Morning News Round-Up -- 12.08.08: Surfing Summit Edition...

The impact of Jerry Hill's election to the State Assembly continues to trickle down. Watch Dog has written about this before, but the greatest movement seems to be in San Mateo. It is a widely held view that Carol Groom will be appointed to the Board of Supervisors from her perch on the San Mateo City Council -- opening up a City Council seat. A new name has surfaced as a possible replacement, Rich Hedges. Hedges is politically-connected to the labor movement and founded San Mateo NOW, which supported and pushed the Bay Meadows redevelopment. Stay tuned...Meanwhile, the applications are not pouring in for Hill's open seat, however. According to today's story, only one application has been submitted, and it wasn't Groom's. The Supervisors are going to make a decision this month about a non-democratic appointment, or a March special election to fill the seat. The Democratic and Republican Parties want an election...so does Watch Dog.

Matier & Ross at the Chronicle have many, many details about the hostage/slaying in San Mateo County on November 25th. It turns out Raymond Gee had been stopped twice in San Francisco -- both times he had a gun and one time he had 7 pounds of pot. Yikes. He was charged with a felony but was entered into drug treatment first. Then he met his victim on Halloween, stalked her, and killed her on November 25th...further details will undoubtedly follow...

The salt ponds in East Palo Alto known as Ravenswood are about to be turned back into wetlands in one of the biggest projects of its kind.

A downtown fire in Palo Alto caused the evacuation on a 'high rise' apartment building at Cowper Street and Forest Avenue on Saturday morning.

The Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce is getting a new Chief Executive. Paula Sandas who is currently a Planning and Transportation Commissioner will take over in January. She worked previously for Santa Clara County Supervisor Liz Kniss as well as the Palo Alto Weekly.

InsideBayArea.com has some photos of the new City Hall in Brisbane. Pretty cool structure.

A winning lottery ticket worth $158k+ was bought in Palo Alto. There is apparently no truth to the rumor that the ticket holder is afraid to come forward for fear of being robbed on the streets of Palo Alto...

15 leading 'surf advocates' gathered in Princeton on Friday to discuss the earth's coastal zones. Making this meeting the coolest meeting that happened last week in San Mateo County...

The Pigeon Point lighthouse received a grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express. It is a $54,000 grant, but to restore and fix the lighthouse it will take $5 to $7 million.