Morning (and weekend) News Round-Up -- 10.27.08

Belmont is trying to slow down traffic on downtown streets -- but that has a pretty hefty price tag.

Jerry Hill, Jackie Speier, and Ira Ruskin don't really have a tough election next Tuesday...thanks for the update.

Millbrae School District voters have the opportunity to pass a much-needed bond on the 4th. The coolest part of this bond, from Watch Dog's perspective, is that the name of the bond sounds like a movie title or a member of a '60 radical movement: Measure X.

Sue Lempert bashes everyone's favorite federal agency - FEMA and applauds Burlingame, Hillsborough, Millbrae, and San Bruno for initiating a fire department merger. You heard it hear first, however, that the new fire department should be called SanHilBurMil Fire Department...

Don't worry about the horses from Bay Meadows, they found a new home in the East Bay.

The new 'standards-based' report cards in San Mateo-Foster City schools get a big fat F from parents. Some parents are threatening a recall of 4 school board members. That move gets a C-, or in the new report card system, a 2.

There will be a groundbreaking ceremony at Stanford on the 27th for what is being called the 'world's largest stem cell research building.'

and from the weekend...(there are also Watch Dog posts here and here from the weekend)

The Almanac does its best to catch up on the work that Watch Dog has already done in looking into the Atherton City Council race. They provide a breakdown of the candidates, but they don't ask about cut and paste politics or any of the other fun stuff Watch Dog has been looking at. They also break down the race in Menlo Park.

On Friday, the Daily News folks jumped into the Atherton race as well, endorsing David Henig and Elizabeth Lewis. Because the papers as so difficult to view online (see Watch Dog's Daily News rant) here is a link to a photo copy of the story. To recap, the Daily News' papers have decided that online publishing was better in the early 1990s and wants to go back to those days, therefore Watch Dog is required to go back further in time to microfiche...

Here is a story published in the Daily Post (a paper with no online version) about the race for Menlo Park City Council. The story seems to suggest that challenger Rick Ciardella was only $34 behind in fundraising to incumbent Kelly Ferguson. According to the story's own facts, that is wrong -- Ciardella is actually third in fundraising behind incumbents Ferguson and Mayor Andy Cohen.