Voice of the Coast

We have assembled endorsements from a variety of groups. Some of the differences show in the differences in endorsements.

The community benefits when the guiding philosophy strives to make community decisions based on the values that make the Coastside the wonderful place it is to live, raise a family, work, play, and relax.

We urge you to learn about the Voice of the Coast’s picks for the community-values candidates and then get out and cast your vote!

Posted by Voice of the Coast at 12:00 PM | Permalink

Posted by Voice of the Coast at 10:14 AM | Permalink

Time was when the mention of Ocean Colony would bring to mind the conflict around Wavecrest, large housing developments, and unauthorized rip-rap (large boulders often used to armor bluffs against the ravages of the ocean) on the beach beneath the 18th hole.

Well, the times they are a’changin’. And that may have a lot to do with who started managing Ocean Colony Partners (OCP) in May.

Kenmark, a real estate firm founded by Bruce Russell and Mark Kendall, is known over the hill for projects like the Bay Meadows Project and 100 Redwood Shores Parkway. Kenmark now manages OCP, including the two golf courses, the remaining 33 houses to be built at Ocean Colony, and a one-third stake in the Wavecrest Village project.

We recently had the chance to sit down with Bruce Russell, Kenmark’s CEO, and found an avid golfer/lawyer/surfer/developer who speaks as easily about electronic control systems for buildings as he does about the benefits of less-manicured naturalistic golf courses.

When Kenmark took over operations, Russell spent nearly a month reviewing the file about the rip-rap beneath the 18th hole. In something of a departure, he consulted with the Coastal Commission staff, and soon made plans to remove rip-rap.

Kenmark’s plan, which they’re planning to show to Coastal Commission staff soon, includes removal of two large concrete slabs, relocation of the 18th hole, native plants, and a split rail fence for safety. After consultation with Council member Mike Ferreira, the proposal now includes steps down two sides of an arroyo to provide continuous Coastal Trail and beach access without the bridge that was originally planned.

Kenmark also commissioned a biologist to examine and photograph the bluffs from Pilarcitos Creek to the golf course to determine which native plants naturally occur on the blufftops, with an eye to using them for future landscaping.

This cooperation with the Commission and the city council marks a promising turn in what may be a larger trend towards cooperation.

Mayor Jim Grady observes, “In Bruce Russell, we have someone willing to work within the constraints of the Coastal Act, and in cooperation with the City and other agencies.”

As to Wavecrest, Russell notes, “We’re not making the decisions right now. There’s some redesign work being done to address the issue if the middle school’s not there. We’ve shared some of that with the council’s subcommittee.”

OCP owns one third of the Wavecrest Village project, and the managing partner responsibilities have moved to the majority owners, Concar and Pepper Lane.

The changes shown to Mayor Grady and Councilmember Ferreira include a 300 foot buffer from the limit of the habitat on the western edge (near the tall stand of trees), and a 200 foot buffer from the drainage on the south.

The proposal includes moving the project towards the highway, away from the drainage, with more green areas, and more park areas. Some of the home sites would larger, and a number of the lots might be reconfigured to assume more standard building site configurations. Russell suggests that some of the acreage previously planned for the school could provide some buffer along the highway, and perhaps a visual corridor across the property from the highway to the bluffs.

Kenmark also manages OCP’s golf courses. Russell is a big fan of naturalist courses, “Spectacular, non-intrusive golf courses,” noting that the current issue of Golf Digest highlights the world’s top 10 best naturalist golf courses. “You can build golf courses changing the topography very little. You plant less grass, you need less water, you need less fertilizer. There are a lot of golf courses in the world built that way now.”

Water is their number one issue. Recycled water, that is. Better management practices won’t eliminate the need for water, and golf courses need a lot of it. “I’m really focused on reclaimed water, safe, environmentally sound, [it] is critical to the golf course.”

Russell is working with councilmember Ferreira (who serves on SAM as part of his council duties) and other potential users to help move recycled water closer to becoming a reality.

Water occupies their minds in other ways, too. Blufftops erode faster from over-irrigation. And ponds and retention ponds silt up. Taking care of these and other maintenance issues sometimes involve permits. “Under the coastal act, we’re allowed to do a certain amount of maintenance. We expect getting CDPs for larger work outside the scope of maintenance,” says Russell.

And getting along seems to be the new way of doing business. Just imagine what the Coastside would be like if this had been the attitude ten years ago.

Posted by Voice of the Coast at 08:00 AM | Permalink

Director Ptacek will serve on the Region 5 Board of Directors, which represents water agencies in ten counties located in the coastal region from San Francisco to Santa Barbara and includes Contra Costa and Alameda Counties. His term will begin on January 1, 2006 and extends through December 31, 2007.

ACWA’s ten regions held elections this year to identify members to serve on the region boards for the upcoming 2006- 2007 term. The regions hold their elections every odd year in order to select the new region officers. Region leaders are the point persons within ACWA to promote the development, management and reasonable beneficial use of good quality water at the lowest practical cost in an environmentally- balanced manner.

Posted by Voice of the Coast at 07:30 AM | Permalink

The San Mateo County Transportation Authority board voted unanimously Thursday to advance $3.8 million to Half Moon Bay for its Main Street/Highway 92 project. This is a tremendous relief for a city that has been struggling for years to fix a traffic bottleneck.

get the whole story at Coastsider.com

Posted by Voice of the Coast at 04:00 AM | Permalink

The Coastside is going to change a lot in the next 20 years. If we don’t have a shared vision about our community, we’re going to make incremental decisions until we have a random collection of houses and strip malls connected by a few roads.

A recent survey of downtown businesses by the merchants themselves reveals the issues that they confront every day, and helps us to realize just how fragile downtown is. Everyone says they love downtown Half Moon Bay, but we haven’t really discussed what we want it to look like. It’s important to most of us, and it’s a matter of financial life and death for the merchants who have invested in it.

It’s hard to run a store downtown

With an 89% response rate to the survey, half of the merchants who responded said they had been struggling to some degree over the last three years. Three-quarters depend on their spouses, savings, or even loans, to keep going. A quarter said that their business was taking a toll on their health.

It’s challenging to set up shop in Half Moon Bay. About a third say that rent is one of their biggest challenges and another 20% feel it’s hard to find the right employees on the Coastside.

For some reason many Coastsiders prefer the shopping centers, like Linda Mar in Pacifica and Strawflower Village. And two-thirds of downtown merchants are certain that the unfinished Harbor Village in Princeton will cost them even more customers.

It’s not surprising that the downtown merchants feel that the key to their success is bringing more residents downtown. Whenever you ask residents what will do this, you hear answers like shoes, clothing, or underwear, and these items showed up in the survey, as well. But that seems like an improbable solution.

The heart of the Coastside

If our Coastside community has a heart, it is downtown Half Moon Bay. We need to strengthen that link. For many of us who live outside of Half Moon Bay, our main connection is through Cunha Middle School or the high school.

Parents and kids spend time downtown before and after school. Cunha kids walk to the high school and vice versa. If the middle school is replaced with an elementary school that serves families who already live near downtown, it could be devastating to downtown business.

The kinds of activities that bring people downtown are entertainment, recreation, meeting friends, and sharing meals. Our proposed new park, within walking distance of downtown, is a critical addition to downtown’s success.

Some say we need a movie theater, but we don’t need big concrete box surrounded by a parking lot in what used to be an empty field. That’s not going to bring anyone downtown. It could keep them away. An old-fashioned movie theatre that opens on the Main Street sidewalk would be lovely, but that probably bucks the trend toward fewer people going to the movies, presumably because of their home entertainment systems.

Planners have made some mistakes, mainly in making downtown into a car haven. The Bank of America parking lot intimidates pedestrians by turning the sidewalk in front of it into a busy intersection. The CCWD building is a block-long blank wall leading to another parking lot intersection. Half Moon Bay’s post office driveway works like a freeway interchange. We need to do better.

We should be thinking about people and not cars. Many people think downtown parking is inadequate. But its usually easy to find a space within a couple of blocks of your destination and everyone who gets out of their car and walks a few blocks adds to sidewalk activity in a positive way.

Downtown, special every day

A downtown designed for entertainment and walking will keep visitors in town after dark, instead of sending them home at the first whiff of fog. Special events like the Halloween and Fourth of July parades, Wine Walk, Pumpkin Festival, and Night of Lights should be part of our strategy for reorienting the community to downtown. But many of the merchants are alienated from them, saying they don’t generate enough foot traffic or sales. These events should be planned with downtown merchants in mind. After all, the business venues are what make downtown a desirable place to hold these events.

Besides the strip mall approach to paving over the Coastside, the other alternative is to become like Carmel, filled with boutique art galleries that don’t even pay sales tax when they ship out of state. The locals in Carmel have lost their downtown. They shop in the strip malls on the edge.

We should all think about what we want downtown to look like. Let’s keep it friendly to pedestrians, welcoming to locals, and open to our children. Let’s meet our friends and celebrate our successes in local restaurants. Let’s fill it with special events and remember that the downtown merchants are our hosts, and not simply a backdrop for our parties. We can buy our meat, fish, bread, and vegetables for dinner in downtown shops. (See Cooking on the Coast on page 6 for great local places to buy fresh food.) And focus on keeping downtown at the heart of our community.

Posted by Voice of the Coast at 12:01 AM | Permalink

Students visit Cunha to get class assignments.

Victoria Ortiz

Victoria is an eighth-grade student at Cunha

Yes, it’s that time of year again: back to school. The only thing more fun than actually going back to school, is finding out which teachers you have, and what classes. Today, many students entering the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade classes got their schedules at Cunha Middle School. Things are a little different this year though, so surprises are not just for 6th graders anymore. Cunha is getting new teachers, old ones are leaving, new classes will begin, and some will stop.

I spent the morning interviewing teachers, parents, students, and one pesky gopher, and here’s what you need to know:

Vice principal Mr. Nazar

Q: Will there be anything different about Cunha this year?

A: Yes. The new 6th graders at school will be going through a skills study program for the first few weeks of school. We’ve created this program to help new students transition to the culture and expectations of middle school. The program will last for the first 3 weeks of school and will include study skills, using schoolloop (http://www.cunha.schoolloop.com) and one-on-one meetings with teachers, staff and counselors. We are very excited about this new program and I’m looking forward to meeting all our new 6th graders. (For a more detailed list of topics that will be covered in the study skills program, click the “read more” link at the bottom of this story and see the end of this story.)

Q: What did you do over the summer?

A: My family went to a lot of softball games with my daughter. Her team qualified for regionals in Las Vegas, and then went on to the nationals in Washington. It was all very exciting.

Student counselor Ms. Weber

Q: What are you looking forward to about this year?

A: I am mostly looking forward to meeting the new 6th graders and seeing old faces. Also, I am looking forward to meeting the new teachers. One of the things I like about working at Cunha is that all the teachers and staff are very close. This year we had to say goodbye to Mr. Tretner, Ms. Phillips, Mrs. Zabo and Mr. Pittenger, however, we are all excited about the new teachers and look forward to working with them this year. They are:

Raj Bechar: 6th grade math, algebra 1-A, and sheltered math.

Craig Bryant: Band

Carlos Iraheta: Special Education

Ken Murray: 6th and 7th grade science

Gerald Schwartz: 6th & 8th grade science.

Q: Will there be any changes at Cunha this year?

A: Yes. One change will be to the English immersion program. In the past ESL (English as a second language) students had two classes daily, a morning before school class and then an afternoon reading/language arts period. Nearly 40% of Cunha’s students speak Spanish, so this year, they will continue the before school class and then integrate with the rest of the school body during the day.

Core and Drama teacher Mr. Ward

Q: Are there any new things that you are excited about at Cunha?

A: Well, I’ll be very happy to see everyone back from last year, and it’s always great meeting the new students. As for changes, for the first time, wheel is replacing Spanish with a class in Music Appreciation, which everyone is very excited about. (Mr. Ward also talked about the new Study Skills class as did Mr. Nasar and Mrs. Weber. All the teachers seem excited about this new introduction for the 6th graders.)

Students

I also got to talk to a couple of the students who are going to start at Cunha in a couple of days. I asked them all if they were happy with their schedule and who is their favorite teacher. Here are some of their replies:

Laura Acton, 7th grader, “I really like my schedule this year, and my favorite teacher is Mr. Ward. I had a great time this summer hanging out with my friends and surfing.

Liana Felde, 7th grader: “Overall, I like my schedule, but if I could change one thing, I wouldn’t want P.E first period. Its too cold in the morning and usually by afternoon the sun is out.”

Ethan and Scott, 7th graders: Ethan said, “My schedule is o.k., but if I could change something I would want Mr. Kastelic for science.” Scott added, “I would want to trade my classes so I could have home ec with Mrs. Cresson instead of art.

Alyssa Bretz and Eric Barton, 8th graders – Both Alyssa and Eric said they would change all their classes to they could be together. Right now, they don’t have any together! Alyssa’s favorite teacher is Mr. Morris and Eric’s is Mr. Schwartz.

Parents

What would back to school be without parents? We were able to catch Trish McGrath (Eric’s mom) on her way to pick up her kids and get her take on back to school. “I’m happy that Ethan is going to Cunha and he is very excited to be going back. We’re lucky to have such great teachers here, and to have a number of after school activities at the school and in the community.” I asked Mrs. McGrath her opinion about where the new middle school should be located; at Wavecrest or by the High School. Her answer was the same as 4 other parents I spoke to. “Rather than building a new school, the funds should be used to re-furbish Cunha. Wavecrest is too far away and would be a traffic nightmare. The high school location would not be much better. I feel safe and comfortable with the Cunha location and like the fact that the library and other after school activities are nearby. Our dentist is here in town, and the kids have a number of places they can go and still be safe. I like the fact that we are a close knit community, and having the middle school as part of that community is the right choice in my opinion.” I couldn’t agree more! Most of the kids I know love Cunha the way it is, but that’s another article for later.

Gophers

And in closing, I got an – up close look at “little Jimmy” the school Gopher! As you’ll see from the many holes all around the school, Jimmy and his friends have had a busy summer. Hopefully, we will only use the track for running from now on.

So there you go. Everyone is clearly excited about going back and being with friends. Having a fresh start is always a good thing, and to have it once a year is even better. New teachers, new students, and new classes. It’s a whole new year to look forward to.

Study Skills Topics

Day 1: Mechanics of Cunha – Campus layout, The Cub Agenda, Rules, expectations, questions and concerns.

Day 2: Getting organized at home – backpack, binder, home study area, Preparing and finishing homework

At school – During class guidelines, using cub agenda, Homework club, Elli club, boys & girls club, library

Day 3: School loop – Logging students on, parent information, how to contact teachers, how to use the loop

Day 4: How to memorize – RCRC (Read, Cover, Recite, Check) method, how to memorize lists, test preparation and use of acronyms

Day 5: Taking Notes – in class and at home during study preparation

Day six: Test Taking Strategies – short answer 6, multiple choice tests, true-false tests, essay tests

Day 7: Pictographs – How to read them, comparing information, types of charts: bar, pie, and line graphs

Day 8: Journal set up – Use for study skills and beyond, quick writes on daily topics

Day 9: Reading Direction – in text books, on assignments, on test

Days 10 – 15 Presenter Days and continuation of lesions to include:

Administrators and Staff – Principal, Assistant Principal, Office & Support staff, Job descriptions/personal connections ` Counselors – Introductions, issues they handle

Sexual Harassment and Conflict Resolution – presentation by district staff, student conflict resolution presentation

For more pictures and back to school links, see the story online at Coastsider.com.

Reprinted by permission from

Coastsider.com

Posted by Voice of the Coast at 04:58 PM | Permalink