My next door neighbor is running a junk yard in his driveway.  He starts sawing and drilling at 8am on Sunday mornings.  The noise and the visual blight is irritating and frustrating.  Anyone have any idea what the SM County rules are for noisy and littered properties in unincorporated Moss Beach?

Linda A. Rocha

Tom Stienstra at the Chron has an interesting account of the encounter between two brothers and a couple of mountain lions in Pescadero Creek County Park, “a remote, lightly visited open space with no facilities”.

Residents in the vicinity of Loma Mar and La Honda have been warned. The was also another lion sighting just north of the park, but it’s not clear if it was one of the lions sighted Sunday.

They hiked on Camp Pomponio Road, which goes through middle of park, and about 10 minutes in, wandered a few hundred yards off the trail, Foy said.

Near a creek, in a clearing at the edge of a densely vegetated area, a mountain lion emerged and walked right up to one of the hikers.

“The hiker shouted aggressively, but the lion did not go away,” Foy said. “So he picked up a big stick and swung at the lion. His brother came to his side and a second lion started closing in.”

Foy said the hiker never struck either cougar but eventually “managed to drive off the lions.”

The hikers then started to return to their car, but looked back and saw the lions were following them. “You could see them the whole time,” one told game wardens. [...]

Although mountain lion attacks are rare, they have become more numerous in the past couple of decades. According to Fish and Game records, all but three of the confirmed attacks on people in California since 1890 have happened in the past 25 years.

The increase coincided with state voters’ approval of a 1990 initiative designating mountain lions as a protected species, even though they were not threatened or endangered. The lions filled existing habitat and then expanded their range, at the same time the human population was moving farther into previously open space.

Gulf Of The Farallones And Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuaries are holding a joint advisory council meeting at Elkus Ranch Conference Center, Thursday, February 18, from 9am to 4:30pm.

Meanwhile, the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary is seeking applicants for its advisory council.

The sanctuary is accepting applications for primary and alternate seats representing  Conservation, Education, Community-at-Large (San Francisco/San Mateo), Community-at-Large (Marin/Sonoma), Research, Maritime Activities (Commercial), and Maritime Activities (Recreational).
 
Candidates are selected based on their expertise and experience in relation to the seat for which they are applying, community and professional affiliations, and views regarding the protection and management of marine resources. Applicants who are chosen as members should expect to serve two- to three-year terms.
           
The advisory council consists of 26 primary and alternate members representing a variety of public interest groups. It also includes five governmental seats representing the California Environmental Protection Agency, California Resources Agency, National Park Service, U.S. Coast Guard and NOAA Fisheries.
           
Applications are due March 1, 2010. To receive an application kit, or for further information please contact council coordinator Kelley Higgason by e-mail at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address); by phone at 415-561-6622, ext.202; or by mail at Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, 991 Marine Dr., The Presidio, San Francisco, CA 94129. Application kits can also be downloaded from the sanctuary’s web site at http://www.farallones.noaa.gov/manage/sac.html.

The agenda’s after the jump.

A 300 gallon sewage spill in El Granada closed Surfers Beach for three days, reports Julia Scott in the County Times.

Surfer’s Beach in El Granada was closed Jan. 28-30 after a sewer line ruptured, sending 300 gallons of sewage toward the beach and the ocean. El Granada Sanitary District General Manager Chuck Duffy attributed the leaks to a tree root puncturing the sewer main, which also caused an overflow Jan. 19, although that sewage was contained before it reached the ocean. [...]

San Mateo and El Granada were not the only municipalities that had sewage problems in January. San Bruno sent 16,575 gallons of sewage into the Bay on Jan. 19, according to state records. San Francisco Baykeeper, a local nonprofit advocacy group, has filed suit against San Carlos, Millbrae and the West Bay Sanitary District for similar problems.

GSD Manager Chuck Duffy was not available for comment when we called this morning.

Pescadero Creek County Park in La Honda is reopened, reports the Mercury News. It was closed when a pair of mountain lions came within a few feet of two hikers late Sunday afternoon.

The brothers stood their ground, shouting and swinging a stick, and after several minutes the lions retreated. On Monday, wardens led a pursuit of the lions using trained hounds, and by Tuesday they were confident the animals had fled the park.

This type of encounter, involving multiple aggressive cougars, is “rare but not unheard of,” said Patrick Foy, Fish and Game warden. The brothers reacted correctly to the threat, Foy said, adding that running away could have triggered the lions to pursue them. [..]

“That’s what’s very odd about this,” he said. “Most lion attacks, the victim never sees it coming.”

1.  Under the current system of countywide elections, San Mateo County rarely has competitive elections to select its supervisors

a.  Facts:

• Only 1 in 5 supervisorial elections have been competitive in the last 30 years.
• An incumbent supervisor has been unseated only one time in the last 30 years
• Almost half of the time (49%), there are no elections at all.
• There has not been a competitive supervisor election in San Mateo County for over 10 years.
• The last five open supervisor seats were filled without an election

b.  Consequences:

• There is no discussion of important County issues
• Citizens are deprived of an opportunity to express their voice on these issues
• As a consequence, citizens are disconnected from County government

2.  Under the current system, the barriers to entry for candidates to run a credible campaign for supervisor are extremely high

a.  Facts:

• To run for supervisor a candidate must appeal to more voters than a candidate running for congress.
• To reach one third of the electorate with one mailer (approximately 130,000 voters) costs at least $65,000 (i.e. $0.50 per mail piece).
• The costs to run a credible campaign give incumbents an enormous advantage and as a result they are almost never seriously challenged.

b.  Consequences:

• Capable local city council members, school board members and activists rarely run against an incumbent.
• Non-white candidates rarely run and only one has been elected in the last 30 years.
• Even when a supervisor seat is open, the necessity of raising an significant amount of money (at least $100,000) and appealing for support countywide discourages good people from running.

3.  Under the current system, it is not feasible to hold supervisors accountable

• At the local level, city council incumbents are voted out of office when a challenger offers a new agenda or has concerns with the direction of the city
• In the last 30 years, in only one of 31 opportunities (3.2%) has a challenger unseated an incumbent supervisor.
• As a result, the electorate does not have the ability to hold supervisors accountable.

4.  San Mateo County’s costs for administering district elections would be significantly lower than today’s costs

• Today, each time there is a supervisor election (held in even years alternating between 2 seats and 3 seats up for election) the County must pay for the costs of administering a countywide election with approximately 390,000 total registered voters).
• With district elections, the County would only have to administer an election in individual districts with approximately 78,000 voters each.
• With district elections, it would cost one fifth as much to hold a special election to fill a vacated supervisor seat.

5.  District elections would give meaning to district representation

• Today supervisor candidates run countywide, but are not elected at large.  Instead the county charter requires that there be one supervisor from each of five districts so that the interests of each district are represented by an elected supervisor.
• The quality of the representation of each district would be strengthened if a supervisor had to face the voters every four years when there was possibility of a challenger mounting a credible campaign.

6.  San Mateo County is the only county of the 58 counties in California that elects its supervisors in countywide elections.

• Tehama County (which has 59,000 residents spread over 2,000 square miles) used to elect supervisors countywide, but in November 2008 the voters approved a county charter change providing for supervisors to be elected by district.
• Why should San Mateo County be different?
• Looking to San Francisco as an example of how district elections can lead to local interests trumping what’s best for the county as a whole is inappropriate for two reasons:
• San Francisco is a county and a city.
• San Francisco’s has demographics and a level of political activism that is unlike any of the other 56 counties that also elect supervisors through district elections.

Coastal Repertory Theatre’s Always…Patsy Cline opens this Friday.  This musical play, complete with down home country humor and true emotion, includes many of Patsy’ unforgettable hits such as “Crazy”, “I Fall to Pieces”, “Sweet Dreams” and “Waking After Midnight”...27 songs in all. 
Always…Patsy Cline is more than a tribute to the legendary country singer who died tragically at age 30 in a plane crash in 1963. The show is based on a true story about Cline’s friendship with a fan from Houston named Louise Seger, who befriended the star in a Texas honky-tonk in 1961, and continued a correspondence with Cline until her death. 

This show is not to be missed!  Performances run Friday and Saturday night at 8pm and Sunday at 2pm through February 27.  Tickets are selling fast; go to http://www.coastalrep.com to get yours now!  You can also call the box office at 650.569.3266.  Tickets can be purchased at the box office two hours prior to show time (if available!)

The Half Moon Bay High School leadership class is producing a talent show Friday, with proceeds going to the student association and Haiti relief.

The show is in the High School’s Multi-Use Room from 7 to about 10pm on Friday Feb 5.  Tickets are $10 at the door.

Elkus Ranch, the environmental education center on the Southcoast, needs $34,000 to repair its two barns, reports Julia Scott in the County Times. The barns are used for teaching classes.

“Every time the wind blows, we find more shingles on the ground. It’s just getting worse,” said Program Coordinator Leslie Jensen, leading a tour of the barns during a break in the rain on Monday.

A few miles south of Half Moon Bay, Elkus Ranch is one of the most popular school field trip destinations in the Bay Area. More than 6,000 students explore the ranch’s gardens, greenhouse, animal paddocks and barns each year to learn about how food is grown, how to care for farm animals, and how they are connected to it all.

Hundreds of other kids come to the ranch each year with their Scout troops and 4-H groups. The ranch offers scholarships to low-income and disabled students with help from donors and the University of California, which provides the operating budget.

The historic barns are a centerpiece of the Elkus Ranch experience — it’s where the kids come to see the newborn sheep who start to appear at this time of year. They learn about history and physiology from an impressive collection of ancient fossils and animal bones, and they get to try their hand at working an old-fashioned loom during a popular “sheep to shawl” event.

To contribute to the Elkus Ranch “Adopt-a-Shingle” program, contact Leslie Jensen at 650-712-3151 or e-mail .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).