Morning News Round-Up -- 8.3.09: Dude, get that application in...

"Dude... wouldn't it be totally awesome if we owned our own medical marijuana coop?" This life-imitating-art idea can happen in San Mateo County. Applications are now being accepted. Silas and Shane need to stay in school for a few more years, however.

Local public employee unions can't be happy about this development. A task force of local elected officials, under the auspices of the San Mateo County Council of Cities (SMCCC, for your acronym junkies), is looking at public employee pensions and what to do about them. We have a sneaking suspicion that making them more robust isn't going to be one of the task force's recommendations...

No big shocker here... the La Honda-Pescadero School Board heard a report about millions of dollars that were wasted on construction projects in their District. As if losing a Superintendent and getting sued for fiscal mismanagement wasn't bad enough...

Sharp Park is in the news again this week. To the surprise of no one, a San Francisco task force missed a deadline for updating their plans to do something with Shark Park. Apparently, Pacifica is getting a pretty clear picture of what it is like to deal with San Francisco City Government...

Now politics...

• Don Horsley would like everyone to know that he is a formidable candidate for County Supervisor. He raised lots and lots of money for his race next year -- $133K+ -- to be close to exact.
• As if politics weren't already an issue in the Sequoia Union High School District (think the Everest vs. Sequoia battle) four folks are lining up to take the place of two current Board members (Sally Stewart and Gordon Lewin) who are not running again. The four: Alan Sarver, Virginia Chang Kiraly, Chris Thomsen, and Bob Ferrando. But wait, there could be more... an entire month will pass before the filing deadline.
• Monday = Sue Lempert (Daily Journal). Today, she gives us lots of numbers: 7 deadly sins of California's budget mess, 4 things the California Constitutional Conventioner speakers should be allowed to talk about, and 13, as in Prop 13...
• If you read Watch Dog you know that there is a 25 year old running for Half Moon Bay City Council (the Daily Journal and the Half Moon Bay Review just caught on...) The County Times had that story a few weeks ago... which we ripped off, I mean aggregated. Hey, if a 25 year old wants to help dig HMB out of a financial mess, more power to him... You go Charles Hoelzel.

We hope you don't schedule your week around spending Wednesdays in court... That's because the State cuts are causing courts to close one day per week.

The horn-y Caltrain issue is finding some creative solutions... like turning down the horn.