Friday, February 13, 2009

Morning News Round-Up -- 2.13.09: Half Moon Bay, a lobbyists' dream...

Watch Dog has covered (the coverage) of Half Moon Bay's lawsuit with developer Chop Keenan -- which is now costing Half Moon Bay $18 million they don't have. (As a reference point, Half Moon Bay's annual budget is $11 million.) Now, the Daily Journal chimes in with a story about how much money Half Moon Bay spent on lobbyists and lawyers in Sacramento. The Half Moon Bay Review has quite a different story about the lobbying dollar figures for the City. There seems to be some real confusion about how much money was actually spent for Sacramento activities and officials don't have good answers. This controversy will continue, Watch Dog predicts. Both the Daily Journal and the Half Moon Bay Review (and Watch Dog) are responding to a story from the Sacramento Bee titled Local government lobbying costs soar in California that singled out Half Moon Bay as a very aggressive Sacramento spender...

The details of the Federal stimulus package are trickling out -- which may help some local hospitals and other healthcare facilities a lot...good budget news? Say it ain't so...

The Maple Street Cemex site in Redwood City is a prize that the City is eyeing and is in "discussions and negotiations" with the owners. Originally, the discussion was about a County jail facility, which is "...absolutely not..." what will go there now, according to Mayor Rosanne Foust.

Recession + South San Francisco = $.1.47 million in budget cuts...

The Daily Journal comes out in favor of the (large) Burlingame property fee/tax hike for storm drains. I guess they wanted their opinion written (and read) before the deluge starts...

The Lincoln Elementary School in Burlingame is (apparently) the type of school that folks break the bank to move near. High performing students (and parents?) and a great reputation. So when parents were told by the Burlingame Elementary School District that their kids may not be able to attend because of overcrowding and a lottery system, parents went ballistic...and don't expect the elevated levels of hysteria to die down...ever...

The bad news keeps on coming for the Palo Alto Utilities Department. Earlier this week Federal officials from the Department of Transportation raided their headquarters and took out 7 boxes of stuff looking for forged documents? fraudulent hiring practices? who knows...Whatever it was in those boxes, the Feds are certainly looking for items above and beyond an internal investigation that happened last year.

Atherton is set to hire a new City Attorney, Wynn Furth, to replace outgoing City Attorney Marc Hynes. She has no idea what she is getting into. We've covered it here -- but Atherton has some of the screwiest legal issues brewing right now...enjoy the new gig Ms. Furth.

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