Monday, February 2, 2009

Morning News Round-Up -- 2.2.09: Groundhog Day Edition...

Downtown San Mateo hopes to buck the economic trend (somewhat) by marketing itself to the world. Not to sound overly pessimistic, but good luck Downtown San Mateo Association...

Everyone's favorite electric car company, Tesla, is (apparently) not-ready to leave San Carlos -- which is a good thing, because they are not ready to move to San Jose either...For a full Tesla update, check with Watch Dog Silicon Valley who first broke the story that Tesla abandoned their San Jose plans...

The battle of government agencies continues in San Mateo between the City and the San Mateo Union High School District about the cost of using each others' fields. San Mateo Union jacked up their fees first, the City followed suit. Now, no one is happy, which is too bad for them -- but it is good reading for all of us...

If you park at the BART stations in Millbrae, San Bruno, or South San Francisco, expect to start paying for those hard-to-get spots...and if you take SamTrans to avoid having to get one of those hard-to-get BART parking spots, your fares are going up too...

Everest Charter School (finally) gets a thumbs up (recommendation) from the State. This means they will (almost certainly) receive a thumbs up for next school year. Watch Dog says "finally" because the school has been rejected locally twice: once by Sequioa Union High School District and once by the County Board of Education. The writing was apparently on the wall that Everest was going to succeed in getting State approval because the District set aside some temporary buildings in East Palo Alto last week...So much for local control of schools..

It turns out Watch Dog was right (again)...on January 23rd, we wrote this about the much-discussed lane closure near Carlmont High:
Nothing gets people more angry than forced changes to their routine. Changes to traffic patterns and kid drop-off routines at schools are especially sensitive. So when Belmont eliminated a lane of traffic around Carlmont High, Tierra Linda Middle School, and Immaculate Heart of Mary schools, people went ballistic. Belmont is standing firm that they did the right thing -- but this may cause a full-scale riot...
Well, the rioters went to the Belmont City Council, where they were met with an unsympathetic City Manager who said, "...It’s a school zone — for those who think they have a right to get to work faster during that time, they don’t..." Well, one person went (a lot) too far in expressing his or her concern over the lane closer by sending threatening letters to the Belmont City Council and City Manager. Police are now involved...

San Bruno's ban on Styrofoam still has restaurant-owners upset...

The County has to repay $1.5 million to the Federal government because a consultant told them they were due the money from the Feds. That consultant screwed up -- now the County has to pay. Perhaps the ultra-litigious County can go after the consultant? Just an idea...

$2.8 million grants were given out last week by the Peninsula Health Care District. At least one local agency is doing ok financially therefore spreading those ok finances around.

You may remember this story: a jail cashier responsible for collecting and storing folks stuff while they were locked up was stealing...well, the cashier is getting 60 days in jail. I wonder how she'll be treated while serving her time...

Supervisor Gordon is exploring a run for Ira Ruskin's seat...that shouldn't be news to anyone who reads the PP Examiner who wrote about this story at beginning of January...Watch Dog followed up on PP Examiner's posting with some analysis as well in a post titled: A Friendly Blog Disagreement...The County Times finally catches up...Try reading some insightful, interesting blogs around the County and you might learn something...

Speaking of the PP Examiner, they wrote a piece called: The Failed Leadership in the County and provide some historical perspective to where County government went wrong. PP Examiner also gets on Watch Dog's bandwagon complaining about the number of appointments versus elections happening in the County these days...

Garbage rates going up in Menlo Park...Watch Dog hasn't talked about garbage for a while, but with 24% rate increases on the horizon, we guess folks will be talking about it more and more...perhaps 24% more...

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