California. First through fog and rain, then bright sunshine, a dar- ing pack of world-class cyclists took a whirlwind tour of the Coastside on Tuesday as they pushed through a gauntlet of the Peninsula’s premier bike routes and most stunning scenery. Local spectators lined the highways to cheer on the blurred mass of 127 cy- clists in the Amgen Tour of California, a rising international stage for many of the world’s elite bicyclists. “The caliber of riders that come out for this, there’s nothing else that comes close in all of North America,” said Andrew McQuade, an orange-jer- seyed young man who took a break from his job managing a bike shop in Atlanta to head out west to work as a course marshal for the event. “For me, joining the tour was a great way to see the United States!” McQuade anxiously watched the road and chatted on his walkie-talkie in front of Cameron’s Restaurant & Inn, where a crowd of locals gathered in lawn chairs to await the race pack. Hundreds of people broke their midweek routines, albeit briefly, to step outside and watch the event which hugged the coastline before veering east and up some of the Coastside’s most daunting hills. For just a couple hours, the Coastside’s main arteries pulsed with the life of a block party. It was the second time the California race has come through the greater Half Moon Bay area, and local cycling en- thusiasts couldn’t hold back their delight. Last year, the race was held in February, and fans braved rain and cold to catch a glimpse of the renowned riders. This year the race was re- scheduled to May, and it was warmer by the time riders cy- cled through. The man to beat was Northern Cal- ifornia-native Levi Leipheimer, who had expressed confidence at the be- ginning of the race that his legs could pedal a little faster than the rest. Should he prevail in the eight-stage race, it would be his fourth consecu- tive title in the race. Leipheimer was joined on Team RadioShack by cycling icon and sev- en-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, who is playing a tacit supporting role in this race to help Leiphe- imer to win. But up to the Tuesday stretch through Half Moon Bay, Lei- pheimer was riding behind in the pack. Stage 1, which fin- ished in Sacramento was won by British cyclist Mark Caven- See SEWER a 7A “There’s nothing else that comes close in all of North America.” Andrew McQuade, course marshal CYCLISTS BATTLE IN TOUR OF COASTSIDE See TOUR a 7A WATER GOING UP ON COAST By Mark Noack [ [email protected] ] Coastside utility districts plan to test the waters, to see whether local residents will accept paying a little more to get a clean glass of water. At a meeting last week, board members for the Coastside County Water District unanimously ap- proved advancing a 14 percent rate increase for a June public hearing. District General Manager Dave Dickson ex- plained the rate increase comes primarily as a re- sult of a 15 percent price hike in the cost of whole- sale water from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. The SFPUC supplies about 90 per- cent of the water for the local water district. If a 14 percent increase was approved it would in- crease the median water bill by $5.71 per month. The water board could approve a smaller increase if desired. Per state requirements, the water board can’t in- crease rates if more than half of all ratepayers pro- test through written comment submitted before or during a scheduled public meeting. PROPOSAL TO INCREASE COSTS REQUIRES PUBLIC HEARINGS See WATER a 7A CELEBRATION OF HERITAGE HMB sisters figure prominently in Portuguese festival this weekend 3B TELLING STORIES Libraries help record meaningful events of Coastsiders’ lives 12A Source: CCWD *Hundred Cubic Feet
Transcript
a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Volume ı ı2 Number 4 | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com
Editorial a 4A | Weather & Tides a 5A | Police Log a 5A | A&E a 2B | Sports a 5B | Real Estate a 1C | Classifi eds a 3C
Montara$88.97
Burlingame$62.20
Hillsborough$53.03 Millbrae
$50.17 Palo Alto$43.89 Redwood City
$38.73
Mountain View$29.25
Menlo Park$20.37
$90
$80
$70
$60
$50
$40
$30
$20
$10
$0
Coastside County WD$49.40
Monthly Single Family Residential Water Rates, Dec 2009 Based on 9 hcf* of monthly winter water use
Strapped for cash and staff, Half Moon Bay High School administrators are looking for ways to boost campus secu-rity by stretching their dollars along with surveillance of stu-dents.
High school offi cials say one low-cost way to keep tight-er reins on students is to keep them on campus. School ad-ministrators are indicating they want to end the open-cam-pus policy, which allowed stu-dents to wander off the school grounds during lunchtime.
School offi cials say having hundreds of students rushing off campus during the 40-min-ute lunch period has become a liability. During that time the high school is unable to moni-tor its students, but school of-fi cials remain technically in charge of them, said Principal Mary Streshly.
“We’re responsible for the kids the whole school day,” Streshly said. “A strong per-centage of my staff thinks end-ing the open campus will help end truancy and get students more ready to learn.”
The high school occasionally hears about a student shoplift-ing from a local store or draw-ing graffi ti while off-campus. But for the most part, students have not been behaving any worse than previous years even though security is lighter this year, according to school and police offi cials. Last year, the Half Moon Bay Police Depart-ment reduced the amount of time its school-resource offi cer could spend at local schools.
“There’s nothing that jumps out at us to say that there’s a dramatic increase in crime,” said Police Chief Don O’Keefe. “But that’s anecdotally, that’s without going through the
a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
The discovery of danger-ously contaminated water be-ing piped into workers’ homes at Marchi Central Farms in Pescadero had led San Mateo County health inspectors to be-gin evicting dozens of farm la-borers and their families.
About 40 tenants living at the farm, including many chil-dren, were being exposed to a high level of toxic nitrates, a chemical known to deplete ox-ygen in blood, which can be fa-tal in high doses, according to county investigators.
A routine check revealed water at the farm’s employee housing had a nitrate concen-tration six times higher than the legal limit for potable wa-ter.
“(At a level this high) it’s immediately dangerous,” said Dean Peterson, direc-tor of the San Mateo County Department of Environmen-tal Health. “This is water peo-ple could have been drinking, cooking with, showering in, bathing in. The levels were too high, and we needed them to move out immediately.”
No tenants at the farm re-ported health problems from exposure to the water, accord-ing to county offi cials. Farm laborers and other tenants liv-ing in the domiciles reported-ly noticed the tap water in their building tasted funny, and they primarily drank bottled water.
Farm co-owner Natalino Marchi said he was baffl ed when he learned his water sup-ply was contaminated.
“I never dreamed the ni-trate levels were that high,” the 75-year-old farmer said. “If I had ever known there were ni-
TOXIC WATER
PROMPTS FARM
EVICTION
See MARCHI a 7A See CAMPUS a 7A
Photo courtesy Kirk Moore
Amgen Tour of California racers stream past Surfer’s Beach Tuesday as one of the world’s premier cycling events snaked between San Francisco and Santa Cruz.
Montara Water and Sanitary District is in the process of raising sewerage rates by 41 percent over the next four years. The increase, which is based on household water usage, would be tacked onto Midcoast residents’ prop-erty tax bills, effective July 1.
MWSD board President Paul Perkovic said this would be an in-crease of less than 10 percent per year.
“Our philosophy is to do small-
Sewer rates may rise on Midcoast
HUNDREDS WATCH AS WORLD’S BEST TAKE TWO-WHEELED TOUR
Welcome back, Tour of California. First through fog and rain, then bright sunshine, a dar-
ing pack of world-class cyclists took a whirlwind tour of the Coastside on Tuesday as they pushed through a gauntlet of the Peninsula’s premier bike routes and most stunning scenery.
Local spectators lined the highways to cheer on the blurred mass of 127 cy-clists in the Amgen Tour of California, a rising international stage for many of the world’s elite bicyclists.
“The caliber of riders that come out for this, there’s nothing else that comes close in all of North America,” said Andrew McQuade, an orange-jer-seyed young man who took a break from his job managing a bike shop in Atlanta to head out west to work as a course marshal for the event. “For me, joining the tour was a great way to see the United States!”
McQuade anxiously watched the road and chatted on his walkie-talkie in front of Cameron’s Restaurant & Inn, where a crowd of locals gathered in lawn chairs to await the race pack.
Hundreds of people broke their midweek routines, albeit briefl y, to step outside and watch the event which hugged the coastline before veering east and up some of the Coastside’s most daunting hills. For just a couple hours, the Coastside’s main arteries pulsed with the life of a block party.
It was the second time the California race has come through the greater Half Moon Bay area, and local cycling en-thusiasts couldn’t hold back their delight. Last year, the race was held in February, and fans braved rain and cold to catch a glimpse of the renowned riders. This year the race was re-scheduled to May, and it was warmer by the time riders cy-
cled through. The man to beat was Northern Cal-
ifornia-native Levi Leipheimer, who had expressed confi dence at the be-ginning of the race that his legs could pedal a little faster than the rest. Should he prevail in the eight-stage race, it would be his fourth consecu-tive title in the race.
Leipheimer was joined on Team RadioShack by cycling icon and sev-
en-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, who is playing a tacit supporting role in this race to help Leiphe-imer to win.
But up to the Tuesday stretch through Half Moon Bay, Lei-pheimer was riding behind in the pack. Stage 1, which fi n-ished in Sacramento was won by British cyclist Mark Caven-
See SEWER a 7A
“There’s nothing else that comes close in all of North America.”
Coastside utility districts plan to test the waters, to see whether local residents will accept paying a little more to get a clean glass of water.
At a meeting last week, board members for the Coastside County Water District unanimously ap-proved advancing a 14 percent rate increase for a June public hearing.
District General Manager Dave Dickson ex-plained the rate increase comes primarily as a re-sult of a 15 percent price hike in the cost of whole-sale water from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. The SFPUC supplies about 90 per-cent of the water for the local water district.
If a 14 percent increase was approved it would in-crease the median water bill by $5.71 per month. The water board could approve a smaller increase if desired.
Per state requirements, the water board can’t in-crease rates if more than half of all ratepayers pro-test through written comment submitted before or during a scheduled public meeting.
PROPOSAL TO INCREASE COSTS REQUIRES PUBLIC HEARINGS
See WATER a 7A
CELEBRATION OF HERITAGE
HMB sisters fi gure prominently in Portuguese festival this weekend 3B
TELLING STORIESLibraries help record meaningful events of Coastsiders’ lives 12A
The Amgen Tour of California revisits Half Moon Bay, Montara, Kings Mountain, Pescadero and a tourist’s spree of other lo-cal sights on Tuesday as some of the world’s top cyclists make their light-speed rush down the Pacifi c Coast.
The highly publicized and intensely competitive race has drawn 127 rid-ers including Olympic medalists, Tour de France winners, and champion riders from Belgium, Finland, Spain, Germany, New Zealand and Sweden — and that means Lance Armstong too.
The U.S. cycling titan and seven-time Tour de France winner joins three-time Amgen winner Levi Leipheimer on Team RadioShack, the team many expect to win.
Sixteen teams will be competing in the eight-day hopscotch down the state, which begins near Sacramento and continues south to fi nish near Los Angeles.
The Coastside is included in Stage 3 of the tour route, The day’s ac-tion starts in San Francisco, goes down Highway 1 through the greater Half Moon Bay area, and then winds east through the coastal hills before heading back west to Pescadero and then south to con-clude at Santa Cruz.
For Coastside cyclists, having the Amgen race tour popular local routes is a big deal, said cycling enthusiast and Midcoast resident Chris “Cannon-ball” Johnson.
“I watch these guys on TV, and now they’re rid-ing the same trails I ride,” Johnson said. “It’s a Peninsula cyclist’s wish list of routes.”
Johnson encouraged spectators to choose spots to watch a cycling sprint or “king of the mountain” — small minicontests within the larger race that one rid-er from each team will seek to win. One such sprint is located right at Surfer’s Beach.
Amgen organizers pushed back the race un-til May this time to avoid the rainy, cold weather that made watching the event diffi cult in February of 2009. For the Coastside, the route remains mostly the same except for a detour into Woodside before veering back to the coast.
Drivers be warned: The California Highway Patrol will be temporarily closing roads in advance of the cy-clist pack. Long stretches with no easy detours, such as Devil’s Slide, could be closed for as much as an hour in advance of the cy-clist pack, which is expected to arrive at Montara around 11:45 a.m.
In previous years, CHP offi cials have re-opened roads within 15 min-utes after the cycling pack passed. r
Bike race cycles down the Coastside
TOUR OF CALIFORNIA WINDS THROUGH COAST ON TUESDAY
11:45 a.m.
12:04 p.m.
Route of race
Estimatedarrival
Sprint
Sprint
King of Mountain
[ c y c l i n g ]
12:31 p.m.
1:58 p.m.
1:37 p.m.
Stage 3 of the race starts in
San Francisco and ends in Santa Cruz
Cycling Race Glossary:Bridge. A rider or riders who sprint away from the main group of riders, or peloton, and catch the breakaway.Broom Wagon. The vehicle that follows the race, picking up racers who have to aban-don the race.Domestique. A rider whose main job is to help the team leader win the day’s stage, or the entire race. Echelon. A staggered, long line of riders, each downwind of the rider ahead, allowing them to move considerably faster than a solo rider.Gruppetto. A group of rid-ers that forms at the back of the fi eld on mountain stages and ride at a pace that allows them to fi nish just inside the time limit. King of the Mountains.The KOM is the fastest climb-er in the overall standings. Peloton. The main group of racers. Also called the pack.Squirrel. An erratic rider.Wheelsucker. Someone who, while riding in a pace-line, doesn’t take a turn at the front of the line.
By the numbers
8 number of days of event
16 number of host cities
127number of riders
800 total miles of race
Estimated spectators at last year’s event
Review fi le photo
The Amgen Tour of California streamed southward through the Coastside for the fi rst time last year, bringing some of pro cycling’s biggest names and scores of fans to the area.
To quote Pete Seeger: Where have all the fl owers gone?
Answer: They’ve been re-placed by food, fi bers and fuel.
Last week, Half Moon Bay leaders eased the city’s agri-culture zoning code to allow local fl ower growers fl exibility to use their farmland for grow-ing produce, medicinal crops or other purposes.
Once a linchpin of the Coastside economy, large-scale fl ower growing has been dwindling for years due to in-creasing international com-petition. That has led fl ower companies to lower produc-tion and close acres of green-houses once teeming with blossoms.
The local fl ower industry
has scouted out ways to sell off some of the 207 acres of land in Half Moon Bay designated for fl oraculture, but industry leaders have been hamstrung by the city code. Under the city’s previous zoning code, “A-1” designated farmland could be used for growing fl owers but not fruit, vegetables or oth-er crops.
This fall was the worst it’s been for Half Moon Bay High School senior Kathleen Aba-die. She took Advanced Place-ment Spanish, calculus, Eng-lish and government, ran on the cross-country team, orga-nized student government ac-tivities as class co-president and played the fl ute in the marching band. And then she also applied for college.
“I’m interested in all the things I do, so it’s not like I’m doing all these things just to get into a good college,” Abadie said. Ultimately turning down
Duke University, the 18-year-old has decided to attend Rice University, where she wants to study engineering.
Abadie piles a lot on her own plate. Parents Kathy and Vic-tor Abadie are amazed by their
“Race to Nowhere”What: Film focusing on “the dark side of America’s achievement culture.”
When: 7 p.m. Friday
Where: Community United Method-ist Church, 777 Miramontes St., Half Moon Bay
Cost: $15, available online at www.rtnhalfmoonbay.eventbrite.com or at the door.
Lars Howlett / Review
Kathleen Abadie considers the nature of light and mirrors during her physics class at Half Moon Bay High School on Friday. Abadie has spent some time refl ecting on four rigorous years at the high school.
LOCAL TEEN TALKS ABOUT SUCCEEDING IN AN
ACHIEVEMENT-OBSESSED CULTURE
See FILM a 8A
“This could be an area where Silicon Valley companies come to take advantage of this zone to research.”
— Steve Flint, Half Moon Bay
planning director
See ZONE a 8A
HELP BEHIND BARS ONE FINAL ACTLocal yoga instructors bring their skills to incarcerated girls on the Peninsula > Page 7A
Coastside dancers take the stage for fi nal time before college > Page 1B
0´(0m)
2000 ´(610m)
1000 ´(305m)
3000 ´(914m)
0(0)
10(16.1)
20(32.2)
30(48.3)
40(64.4)
50(80.5)
60(96.6)
70(112.7)
80(128.7)
90(144.8)
100(160.9)
113.3(182.3)
San Fr
ancis
co
Santa
Cruz,
CA
Distance - miles(kilometers)
Pacific
a Sprin
t
Half
Moon B
ay Sprin
t
Tunitas C
reek
Rd.
CA 84
Pesca
dero R
d.
Bonny Doon
Elevation profi le of Tour of California from San Francisco to Santa Cruz
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Volume ı ı2 Number 2 | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com
Editorial a 4A | Weather & Tides a 5A | Police Log a 5A | A&E a 2B | Sports a 5B | Real Estate a 1C | Classifi eds a 3C
a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
JUMPING TO VICTORYCougars should be league contenders this season. > 5B
TRACK AND FIELD
Tastes for all tastes! Restaurants, wine bars, cooking for crowds > FREE INSIDE
PROFILE OF
RICHARD PONCINI
THE COASTSIDE TEEMS WITH
RESTAURANT
RESTAURANT
+COOKING FOR
(LOTS OF) FRIENDS
Tastes for all tastes! Restaurants, wine bars, Tastes for all tastes! Restaurants, wine bars, Tastes for all tastes! Restaurants, wine bars, Tastes for all tastes! Restaurants, wine bars, Tastes for all tastes! Restaurants, wine bars, Tastes for all tastes! Restaurants, wine bars, Tastes for all tastes! Restaurants, wine bars, Tastes for all tastes! Restaurants, wine bars, Tastes for all tastes! Restaurants, wine bars, Tastes for all tastes! Restaurants, wine bars, Tastes for all tastes! Restaurants, wine bars,
HMB MAGAZINE
a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
JUMPING TO VICTORYJUMPING TO VICTORYCougars should be league contenders
TRACK AND FIELD
Coastside college saved, but classes remain undefi nedNO DETAILS ON FUTURE OF CAMPUS
The College of San Mateo has published its schedule of class-es for the fall semester, but don’t expect to see information on what’s available on the Coastside.
Community college administrators say they aren’t sure what, when, where or exactly how classes will be offered on the Coast-
side — but they promise new courses will be here for the next school year.
“We defi nitely want to maintain the community college on the Coastside,” said Susan Estes, CSM vice president of instruction. “We just don’t know how. We haven’t specifi cally defi ned it yet.”
The Coastside branch of the community college could be homeless after the spring semester. To save money, the college branch plans to leave its rented facility at Half Moon Bay’s Shore-line Station, which costs about $130,000 a year.
Instead, college offi cials are in the process of negotiating for
temporary classrooms with the Cabrillo Unifi ed School District. That arrangement could mean college courses would be taught in classrooms at Half Moon Bay High School.
College of San Mateo administrators say the number of class-es available on the Coastside depends primarily on how many people enroll. But, so far, the community college has no way for residents to sign up for local courses. The College of San Mateo schedule of classes doesn’t list any Coastside courses, and it in-stead refers locals to the campus Web page. To date, the Web site
A couple walks into Dee Har-ley’s goat farm in Pescadero. Wan-dering through the cheese tasting room and gift shop, they ask Harley about her famous fi ve-course farm dinners. She gives them a card and refers them to the farm’s Web site. Then it’s back to the farm. Back to work.
“If we didn’t have the social me-dia, I’d be in the offi ce all the time
talking to people about the same things … Spinning, spinning, spin-ning, all the time,” Harley said after the couple left.
About a year ago, Harley propelled her farm of 80 milking goats into the world of social media with a snazzy Web site, a blog and pages on Yelp
and Facebook. Just last month har-leyfarms.com totaled 6,185 visitors who stayed on the site for an average of nine minutes and 55 seconds. Site analytics allow Harley to track how, when and where users are coming to the Web page so her business can market to them virtually.
“A farmer out in the fi eld with their iPhone can stop for a minute and take pictures of their crops, and then boom, their social media marketing is done for the day.”
Irma Mitton, social media marketer
Facebook on the farm
[ b u d g e t ]
SOCIAL MEDIA IS TRANSFORMING
COASTSIDE FARMS
[ a g r i c u l t u r e ]
Lars Howlett / Review
Pescadero farmer Dee Harley is one of many local farmers who have embraced social media as part of their marketing ef-forts. She regularly updates her blog and company Web site.
See FARM a 8A
CITY FINDS BRIGHT SPOT
IN BLEAK BUDGET
CITY NOTES MODEST REVENUE
INCREASEBy Mark Noack[ mark@hmbreview ]
Half Moon Bay offi cials are preparing a greatly reduced budget for next year that none-theless contains a thin thread of optimism: The city ex-pects the economy to improve slightly.
City leaders are curbing their optimism and projecting a modest 1 percent revenue in-crease for the coming year.
Some good news was need-ed as city leaders on Tuesday reviewed a drastically cut back budget for the 2010-2011 fi s-
cal year. The document in-cludes cuts to all local services and some capital projects and draws heavily from the city’s reserve fund.
City Administrator Lau-ra Snideman said there were some big variables in the com-ing months, but city offi cials were confi dent of the slight fi -nancial boost in the future.
“We’ve done absolutely ev-erything we can to come up with the best possible projec-tions,” she said. “We took the best possible numbers here.”
City offi cials are walking a delicate political path. On the one hand, they are stressing that public safety and servic-es will remain suffi cient, al-though reduced by new cuts.
A sheepish teen wearing a San Francisco Giants hoodie and towing a skateboard un-der his arm, Carlos Camare-ña has had problems keeping his grades up and staying out of trouble. But unlike many teenagers who fall behind, Ca-mareña is also considered a model community member.
Earlier this year, the 14-year-old helped organize a movie screening to raise relief funds for Haitian earthquake vic-tims, and he is a regular partic-ipant in local meetings, sports and other youth activities.
He attends the youth coun-cil at Moonridge Housing Complex, the largely Hispanic, affordable-living community south of Half Moon Bay. With some initial reluctance, he was convined to describe his desire to help his community.
“Since I’ve lived here, there’s been a lot of drugs and gang-banging. And I want to change that,” he said. “If I have a fam-ily here, I want it to be a bet-ter place.”
On Saturday, Camareña and about 70 adolescents from across the Bay Area from similar disadvantaged back-grounds came to Moonridge
Lars Howlett / Review
Teenagers take part in a team-building exercise during a youth conference at Moonridge in Half Moon Bay on Saturday.
YOUTH CONFERENCE AIMED AT INSPIRING COMMUNITIES
[ m o o n r i d g e ]
Sea slugs get defensiveNUDIBRANCH SPECIES FIGHTS WITH ITS FOOD
On a nice day with an extra-low tide, beach walkers and tide-pool hoppers might keep their eyes on the surf grass. Nestled in an intertidal rocky reef among sea anemones, sea urchins, starfi sh and algae, lies a species of colorful mollusks that uses its food to defend itself from predators.
These mollusks, which are often called “sea slugs,” eat sea anemones and oth-er species from a phylum of creatures called cnidarians that have little stinging harpoons. The slugs then turn around and use the stingers for their own pro-tection.
How do the slugs pass the stinging cells through their system unharmed? Scientists don’t really know. But for what-ever reason, when a sea slug eats a sea anemone, something happens chemical-ly that blocks most of the stinging cells from fi ring and allows the slugs to store them as ammunition for the unlucky at-
tacking crab or fi sh.It turns out, some of the stinging
cells actually do fi re when the slug con-sumes the anemones. It digests and stores most of the undeveloped sting-ing cells, according to Rebecca John-son, an invertebrate zoologist and ge-ologist from California Academy of Sci-ences. Johnson told Coastsiders about the phenomenon during a discussion Monday at the Train Depot in Half Moon Bay. The gathering was spon-sored by the Gulf of the Farallones Na-tional Marine Sanctuary.
See MOONRIDGE a 8ASee SLUGS a 8A
See BUDGET a 8A
[ m a r i n e l i f e ]
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Volume ı ı2 Number ı | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com
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Coastside state parks will go all out for camping season on Saturday.
Stymied for months by bud-get cutbacks, California State Parks is reopening all camp-grounds, hiking trails and oth-er services to visitors for the peak outdoor season. Parks of-fi cials promise “99.9 percent” of state parks will be open for summer, when about three
times as many visitors are ex-pected to head out camping and hiking.
Locally, that means popu-lar state parks such as Butano, Cowell Ranch and Burleigh H. Murray that experienced clo-sures or partial reductions are set to be fully reopened by the end of this week.
State Parks District Super-intendent Paul Keel said there weren’t many problems associ-ated with the closure, especial-ly given that many Coastside parks had never been shut-tered before.
“We weren’t sure what was going to happen … with parks these large, how exactly do you close it?” he said. “We thought
[ h i g h s c h o o l ]
Half Moon Bay High School spirit undergoes renaissance
On Friday, the entire student body of Half Moon Bay High School crowded onto the bleachers of the school gymnasium to watch an awards show.
The roar of the hundreds of students was overwhelming, and teachers pleaded with the mass of teenagers to stay quiet. The stu-dents, more than a little excited about not being in fourth period class, reluctantly agreed.
The assembly wasn’t about recognizing students with the top grades or batting averages, but rather the friendliest, the most help-ful, the most energetic, those that try the hardest. The “Outstanding Cougar” awards were part of a new program that school offi cials and student leaders hope will revolutionize the school, and doing that required a high-school renaissance.
School leaders are promoting the new school “Renaissance” pro-gram to rejuvenate school spirit and give more students a stake in the school.
“The whole purpose is to recognize students and faculty who nor-
Lars Howlett / Review
During an assembly on Friday, Half Moon Bay High School students recognized teachers for going beyond the call of duty.
Lars Howlett / Review
California State Parks is opening many facilities in time for the busy summer season – including Butano State Park on the South Coast.
Squeezed next to oversized cans of tomatoes in the stock room at Mercado & Taqueria de Amigos are two stacks of foam to-go containers. Once the restaurant uses up the re-maining inventory in about two weeks, owner Norman Contreras will replace the plas-tic with compostable contain-ers.
“We aren’t all the way there yet, but we’re trying to slowly make the change,” Contreras said, adding that the switch will cost his Pescadero restau-rant $300 per month, or 20 percent more than it spends
now on the containers.About two months ago, San
Mateo County sent Contreras a letter that mentioned a poten-tial ban on polystyrene — the non-degradable petroleum-based material commonly known as Styrofoam — and suggested that his business make the switch.
The county is attempting to roll out an ordinance to ban more than 200 businesses in the unincorporated county from using nonrecyclable food ware by Jan. 1, 2011. Straws and lids wouldn’t be included in the ban.
At an Environmental Qual-ity Committee meeting on
[ e n v i r o n m e n t ][ p r i n c e t o n ]
200 BUSINESSES IN UNINCORPORATED AREAS COULD BE AFFECTED
See POLYSTYRENE a 7A
American Legion Post 474 puts ‘very unusual’ house up for sale
Not every real estate listing describes a home for sale as “very unusual.”
But those might be the best words to illustrate a particularly interesting house in Princeton.
The building looks fairly normal from the outside — a two-story house on Cal-ifornia Avenue covered in drab wooden shingles.
But the design of the home is pret-ty odd. The residence has only one bed-room — but four bathrooms. Also, un-like the other homes on the block, this house has a three-story tower that no one can fully explain. Some believe the red-wood water tower was used to store whis-key barrels during the Prohibition era. But now, the top fl oors of the tower are packed with boxes.
Lars Howlett / Review
This building in Princeton was once to be the new home of American Legion Post 474. Now it is being sold.See LEGION a 7A
See PARKS a 7A
Students reach for STAR this weekTeachers, students and administrators all groan
when the annual time for STAR exams rolls around. STAR, the Standardized Testing and Reporting
exam, is a series of lengthy multiple choice tests on math, language, social studies and some science for students in grades 2 through 11. As part of the fed-eral education mandates, school funding is partially tied to how well they do on the rigid testing system.
So this week, school faculty is trying to get their students revved up to do the best they can.
Just to get students ready for the test, Half Moon Bay High School offered students free breakfast on Tuesday. If students do well, they can receive a boost in their grades or other perks, such as an ice cream party.
“If they’re meeting the standards, we want to congratulate them,” said Assistant Principal Alli-son Silvestri. “It’s giving them a buy-in to do well on this test.”
— Mark NoackSee HIGH SCHOOL a 7A
HMB woman signs on with Peace Corps in Peru > 6A
Beautiful day greets huge crowd at airport > 8A
Volume ı ı ı Number 52 | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com
Editorial a 4A | Weather & Tides a 5A | Police Log a 5A | A&E a 2B | Sports a 7B | Real Estate a 1C | Classifi eds a 3C
Half Moon Bay elected offi cials were set to consider $900,000 in work reductions, salary cuts and layoffs to the city workforce at their public meeting Tuesday night. They warn that even more cuts are coming when
the next budget is unveiled on May 4.
The new cuts will impact every city department and have already been negotiat-ed with the city’s four em-ployee unions. The list of cost savings comes as the city is grappling with a $2.1 million shortfall, which it needs to balance before the
next fi scal year.The proposed cutbacks would lay off As-
sociate Planner Sean Gallegos and one un-identifi ed administration position and po-lice offi cer. Various city offi cials will now be working only three days a week, including Police Chief Don O’Keefe, Recreation Su-pervisor Dirk Alvarado and one unidentifi ed clerical employee.
Most City Hall employees will be taking two furlough days off each month, which amounts to a salary reduction of more than 9 percent.
The city police force will take an equiva-lent reduction by suspending holiday pay and taking a 4 percent pay cut.
City offi cials admit the new cuts will hurt local services and require further reorgani-zation of the city.
Along with personnel reductions, the city will use $1.2 million from its reserves to balance the budget. City offi cials are plan-ning to advance a new sales tax measure for the November ballot as one way to bring in more revenues.
The City Council was to consider the pro-posed cuts Tuesday night after Review dead-lines. The newspaper will report out of that meeting on its Web site, hmbreview.com.
The city has been in the midst of a pro-longed period of fi nancial distress. For years, the city battled over land-use issues on mul-tiple legal fronts in court cases that cost mil-lions to defend. Those efforts reached a head in 2008, when a federal court judge ruled the city effectively took property belonging to Peninsula developer Charles Keenan. Ul-timately, the city agreed to pay Keenan and fl oated bonds to cover the $18 million settle-ment price.
The city’s current fi scal morass extends
[ d r e a m m a c h i n e s ]
Before you started Dream Ma-chines, were you a gearhead? I had two older brothers, and if something had wheels, we raced it.
How many vehicles, whether planes, trains or automobiles, would you say you’ve owned in your life? Probably 40. My favorite was a Jaguar ’76 XJS — my son and I raced it in Mexico. Good, good car. It went like hell.
So it’s been 20 years since Dream Machines started. What was the original thought behind starting this event?Three people came up and asked me to start this. I was known then as the village nut as far as getting involved. They wanted to know whether I’d get involved in a fundraiser for the Coastside Adult Day Health Center. I had a lady working for me for many
‘We had a hell of a good time’
DREAM MACHINES FOUNDER DISCUSSES EVENT’S PAST AND FUTURE
The Pacifi c Coast Dream Machines comes to the Half Moon Bay Airport this Sunday, and for all of its 20 years, the guiding force behind the event has been now-77-year-old Coast-sider Bob Senz. A full-blooded motor lover, Senz has been racing cars since his youth grow-ing up on a small Oregon farm. Review reporter Mark Noack spoke with Senz about Dream Machines and how the event has changed over the years.
Half Moon Bay is home to many beloved things: pump-kins, beaches, farmland, fi ne hotels and restaurants. Now, fi nally, one fi lm captures all of that … and throws in a bunch of mutant eagles that urinate acid.
That fi lm is “Birdemic: Shock and Terror.” It’s a low-budget schlock horror pro-
duction that has found un-fathomable success as a cult favorite. For weeks the mov-ie has packed theaters across the country. Fans have been watching computer-generat-ed birds swooping, squawk-ing, puking and defecating all around Half Moon Bay sites — in what could be the most unexpected, and perhaps un-wanted, publicity in the histo-ry of the Coastside.
“The main character of this
fi lm is Half Moon Bay itself,” Director James Nguyen pro-claimed between sips of a Bud-weiser at Cameron’s Restau-rant and Inn, which serves as the backdrop for several scenes in the fi lm. “The syn-opsis of the movie is a platoon of eagles and vultures attack a small beautiful California town called Half Moon Bay … Who will survive?”
Nguyen, a jovial and very animated 44-year-old Vietnam-ese immigrant, got into fi lm directing through love, luck
CULT SENSATION FILMED ON COASTSIDE
Lars Howlett / Review
Movie director James Nguyen holds a coat hanger – like those used to ward off mutant birds in his fi lm, “Birdemic: Shock and Terror.” The fi lm is set in Half Moon Bay and has some familiar scenes in the background.See BIRDEMIC a 7A
[ m o v i e s ]
Lars Howlett/ Review
Dream Machines founder Bob Senz refl ects on 20 years of hosting one of the Coastside’s biggest parties. The benefi t for Coastside Adult Day Health Center is set for Sunday.
Dream bigWhat: The 20th annual Pacifi c Coast Dream Machines
When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sunday
Where: Half Moon Bay Airport
Cost: Adults, $20; Seniors and kids ages 11 to 17, $10; younger children free.
Inside: Schedule of events and fea-tured machines included in your pro-gram, which is inserted free inside to-day’s Review
Small organic farms are cur-rently enjoying a Bay Area re-naissance, but the practice is more diffi cult than simply throwing seeds in the ground. The labor-intensive nature of the work has left some local farms on the wrong side of state law.
Organic agriculture requires more weeding, planting and back-breaking labor than con-ventional farming, and that means the popular new farms need lots of workers willing to do tough manual chores. And a crop of struggling new farm-ers have been learning expen-sive lessons about what the state considers fair employ-ment practices. Under a surge of new oversight from state regulators, Coastside farms have been hit with numerous violations for their labor prac-tices.
Fifth Crow Farm, a Pescade-ro farm that started up last year, was hit with $5,000 in fi nes during a routine work in-spection in October for failing to keep adequate tax records and provide workers compen-sation.
One year earlier, Blue House Organic Farm, a neighboring community-supported agricul-tural concern, faced $5,500 in fi nes for not keeping adequate paperwork for the farm’s three interns.
“We were new business owners, and we got an expen-sive lesson,” said John Vars, co-owner of Fifth Crow Farm. “It was our fi rst year. It’s been a tremendous effort with fi nan-cial sacrifi ce, and none of us were taking in income.”
The two South Coast farms were both started by groups of young farmers who say they are committed to sustainable practices and education. Small farms nationwide frequently offer educational internships
See FARMS a 7A
GUNG HOJensen honored by fellow Marines > 3B
A FRIENDLY GAMELittle Leaguers share skills with special friends
Sports 8B
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Editorial a 4A | Weather & Tides a 5A | Police Log a 5A | A&E a 2B | Sports a 5B | Real Estate a 1C | Classifi eds a 3C
Volume ı ı ı Number 5ı | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.comVolume Number | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com
a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
FIRING UP THE AUCTION MAKE IT SOThe recently formed Califuegos plan to Rock the Casbah > 1B
In a way, the city of Half Moon Bay has just lost $14 million. Actually, the money wasn’t lost or mishandled, city offi cials say, but rather mis-reported.
Last week City Manager Michael Dolder in-formed elected offi cials that the city Public Works Department had incorrectly reported last month that Half Moon Bay had $14.6 mil-lion in its sewer reserve fund, the cash account
the city would draw from to perform sewer construction or repairs.
But that amount was wildly overstated. In actuality, the sewer reserve balance is about 4 percent of what was earlier reported and is more like $607,000.
The problem stemmed from misreading the city budget. City offi cials now say they wrongly reported net assets for the city sewer system as
cash held in reserve. Those assets may not be liquid and include the value of the city’s net-work of sewage pipes and gutters along with other calculations.
“It’s net assets. It’s not cash. It never was cash, and this is not a loss of cash,” Dolder said on Thursday, explaining the correction. “We were reviewing this and felt this didn’t look right, and we wanted to make sure everyone
understands what this budget means.” Nevertheless, Half Moon Bay’s report that it
had millions more in reserve than it really did has created some problems. For example, the city’s Midcoast partners in the Sewer Authority Mid-coastside had been pointing to the $14.6 million reserve fund as evidence that the city had been withholding funding from Coastside sewer projects.
Just last month city leaders were preparing a series of sewer rate increases they said were
As Half Moon Bay offi cials scrounge for more revenues, they often grumble about their take of local property taxes.
It’s not that they’re too high or too low — it’s just that the
city doesn’t get enough of the pie.
In the trickle-down govern-ment tax system, Half Moon Bay is getting relative crumbs off the table in comparison to other local agencies. The city receives only about 6.5 percent of the property taxes paid by lo-cal homeowners — among the smallest percentages of any city in San Mateo County.
In the state-mandated sys-tem of property tax allocations that was cemented in place
Dan Sterling is one big step closer to building his dream home on a hilltop overlook-ing Pillar Point. On Friday, a San Mateo County Superior Court judge ruled the Califor-nia Coastal Commission over-stepped its bounds when it re-quired Sterling turn over most of his property as an agricul-tural easement if he wanted to build on the land.
“I’d like to think that it’s over,” Sterling said.
Sterling has been locked in a decade-long battle to get
a permit to build a home on land he purchased in 1997. He said it took seven years to get a county permit to construct a 6,456-square-foot home on the land. Then the Coastal Commission took his plan un-der review and ultimately re-quired he agree to turn over all but 10,000 square feet of the property for an agricultural easement, meaning use of the property surrounding his new home would be limited.
The Sterlings fi led suit against the Coastal Commis-sion in 2009. On Friday, San Mateo County Superior Court
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Percentage of property taxes returning to cities
[ p r o p e r t y ]
JUDGE RULES EASEMENT WAS ‘UNCONSTITUTIONAL TAKING’
See LANDOWNER a 7A
See TAXES a 7A
Half Moon Bay is stuck with one of the smallest returns on its prop-erty taxes in San Mateo County. Cities throughout California have al-most no ability to increase their share of property taxes.
The Coastal Trail has the visitors, but the Ridge Trail has the vistas.
Champions of the Bay Area Ridge Trail, the lesser-known hiking, biking and equestrian trail that will go along the crest of coastal hills, are making steady progress toward completing a continuous stretch along the Penin-sula.
Trail supporters say a new two-mile extension will be opened later this year north of Highway 92, which will provide the Coastside with a new ac-cess point for a continuous 20 miles of trail up to Pacifi ca.
Like its coastal counterpart, the in-land Ridge Trail is a large-scale plan to install hundreds of miles of pub-lic recreation pathways. But where the Coastal Trail would hug the Pa-cifi c shore from Oregon to Mexico, the Ridge Trail would loop around the hilly inland of the nine Bay Area counties to form a 550-mile circle.
Progress is slow, and advocates have to work continuously, segment by segment, with dozens of landown-ers and government agencies to se-cure the corridor. So far, the project has opened about 310 miles of trail around the bay, but supporters say that was the easy part.
Last week Trail Director Bern Smith turned his sedan off Highway 92 and drove through Skylawn Me-morial Park, the 40,000-grave cem-
etery situated in the hills above Half Moon Bay. The new trail segment would go right along the acres of graveyard lawns, and head north until it joined up to the start of an old service road managed by the San Francisco Public Utility Commission.
The Bay Area wa-ter utility manages the Crystal Springs Reser-voir and has miles of barely used roads through the sur-roundings forest and hills. SFPUC occasionally offers guided tours, but, for the most part, the trails are closed to the general public.
The Ridge Trail plan would open that service road and build public parking so that people can easily set out for a day hike or bike ride from the cemetery.
“We’re doing this one step at a time,” Smith said “It’s going to be as nice a trail as you can have.”
At the top of the coastal hills, the Ridge Trail gives an unsurpassed view of both the Coastside and the Bay Area to the east. On the clear day Smith was leading the tour, Oakland and the East Bay were easily visible, and some have even claimed they can see the Sierra Nevada Mountains from there, he said.
Driv-ing back south, Smith pulled his sedan onto Skyline Boulevard, where another long stretch of trail would run parallel about 100 feet off the road. Advocates say they already have secured $200,000 for planning for a new fi ve-mile stretch south of Highway 92. Planners hope that trail construction could begin in
Supporters make slow strides toward Ridge Trail
550-MILE PLAN MAKES HEADWAY ON COASTSIDE
Two sections of the trail in San Mateo County are currently planned.
Lars Howlett / Review
Bay Area Ridge Council trail director Bern Smith walks along a stretch of road near Skylawn Memorial Park. He hopes the trail will be open to the public within the next year.
See TRAIL a 7A
a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Volume ı ı ı Number 50 | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com
Editorial a 4A | Weather & Tides a 5A | Police Log a 5A | A&E a 2B | Sports a 4B | Real Estate a 1C | Classifi eds a 3C
Where does my tax go?FOLLOW THE MONEY FROM YOUR HOUSE TO THE GOVERNMENT
This graphic charts the property taxes from an average $500,000 Half Moon Bay parcel, but the exact tax amount will vary greatly throughout the Coastside. Even within the city’s boundaries, there are nine different property-tax regions for various special assessments for sewers, fi re protec-tion and weed abatement programs.
Judgment day is here. The second in-stallment of last year’s property taxes must be paid by Saturday, April 10.
Property owners in San Mateo County face a 10 percent penalty and a $40 fine if they pay after that. That means Half Moon Bay residents will be coughing up thousands of dollars to the government this week.
But the government isn’t clois-tered in Washington, D.C., or even Sacramento in this case. It is really a hodgepodge of local agencies that pro-vide everything from schools to sher-iff’s patrols to fire protection in your neighborhood.
Unlike many other states, Califor-nia property taxes cannot exceed 1
percent of the full cash value of the property after voters approved Prop-osition 13 in 1978. In addition, taxes can’t go up by more than 2 percent from year to year.
As a result, property taxes have re-mained relatively low in California, especially compared to areas such as the New England states where the tax can be upward of 6 percent.
Those rules made property a sec-ondary revenue source for govern-ment agencies, but it still offers a use-ful perspective for taxpayers wonder-ing how their money trickles down through public agencies.
Though limited, property taxes are significant. Unlike income tax, prop-erty taxes stay local. The largest recip-ient of local property taxes is the Ca-brillo Unified School District, which
gets more than 35 percent, almost half of which goes to paying salaries.
Like many cities, Half Moon Bay gets a far smaller slice of the pie, only about 6 percent. That leaves the city far more reliant on sales and lodging taxes for its revenues. But when prop-erty values drop precipitously, all gov-ernment agencies take a big hit.
Earlier this year, city officials were hoping for a modest recovery in prop-erty taxes after the 2008 recession lowered home values across the state. That recovery didn’t happen. In fact, property tax revenues decreased a fur-ther 10 percent, which contributed to the city’s current budget crisis.
In case you are wondering, 53 Half Moon Bay taxpayers are delinquent after the deadline for the first install-ment of 2009 taxes. r
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a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
CYCLING MECCAChallenging and breathtaking, Coastside trails and roads draw packs of cyclists. > 1B
Get ready for Summer! Clubs, camps and classes for both young and ‘experienced’ > FREE INSIDEGet ready for Summer! Clubs, camps and classes Get ready for Summer! Clubs, camps and classes Get ready for Summer! Clubs, camps and classes Get ready for Summer! Clubs, camps and classes Get ready for Summer! Clubs, camps and classes Get ready for Summer! Clubs, camps and classes Get ready for Summer! Clubs, camps and classes Get ready for Summer! Clubs, camps and classes Get ready for Summer! Clubs, camps and classes Get ready for Summer! Clubs, camps and classes
The 20 or so sport fi sher-men aboard the Huli Cat who returned empty-handed from a day chasing salmon on a rough season opener were in reasonably good spirits as the boat backed into its berth Sat-urday afternoon. Even with-out a tasty, glimmering prize
to validate their efforts during a 10-hour roller coaster ride on the open ocean, the pas-sengers remained somewhat cheerful.
To these hard-core anglers, fi shing is fun — regardless of the catch.
“If you’re out here to catch a fi sh every time, you’re in it for the wrong reason, ’cause there are no guarantees,” said
Matt Plut, an East Bay engi-neer donning a windbreaker emblazoned with the nick-
name “Fish Killer” over his heart.
COASTSIDE ANGLERS RETURN NEARLY EMPTY-HANDED
Lars Howlett / Review
Huli Cat charter boat Capt. Tom Mattusch, far right, instructs clients on the basics of salmon fi shing before dawn on Saturday. Salmon fi sh-ermen have been unable to fi sh local waters during a two-year ban that ended Saturday.
See SALMON a 6A
HMB debates medical marijuana
Interest in opening a Half Moon Bay medical marijuana dispensary has prompted the City Council to study whether pot pur-veyors should be welcome in town.
Under state law, marijua-na is legal for people with a medical prescription, but cities can choose to ban pot dispensaries from opening within city boundaries.
One pot dispensary has already opened north of the city, in Moss Beach, and Half Moon Bay offi -cials said that they need to investigate whether per-mitting more marijuana shops would concentrate too many such businesses on the Coastside. City staff also plans to study the zon-ing, planning, health and security issues regarding pot clubs.
For now, city leaders are planning to stall any pot dispensaries. Late Tues-day night, Half Moon Bay leaders were expected to approve a 45-day tempo-rary ban for any marijuana shops opening locally as they study whether to revise the city’s guidelines.
Half Moon Bay could be shutting down for two days each month under terms of a proposal reportedly offered to city employees this week.
The offer for City Hall work-ers to take two unpaid fur-lough days each month comes as Half Moon Bay offi cials are looking for about $2.1 million in cuts to balance out drastic shortfalls in the revenues they projected last year.
The furlough days would re-portedly occur on the fi rst and third Fridays of each month, and would affect all city de-partments except the police.
But just taking two dozen unpaid days off will not solve the city’s budget problems by itself. The furlough days would likely amount to ap-proximately a 10 percent sal-ary cut for employees.
At least two full-time city employees are reportedly fac-ing further reductions and will be working only three days a week. City employees are ex-pecting further cuts, which could include layoffs.
Some of the city’s four em-ployee unions could vote on the proposed plan this week, but it is unclear when the full scope of the cuts will be an-nounced to the public.
City Manager Michael Dolder said furlough days were one among many pro-posals being considered as the city negotiates with its work-
A tragic boating incident Fri-day afternoon, about 10 miles outside Pillar Point Harbor, left the Coastside with one few-er fi sherman, family member and friend.
Gary Christensen, a life-long Coastsider and well-re-
spected deckhand at the har-bor, drowned in rough seas on a fellow fi sherman’s sink-ing crab boat, the Betty K. He was 47.
Authorities attempting a wa-ter rescue managed to save skipper Bob Longstreth, the only other person aboard the vessel. Longstreth refused medical treatment and walked away with minor bruises, au-thorities said.
When asked what went wrong, Longstreth was vague,
Photo courtesy U.S. Coast Guard
U.S. Coast Guard crews attempt to rescue the crew of the Betty K Friday afternoon.
Lifelong Coastside fi sherman drowns
See ACCIDENT a 6A
a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ecoastsideGUIDEEVENT CALENDAR. P10 TRAILS. P43 BEACHES. P13 DINING. P27
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Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Volume ı ı ı Number 49 | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com
Editorial a 4A | Weather & Tides a 5A | Police Log a 5A | A&E a 2B | Sports a 5B | Real Estate a 1C | Classifi eds a 3C
Authorities to hear from Mavericks audiencePUBLIC HEARING COMES TO COAST
Coastsiders are invited to share their views on public safety at the Mavericks Surf Contest at a meeting coming up Monday.
The meeting offers a plat-form for anyone seeking im-proved public safety for an in-ternationally famous surf con-test that has become infamous for injuries to surfi ng fans.
Spectators who swarm Princeton during contest day number in the tens of thou-sands and perch on precari-ous positions — in high surf zones, on unstable cliffs and
out near the wave break — for a glimpse of the contest.
Several people were injured, and a few hospitalized, during the contest in February when a surging wave washed over a section of beach at the base of Pillar Point, wiping out spec-tators, sound equipment and contest infrastructure. The damage drew unwelcome at-tention from national media outlets and created a stir lo-cally among law enforcement offi cials. Spectators have been seriously injured at past con-tests as well.
In the aftermath of Febru-
Mavericks safety hearing:What: Opportunity for Coastsid-ers to speak publicly about safety improvements at the Mavericks Surf Contest
When: Monday, April 5
Where: The conference room at Comfort Inn, 2930 North Cabrillo Highway, in Half Moon Bay.
Mark Foyer / Review
A San Mateo County Sheriff ’s deputy keeps watch during the February Mavericks Surf Contest. Sev-eral spectators were injured when they ventured too close to the surf and were knocked down by waves. See MAVERICKS a 6A
[ p u b l i c s a f e t y ]
Father-and-son farmers reap top honorED, DAVID LEA WIN FARMER OF THE YEAR
Ed Lea couldn’t land a date when he worked as a young farmer on the Coastside in the 1940s. None of the local girls wanted to date a farmer, he said.
“So I went up to San Francisco!” Lea joked Friday as he stood next to his wife and son in front of a cheering crowd of friends — many of whom he had known for most of his life.
Today, two generations of Lea farmers, Ed and his son, David, are sharing the Half Moon Bay Farmer of the Year Award. They received the award as a surprise at the 41st annual Mel Mello
Farm Day Luncheon at the I.D.E.S. Hall in Half Moon Bay. The father-and-son Coastside agrarians received the award for
their longtime commitment to local agriculture and the commu-nity.
“We want to thank you for the love of the farm, the love of your family and the love of the community,” said San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon, who was among a series of local, coun-ty and state political fi gures who delivered their own recognition honoring the Lea family farmers.
Ed Lea farmed various plots of land on the Coastside after re-turning from military service on a gunship that was bombed dur-ing World War II. In addition to farming the coast, he helped to grow its children. He served twice on the board of the Cabrillo
Lars Howlett / Review
Ed Lea approaches the microphone Friday after receiving Farmer of the Year honors along with his son, David. The Lea family was honored during the annual Mel Mello Farm Day Luncheon at the I.D.E.S. Hall in Half Moon Bay.
Two recovering seabird colonies on Devil’s Slide Rock, also known as Egg Rock, faltered last year as populations dropped far more than their relatives anywhere else in the state. Biologists are calling the event a “total breeding failure.”
By and large, year-to-year variations in ma-rine life don’t faze biologists who keep track of long-term patterns of environmental fl uctu-ations. But when reproduction comes to a vir-tual halt, scientists worry.
“It could just be a one-year change, but it’s not something that we’ve seen out there before in over 40 years of working out there,” said Pete Worzybok, a marine ecologist studying seabird populations on the Farallon Islands and at Devil’s Slide. “We haven’t seen this kind of disconnect before.”
Supes discuss changes to MCTVFUNDING IS LIKELY TO BE BIGGEST HURDLE
Mid-Coast Television could be on its fi nal descent. Or it could endure, as it has for 25 years, as the Coastside’s sole source of local community televi-sion. Or it could settle into a routine of sharing community programming with other local stations.
The future of community television is uncertain in light of a county initia-tive kicked off last week, an effort to assess MCTV management and the needs of the community.
A subcommittee of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors recom-mended Friday that supervisors cut the renewable contract between the county and MCTV from the custom-ary three years to 18 months — to end in September 2011. The move follows recent advice from county staffers urg-ing supervisors to look beyond MCTV for alternative localized public broad-casting on the Coastside.
Comcast has channel space to sup-port four public dducational and gov-ernment, or PEG, stations, between Pescadero and Pacifi ca, according to speakers at the meeting. Pacifi ca Tele-vision and MCTV occupy two of the spots.
“As I understand it, the channel spots are available. You need someone to step forward and say I want one of those spots,” said San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon.
Enter Half Moon Bay resident and onetime Cabrillo Unifi ed School Dis-trict board member Roy Salume. He claims a band of about 12 unnamed Coastsiders with a range of applica-ble experience, under the working title Improve MCTV Coalition, are stand-
Comcast and the Coastside:
Comcast is on track to vacate its headquarters in El Granada by the end of October.
“We’ve seen a re-duced amount of foot traffi c in that of-fi ce over the years,” explained Comcast Regional Vice Presi-dent of Commu-nications Andrew Johnson. Keeping the storefront open “doesn’t make any business sense,” he added.
But the cable pro-vider’s work here is unfi nished. Here’s what’s on tap:
t Comcast promises High Defi nition on the coast. Johnson once promised the service would be available in 2010; now he says it will be here by the end of this year.t MCTV is mov-ing on the dial, from Channel 6 to Chan-nel 27 in advance of the transition to HD.t The cable com-pany says it is ex-panding Comcast’s offi ce in Pacifi ca, the nearest offi ce to Half Moon Bay.
Lars Howlett / Review
Wildlife biologists Lisa Eigner, left, and Sandy Rhoades use magnifying scopes to count common murre and their eggs near Devil’s Slide.
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SAN MATEO COUNTY COASTSIDE
SPRING/SUMMER 2010
IT’S HERE!Look for the Spring Coastside Guide
FREE in this issue!
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ART UPSTAIRSRecent art school grads start workshops downtown > 2B
B U S I N E S S
“The whole system is getting less and less predictable.”
— Gerry McChesney, Common Murre
Restoration Project manager
See SEABIRDS a 6ASee MCTV a 6A
See FARMER a 6A
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Volume ı ı ı Number 48 | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com
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Employees at the First Na-tional Bank on Main Street re-main on edge after an armed robber stole an undisclosed amount of money last week.
It was the fi rst bank rob-bery in about 10 years in Half Moon Bay, but bank offi cials believe this wasn’t the only
bank job this criminal has committed. Tony Clifford, chief operations offi cer for First National Bank, said the same man was involved in a similar robbery at a Redwood City branch three weeks ago. FBI offi cials reportedly are al-ready seeking the same man in connection with robberies at other banks.
“This gentleman has hit two of our sites,” Clifford said. “Our people feel threatened … we’re glad that he got what he wanted without hurting any-body.”
The Half Moon Bay crime occurred on Thursday after-noon, when the man in a beige beanie and white sports coat strolled into the branch. In ret-rospect, employees reportedly said they knew something was ominous about the unfamiliar man.
“The nice thing about a small town is we know 95 per-cent of the people who walk through the doors,” Clifford said. “They saw this guy and they were already on guard.”
Walking up to the teller, the man fl ashed a handgun and
told the employee he would kill her unless she gave him money. Employees at the bank complied, and the man left without harming anyone.
Half Moon Bay Police and other law enforcement agen-cies are now searching for the bank robber. The man report-edly fl ed east on foot through the parking lot of the I.D.E.S. Hall and down Johnston Street while the bank manager called for help.
Police Chief Don O’Keefe said his team immediately de-
Photo courtesy Half Moon Bay Police
Authorities released this photo, taken from security cameras, of the man accused of robbing the First National Bank in Half Moon Bay on Thursday. See BANK a 8A
The 1994 fi lm “Heaven-ly Creatures” is, by most ac-counts, a great work of cin-ema, but organizers for the Coastside Film Society were a little uneasy about showing it last week.
At the outset, the fi lm re-volves around two teenage girls in 1950s New Zealand who bond emphatically through a rich imaginary world. That plot would seem harmless, perhaps even G-rated.
But there’s a reason why this fi lm is rated R. The two girl-friends, Juliet and Pauline, be-
come obsessed with their fan-tasy kingdom, dressing up in costume, changing their names, writing out stories and inventing a new religion that worships Hollywood celebri-ties as saints. When their fam-ilies try to intervene, the girls try any way they can to save their fantasia. Eventually they take a cold-blooded measure — murdering Pauline’s moth-er.
The fi lm is disturbing, espe-cially because it’s based on the real-life Parker-Hulme murder, an infamous crime that was “like the O.J. Simpson case for New Zealand,” according to one fi lm society member.
Considering the plot of “Heavenly Creatures,” some
“We don’t pick fi lms because they’re controversial, we pick fi lms because they’re really good.”
— Joe Devlin, Coastside Film Society information director
As far as Jim Irizarry is con-cerned, single-family homes have run their course. That’s why the Coastside builder’s lat-est project, planned for a prime lot in El Granada, is a nine-unit complex of condominiums.
“In reality, the era of the sin-gle-family residence is over … because there’s not enough land,” says Irizarry, owner of Terrace Homes. “If you look at all the government’s plans, they tend to cluster housing,” he added. “You can see it in ev-ery single plan.”
Caltrans plans to close Devil’s Slide from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today so crews can stabilize the surround-ing hillside.
Caltrans offi cials are shutting down Highway 1 along the wending bypass for the four-hour window during work on the hillside near the Devil’s Slide Tun-nel bridges on the Pacifi ca side of the slide.
Traffi c in both directions will be stopped between 2nd Street in Montara and Linda Mar Boulevard in Pa-cifi ca.
Offi cials are taking action to alleviate “serious” rock-slide issues, said Caltrans spokesman Bob Haus.
“We thought we’d re-
move (the rocks) before they remove themselves,” Haus said.
Caltrans workers are tak-ing the opportunity to clear drains, push back weeds, clean litter and perform other tasks, according to a department press release.
Coastsiders know that rockslides at Devil’s Slide can prove vexing. Rocks on the roadway and set-tling of the road bed have shut the road for months in the past. In fact, repeat-ed slides led to the work on the tunnels in the fi rst place.
— Greg Thomas
Lars Howlett / Review
Setting sailDan Temko is retiring as harbormaster at Pillar Point. He has seen a lot of changes over 25 years and regrets what he sees as the decline of the commercial fi shing fl eet there. He may be leaving the job, but he’s not leaving the water. See Q&A, Page 12A.
Devil’s Slide closed for four hours
Landing gear mishap grounds pilotHMB PILOT SHRUGS OFF
It wasn’t the impact from touching down on the tarmac at Half Moon Bay Airport that brought Jim Williams’ sunny 20-minute fl ight to a jarring conclusion Monday after-noon. The left leg of his plane’s landing gear folded without warning while the Ocean Colony resident was coasting on the runway at freeway speed.
Sounding cavalier about the accident, the 74-year-old aviator said he’s fi ne, but his $500,000 plane won’t be in working shape for this year’s Pacifi c Coast Dream Ma-chines event in April.
“There’s nothing I can do about it, so why get disappointed?” Williams said, shortly af-ter the incident.
At about 2:30 p.m. Williams was barreling down the western runway when the mal-function occurred, sending him and his rep-lica World War II-era plane into a 60-mile-per-hour skid. After spinning 180 degrees, the plane veered off into a meadow on the shoulder of the runway and stopped — “luckily,” he says.
“The trouble with these World War II fi ghter types (is) if they fl ip upside down the canopy goes into the ground and you can’t get out,” Williams said.
Within a few minutes of the incident, air-port personnel were tending to the aircraft, a Yak 3 Russian fi ghter replica Williams start-ed fl ying last month.
[ h m b a i r p o r t ]
See FILM a 8A See PLANE a 8A
COMMISSION VOTES ON EL GRANADA PROJECT TODAY
Traffi c Alert
See CONDOS a 8A
Mark Foyer / Review
Jim Williams’ Yak 3 replica aircraft rests on the tarmac after the landing gear collapsed after the Half Moon Bay resident landed safely at the Half Moon Bay Airport on Monday.
VIKINGS CHALK UP THEIR THIRD WINPescadero fi nds early success > 5B
WILD ABOUT ARTM Coffee to exhibit 11-year-0ld’s drawings > 1B
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M Coffee to exhibit 11-year-0ld’s drawings > 1B
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[ p l a y b a l l ]
Mark Foyer / Review
Sure sign of springJ.T. Lehane runs the bases while slapping hands with other Half Moon Bay Little League players on Saturday. The season’s opening cer-emonies had been delayed a week due to bad weather, but Smith Field is once again busy with the sights and sounds of baseball. See photos and story, Page 8B.
Eliminating the entire school counseling staff lies at the very bottom of a list of cuts approved by the Cabrillo Uni-fi ed School District, and that could make the district’s fi ve full-time counselors the main bargaining chip as the district pursues either a parcel tax measure or major concessions from its employee unions.
Students, parents, teachers, school offi cials and state ex-perts agree that eliminating all school counselors would be a recipe for disaster at Coastside schools. By multiple accounts, such a scenario would like-ly lead to an increase in drop-outs, scheduling errors, and unaddressed behavioral prob-lems, and a decrease in test scores, attendance and stu-dents advancing to colleges.
“To me, it’s unconsciona-ble,” said David Kopperud, ed-ucation program consultant with the California Depart-
Students chip in to save teachers
Students at Farallone View Elementary under-stood pretty well what was going on last week when their teachers looked despondent.
Fifth-grader Lia Liu didn’t know about the thorny issues of state politics or fi scal sol-vency, but she knew it meant her favorite edu-cators could lose their jobs.
“These were some of the best teachers,” Lia said “I felt sad that they’re the ones who have to leave.”
So Lia and her next-door neighbor, Lucas Wieser, a fourth-grad-er, decided to do some-thing. Recruiting her younger siblings, Lia and Lucas began go-ing door to door around their neighborhood on Sunday. They had their piggy banks with them
On the day last week when Coastside schools issued about 100 pink slips to teachers and staff, scores of students, teach-ers and others rallied outside Half Moon Bay High School in support of educators.
More than 100 people gath-ered early Friday morning
along Lewis Foster Drive for a “Pink Protest,” a demonstra-tion focused on showing sup-port for the local public educa-tion system as it grapples with deepening budget troubles.
The Friday event was part of a series of education ral-lies that have been assembled as the Cabrillo Unifi ed School District faces a $2.5 million
Lars Howlett / Review
Students, teachers and administrators — including Half Moon Bay High School Principal Mary Streshly holding a sign reading, “Save Our School” — rally Friday in support of specifi c teachers who received pink slips as well as education generally.
See CUTS a 6A
See DONATE a 6A
FRIDAY EVENT BRINGS OUT STUDENTS, TEACHERS, ADMINISTRATORS
The vast majority of San Mateo County inhabitants reside over the hill, and there is no Coastsider on the county Board of Supervisors. Consequently, some on the coast think their concerns are ignored on the bayside.
“It can be intimidating for people to think that our city council is all the way
over in Redwood City,” said Montara res-ident April Vargas, standing before the county Charter Review Committee at a meeting last week in Half Moon Bay. Vargas is among a handful of people run-ning for Supervisor Rich Gordon’s seat when it becomes available in November.
It’s been four decades since there has been a Coastside presence on the coun-ty Board of Supervisors, and that is one reason many are talking about establish-ing district-based elections for county su-pervisors. San Mateo County is the only county in California still electing supervi-sors at-large.
The committee, formed every eight
years, is charged with reviewing the county’s constitution and recommend-ing improvements to the Board of Super-visors. The board could move to put con-troversial items on the November ballot and let voters make the fi nal call.
About 20 people sat in to watch the dis-cussion unfold Thursday night inside the multipurpose room at Cunha Interme-diate School. Roughly half of them, in-cluding a cohort of Midcoast Communi-ty Council members, offered their opin-ions. That is the greatest participation fa-cilitator Sean Foote said he’d seen in the committee’s fi rst fi ve meetings.
Salmon season set to open — briefl yFINAL CALL EXPECTED APRIL 15
Eager at the prospect of breaking a two-year dry spell on hunting salmon, commercial fi shermen in Cali-fornia are caught between a rock and a hard place. They can prep their gear for a brief window of highly restricted salmon fi shing — one that could slam shut after about two weeks — or they can sit tight and wait for a larger, longer season opening that may not come.
“It’s hard to say what’s gonna happen in the ocean this year because no one’s been out there looking,” said El Granada fi sherman Duncan MacLean.
As the Pacifi c Fishery Management Council considers the fate of West Coast salmon season this year, a provision bur-ied in the council’s adopted plans from last year virtually guarantees anglers in California at least a couple weeks to hook chinook salmon beginning in April.
The season “will open this year on April 3 unless the council and the Department of Fish and Game take emergency action to close it,” said council Vice Chairman Dan Wolford. One possible cause for emergency would be the discovery of meager salmon populations in the Sacra-
mento River delta, where the fi sh spawn, he said. But that pro-cess is “so cumbersome, and so unlikely, that there is no prac-tical way to bring a closure to the season before it starts,” he wrote in an e-mail to the Review. Such a determination could take about two weeks, Wolford said.
Regulations for this year will come to light dur-ing a fi nal series of council meetings between
April 10 and April 15 in Portland, Ore. At those meetings, the council will review three options it approved Thursday for managing salmon fi shing for the duration of the year.
Two of the options allow for limited take of chinook of a certain size. The third alter-native forbids anglers from harvesting the fi sh altogether, which would mean a con-tinuation of a two-year ban on salmon fi shing that has crippled the livelihoods of independent commercial fi shermen up and down the state.
A vote to close the fi shery would take effect sometime in May, Wolford said.
Biologists estimate 245,000 chinook salmon will return to the delta this fall to spawn, several times the num-ber from last year. Fishermen hope the spike signifi es a resurgence in salmon populations that have been foundering for decades.
Regulations in effect now allow California fi shermen south of Eu-reka to take two salmon per day, excluding coho, at a minimum
[ f i s h e r y ]
See REFORM a 6A
See SALMON a 9A
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Wednesday, March 17, 2010
OLYMPIC HONORRELAY TEAM RECEIVES MEDALS FROMTWO-TIME OLYMPIAN, GRACE UPSHAW. 7B
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Volume ı ı ı Number 46 | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com
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Sewer rates in Half Moon Bay could increase more than 50 percent in the next two years, if the city follows through on a proposal to boost reve-nues for the city sanitation system.
City leaders are considering rate in-creases as high as 31 percent for next year, along with more increases in the
following years. These rate hikes are reportedly needed to make up for years of low sewer rates that did not accu-rately refl ect the costs of maintaining the sanitary facilities, city offi cials say. The city had been able to ignore the imbalance in its sewer budget since 1998 by drawing on its special sewer reserve fund, which is supposed to be used only for capital projects.
“You’re currently using capital mon-ey to pay for ongoing costs,” said City Engineer Mo Sharma, speaking to the council on March 2. “There are liabili-ties if you don’t maintain this system. You could expose citizens to hazards if
the sewer system backs up, or the EPA could issue fi nes.”
Built more than 50 years ago, the city’s sewer system is antiquated and frequently suffers blockages, Sharma said. Public works employees have found many spots where tree roots have found their way into holes in the pipes, but an accurate survey of the subterranean system remains unavail-able.
“We don’t know the exact condition of the pipes because no one has ever tested them,” Sharma said, indicating that more money was needed to locate
Half Moon Bay sewer rates
Graphic courtesy of Half Moon Bay Public Works Department
City offi cials kept sewer rates the same for 11 years even though expenses con-tinued to rise. Public Works offi cials are proposing steep rate increases to make up for years of low fees. The graph shows the cost of sewer rates for each hun-dred cubic feet (HCF). The average single-family home uses 27 HCF each year.
Miramar neighbors move to protect scenic stripNO SIMPLE FIX IN
The weathered frontage road paralleling Mi-ramar Beach has long been a source of pride for the business owners and residents lining the lo-cally popular strip. As it constitutes a short sec-tion of the disjointed Coastal Trail and passes between the beach and a row of visitor-friend-ly businesses, the bumpy roadway is a pillar of commerce and a keystone of Miramar, they say.
But Mirada Road is less than stable, and resi-dents say it’s begun a dangerous decline. Late-ly, El Niño storms have scraped away the thor-oughfare’s coastal charm and left a tattered li-ability in their wake.
“It’s sinking,” says Linda Montalto Patterson, who owns the Hastings House seaside wedding chapel on Mirada Road with her husband. “If it fails, what happens then?”
Patterson and her neighbors aren’t waiting
around to fi nd out. Hoping to stay ahead of the curve, about 25 of them banded together last month and are making a push to draw atten-tion from decision-makers to the site. They call themselves the Miramar Beach Alliance.
“We’re saying this is a scenic corridor, a con-tinuation of the bike trail, and a boon to every-one — commercial and residential,” says Pat-terson, group founder. “Miramar Beach is part of why people come to the coast. … This is not a place that you want to see fail.”
Mirada Road was once a stretch of Highway 1. Then in 1964 the outer breakwater was built on the south side of Pillar Point Harbor, chang-ing beach dynamics for miles south.
“There’s probably a million issues complicating the area. It’s a diffi cult site.”
— Joe LoCoco, San Mateo County Public Works deputy director of road maintenance
Lars Howlett / Review
Neighbors, from left, Dwight and Susan Pate, and Michael and Marika Powers, walk along Mirada Road, discussing their newly formed Alliance to Save Miramar Beach. The community is concerned that ultimately the road may wash away.
Parents vie for spot in Spanish programMANY STUDENTS, FEW
Good schools can be competitive, but at Hatch Elementary it’s the parents who are jostling for classroom attention.
In what has become a winter tradition, the incoming group of kindergarten par-ents are crossing their fi ngers in hopes their children can get in Spanish Immer-sion — a lauded program that gives stu-dents a bilingual education that starts in kindergarten and continues all the way through high school.
The immersion program has a track record of producing students who are fl uent in both Spanish and English, a
skill that carries a lot of weight, especial-ly among parents beginning their child’s education.
Students typically can join the program only during kindergarten, and there’s never enough room. Hatch can only sup-port two classes each year, not enough for the 80-some parents who annually apply for the program.
And that short supply can make par-
Lars Howlett / Review
Hatch Elementary School teacher Joyce Hodges has been an integral part of the Spanish Immersion Program since its inception in the 1990s. The program is always popular, and this time of year parents angle to get their young students into the classes.
Pescadero Elementary and Middle School got some un-wanted attention on Monday when the rural South Coast campus was included on a list of 188 of the state’s worst schools. As a result, school ad-ministrators face some hard choices that include fi ring most of the staff or closing en-tirely — as well as the promise of a windfall.
The list was devised by the California Department of Ed-ucation in an effort to grab some of the second round of so-called Race to the Top fed-eral funding and hundreds of millions of dollars in School Improvement Grants. Initially, California schools were locked out of such funding, in part because the state hadn’t iden-tifi ed its most needy schools. A second round of federal funding is in the offi ng. Tier 1 schools such as Pescadero El-
ementary and Middle could re-ceive as much as $2 million in additional federal funding an-nually for three years — if they consent to one of four draconi-an reforms.
The Turnaround Model mandates major changes in-cluding replacing the princi-pal and fi ring at least half of the school’s staff. The Restart Model requires closing and reopening as a charter school. The School Closure mod-el calls for closing and send-ing students to other schools in the district. The Transfor-mation Model requires a new principal and increased in-structional time.
Three other San Mateo County schools — all part of the Ravenswood district on the bayside — are included on the list.
“Well, absolutely, it’s disap-pointing,” said LHPUSD Pres-ident Andy Wilson, who noted district offi cials were not terri-
STATE CALLS FOR MAJOR IMMEDIATE REFORMS
See PESCADERO a 6A See SPANISH a 6A
See MIRAMAR a 6A
See SEWER a 6A
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GETTING THEIR KICKSTOOLS AND TREATSWinter league all-stars named > Sports 6BEclectic store creates one-of-a-kind vibe > 1B
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
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Track team clears hurdlesGood results at PAL tournament > 5B
School counselors, librar-ians and classifi ed staff at Ca-brillo Unifi ed schools will take the brunt of cuts if a Coastside parcel tax doesn’t win voter ap-proval in June.
Board members for the Ca-brillo Unifi ed School District approved the new list of tenta-tive cuts during a public meet-ing last week as the strongest warning shot yet to let the public know the impact local schools would face without new revenues.
The district would lose as many as 35 teachers and oth-er employees without new rev-enues. That number would be reduced to about six layoffs if two-thirds of district voters ap-proved the $150-per-parcel tax.
The Cabrillo district has been unsuccessful in fi ve pre-vious attempts to pass a parcel tax.
“We have to pass a parcel tax. Period,” said Board Presi-dent Dwight Wilson. “In the last parcel taxes no one saw the damage, that was done. We did such a good job hiding all that damage and the community felt that, gee, everything must be fi ne.”
Things would not be fi ne this time around, school board members argued. If a parcel tax does not pass, district cuts would eliminate all school counselors, the employees re-sponsible for giving students academic and emotional guid-ance for a savings of about $420,000.
Layoffs would also be made to the school custodians, groundskeepers, offi ce clerks and certifi ed librarian, forc-ing schools to further share employees across the district. The school district would cut its class-size reduction pro-gram, which has kept elemen-tary school classes at a mini-mal size. And the new cuts would end all athletic stipends for coaches at Cunha Interme-diate and Half Moon Bay High schools.
Even if the parcel tax passed, the district would still need to make about $1 million in cuts, which would include reduc-tions to special services, trans-portation and offi ce staff. The
“In a worst-case scenario, just what happens if the parcel tax doesn’t pass?”
Any fl uctuations in the waves generated by a magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile early Satur-day morning had a benign effect along the Coastside. Local author-ities reported no injuries, damage or alarming inundation — and it wasn’t for lack of looking. All eyes were on the water.
“It was quite a day. … As we sat and watched it, you could tell at about 1:30 (p.m.) there was some-thing going on,” said Half Moon Bay Mayor Marina Fraser, who pa-trolled city beaches Saturday af-ternoon with Police Chief Don O’Keefe. “The water was receding way out to sea.”
Beaches up and down the state were off limits for about six hours — from 1 to 7 p.m. — in light of a
tsunami advisory issued Saturday morning, when federal offi cials realized oceanic reverberations from the South American tem-blor could charge the West Coast. It was the fi rst live caution in the county since an advisory issued in September, and the alert attract-ed over-the-hill visitors hoping to glimpse the action as it manifest-ed in the surf break.
That was not exactly the reac-tion emergency managers were seeking.
“People were disappointed that they didn’t see a tidal wave,” said Pillar Point Harbor Interim Har-bormaster Robert Johnson.
Harbor offi cers barred an infl ux of visitors from setting foot on the pier in case water levels climbed to the point of pulling docks above their pilings and unhitch-
Bracing for the tsunami?
OFFICIALS HOPE THREAT CREATES PUBLIC AWARENESS
Mark Foyer / Review
Chained gates didn’t stop people from exploring at San Gregorio Beach Saturday. All San Mateo County beaches were closed Saturday after a tsunami advisory was issued.
Members of the Pillar Point Harbor Patrol, Coast Guard Auxiliary and CalFire keep a watchful eye on sea level during a tsunami advisory on Saturday afternoon. Coastsiders were wary after an 8.8-magni-tude earthquake struck Chile.
Lars Howlett / Review
SMC AlertMany Coastside residents fi rst heard about Sat-urday’s tsunami advisory through SMC Alert. The software appli-cation is used by various agen-cies in San Ma-teo County to alert residents via text message or e-mail, to a vari-ety of emergen-cies. The free ser-vice is available by visiting www.smcalert.info
Half Moon Bay’s celebrat-ed Art & Pumpkin Festival last year drew the crowds, but not so much cash — at least not for event organizers.
Festival organizers have scaled back their annual grant oppor-tunities for local non-profi ts this year af-ter receiving about 15 percent less mon-ey toward the event from large corporate donors.
The event organizer, the Half Moon Bay Beautifi ca-tion Committee, announced on Monday that it would still distribute $63,000 to its an-nual stable of nonprofi ts and
community groups, many of which assist with activi-ties at the Pumpkin Festival. Traditionally, organizers have opened up the grant process for any nonprofi t interested
in benefi ting from event proceeds, but they say they won’t be doing that this year in order to keep the fes-tival solvent into the future.
“We didn’t see enough revenues to open up the grant process to all groups,”
said Cameron Palmer, Pres-ident of the Beautifi cation Committee. “But we were still able to make signifi cant con-tributions.”
Palmer said the donations
PIRATE RADIO PIONEER PREPS SOUTH COAST FOR ARRIVAL
After 13 years managing radio stations and broadcasting live, 28-year-old Daniel “Monkey” Roberts is trying some-thing new. This time, he’s getting permission from the Fed-eral Communications Commission fi rst.
Roberts is jump-starting KPDO 89.3 FM radio, an all-but-de-funct signal founded on the South Coast seven years ago. His experiment will take shape in Pescadero in April, if not sooner.
The event marks his fi rst licensed broadcast venture and is sure to test the poise of a staunch proponent of uninhibited speech.
“The only con I can think of is the inability to use proper colloquialisms on air. … That’s the one downfall,” he says. “As far as the upside is concerned, if you have a license from the FCC, their role is to protect you at all costs, which is far
Greg Thomas / Review
Daniel Roberts stands outside Pirate Cat Radio Café, a hybrid nonprofi t organization, bistro and community-driven pirate ra-dio station in San Francisco’s Mission District. Roberts is making moves to reinvigorate Pescadero’s dormant KPDO 89.3 FM ra-dio band.
See PESCADERO a 7A
See PUMPKIN a 7A
Cameron Palmer
ORGANIZERS TOUT $400,000 RAISED BY NONPROFITS
APPLE MOTH POPULATION EXPLODES POPULATION EXPLODES
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Editorial a 4A | Weather & Tides a 5A | Police Log a 5A | A&E a 2B | Sports a 5B | Real Estate a 1C | Classifi eds a 3C
a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
Volume ı ı ı Number 44 | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.comVolume ı ı ı Number
Marilyn Garrison worked 26 years as a library tech at Faral-lone View Elementary, a part-time job she loves even though it doesn’t pay much.
She had plenty of opportu-nities to take on higher-paying jobs. A former Peace Corps volunteer, Garrison earned her teaching credentials and taught for many years at public schools — qualifi cations above and beyond the job require-ments for a library technician.
But, she explains, Farallone View has a special place in her heart: It’s the school within walking distance of her house, and it’s where her children learned to read.
And for her, the school’s lit-tle library is the most special place of all. She knows the in-ventory of 11,000 books like the back of her hand.
Garrison plans to retire in June. She might not be alone — all the other librarians in the Cabrillo Unifi ed School
District might be forced to leave right along with her.
School libraries, at Farallone View and all other Cabrillo Unifi ed schools, are at risk of being cut as the district board begins its painful budget sea-son. School board members say they have to prepare for $2.5 million in cuts. They have indicated they intend to keep those cuts out of the class-room whenever possible. That means ancillary services and administrative staff — includ-ing athletics, offi ce personnel, custodians and library employ-ees — are at risk.
Garrison says she can’t en-vision what a campus library would be like without some type of librarian. Would that mean parent volunteers take over, she asked, or would teachers have to monitor and maintain the library them-selves?
“I don’t know what would happen to the library,” she said. “It’s hard to say ‘save my job’ when there’s so many school employees at risk … but having a library with a librari-an, that’s really important too.”
Lars Howlett / Review
Farallone View Elementary School library tech Marilyn Garrison checks out books for students who have to stand on a step in order to better reach her desk.
See LIBRARIES a 6A
Public safety offi cials discuss Mavericks contest
Representatives from 13 public safety agencies and private organizations con-vened Monday morning in Moss Beach in the fi rst of many meetings, all aimed at making future Mavericks Surf Contests safer for those onshore.
The meeting, termed a “critical incident debriefi ng,” was closed to the public, and most participants declined to make substantive comments about the nature of the con-versation.
“(Monday) was about fact-fi nding and gathering in-formation, and that’s all there was to it,” said Kath-erine Clark, contest co-di-rector. Some key topics teed up include the placement and number of safety vehi-
cles and vessels, the num-ber of private boats out near the surf break, and whether enough safety resources had been deployed, said San Ma-teo County Supervisor Rich Gordon.
“I’d suspect we’d need more county park folks,” he said. “There were only a few rangers, and I don’t think that’s suffi cient.”
The meeting took place nine days after the 2010 Mav-ericks Surf Contest washed into Princeton. Offi cials say such debriefi ngs are typical-
“(Monday) was about fact-fi nding and gathering information, and that’s all there was to it.”
Katherine Clark, Mavericks co-director
Lars Howlett / Review
An unidentifi ed man climbs around the fence surrounding Pillar Point Air Force Station in order to get a better view of the Mavericks Surf Contest on Feb. 13. Offi cials are hoping to cut down on dangerous behavior during future contests.
Lars Howlett / Review
“Danger” signs were stacked and ready for deployment the night before this year’s Mavericks Surf Contest. Many ignored the warnings on Feb. 13.
SPECTATORS MIGHT SEE TIGHTER RESTRICTIONS, LESS SURFING
See MAVERICKS a 6A
Wave of moneySave the Waves has issued a full report explaining how it came to call Mavericks the $24 million break. See story, Page 6A.
Short of staff and cash, Half Moon Bay is heading toward some tough fi nancial deci-sions in the coming weeks — decisions that could include tax increases, new fees and employee layoffs.
The City Council and execu-tive staff met Saturday morn-ing in a strategic planning ses-sion aimed at prioritizing the
city’s limited resources after announcing a $2.1 million rev-enue shortfall.
Council members meet an-nually for a strategic planning session to set their long-term goals. In past years, the City Council held the meeting at a local hotel and hired a private consultant to mediate the ses-sion. The meetings were bare-ly noticed by constituents.
In contrast, this year’s meet-ing at the Portuguese Cultur-
al Center on Kelly Avenue was well attended by City Hall em-ployees and taxpayers, who were drawn by concerns about the sober new reality.
Council members directed staff to focus their efforts on fi nding ways to balance the city’s budget and keep the city fi nancially stable in the future. But as Half Moon Bay leaders sought to fi nd ways to correct the budget imbalance, they faced criticism from city em-ployees and members of the public who didn’t want a re-
Coping with dwindling revenues, Half Moon Bay leaders have decided to withhold funding from long-term programs aimed at enhancing local education and environmen-tal sustainability.
Last week, City Council members unani-
mously voted against continuing participa-tion in the Community Schools Initiative, an extracurricular program at Cunha In-termediate School to help provide students with the out-of-class tools for academic suc-cess. Funded equally between the county, city and school district, the partnership costs each agency $40,000 annually. That’s an ex-
Short of funds, city halts special projectsEDUCATION, ENVIRONMENTAL PROJECTS SIDELINED
See FUNDS a 6ASee BUDGET a 6A
STAFF WARY OF STILL MORE CUTS
County no longer trapping invasive species > 8A
John Claitor earns trip to Bakersfi eld > Sports, 5B
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Editorial a 4A | Weather & Tides a 5A | Police Log a 5A | A&E a 2B | Sports a 5B | Real Estate a 1C | Classifi eds a 3C
MAVERICKS CONTEST BY THE NUMBERS
TOTAL PRIZE MONEY AWARDED TO WINNING CONTESTANTS
APPROXIMATE VALUE OF SOUND EQUIPMENT RUINED WHEN WAVE CRASHED INTO JETTY
ESTIMATED NUMBER OF SPECTATORS WHO ATTENDED THE EVENT
APPROXIMATE NUMBER OF MILES FLOWN BY WINNER CHRIS BERTISH TO ATTEND THE EVENT
APPROXIMATE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO WATCHED THE CONTEST FROM AT&T PARK IN SAN FRANCISCO
NUMBER OF MAVERICKS SURF CONTESTANTS
REPORTED NUMBER OF SPECTATORS INJURED ON THE BEACH
Plagued by a confl uence of budgetary setbacks, the La Honda-Pescadero Unifi ed School District has put in mo-tion a plan to rearrange South Coast students next school year to get the biggest bang for the smallest buck.
At a school board meeting last week, board members voted unanimously to recon-fi gure grade levels at Pescade-ro middle and high schools. The district is transitioning from the traditional sixth-to-eighth-grade middle school and ninth-to-12th-grade high school setups, replacing them with a seventh-to-12th-grade school at the high school cam-pus and a separate, self-con-tained sixth-grade class.
None of San Mateo County’s 24 school districts are employ-ing a similar system, said Pe-ter Burchyns, special adviser to the superintendent at the county Offi ce of Education. La Honda-Pescadero is by far the smallest K-12 school district in the county.
“It allows us to fi t the stu-dents we have into the facili-ties we have without spend-ing money that we don’t have,” said School Board President
Andy Wilson.District Interim Superinten-
dent Dennis Dobbs said the district stands to save more than $50,000 a year by consoli-dating the seventh and eighth grades at the high school.
The decision is a maneuver to avoid incurring rental costs for fi ve portables when the dis-trict’s lease on them runs out in June. The portables consti-tute most of the middle school now. However, board mem-bers and administrators say consolidating students in such a way has been part of the plan for years — since before bond project mistakes in 2007 and 2008 put the district on shaky fi nancial ground.
Cabrillo Unifi ed School District board members have scheduled a vote on a $150-per-parcel tax, but they know that even if voters approve a new tax in recessionary times, the infusion of cash won’t spare them from making some very unpleasant cuts.
The Cabrillo district is one of the largest employers on the Coastside, but the pay-roll will likely be trimmed — with or without the tax. School offi cials are considering cutting approximately 10 per-cent of Cabrillo’s bud-get. Those cuts will likely mean reductions to school athletic pro-grams and layoffs for school secretaries, cus-todians and librarians.
And fear of falling under the proverbial ax is sending vari-ous sectors of the school work-force to implore the board members to spare them.
Half Moon Bay High School counselor Mandi Robertson became teary-eyed Thursday as she pleaded with the school board to prevent cuts to her team.
“Cuts to counselors will re-sult in fewer students gradu-ating high school and going to college,” she said. “Our stu-dents can’t be academically
successful if they’re depressed, angry, hun-gry or scared.”
The school board heard similar entreat-ies from representa-tives from Pilarcitos High School, Kings Mountain Elementary and the district’s clas-
sifi ed employees union.The best-case scenario for
local schools would be to gain additional revenues from the parcel tax. Last week, board members approved a fi ve-year, $150-per-parcel tax mea-sure for the June ballot, which would provide approximately $1.5 million per year, for fi ve years, for the district. The vote
The stock market may be healthier, but Half Moon Bay leaders say the reces-sion isn’t over.
Heavily reliant on high-end tourism, the city is showing lower than expected returns from local hotel and retail taxes.
As a result, Half Moon Bay offi cials announced last week that new cuts to city services could be immi-nent to help fi ll a $2.1 mil-lion revenue shortfall due to the area’s ongoing econom-ic slump.
City offi cials originally es-timated they would receive approximately $11.2 mil-lion in revenues when they compiled the current bud-get last spring. At the time, city leaders called the bud-
get estimate “conservative.” They believed that tax rev-enues would rebound after months of recession.
But that rebound hasn’t appeared yet, according to the new numbers. Receipts from local hotels and hos-pitality businesses were al-ready expected to decline from previous levels when
the budget was ad-opted last year, but they came in even lower than project-ed. City offi cials now estimate a 21 percent drop in ex-pected tax income, or a loss of $846,000 to municipal cof-
fers. Similarly, sales tax rev-enues are now projected to be 12 percent lower than budgeted, a difference of $212,113.
Property taxes were ex-pected to rise 2 percent, but they instead dropped 10 percent, or $228,000.
The new budget report shows a 50 percent drop in revenues from construc-
Lars Howlett / Review
South African surfer Chris Bertish emerged from the icy water as victor on Saturday. He won $50,000 and bragging rights at Mavericks.
Michael Dolder
Lars Howlett / Review
Kenny “Skindog” Collins is chased down by a mountain of water Saturday at Mavericks, during one of the most memorable big-wave contests of all time.
“We need a parcel tax. It’s inexcusable for us not to look at this.”
— Kirk Riemer, CUSD board member
SCHOOL BOARD APPROVES $150-PER-PARCEL MARK
[ s c h o o l s ] [ h a l f m o o n b a y ] [ s o u t h c o a s t ]
Kirk Riemer
“It allows us to fi t the students we have into the facilities we have without spending money that we don’t have.”
— Andy Wilson, La Honda-Pescadero
Unifi ed School District board president
CHANGES RECONFIGURE GRADES IN LA HONDA, PESCADERO
a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
BLOWN AWAYThe Mavericks Surf Contest creates its own
storm. Giant swells roll in. Surfers scramble. Fans the world over turn their attention to Pillar
Point’s craggy coast. Then, like a low-pressure system swinging over California, high drama builds to climax … and is gone. Sunny skies and shared memories are left in the wake. This year, Mavericks left an indelible impression. It will be remembered as the contest that South African Chris Bertish survived rather than won on the February day when many fans got a salty taste of the Mavericks wave.
Photos: Two pages of full-color photos inside, 6A, 7ASafety: Organizers may get more scrutiny next year, 6ACommentary: Spectators, contest must share responsibility, 4A
Volume ı ı ı Number 43 | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com
Mark Foyer / Review
Spectators scramble for higher ground after a wave crashed over the seawall at Mavericks beach on Saturday.
“Everyone says the economy is going upward, but based on these numbers, that’s not true.”
— Michael Dolder, Half Moon Bay City Manager See SCHOOLS a 11A
See BUDGET a 11A
See PARCEL a 11A
“CONTEST ASIDE, IT DOES SEEM LIKE IT’LL NEVER BE THE
SAME FOR THE SPORT. … THIS WAS PRETTY MUCH
UNHEARD OF — HISTORIC.”— GRANT WASHBURN, MAVERICKS SURFER
a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Volume ı ı ı Number 42 | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com
Editorial a 4A | Weather & Tides a 5A | Police Log a 5A | A&E a 2B | Sports a 5B | Real Estate a 1C | Classifi eds a 3C
a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
COMMUNICATION, SHARED INTERESTS KEY THIS VALENTINE’S DAY
If you are looking for a little Valentine’s Day wisdom, it’s simple things like shar-ing your heart that make marriage last, say four Coastsiders who ought to know.
Take Ted and Lorraine Schapp of El Granada, who celebrated their 60th an-niversary July 10 at the Moss Beach Dis-tillery, where a romance-minded waiter brought them cake by candlelight.
“You have to be committed to it,” said
Ted Schapp. “A promise is a promise is a promise, I guess.”
Having known each other since inter-mediate and high school and college, the Schapps forged their bond while living in Modesto, Encino and Berlin, where Ted Schapp served as a Presbyterian minis-ter. They have three children, fi ve grand-children and an unoffi cial daughter from Berlin. Ted offi ciated at her marriage to a German man, and their family became part of his. He also has been one of sever-al ministers with the Pescadero Commu-nity Church since 1988.
But marriage is hardly a business prop-osition for them. “We cuddle when we go to bed and kiss in the morning,” said Ted, 83.
“We’ve always taken the time to talk
Love, like good wine, mellows with time
Lars Howlett / Review
Don and Virginia Barnaby of El Granada, both in their 90s, have been through thick and thin dur-ing 40 years together. As Valentine’s Day approaches, the couple says they remain deeply in love.
On a gloomy February eve-ning, Debbe Kennedy stood in her cozy living room, staring through a picture window to a spot on Highway 1 about 20 feet from her Montara home.
Chains of fast-moving cars periodically pierce the tran-quility outside, and to the un-initiated eye the traffi c scene is one of everyday life on the coast. But for Kennedy, each car that zooms past conjures 17 years of memories of twist-ed metal and fatalities.
“There has become what I would characterize as a lethal cocktail of conditions that have created a tragedy waiting to happen at a number of places on the coast,” she said.
That “cocktail” is a mixture of speeding cars, scattered and misplaced road signage and a complete lack of pedestrian pathways across a three-and-a-half-mile stretch of highway through Montara and Moss Beach. The tragedy Kennedy speaks of has come home in the form of a number of life-al-tering and deadly car accidents over the years.
A 12-year-old boy pedaling across the Moss Beach road-
way one night in December was left in critical condition after being hit by a passing car. Last spring, a Half Moon Bay High School student was killed crossing the highway near Dunes Beach.
“We are in the fi ring line,” Kennedy said. “We watch near-misses happen all the time.”
Kennedy and other con-cerned Midcoast residents point to the lack of crosswalks and ineffective deterrents for speeders as contributors to ac-cidents and close calls alike. For two years, Kennedy has been working to improve the situation, and two weeks ago she won a small victory: a new speed sign and a new stop sign where 14th Street intersects with Highway 1 in Montara.
The signs, however, were supposed to be there all along. Caltrans erroneously moved the “Speed Limit 45” sign
Talk about traffi c safetyWhat: Midcoast Community Coun-cil meeting
When: 7:30 tonight
Where: Seton Medical Center Coast-side, 600 Marine Blvd., Moss Beach
CHP TAKES RENEWED INTEREST IN STRETCH
[ t r a n s p o r t a t i o n ][ c o m m u n i t y ]
See TRAFFIC a 6ASee ELKUS a 6A
Leaky roofs leave Elkus Ranch all wet‘ADOPT-A-SHINGLE’
Water leaking through the roofs of the barns at Elkus Ranch has been a problem for ranch managers for several years, but now it threatens to put a damper on op-
erations.“Once the
ewes start hav-ing babies it will become a prob-lem for us,” said Leslie Jensen, program coor-dinator on the ranch, situated in quiet hills a few miles south of Half Moon Bay. About 20 newborn lambs are expected late this month, and the stables where they’d
sleep are in the drip zone.January storms stripped shingles from
the tops of the ranch’s two barns and exac-erbated the leakage problem, prompting a call for help from ranch managers late last month. They started the “Adopt-a-Shingle” campaign to raise money.
“We’ve done patchwork before, but we’ve come to the point where this is eat-ing away at our time and money,” Jensen said.
The shingle-and-plywood roofs are more than 20 years old and will take about $65,000 to repair, Jensen says. The ranch has garnered about $30,000 in grants and donations for roof refur-bishments over the past six months — enough for one of the barns. The remain-der is unaccounted for.
“We’ve put this off for as long as we can put it off. … This is our top priority right now.”
— Leslie Jensen, Elkus Ranch p
rogram coordinator
Lars Howlett / Review
Elkus Ranch manager Leslie Jensen holds buckets used for catching rain water that trickles through the barn’s leaky roof. The ranch, south of Half Moon Bay, is seeking do-nations to repair the roofs of two of its barns.
Good reads for V-day
VOLUNTEERS BEGIN NEW MEDICAL RECORD HANDOUTPHOENIX PROJECT TAKES OVER CLINIC
Local volunteers now have custody of thousands of medical records be-longing to former Coastside Family
Medical Center patients and they want to return those records before August, when they could be legally destroyed.
Organizers from the local Phoenix Project nonprofi t received a judicial order last week allowing them to take control of about 34,000 patient medi-cal charts left by the former clinic.
Local volunteers have been seek-ing a way to get medical records back to patients since the Coastside clinic
closed down last March. “Finally, after all these months, we
have guardianship,” said Dr. Grant Weiss, director of the Phoenix Proj-ect. “Absolutely the most important thing now is to get the word out to the community.”
What to do with the inventory of medical records has been the most pressing question in the bankruptcy
Your medical recordsFormer patients of the Coastside Family Medical Center can retrieve their
medical records by contacting the Phoenix Project at [email protected]. You can request your records by providing name and birthdate. Once the request is made, volunteers will pull a patient’s record and have it ready for pickup from 10 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., and 1:15 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Satur-days and Sundays at Purisima Family Medicine at 575 Kelly Ave.
Patients need to provide some form of legal identifi cation to obtain their records. More information can be found at hmbphoenix.org.
See RECORDS a 6A
Cougars blow by JeffersonHMB girls turn it on after slow start > Sports 5B
Coastside book lovers offer romantic favorites > 4BBOOKS
a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Volume ı ı ı Number 4 ı | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com
Editorial a 4A | Weather & Tides a 5A | Police Log a 5A | A&E a 2B | Sports a 5B | Real Estate a 1C | Classifi eds a 3C
The once-a-decade head-count is around the corner, and to make sure everyone is accounted for when social ser-vice providers are doling out stipends, San Mateo Coun-ty supervisors are making the rounds to some of the most underserved areas in their districts. For Supervisor Rich Gordon, that meant a trip to Pescadero.
On Thursday afternoon, a band of local census workers set up a table at a social service event at Pescadero Communi-ty Church to spread awareness about the upcoming count in
April. They handed out pam-phlets and collected e-mail ad-dresses in hopes of penetrat-ing a language barrier they say separates needy people from necessary services.
Addressing a crowd of more than 100 Pescaderans distrib-uting and picking up crates of food and waiting in line for di-aper handouts and H1N1 vac-
cinations at the church, Gor-don laid out in plain English the benefi t of participating in the count.
“If the federal government knows how many people we have, we get more mon-ey,” said Gordon, amplifi ed through a microphone. A man standing beside Gordon trans-lated the supervisor’s verbiage into Spanish for the crowd, composed almost exclusively of Latinos. “It’s very simple. … Get counted. Help our com-munity.”
In a rural town like Pesca-dero, every body counted con-tributes to the community’s “political power” as well, add-
“It’s very simple. … Get counted. Help our community.”
— Rich Gordon, San Mateo County supervisor
Greg Thomas / Review
San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon speaks to Pescadero residents Thursday in an effort to increase the local count during the 2010 Census. County offi cials are concerned that the rural region’s Spanish-speaking population may shy away from government enumerators.
ISOLATED TOWN IS ONE OF COUNTY’S MOST UNDERCOUNTED POPULATIONS
[ c e n s u s ]
Martha Jenkins / Review
Kids helping kidsStudents in Melissa Moriarty’s fourth- and fi fth-grade class at Hatch Elementary School held a bake sale Friday to raise money for needy children in Haiti. In the wake of last month’s devastating earthquake there, Hatch students wanted to make a donation to UNICEF. The international relief organization has said it is focusing on the many needs of children in Haiti. Hatch students raised $275 during Friday’s bake sale alone.
The fi nal version of a highly debated environmental impact report for Big Wave might be close at hand.
The proposed Princeton de-velopment calls for a 225,000-
square-foot, three-story offi ce park paired with a cooperative-style wellness center for devel-opmentally disabled people on Airport Street, between Half Moon Bay Airport and Pillar Point Air Force Station.
Coastsiders and other con-cerned parties submitted more
than 300 comments on the draft report before the com-ment period closed on Christ-mas Eve. Those comments are being incorporated into the fi -nal report, which county offi -cials have assembled.
A Big Wave study session, hosted by the county Planning Commission last week, wraps up the public review process for the draft report. County planners are reportedly work-
ing with authors of the report to respond to the concerns raised during the comment pe-riod; several people who sub-mitted comments complained that the report was inadequate and misleading.
The process calls for con-cerns to be addressed before the Planning Commission votes on the project. Original-ly, the Planning Commission
EIR PROCESS CONTINUES BEFORE PLANNING VOTE
See BIG WAVE a 8A
See CENSUS a 8A
“The offi cers got a private party to take the boar. To dispose of it.”
It’s not very often a wild boar is spotted in Half Moon Bay. It’s rarer still for local police to shoot to kill.
But the two circumstances came together on Thurs-day morning when a boar estimated to weigh around 300 pounds spooked residents and pedestrians as it wandered through front yards along Grandview Bou-levard. And in its aftermath, the unlikely situation has fueled much discussion and speculation as to what ex-actly happened.
On Thursday, the boar had apparently wandered into the neighborhood from the nearby hills. Boars typically avoid human contact.
But this animal didn’t seem scared, recalled Edgar Natan, a postal carrier who was delivering mail to the neighborhood that day. Natan said the animal came near him and was trotting by as he followed the mail
[ p u b l i c s a f e t y ]
Deal could shape senior campus, Coastal TrailCITY, COUNTY TO
Half Moon Bay offi cials are beginning closed-door negotiations to trade an Arnold Way prop-erty to San Mateo County in exchange for bluff-top tracts. The deal could provide needed land
for both the downtown senior campus and the Coastal Trail.
The county has listed 16 properties it owns within Half Moon Bay city limits that it could offer the city in exchange for the Arnold Way property, according to county records.
All or some of those properties would be traded to the city for the 1.1-acre Arnold Way parcel next to the Lesley Gardens retirement home.
The 16 properties the county is including in the land deal are all public utility district parcels on the west side of Highway 1. The undevel-oped properties total 12.5 acres and lie between Seymour Street and Redondo Beach Road, a one-mile stretch that interrupts the Half Moon Bay section of the Coastal Trail. City offi cials say they have proposed a deal to acquire the coast-al properties as a step to someday develop the trail.
Although large in area, the county’s prop-erties would fetch only a modest price on the market because the parcels have little potential for development, offi cials say. The county par-cels are spread throughout open-space land and their price would be based on their preservation value.
Planning Director Steve Flint said the city is hoping the land deal can be a step toward ex-
a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
Volume ı ı ı Number 4 ı | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com
FADING TO BLACK
a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
FREE INSIDE! HMB MAGAZINE: THE MONEY AND FINANCE ISSUE
Moss Beach songwriter holds CD release party > 2B
NEW LEADER FOR CCPAgnes Chan takes over at Coastside Children’s Programs > 3B
See LAND DEAL a 8A
Approximate location of shooting
See BOAR a 8A
n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Volume ı ı ı Number 40 | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com
Editorial a 5A | Weather & Tides a 6A | Police Log a 6A | A&E a 2B | Sports a 7B | Real Estate a 1C | Classifi eds a 3C
n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
PUBLISHED IN PILATESLocal woman creates two new books on exercise. 6B
IN THE RHYTHMCongolese man leads classes in drumming and dance. 1B
Long-standing animosity between Mavericks pioneer Jeff Clark and his former business part-ners at Mavericks Surf Ventures, the company that organizes the Mavericks Surf Contest off Pillar Point, has come to a head. The legendary big-wave surfer announced last week he is su-ing the company and its board of directors for
failing to honor contractual and fi nancial agree-ments and for withholding basic fi nancial infor-mation from shareholders.
Clark, of El Granada, is credited with intro-ducing Mavericks to the surf community and promoting it as an international destination for big-wave riding. He co-founded the famed Mav-ericks Surf Contest in 1998, and partnered with Evolve Sports in 2003 to create Mavericks Surf Ventures, the company that runs the event to-day.
Clark acted as contest director and a key fi g-urehead for the Mavericks brand until last sum-mer, when Mavericks Surf Ventures terminated
him. Despite his break with the company and the event, Clark’s name and image remain ir-revocably tied to Mavericks for many surfi ng fans.
The circumstances of Clark’s departure from Mavericks Surf Ventures were murky at fi rst; both sides issued statements focused more on his contribution to the sport and love for the wave. But in interviews and prepared statements shortly thereafter, Clark said he was “ousted” as contest director, a move that prompted his res-ignation from the company board of directors.
Filed with the Superior Court of San Francis-co County, Clark’s complaint alleges the compa-ny reneged on contracts that would have netted the surfer $9,250 a month, and is withholding tens of thousands of dollars in payments. Clark
“I made a mistake and I trusted the wrong people.”
At lunchtime on Friday, the former Cun-ha Intermediate School library building was a cacophony of middle-schoolers. Paper air-planes whizzed through the air, Jenga game blocks crashed onto the tables, and students screamed, chatted and laughed in delight.
The library is a hushed place no longer. Now the building houses the Community Schools Initiative, a pioneering project to expand stu-dents’ educational opportunities by giving them activities and a safe environment before, during and after school.
The Community Schools project counts among its advocates some infl uential locals who are quick to support the program’s poten-tial to revolutionize Coastside education.
“This is our springboard to the future,” said former mayor Bonnie Dunham, who sat on the Community Schools advisory committee. “It’s the most important thing I’ve done on the City Council.”
“Community Schools is truly an exciting op-portunity,” said former mayor Jim Grady, an-other member of the committee. “Everyone checks their guns at the door to move this proj-ect forward.”
These days, Community Schools needs as much local support as it can muster. The proj-ect has been funded through a cooperative agreement between Cabrillo Unifi ed School District, the city of Half Moon Bay and San Ma-teo County. Looking for $120,000 in funding for the next three years, Community Schools offi -
[ s c h o o l s ] [ w e a t h e r ]
Lauded school program seeks
funding
Lars Howlett / Review
Cunha Intermediate School students stand by a poster supporting after-school activities that are developed through the Community Schools program. The program is a cooperative effort of the Cabrillo Unifi ed School District, the city of Half Moon Bay and San Mateo County.
Patchy clouds and rainy weath-er will linger for the week on the Coastside, but weather offi cials say it won’t be anything like the bar-rage of storms in recent days.
Over the coming days, the Coast-side may actually see some sun-shine. Weather forecasts an-ticipate partially cloudy skies through Friday, leading into a weekend of gray clouds and light rainfall.
The front expected this weekend appears to be much tamer than the recent storms, said Brian Tentinger, a me-teorologist with the National Weather Service.
“We’ve got a weak rain system moving in,” Tentinger said. “It’s not as strong and not a return to what we had before.”
The Coastside received about six inches of rain in a series of winter storms that began about 10 days ago. The multiple systems meld-ed together before they hit Califor-nia, making the days of pounding rainfall seem like one continuous storm.
The windy, wet weather caused numerous problems in the area. Mudslides and trees and branches littered rural roads throughout the South Coast last week. Powerful gusts of wind knocked over trees
and power lines along Highway 84, closing down the rural avenue near Pescadero Creek Road and taking out power to the La Honda area.
Further up the coast, the windy weather also knocked over electri-cal poles along the Midcoast last week, causing thousands of cus-tomers to lose power. The wind also caused damage to fi xtures on the roof at the Half Moon Bay City Hall, and it dislodged a patio roof
behind Sam’s Chowder House, damaging solar panels used to power the restaurant.
The tumultuous weather was ex-citing for some Coastside amateur weather trackers.
“This is when things get inter-esting,” said Half Moon Bay resi-dent Dennis Paull, a storm spotter with the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network. “The Coastside is full of microclimates, so it’s a little different all around here.”
Paull makes daily reports to his organization, using a gauge in his yard to track rainfall, which he has
“The rain and hail were so strong that I couldn’t
even see the ground.”— Dennis Paull,
Coastside storm spotter
Lars Howlett / Review
Crews worked through the rain last week to keep Highway 84 open in La Honda. The South Coast reported a series of problems related to days of sporadic heavy rainfall.
Photo courtesy Hovik Azadkhanian
Storm Watch volunteers Derry Kabcenell, left, and Ed Daley, center, remove a fallen tree branch obstructing traffi c on Pescade-ro Creek Road last week while Steve Wineinger, right, keeps an eye out for oncoming cars. Volunteers played a major role in cleaning up debris on South Coast roads after high winds and heavy rains.
Storms of last week’s magnitude swamp fi rst responders, giving emergency service providers and utility maintenance workers more work than they can handle in a timely fashion. More than half of the county’s resources are directed to the Coastside during storm events, said county Emergency Ser-vices Bureau Sgt. Joe Sheridan.
“The coast always has those unique things that occur out See STORMS a 12A See OES a 12A
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Volume ı ı ı Number 39 | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com
Editorial a 4A | Weather & Tides a 5A | Police Log a 5A | A&E a 2B | Sports a 7B | Real Estate a 1C | Classifi eds a 2C
a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l ea n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
LEDERMAN EARNS HONORCoastside theater arts champion named
Arts Educator of the Year | Page B2
COUGARS FINDING THEIR FOOTINGGirls soccer team has a toughtime with San Mateo | Page B7
A new semester at the Coast-side College of San Mateo starts today, but the ringing of the class bells could sound more like a funeral toll.
The fate of the satellite cam-pus is hanging by a thread, threatened by upcoming cut-backs that will be decided by the board of trustees for the San Mateo Community Col-lege District in the coming weeks.
Administrators at the com-munity college say it is like-ly the nascent campus will be shuttered after this semes-ter, even though the Coastside branch has been open for less than two years.
Talk of closure has frustrat-ed many Coastside students, many of whom have sent let-ters beseeching the college dis-trict to save the campus.
“We can’t just let this cam-pus wither. There’s too much at stake for the community,” said Coastside resident Jo-Ann Ordano. “I’m a senior, I have mobility problems … I have hesitation in going over the hill for community college.”
Her watercolor painting class starting this week, Or-dano said she would speak up at the beginning of class and urge her classmates to petition the college district to save the campus.
The community college dis-trict is reeling from multi-ple fi nancial burdens, includ-ing a $30 million defi cit from the Lehman Brothers invest-ment house collapse and ongo-ing cuts to education from the state. For the upcoming budget year, the College of San Mateo is looking to trim its $28.3 mil-lion budget by 22 percent.
Those setbacks have made cost-cutting a brutal necessity for the district, which oversees the College of San Mateo, Sky-line College and Cañada Col-lege.
“To be honest, everything’s
Sound offThe next San Mateo Com-munity College District board meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m., Jan. 27, at the district boardroom at 3401 CSM Drive in San Mateo. Send an e-mail with your comments to [email protected], or call (650) 358-6753.
“We can’t just let this campus wither. There’s too much at stake for the community.”
— Jo-Ann Ordano, Coastside CSM student
Skylawn plans ahead for grave futureCEMETERY SUBMITS
The Skylawn Memorial Park may become a boomtown for the dead.
That growth won’t happen overnight. In fact, cemetery di-rectors are planning expansion for the next 300 years.
Currently featuring about 40,000 burial plots, the large cem-etery has submitted plans and studies to San Mateo County to grow by about fi ve times that amount. And Skylawn offi cials are certain the next three centuries will provide plenty of cus-tomers.
General Manager Chuck Hotchkiss led a visitor on a tour of the new graveyard areas being planned at Skylawn. A fourth-generation cemetery director, Hotchkiss is a large, goateed man with the practiced calmness of a delicate profession. He explained that he was pulled into the family profession after getting his MBA. He said Skylawn was following the same ad-vice it gives all its clients about preparing for the future.
“We looked at the entire property for how we can serve the community for generations,” Hotchkiss said. “Obviously, it‘s
Lars Howlett / Review
Chuck Hotchkiss of Lifemark Center at Skylawn Memorial Park looks out at the area his company hopes to turn into natural gravesites as part of a 300-year plan for expansion. See CEMETERY a 8A
Elected leaders for the Ca-brillo Unifi ed School District unanimously voiced support for a June parcel tax for local public education.
But the devil is in the details. School board members remain undecided on the specifi cs of a tax initiative, particularly on the dollar amount.
Cabrillo schools are facing a $2.5 million defi cit next year that will need to be addressed in the coming months. With no easy choices left, local school offi cials are crossing their fi n-gers, hoping that a sympathet-ic Coastside public can relieve the district from the worst out-comes of a bad budget situa-tion.
Budget meetingsThe Cabrillo Unifi ed School District has announced four meetings to discuss the funding situation for local education and the possibil-ity of a parcel tax. The meetings will be held at 6 p.m. at the following dates and locations:t Thursday, Jan. 21, at the multiuse room at Farallone View Elementary School.tMonday, Jan. 25, at the library at El Granada Ele-mentary School.tTuesday, Feb. 23, at the multiuse room at Hatch El-ementary School.tThursday, Feb. 25, at the District Offi ce boardroom.
See PARCEL TAX a 8A
See COLLEGE a 8A
Lars Howlett / Review
A double rainbow envelops the fi eld along Airport Road in Moss Beach during a lull in the bad weather Monday. Similar unsettled weather is expected through the rest of the work week.
WEATHERING THE STORMCOASTSIDE SURVIVES FIRST ROUND,
Foul weather blew into the Coastside this week, and it looks like it’s here for an extended visit. Despite periods of heavy, sustained rain and wind gusts as high as 50 mph, the coast escaped serious problems … so far.
That isn’t to say everything was left high and dry by sporad-ic deluges Monday and Tuesday.
Much of the damage Monday occurred between 10 a.m. and noon, when a violent burst of rain and wind toppled trees and power lines and left some prominent landmarks worse for wear. Then the skies boomed overnight Monday, as thunder and lightning rattled homes and nerves across the coast. An-other heavy band of rain followed just in time for the morning commute on Tuesday.
The forecast calls for rain today through Friday, and again Sunday and Monday following a brief respite on Saturday. The National Weather Service has issued a variety of watches and warnings, including a high surf warning through 4 p.m. Thursday and small-craft and coastal fl ooding advisories.
Monday morning Half Moon Bay Police blocked the 700 block of Main Street when a power pole leaned over the road-way. A couple blocks north, plywood paneling was stripped away from the roof on City Hall. The paneling, which had covered mechanical units on the building’s roof, were even-tually removed.
City employees heard the plywood working loose on the roof and beating against the air-conditioning machinery. “It was like a loud drum,” said City Manager Michael Dolder.
“With the sheer mass of those boards, they could’ve caused some damage if they fell off.”
Further up the coast, the wind took the roof from the ter-race behind Sam’s Chowder House. The dislodged roofi ng damaged solar panels used to power the restaurant. Owner Paul Shenkman said Tuesday morning that a gas line also ruptured and he was waiting for PG&E crews to come restart gas fl ow.
“It was gnarly,” Shenkman said. “I haven’t tallied it up, but it’s a lot of damage.”
Thousands of local customers were without power Monday,
Lars Howlett / Review
A volunteer, working with the Half Moon Bay Police Depart-ment, directs traffi c around a power pole that was leaning precar-iously over the 700 block of Main Street Monday.
[ w i n t e r s t o r m s ]
See STORMS a 8A
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Volume ı ı ı Number 38 | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com
Editorial a 4A | Weather & Tides a 5A | Police Log a 5A | A&E a 2B | Sports a 5B | Real Estate a 1C | Classifi eds a 2C
a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
COASTSIDE PAC CITED FOR 2005 VIOLATIONSLCP FINED FOR MAILING,
The San Mateo County League for Coastside Protection has agreed to pay $3,500 in fi nes lev-ied by the state Fair Political Practices Commis-sion for two campaign violations dating back to the 2005 election cycle.
The state commission cited the Coastside-based political action committee for failing to properly identify itself as the publisher of the
short-lived “Voice of the Coast” mailing, which was distributed several times in the run-up to the 2005 election.
State elections laws require political organiza-tions or candidates to provide their names and
addresses on the outside of any mass mailings sent to voters. The “Voice of the Coast” did not include this information on the outside, but it was printed inside the newsletter.
The commission also penalized the league for misreporting its donations from City Council candidate and former Mayor Mike Ferreira and Coastside County Water District candidate Jim Marsh. In elections reports fi led by the league in January 2006, Ferreira and Marsh were listed as donating $827 and $300, respectively. The actual donations were later determined to be $912 from Ferreira and $680 from Marsh. Both candidates were endorsed by the LCP and paid for inclusion
in the “Voice of the Coast” publication.“It was a clerical error,” explained Scott Boyd,
co-chair of the league. “A couple things fell through the cracks.”
The two violations together could have amounted to $10,000 in fi nes, but the com-
Minor violation or clear deception?The Review’s editorial suggests that the LCP’s vi-olations were both minor infractions and an at-tempt to deceive voters — the latter offense being the most egregious. See editorial, Page 4A.
“It was a clerical error.”
— Scott Boyd, San Mateo County League for Coast-side Protection co-chair
The National Weather Service issued a high surf ad-visory to boaters and beachgoers Monday, anticipat-ing waves as high as 20 feet rolling into the Coast-side on Thursday morning. The weather service also warns of the potential for coastal fl ooding in the re-gion over the period.
Of course, one man’s danger is another’s attraction and the 24 big-wave surfers on call for the Mavericks Surf Contest have their eyes on the coast this week. They voted not to hold the contest today, but weath-er watchers say storm systems are stacking up out in the Pacifi c.
The weather service expects the surge to produce powerful waves, strong rip currents and beach ero-sion along a stretch of the California coast, but it’s the wind that compelled surfers to pass on the opportu-nity to compete.
Mark Sponsler, a key Mavericks weather forecaster, said Monday the wind and rain expected today is “cer-tainly not good contest weather.”
El Niño is in full swing, stirring up batches of big surf that will continue to land on the Coastside inter-mittently this winter. Holding a contest is just a mat-ter of aligning big waves with wind and other factors, say Mavericks surfers and offi cials.
Weather models infl uencing the confi dence of surf-ers have been erratic, generating a series of near miss-es and false starts since the window opened in Novem-ber. Sponsler said surfers are aware that more swells are “piling in behind (this one).”
The oscillating models for big waves have prompted a handful of votes since the contest window opened. As weather updates roll in, surfers face the challenge of calling an appropriate day to hold the contest some 48 hours in advance of the arrival of a swell.
Even without a contest, Mavericks surfers have been seen hitting the spot on big days, and there’s ev-ery reason to believe they will be on the coast today — despite the risk.
Contest invitee Ion Banner of El Granada said the setup “looks like a prime tow-day” at Mavericks, de-spite a potentially choppy experience. r
On Thursday afternoon, Gary Stra-chan made a fi nal sweep of his for-mer abode, a weathered white Victo-
rian adjacent to the park rangers’ station at Año Nuevo State Reserve. He occupied the home for two-and-a-half decades during his career service as a State Parks ranger.
Tracing each empty, echoing room, Stra-chan scooped up two last mementos: an
acrylic canvas a friend painted of him riding a wave at Waddell Creek, and a spray-paint-ed gold park ranger’s hat — a sort of going-away gag gift from a rang-er buddy.
Donning the shiny hat, cocking an eyebrow and twisting down the corners of his mouth, Strachan struck his best impression of a John Wayne charac-ter. “Don’t take yourself too seriously,” is the fi rst of Strachan’s four guiding principles for life.
At 60 years old, the gangly surfer looks happy and healthy — the telltale signs of a man who spent his best years active out-doors.
After 25 years patrolling the beaches, pro-tecting the forests, mobilizing vol-unteers and lobbying for preserva-tion of Coastside resources, Stra-chan retired. His last day was Dec. 31. He leaves behind a legacy of
dedicated service on the Coastside. Friends and colleagues say he embodies the iconic omnipresent ranger.
“He’s a guy who’s a real generalist old-time
Lars Howlett / Review
Retired California State Parks ranger Gary Strachan sits on the porch of his former home at Año Nuevo State Reserve. He’s holding the gold-en hat he received at his retirement party.
A State Parks icon looks back on career in ‘paradise’34-YEAR RANGER HANGS UP HIS GOLDEN HAT
Developing the scientifi c method took humankind a few mil-lennia, but Cunha Intermediate School eighth-graders managed to get a pretty good handle on it over the last few months.
“Yeah, I think they got it,” said Cunha science teacher Lucin-da Hitchner while touring the rows of science projects placed throughout the school gym Monday night. “The kids always sur-prise me with their ideas.”
Hitchner walked by the dozens of backboards featuring titles such as “Skydiving Barbie,” “¡Eating Chocolate!”, “How Fast Are You?”, “How Tall are You?” and “Who Died?” A bit drained after a full day in the classroom, Hitchner and her team were doing
The Coastside County Water Dis-trict is testing the waters, fi guratively, to see whether they can entice proper-ty owners using private wells to sign up for the district’s water service.
The water district is surveying land-owners to fi nd out if there is a market
[ s c i e n c e f a i r ][ i n f r a s t r u c t u r e ]
See SCIENCE FAIR a 9ASee WELLS a 9A
Water district looks to lure well-users
Lars Howlett / Review
Cunha Intermediate School science teacher Lucinda Hitchner looks over eighth-grade science projects in the school gym Monday. The fair itself takes place today.
Checking out the whales a Tours out of the harbor get you close to our ocean neighbors > 1B
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Volume ı ı ı Number 37 | 75 cents Serving the entire San Mateo Coastside since ı898 www.hmbreview.com
Editorial a 4A | Weather & Tides a 5A | Police Log a 5A | A&E a 2B | Sports a 5B | Real Estate a 1C | Classifi eds a 3C
a n d p e s c a d e r o p e b b l e
DUI TROUBLES CONTINUE ON COAST
Getting from bar A to bar B can be a taxiing experience
Half Moon Bay Police say they made 67 arrests for driving under the infl uence in 2009 — about average for the decade just passed. They are less sure what to make of that fact.
Recent DUI statistics for Half Moon Bay fl uctuate and demonstrate no clear trend. In 2002 police arrested the highest number of the decade, 100 people. But in 2005 DUI arrests dropped to nearly half that number, 52 people.
Interpreting arrest fi gures comes down to perspective. Are high arrest numbers a good sign, indicating that police are do-ing their job well? Or are they a bad sign, showing an increase in drunken drivers?
“There’s a lot of variables that are hard to pinpoint,” said Police Chief Don O’Keefe. “Usually the more offi cers you have on the road, the more (DUIs) you see.”
In recent years, local police have reduced their ranks from 18 to 14 sworn offi cers, meaning that the department has fewer re-sources to spare. Catching drunken driv-ers, O’Keefe said, frequently depends on
NEW YEAR’S EVE IS THE HIGHLIGHT OF CABBIES’ CALENDAR
Not normally a wallfl ower, Mark Restani was pushed to the edge of the bar to make room for a team of servers hoist-ing trays of champagne for the thirsty crowd.
It was New Year’s Eve at La Costane-ra restaurant in Montara, and the booze was fl owing for the packed room of rev-elers, who were shouting, laughing, spill-ing and — in some cases — wrestling on the barroom fl oor.
Restani, 25, shook his head when the champagne server approached, but the
employee thrust a glass into his hand anyway. Restani said nothing but ditched the drink on a coffee table.
It was no night for him to be drinking. As a cabby, he was everyone’s designated driver and for him New Year’s Eve was the pinnacle night of the year in more ways than one.
“It kind of sucks. Often there’s just a lot of awkward standing around,” he explained. “But if I have one drink, somebody’ll see me, and then all of the sudden I’ll be the drunk cab driver.”
Restani, an El Granada native, was well- known among the bar crowd, and many tipsy friends shuffl ed over to greet him. But conversations were a little stilted due to the booming music and the handicap of his sobriety.
During the midnight countdown, Restani’s cell phone fi nally buzzed with
the job he had been waiting for, and he rushed out to the parking lot. His cab, a well-worn Ford Aerostar van, grumbled to life as he took off down the highway toward El Granada.
Restani met his fi rst customers of the new year along Avenue Alhambra. The passenger door handle of the van had been ripped out, and Restani had to reach across the van to fi ddle with a pair of pli-ers to open the door.
The shocks of the van groaned from the weight of the four passengers who entered, asking to head down to the Old Princeton Landing bar.
“I know I’m getting hammered to-night,” one rider said. “So I’m either coming in a taxi or leaving in a cop car.”
One of his friends followed that point. “We’re intelligent enough to learn from
A slate of new maps high-lighting where the California coast is susceptible to fl ood-ing in the event of a major tsu-nami were released late last month. The Coastside is in the danger zone.
A “worst-case” tsunami sce-nario in San Mateo County shows less would be inundated on the Coastside than offi cials previously anticipated. Howev-er, scientists still consider Half Moon Bay one of the top fi ve most vulnerable points in the state, says Rick Wilson, Cali-fornia Geological Survey se-nior engineering geologist.
“It’s like a catcher’s mitt of tsunamis,” said Wilson, lead scientist for the state in pro-ducing the maps. “The way that the bay is facing and the underwater symmetry seem to amplify waves coming in. Par-ticularly the inundation into the (Half Moon Bay) airport is a big concern.”
The maps update a set of similar charts produced in 2005 in the wake of a tsunami that swamped coastlines bor-dering the Indian Ocean af-ter an undersea earthquake.
Sounding the alarms
Tsunamis pose a sig-nifi cant potential danger to Coastsiders, but winter storms and earthquakes are more pressing issues in the short term, says San Mateo County Offi ce of Emergency Services Planner Jim Asche. With that in mind, county offi -cials plan to run an emer-gency exercise in April to help with earthquake planning.
In the meantime, emergency offi cials will continue testing tsunami sirens at 10 a.m. on the fi rst Wednesday of every month, on low volume. The only high-volume test comes in September, Asche said.
If people hear warning sirens sound at any oth-er time, they should tune into 740 AM or 106.9 FM radio stations for more in-formation on evacuation and instructions, Asche said.
— Greg Thomas
[ s k y l i n e ]
RISK TO HALF MOON BAY CONSIDERED AMONG GREATEST IN STATE
Princeton Harbor
Pilarcitos Creek
Miramar
[ t s u n a m i r i s k ]
FREEINSIDE!
THE DOCTORS ARE INOur annual HMB Health and Fitness Magazine features the Coastside Running Club, an overview of apples and profi les of local physicians.
See TSUNAMI a 7ASee TAXI a 7A
Review fi le photo
Searchers scoured the area around Skeggs Point south of Kings Mountain in July, looking for a missing hiker named Douglas May. Last week, offi cials recov-ered human remains in the area.
A human skeleton discovered last week around the El Corte de Made-ra Creek Open Space Preserve could be the remains of a San Carlos hiker missing since July.
An unidentifi ed person told San Mateo County Sheriff’s offi cials that he found the human remains last week while walking near Star Hill Road, which runs west off Skyline Boulevard through the open hills.
The human remains were retrieved in a joint operation involving the Sheriff’s Offi ce and the Midpeninsu-la Regional Open Space District. The remains were reportedly little more than a skeleton and tattered clothes, with no obvious clues that could be used to discern who it was.
The skeleton has been delivered to the coroner’s offi ce for DNA analysis, which will take two to three weeks, of-fi cials say.
Douglas John May, a 55-year-old San Carlos hiker, went missing in the same
area in July. A frequent hiker, May often went on
walks at Skeggs Point, a trailhead and vista area just south of Kings Mountain. When his family reported May was miss-ing, authorities located his car at Skeggs Point, but numerous search-and-rescue attempts were unsuccessful.
Sheriff’s offi cials say May is the only missing person last seen in that area. But spokesman Sgt. Wes Matsuura said it was premature to speculate on the identity without defi nitive proof.
“Is this Douglas May? I don’t know,” he said. “We’re not going to guess at this time.” r
REMAINS FOUND IN OPEN SPACE PRESERVE
See DUI a 7A
Map courtesy California Emergency Management Agency
New tsunami maps indicate the threat of tsunami may not be quite as great as originally thought — but experts agree that a tsuna-mi could still leave swaths of the Coastside under water.
Lars Howlett / Review
Coastside cabdriver Mark Restani of Adams Coastal Airporter was on duty on New Year’s Eve — one of the biggest nights of the year for cabbies the world over.
HMB Magazine
Red portion of the map represents the area at risk of inundation in the event a tsunami.
