Morning News Round-Up -- 4.20.10: 420, need we say more?

420... 'nuff said. Now, onto November...

And you thought the Garbage Saga was over... the County wants the garbage overseers, the South Bayside Waste Management Authority, to have elected officials on it, as opposed to City and Council staff... good luck with that...

Congresswoman Anny Eshoo will testify today on Capitol Hill in front of the House Financial Services Committee on how the County, and all kinds of other government agencies, got screwed by Lehman Brothers...

The San Mateo Police Department is as concerned as everyone else is with the recent crimes at the psych unit. They aren't surprised though, they go there all the time on calls.

Speaking of the San Mateo Police Department, Councilmember David Lim's plea to keep looking into the sharing a police department with Burlingame got shot down and now San Mateo's Deputy Police Chief Mike Callagy will be the new interim Police Chief in Burlingame. Sorry David...

Burlingame Voice also chimes in about how the man and woman on the street in Burlingame feels about the police department merger...

The John John John Johns drama ended yesterday as the Atherton Town Council approved a settlement... of course, like everything in Atherton, it wasn't easy. It was a 3-2 vote, with Elizabeth Lewis and Charles "I live in Atherton" Marsala voting no. Perhaps the gang that couldn't shoot straight can start focusing on other stuff now... the settlement vote warranted capital letters on the Town of Atherton blog: ATHERTON SETTLES JOHNS LITIGATION...

Yesterday was a bad day to be train-dependent. First a bomb threat that screwed up the afternoon/ evening community, then a suspicious package at the Caltrain Station in Mountain View closed things down for a while last night...

One Silicon Valley-ite who is running for high office has released his tax returns... Tom Campbell. And we learn what we already knew... he isn't a rich as Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, or Steve Poizner... Most stunning of all, he donated only $600 to charity in 2009. ... that's it.

Speaking of Silicon Valley types running for office... Chris Kelly is a former Facebook executive running for Attorney General. (In case you didn't know that, and if you didn't know that, then you are in the majority...) He is facing some tough questions about Facebook's privacy policies. Questions like, does Facebook have a privacy policy?

Layoffs, furloughs, and cuts, oh my! (In Half Moon Bay...)

Morning News Round-Up -- 4.8.10: Home/Loan Gate fizzles...

Ah, Atherton. What would we do without you? County politics would all be about budget and the 21st Assembly District race. But with you, Atherton, my love, we have a scandal, a witch-hunt, and finally a resolution... for now. The Home/Loan Gate involving Atherton Councilmember Charles Marsala will go forward no more, but not without another divisive Council meeting, backstabbing, and an even more divided Council than before. But, Marsala is keeping his gig... unless his opponents can find another thing to throw at him.

Here's something: Peter Carpenter, an Atherton resident, is asking the Sequoia Union High School District to rescind its appointment of James Lianides as Superintendent citing open government violations... expect this to cost taxpayers money, and perhaps Lianides his new gig. We'll see...

County elections by district or not by district, that is still the question (and a possible civil rights lawsuit). It was also the discussion last night at the County Charter Review Committee...

Unions are fighting back in Menlo Park (against Lee Duboc...)... they are claiming the proposed pension reform measure being planned for November ballots is improper... we'll see. This follows plans in Palo Alto for firefighters to have a measure on the ballot and for the Gilroy City Council to fight firefighters on the ballot... unions and cities going to ballot to curb (or not) costs. A new Silicon Valley trend...

Elsewhere in Menlo Park, the City Council is all smiles about the big Bohannon deal. Of course, it comes with $1 million+ in annual revenue to MP... that probably doesn't hurt the Bohannon cause much...

Here's a heartwarming story: an employee at Mid-Pen Housing Coalition was stealing money from needy applicants. A special place in hell awaits...

Bruce at the PP Examiner looks into Redwood City's grapple with filling in the Bay for housing (and lots and lots of money)...

To round-out the housing stories... Chris Mohr of the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County penned an Op-Ed about how we need more housing at all income levels in San Mateo County...

Morning News Round-Up -- 4.2.10: Home/Loan Gate... again

The Atherton Home/Loan Gate controversy will get an official airing on April 7th with the Town Council. If you have no idea what I'm talking about you should pay closer attention...

You think your city is having budget problems... check out Caltrain. They are about to cut weeknight service, weekend service, weekday service, and beer service... (they don't have beer service, but if they did, it might help with revenue...)

More folks are lining up on the pro-Saltworks side of things... well, sort of -- the head of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission and the BCDC Board Chair wrote that they think Redwood City should go through the development review process... Because filling in the Bay is such a good idea.

Speaking of development... what is going to happen to the site that was supposed to be a senior housing project in Foster City? We know one thing for sure, there are folks with the San Mateo-Foster City Elementary School District that would like a slice...

The Daily Journal editorial pages chime in too: "...What is the harm in weighing the possibility of a six-acre school with community open space and a nine-acre development that provides revenue, senior housing and sense of downtown?..."

The best/ biggest race happening on the political scene these days is for the Democratic nomination to the 21st Assembly District to replace Ira Ruskin. San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon, Palo Alto City Councilmember Yoriko Kishimoto, and Venture Capitalst Josh Becker are the candidates and they spoke at a Silicon Valley Leadership Group forum this week. The candidates were seemingly trying to out-geek one another... which is hard in that race if you have ever seen the three candidates.

The news gets worse and worse for the now-defunct Page Mill Properties... a group of former investors is suing claiming they were defrauded. Funny, that's how East Palo Alto feels too...

Do you remember the story of the man who got sucked into the Pacific in Pacifica and his friends left the beach right after? He washed up on shore on Tuesday.

Morning News Round-Up -- 3.30.10: Open Carry Crazy...

Could the "Open Carry" movement please get itself under control? A former city worker in San Bruno left a message for the City Attorney saying that he was going to bring an unloaded weapon to a meeting... of course, the only way for someone to know that a weapon is unloaded is if you pull the trigger and nothing comes out. Which is probably a little too later for the City Attorney in San Bruno -- which is why a temporary restraining order has been brought against Harold Wulff. Now, he can't really go to that meeting at San Bruno's City Hall...

The "conversation" about Atherton Councilmember Charles Marsala continues in the Home/Loan Gate controversy on the Almanac's "Town Square Forum"... needless to say, folks in Atherton have way too much time on their hands...

We love this story and its headline: "Lawmaker (Ira Ruskin) names top term priorities..." As if his top term priority isn't to find something else to do when this term is up...

And while Ruskin does his thing, Assemblymember Jerry Hill was writing an Op-Ed for the Daily Journal. He is doing his best to remind you that everything that Sacramento does is not completely insane... that is not an easy task Mr. Hill...

The former Belmont Chamber president says he knew he would get off on the molestation charges, but now he has to put his life back together. The Belmont Chamber can't go a week without being in the news...

Do you remember the wave that knocked out Mavericks' spectators this year? Well, Supervisor Gordon is coming to the rescue with a meeting about public safety at Mavericks... the timing of this meeting probably would have been better before the competition, but...

Morning News Round-Up -- 3.29.10: Home/Loan Gate continues in Atherton...

Well, it was a big day in Atherton on Friday. There was a City Council meeting scheduled to discuss Councilmember Charles Marsala's residency (which allegedly is not in Atherton) and a loan which he (allegedly) sought from a guy that was suing the Town. In any event, there wasn't a quorum so the meeting didn't really happen, but Marsala's foes on the Council, Kathy McKeithen and Jim Dobbie, did hold court and hear from the community (a.k.a. their friends) about Marsala... Home/Loan Gate continues.....

The financial incentives for Menlo Park to approve the Bohannon project look very strong... $1.67 million per year strong. Good luck saying no to that...

Perhaps MP could share some of their wealth to keep County parks from taking a huge hit... but don't bet on it.

The La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District has had a tough time of it recently... and by recently we mean the past 3 years. Bond money spent improperly, Superintendent turn-over, being on the State's education shit list... so drastic changes could be afoot. And not a moment too soon...

A San Carlos woman died off Sharp Park Beach on Sunday. She was trying to rescue her dog that had been swept up in a wave...

We end on this enlightening note:

Dude. Cow Palace. April 17 and 18. Just in time for 420...

Morning News Round-Up -- 3.26.10: Home/Loan Gate in Atherton...

Home/Loan Gate in Atherton continues... remember, Councilmember Charles Marsala asked for (and was denied) a $500,000 loan from a resident who had a pending lawsuit with the Town of Atherton -- and then Marsala voted against a citizens police oversight commission that the person suing Atheron wanted... The person suing Atherton claims that Marsala voted against the commission because the loan didn't come through. Coincidentally (?) there are also rumors swirling that Marsala doesn't live in Atherton -- heck, without a gigantic loan, who could? Later today, there will be a special meeting about the Marsala residency issue at 2 p.m. If you have absolutely nothing going on in your life on a Friday afternoon, perhaps you should stop by the meeting and then send Watch Dog an email about the outcome... Whatever the outcome of that meeting, Watch Dog predicts that there may be an open seat on the Atherton Council before too long...

We aren't going to take any credit for this Editorial in the Daily Journal, but certainly we here at Watch Dog have also been critical of Redwood City spending money on a mining-loving PR firm to fight the idea of a new County jail in their community...

Your favorite very local public station will stay open... KCSM will keep broadcasting for a little bit longer at least.

Usually when we think of outsourcing, we think China and India, but San Carlos may outsource some functions (police/fire) to San Mateo...

Pacifica Riptide is pushing some community activism in an effort to restart "greenwaste" drop off in Pacifica... Will the no-bid garbage company in Pacifica listen?

Our new friends at the Burlingame Voice actually pick up and read the Daily Post... they have a story about possible embezzlement at a Burlingame school...

As a reminder, the Daily Post does not post news on their ugly website, instead we learn this:

"You won't find any news on this site. Giving away news online is a dumb way to do business. News is valuable. We put our news in print. The news creates demand for our paper, and increased readership makes our ads more effective than advertising in any other medium."

Plus, does anyone really think that people are getting their news online?: Online newspapers enjoy double-digit year-over-year growth, reaching one out of four internet users, according to Nielsen/Netratings... That's from 2005, get with it.

Morning News Round-Up -- 3.22.10: Making NIMBYs and naysayers irrelevant...

Something strange is happening in Atherton. Are you surprised? This is actually a pretty weird story with a few twists, so read carefully.

• Part 1: A guy was arrested in his Atherton home on alleged domestic violence charges. He got those charges dismissed and was found "factually innocent." He then sued the Atherton Police Department and now wants Atherton to start a Police Citizens Oversight Committee. The City Council said no.
• Part 2: After the suit was filed, but before the Citizens Oversight Committee idea came to the Atherton Council, the guy that filed suit against Atherton was asked by Councilmember Charles Marsala for a $500,000 loan. (We guess this stuff happens all the time in Atherton?) The guy said no to Marsala and then Marsala voted against the Citizens Oversight Committee.

The guy is claiming Marsala voted no because Marsala didn't get the $500,000 loan. Perhaps the US Attorney is interested?

We know that nearly every hamlet and village in San Mateo County is concerned about High-Speed Rail, even though County residents voted overwhelmingly for it... we also know that some developers and property owners are concerned about the impacts of construction. But we learned this weekend that San Mateo Union High School District is concerned because of how close Burlingame High School is to the rails. The concerns are vibration, noise, safety, etc. Of course, the fact that Burlingame High is also about as far from 101 as it is from the train tracks, hasn't (apparently) concerned anyone ever. Or perhaps the good folks in San Bruno Park School District could share with the Burlingame High folks real concerns with vibration, noise, and plane exhaust...


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All you Coastsiders... don't take Devil's Slide on Wednesday because it's going to be closed for part of the day. Someday someone will tunnel through the gigantic mountain and we'll be able to drive through no problem... Go John Henry...

From the budget file:

The County is trying to fix $150 "structural deficit"...

One of the items dogging State government is escalating pension costs... and Joe Simitian would like to cut down on "spiking," the practice of jacking up your salary in the last few years of work in order to increase you pension. That will make Joe even less popular in Sacramento than he already is...

Even though times are tight for local government, Redwood City is finding $300K+ to hire a PR firm (Davis Public Affairs) to fight the new County jail proposals for its city. Ironically, Davies Public Affairs' website states: Davies makes NIMBYs and naysayers irrelevant...

Perhaps the wrong side of this issue hired a PR firm...

Also worth noting about Davies is this: Too often, people fight mining and industrial operations based on a fear of the unknown. Until this fear is addressed, the benefits of jobs, tax revenue, and economic stimulus will fall on deaf ears. We demystify complex processes and present them simply, while telling your proactive environmental story. Any PR firm that can spin mining...

While Redwood City spins... Hillsdale High School plans some real-life protests. They will be holding an anti-anti-gay rally when they put on the play "The Laramie Project."

Morning News Round-Up -- 5.28.09: A new Coastside hero?

The Coastside Family Medical Center, which closed earlier in the year and subsequently filed for bankruptcy, may reopen under a new plan by put forth by former Sheriff, current Sequioa Healthcare District Board member, and soon-to-be Coastside hero Don Horsley. We'll see what happens, but this is the first good news the former patients of Coastside Family Medical Center in a long, long time.

Bad budget news follows... if you don't want to read it, skip ahead...

• The public (including Watch Dog) doesn't want Caltrain to cut their weekend service. But while the public says one thing, Caltrain's budget may say another...
• San Carlos (and everyone else) doesn't really have weekend services to cut like Caltrain, but it does have fees. And the fees are going up for almost everything in San Carlos...
• The County of San Mateo (probably) does have services to cut, but they are going to tap reserves instead of making huge services cuts.

The Bearded One/Assemblymember Jerry Hill speaks (writes) in his own words today in the Daily Journal. The OpEd blends the College of San Mateo graduation with Japanese American's internment.

The Almanac asks an important question about shifting funds from Atherton's flush Library Fund to the not-so-flush City Hall Fund. Like everything else in Atherton, expect a fight. Especially because Councilmember Charles Marsala is leading the charge. The anti-Marsala wing of the Atherton Town Council will put up a fight just because... (at least that's Watch Dog's experience since we've been writing...)

Morning News Round-Up -- 3.30.09: Pay Raises for Everyone Edition a.k.a. Garbage Saga Continued...

Garbage is back with a vengeance today. And it isn't about who the new garbage men will be. It's about the agency that oversees the whole shebang. And guess who is the yelling the loudest? San Mateo County's bearded Superhero/Assemblymember Jerry Hill. It seems the staff of the South Bayside Waste Management Authority (the garbage Joint Powers Authority) conducted some research about what other government staff got paid. Guess what? They would like to make more money...surprised? Now, Jerry Hill (and Belmont's Bill Dickenson) are on the case. Add this to Hill's anger over how the new garbage contract was dolled out, and you are looking at increasing the friction, and attention, on the SBWMA...

Watch Dog has to wonder, was the move by the SBWMA staff a preemptive strategy to get their raises before the Hill-initiated (critical?) Civil Grand Jury report comes out on how the SBWMA staff handled the new contract process? (Watch Dog thinks yes...)

Thank you PP Examiner. Mr. Balshone gives a run-down of the Pacifica/San Francisco battle brewing over the Sharp Park Golf Course. Is it an environmental battle, or is it Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi on a soap-box? Watch Dog will go with soap-box...

Enough about AIG...what about the HMB bail-out? Well, State Senator Leland Yee wants to use $10 million in State bond money to help Half Moon Bay with their legal settlement costs that they owe developer Chop Keenan.

Speaking of bail-out...the County is poised to spend $500,000 helping area non-profits that help the needy.

Watch Dog guesses the Coastside Family Health Center was not in dire enough shape to receive state or local bail-out cash...but the now-closed Coastside Family Medical Center Board of Directors is on a bit of a PR kick. They are now trying to explain its actions to angry residents in a Memo.

Sue Lempert gets in on the Daly City Pay-Cut Gage action today in her Daily Journal column...sort of. She really just runs down who has an elected City Clerk and who doesn't, and that electing City Clerks is pretty much a bad idea. Take that Daly City...

We love political races. Remember the Atherton City Council race last fall -- it was awesome. In political races, there is always news and always insiders willing to spill beans...we know next year's Assembly District 21 race to replace Assemblymember Ira Ruskin is going to be a doozy. But the race to replace Supervisor Rich Gordon will also be fun to watch as well. Former Sheriff Don Horsley, coastsider April Vargas, and Sequoia Healthcare District Board member Jack Hickey are all throwing their hats in the ring. (Horsley has already raised over $100,000 -- seemingly overkill, considering the race is more than a year away...but that's just me...)

Speaking of Atherton politics...the biggest issue they discuss in Atherton is generally development of people's homes. In one such area of town, the lots are so small (by Atherton standards) that some folks want to increase the size of their home, but their lots are too small to legally do it. These folks were looking to the Council for some help...but too bad. You want to live in Atherton, you have to live with its City Council. The anti-growth/say-no-to-anything majority won out last week on this issue over the objections of Councilmembers Charles Marsala and Elizabeth Lewis.

A small plane departed from the San Carlos Airport on Saturday...but landed in a marsh a 1/4 mile a way almost immediately after that. Three folks were hospitalized.

County Manager David Boesch get his profile taken in the Daily Journal. (FYI - he has a new desk...)

Peets in Menlo Park reopened over the weekend following their fire. SUV-driving Menlo Parkers are now back on their drug-of-choice...

As with everything about High-Speed Rail on the Peninsula, an agreement between the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (that oversees Caltrain tracks) and the High-Speed Rail Authority has folks in a tizzy...

Here's something new: A fisherman (Duncan MacLean) was named the County's Farmer of the Year. The first time a fisherman was so honored...it is not true that a farmer will be named the 2009 Fisherman of the Year...

The Big Atherton "I told you so..."

Every city in San Mateo (and California...and the US) is engaged in a budget cutting/revenue raising free-for-all right now. Everyday in our Morning News Round-Up another city, or school district, or government agency is dealing with budget short-falls.

Today is no different. Tonight, Atherton will be looking at their budget and trying to make difficult decisions about what to cut and how to raise revenue.

But Atherton's decisions are made more difficult by some (seemingly) really bad financial management. This bad financial management is -- you guessed it -- related to the Atherton John John's fiasco which has been described here and here. Pointing out this financial mismanagement, last fall Councilmember Charles Marsala warned residents and contractors that refunds were due many folks who may have been (illegally) overcharged for work done in Atherton. And if refunds were coming, that was going to impact the budget.

It wasn't just Marsala saying this either. This bad financial management issue bled into Atherton's campaigns for City Council in June and November...In June, Jim Dobbie and Elizabeth Lewis squared off for an open Council seat left vacant by Alan Carlson's departure. During this campaign, Lewis seemed to agree with Marsala that Atherton's finances were in trouble. Dobbie agreed with Councilmember Kathy McKeithen and claimed that Atherton's finances had never been better. (Lewis ended up running against McKeithen in November -- she now serves on the Council with McKeithen, Dobbie, and Marsala)

Tonight, Watch Dog guesses that Marsala and Lewis will be vindicated and Dobbie and McKeithen will eat a bit of humble pie...and because visual aids are always helpful to prove important points -- here is some archived campaign material from the Watch Dog Hall of Records:

Here is a Dobbie piece from the June election stating: Town Finances -- Continue improvement since 2002.














And one from McKeithen from her election in November stating: Town Finances -- Continue improvements since 2000; Budget Balanced





















Aside from the obvious Cut and Paste Politics at work here between Dobbie and McKeithen...these two seem to be really out-of-step with what is going on with Atherton's finances.

Compare the Dobbie/McKeithen campaign pieces and Elizabeth Lewis's piece where Lewis goes into detail about the problems with the City's finances.

Watch Dog doesn't know for certain, but everything in Atherton seems to come down to John Johns...so we guess this won't be any different.

A few things Watch Dog knows about tonight's Atherton budget session:

• John Johns will be mentioned...
• Marsala and Lewis should feel vindicated...
• Dobbie and McKeithen should explain their campaign material...
• Difficult decisions are about to be made...
  

Tax Refund -- Atherton Style...

Watch Dog has unearthed another bit of information to add to the "News Buried During a Holiday Week" file. (The file already includes these two items from the County Controller (12/24 and 12/31) as well as this piece of bad news from Visa USA's local Foster City office from 12/30.)

This time, however, the buried news is in Atherton…

Ah…Atherton. Such a beautiful town. Of course the smaller the town the more cut throat politics can be. Watch Dog has covered this all before in great detail here, here, here, and here. And by far, Watch Dog gets more emails per resident from Atherton than any other city or town in the area. And I have little doubt that by posting this bit of news today, I will open myself up to a flood of nasty, backstabbing (yet informative) emails…which I love.

Here is the buried news:

The Town of Atherton will be issuing refunds to people who have been overcharged on business license taxes. This is one of the issues in the John Johns fiasco the Town has been dealing with forever. For you astute readers, this is the also the issue that Town Councilmember Charles Marsala emailed consistuents about in October -- warning that if they think they are due money to hurry up and get in line. It looks like Marsala was right...but don’t expect this to be the end of this saga. If Watch Dog has learned one thing over the course of the past six months it is that the issues around John Johns departure never go away...

That is the newsy part of the story -- but why was it buried?...

You see, the Town Council actually decided to refund these fees/taxes on December 17th. The Almanac just posted this story about refunding taxes to businesses on December 30th.

Why was there a two-week delay in getting this information out to residents?

Not only that, this is stuff that affects a lot of folks -- so why bury this story on December 30th?

This all seems fishy to Watch Dog...but I assume I'll hear from all sides of this issue shortly...stay tuned.