A determined group of real estate and developer interests are trying to take over the Granada Sanitary District (GSD). They are stooping to despicable lies and smears against the incumbents. WE NEED YOUR HELP to preserve the Granada Sanitary District.

If you believe, as I do, that the GSD incumbents - Gael Erickson, Ric Lohman, and Leonard Woren - have done an outstanding job keeping GSD rates the lowest on the Coast, maintaining GSD infrastructure, cooperating to make recycled water available, protecting ratepayer investments, and working to prevent spills, it is critically important that you cast your votes for the incumbents.

PLEASE EMAIL THIS ARTICLE TO YOUR FRIENDS who will also support the GSD incumbents, and ask them to do the same.

This is likely to be a very low turnout election, so EVERY VOTE COUNTS!

At issue is a critical piece of infrastructure needed to protect our beaches, plus the very survival of GSD as an independent district serving its community.

The opposition wants to abandon the Sewer Authority Mid-Coastside’s (SAM) Wet Weather Flow Management Project that is well through the planning and engineering process. It will provide underground storage for excess wastewater flows during high flow periods, in a completely passive system not vulnerable to the frequent power outages we have during major storms. The current expected completion date is prior to the rainy season next winter.

Montara Fog has video of the Coastside Young Professionals’ city council candidates’ forum at Sam’s Chowderhouse on Thursday.

The questions, prepared in advance by the CYP, focused on issues of concern to younger residents of the coast including movie theaters and support for small businesses. Charnock suprised many in the audience by announcing at the start of the forum that there were to be no no questions on the Beachwood matter and suggested that answers should avoid the Beachwood issue as well.

Considering that this is the single most salient issue in the election and the future of the city, it’s startling that the topic was forbidden.

The City of Pacifica faces a $2.3 million fine imposed by the Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) for discharge of partially treated sewage estimated at 6.9 million gallons into the Pacific Ocean during a rainstorm on January 25 and 26, 2008.

See the article headlined “Sewage spill costs Pacifica” by Julia Scott in the San Mateo County Times for Thursday, October 29, 2009 - available online at http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateocountytimes/localnews/ci_13664462 for the full story.

Midcoast residents may remember that storm also, because areas in Montara and Moss Beach were flooded. Fortunately, San Mateo County has completed stormwater drainage improvement projects in the Cedar Street and Harte Street vicinity in Montara, and several areas in Moss Beach, in time to prevent or reduce the severity of flooding in the coming rainy season.

Sewer Authority Mid-Coastside (SAM) also had a spill resulting from that same rainstorm in 2008, but the improvements already completed in SAM’s Wet Weather Flow Management Program were able to capture and store 579,656 gallons that would otherwise have spilled within the SAM service area - at the treatment plant in Half Moon Bay, near Surfer’s Beach in El Granada, or at the old Montara wastewater treatment plant.

Prior to 1999, SAM was experiencing an average of ten spills per year from the Intertie Pipeline System (IPS), which collects sewage from within the City of Half Moon Bay, Granada Sanitary District, and Montara Water and Sanitary District for transport to the wastewater treatment plant in Half Moon Bay. After careful studies and consideration of cost-effective alternatives, the SAM member agencies agreed on improvements that currently provide 579,656 gallons of wet weather equalization storage within the system. These existing improvements prevent overflows in all but the most severe storms - down from an average of 10 per year to about 0.5 per year. It has been estimated that these existing improvements have already saved ratepayers approximately $1,323,473.58 in potential fines by the RWQCB.

Completion of the SAM Wet Weather Flow Management Program improvements should eliminate IPS overflows for storms with an intensity likely to recur only once every five years or longer, on average. SAM’s exposure to fines from the RWQCB will be significantly reduced once these improvements are completed.

Further details on the Wet Weather Flow Management Program can be found on the SAM website at http://www.samcleanswater.org/projects/PeerReviewReport-January2000.pdf which is a report summarizing the problem (as of 1999) and examining solutions.

For comparison with our recent storm on October 13, where 3.71 inches of rain was recorded at Montara and there was no overflow within the SAM IPS, the rainfall on January 25, 2008 totalled 4.06 inches and on January 26, 2008 was an additional 0.44 inches. Pacifica is closest to Montara of the SAM member agencies and has similar hilly topography, so the Montara rain gauge presents the best basis for comparison.

After consolidating two coastside fire districts and contracting out fire services to Cal Fire, the Caostside Fire Protection District should be on the mend.

Instead, the firefighters are continuing their war for control of the board by spending heavily to support three challengers for the open seats on the board. This is the second election in a row where the firefighters have pulled out all the stops to gain control of the district.

Coastsider endorses the three incumbent board members: Gary Burke, Ginny McShane, and Jeffrey B. Cockrell—so that district taxpayers, and not the firefighters, will control district policy.

If the firefighters’ candidates win this time, not only will a majority of the board have a conflict of interest with the taxpayers, the Cal Fire contract (which puts a protective barrier between the board and firehouse politics) will be at risk.

Our firefighters work hard and take risks to to protect our lives and our homes. They deserve our respect, a good contract, and excellent management. But they should not get to write their own contract.

The union-backed candidates claim that the incumbents have “given State Control of your Fire Department”.  The truth is that for the first time in a long time, the taxpayers have control of the fire department. Vote for the incumbents if you want to maintain control.

If water weren’t a proxy for the development wars on the Coastside, it would still be controversial. It’s precious, the demand is growing, the supply is static, and climate change puts what supply we have at risk.

The Coastside County Water District (CCWD) has enough on its plate without the district picking fights with everyone else on the Coastside.

Coastsider endorses James “Jay” Johnson for CCWD board. Johnson is intelligent, qualified, reasonable, and independent. He’s a political newcomer who’s interested in public service. He’d shake up the cozy consensus in Coastside’s most aggressive public agency.

When you look at CCWD’s efforts to control recycled water on the Coastside, commitment to use recycling to increase (rather than mitigate) development, offer to supply water to a huge and controversial development outside the district, desire to expand their authority to the sewer and water districts they don’t control on the Midcoast, and struggle against the authority of the Coastal Commission, you wonder how they have time to meet the needs of their ratepayers at a reasonable price. Of all the districts on the Coastside, CCWD is the only one that seems to envision itself as an empire on the move.

At the same time, the district faces supply uncertainty and rising prices for the water it buys from Hetch Hetchy, as well as local supply issues due to climate change and planned growth. And then there is the fact that CCWD has more than doubled water rates in less than ten years.

Like I said, you’d think they’d be content to supply water to their customers.

Incumbent Chris Mickelsen’s anonymous hate mail to a member of the Half Moon Bay Planning Commission is symptomatic of CCWD’s aggressive approach toward people who don’t share its vision.

Your best chance for change on the CCWD is to cast a single vote for Jay Johnson even though there are two open seats.  If you want to cast a second vote, you should vote for Jerry Donovan.

Half Moon Bay Police Department data is now available on the site CrimeReports.com. The date is updated by the HMBPD nightly. It’s mapped, and can be searched and analyzed by type, date, location.

This is a big advance in access to crime information for Coastsiders.

Can there be a more thankless task than running a small sewer district?  Granada Sanitary District residents are lucky to have three engaged and knowledgeable incumbents willing to serve another term on its board.

Coastsider endorses incumbents Gael Erickson, Ric Lohman, and Leonard Woren for the GSD board of directors.

In an off-year election with no other major issues on the ballot, it would be easy to neglect to vote.  It’s important that you take the time on Tuesday morning to vote. Every vote matters in what will surely be a low-turnout election.

Thanks to Montara Fog, we have a video of the GSD candidate forum, where the candidates had an opportunity to introduce themselves to the community.

It’s particularly telling to compare the incumbents’ answers to the audience questions to those of the challengers. You can’t help but learn something from the incumbents, particularly from Lohman and Woren.

Griffis and McCaffrey seem unsure of why they’re there or what they’re talking about. Even the developer-friendly Half Moon Bay Review identified Griffis and McCaffrey as potential “puppets” of real estate interests.

The trouble with voting the bums out is that two of the three opposition candidates come to the race with their own baggage. Neither Bill Griffis nor Lisa McCaffrey have ever been to a GSD meeting and are recruits of the property rights faction on the coast. They would find themselves puppets in the longest running turf war on the coast – “growthers” vs. “no-growthers.” That’s too bad.

No one questions that GSD is well run and efficient. The current board is doing a good job of serving its rate payers.

Furthermore, the current GSD board is committed to making the district and the Coastide a better place to live by upgrading their infrastructure in ways that secure the environment, and by allocating recycled water to restoring streams and wetlands.

A vote for the GSD incumbents is a vote for local control, continued good management, and a sustainable Coastside.

Come discuss two access improvement projects within the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve at a public meeting held by the The San Mateo County Parks Department.  The department will present conceptual plans review and comment.  Park staff will be presenting the conceptual plans and discussing the projects:

• Improvements to the existing public access from Nevada and North Lake Street (corner of the Fitzgerald Parking lot) to the beach.  This will include a new pathway and stairs using the current alignment, and improvements to the overlook.
• Development of the California Coastal Trail alignment from North Lake Street to Cypress Avenue.  This multi-use trail will include a crossing of San Vicente Creek and a paved 10-foot-wide surface with graveled shoulders.

Saturday October 31, 2009
9:30-11:00 a.m. 
Fitzgerald Marine Reserve Main Parking Lot, California and North Lake Street 
 
For further information please contact Senior Planner Sam Herzberg at 650.363.1823.

Coastside Film Society to screen a film about love across a cultural divide this Friday.

“A beautiful and bittersweet film, a coming-of-age tale that simultaneously gives us a small peek into the rapidly escalating clash between old and new China as the huge country races to modernize.” — Don Willmott, Filmcritic.com

Ruoma is a teenage girl living in a beautiful remote region of China’s Yunnan Province, who longs for a taste of the big city.  Ming is a big city boy, an amateur photographer come to take pictures of the gorgeous mountain rice fields. Before long Ming is taking pictures of Ruoma posing in her colorful Hani garb to sell to tourists. They split the take. Of course a romance is kindled, and just as inevitably that romance is challenged by their profound cultural differences.

The photography is gorgeous, full of Hani “songs, dances, and harvest rituals, all of which Ruoma takes part in with great joy.  The last thing Ruoma needs, you’ll think, is to be taken away from this simple life, and yet the world encroaches.”  Filmcritic.com

Jenny Kwok Wah Lau, Associate Professor from San Francisco State will introduce the film and take questions from the audience.

Friday Oct. 30, at 8:00
$6.00 suggested donation
Community United Methodist Church Sanctuary
777 Miramontes; Half Moon Bay

More info at: www.HMBFilm.org