Thursday, March 12, 2009

Morning News Round-Up -- 3.12.09: When Lessig says something is brilliant...it is...

We'll start today's Round-Up with our County's elected officials doing what we put them in office to do...(mostly)...
  • Jerry Hill celebrated a major milestone yesterday in Sacramento...he survived 100 days. Much to Jon Mays' dismay, the former Supervisor introduced 22 bills in his first 100 days...that seems excessive. But since he is our bearded local hero, we'll let it slide...
  • Congresswoman Jackie Speier is so cool. She is setting up a local panel to evaluate any possible earmarks coming into her District. So it won't just be big campaign contributors or insiders, everyone should/could get a fair shake. And the panel that Speier is setting up is high-level -- Lawrence Lessig is chairing it...and when (our hero) Lessig calls someone else's work "a flash of brilliance" it is high praise...
  • Speaking of Speier and our other Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (who reads her Blackberry in the bathroom) -- they met with Congressman Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee to discuss San Mateo County getting some money back from Lehman Brothers' collapse through the Troubled Asset Relief Program...
And on to the rest of today's Round-Up...

A suspicious package in Palo Alto down the street from a Jewish day school caused the school's evacuation. The make-shift package was made to look like a bomb and carried with it a menacing note...That is a scary story...

And here are some scary stats: more than 1/3 of the San Mateo County non-profits are expected to make layoffs or reduce staffing and only 5% consider themselves financially strong. This is all according to The Alliance of Nonprofits for San Mateo County.

Everest Charter School...again. This time, the expected happened. The State's Board of Education said yes to Everest 's Charter even though the Sequoia Union High School District and the San Mateo County Board of Education said no. So much for local control, I guess...Sequoia Union High School District and the Everest folks are still fighting about the space that Sequoia has set aside for Everest. Sequoia thinks that the space in East Palo Alto is good for Everest. Everest (apparently) doesn't want to be in EPA. Watch Dog thinks that Everest's anti-EPA stance is suspicious/curious...

We have a great update on the cockfighting story from Pescadero. The guy arrested for holding the (alleged) cockfight is now saying that all the animals were for a giant barbecue...(they were going to eat Little Jerry Seinfeld?) An interesting defense since the police who broke up the cockfight (apparently) found syringes, fighting spurs, and antiseptic a.k.a. cockfighting paraphernalia...

And what would the Round-Up be without another school district in trouble looking at taxes...this time it is the Burlingame Elementary School District studying a renewal of their parcel tax...

Panic time? When the sea level rises, our County is in trouble...that according to the Pacific Institute who released a report yesterday. Watch Dog worries that we'll lose our blog-crush, Pacifica Riptide...

The 20-year old karate instructor who was arrested for (allegedly) molesting a 13-year old pleaded not guilty yesterday to four felony counts of child molestation yesterday...

The City of Palo Alto and Stanford University don't always get along. Although neighbors and inextricably linked, land-use and taxes and traffic and housing cause all kinds of disputes. Take the proposed new hospital Stanford would like to build. Palo Alto is concerned about the impacts to roads, housing, etc. The City of Palo Alto and Stanford officials are set to meet to discuss the hospital and other Stanford-expansion projects in 3 days...in a thinly-veiled move to make the hospital look better to residents (and perhaps to the Palo Alto City Council as well) -- Stanford release a report yesterday pointing out that the hospital expansion would add $18 million in revenue to the City of Palo Alto...

That noise you hear in the middle of the night (starting March 18th) will be Caltrain grinding its tracks...that sentence hurts my teeth to even write...we anxiously await complaints from Atherton and Menlo Park neighbors...

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