Morning News Round-Up -- 4.21.10: San Mateo-Burlingame Police? Not. So. Fast...

Well, the San Mateo-Burlingame Police Department hit a road block yesterday. San Mateo approved moving forward, over the objections of David Lim. But Burlingame is balking at the idea... The Burlingame Voice was on the scene as the Burlingame Council looked at the police issue...

Congresswoman Eshoo testified in front of the House Financial Services Committee this week to blast Lehman Brothers for ripping off local governments, like the County of San Mateo. She also is pushing the Restitution for Local Government Act of 2010, sort of bail out for the 40 local government folks who lost $1.7 billion. Why should banks get bailed out for screwing up, but the local governments they screwed not get some help, the thinking goes...

Our other Congresswoman is busy too... Jackie Speier is trying to get $100 million in federal money for Bay restoration...

Menlo Park has serious concerns about High-Speed Rail... are you surprised? Anyway, they are sending a letter to the High-Speed Rail Authority, which the High-Speed Rail Authority will file under N, for NIMBY...

Ah, the San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury. We missed you. Yesterday, the Civil Grand Jury recommended that the County consolidate nearly every job in the County into one position: Chief Financial Officer. The job would be controller, treasurer, tax collector, and we assume registrar as well. Because it would be a lot easier to pinpoint blame when the County loses buckets and buckets of money if there was one Chief Financial Officer...

A murder in Woodside? What will the COWs say?

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 -- 1.22.10: One giant leap for lights at M-A...

Storm, storm, storm... but drought not over... power out because of storm... etc., etc., etc....

Watch Dog loves this story: Menlo-Atherton High School may get lights on its football field. (Welcome to 1985... right?) Anyway, because of where M-A is located (in the NIMBY capital of the world), the Sequoia Union High School District is approaching the idea carefully. They are doing an Environmental Impact Study and talking to "stakeholders." We expect lawsuits to challenge the EIR but that lights will be a reality before the current crop of Freshman graduate... hopefully.

If State Senator Joe Simitian hosts it, anti-High Speed Rail people will come... that was the scene last night in Palo Alto when hundreds showed up to have their voices heard, or at least their heads counted for a State Senate Committee hearing in Palo Alto.

Tesla is getting an influx of cash the new (as opposed to old) fashioned way... from the Federal Government... $465 million from the Department of Energy. That's a lot of scratch for a company that sells $100,000 cars to venture capitalists...

This is the type of story that warms your heart, and may hasten your grabbing your kid's cell phone from their hands and smashing it on the floor... A substitute teacher pleaded no contest to sexting (and having phone sex with) a San Mateo High School student... There were 400 "sexually explicit text messsages" involved in this case -- now there are 60 days in jail where John Oliver Jacobson will no doubt learn some interesting things about sex that he never knew...

This isn't good. Both Congressmembers from the area said yesterday that they will not vote from the Senate health care bill. It is unclear why Speier and Eshoo did this now, other than the fact that Democrats are worried about a Republican winning in Massachusetts. Trust Watch Dog Jackie and Anna, San Mateo County is more blue than Massachusetts. Vote for the health care bill that comes back before you... please. Watch Dog needs to see the vet sometime soon...

Morning News Round-Up -- 12.16.09: Going Rogue at a Supervisor's Meeting?

The Afraid-of-the-NRA Board of Supervisors had already pulled the gun ordinances from their meeting yesterday, but that didn't stop local "gun advocates" from showing up and voicing their displeasure with the board. Reports that the advocates were all reading "Going Rogue" are unconfirmed...

Guns weren't the only thing pulled from the County's agenda yesterday, Supervisor Gordon also pulled an item from the agenda related to the County's highest-paid officials, including the Assessor/County Clerk Recorder ($158k), Controller ($151k), Coroner ($118k), District Attorney ($243k), Sheriff ($184k), and Tax Collector/Treasurer ($139k). (Watch Dog had to do some math because the Daily Journal only had bi-weekly salaries, which we think means twice-a-month...)

Probably because Supervisors like putting off difficult decisions... The Council Manager David Boesch thinks the County Supervisors need to speed up the process to fix their $100,000,000 problem. That's a lot of zeros to have to fix... Boesch categorized the budget situation this way in the Daily Journal, "...urgent by not yet dire..."

The lovely hamlet of San Carlos swore-in a new Mayor and some new Councilmembers yesterday. Watch Dog can't believe you weren't there... Mayor Randy Royce's top priorities: Preserving the Small Town Character of San Carlos, Being Available to the Public, and Keeping the CIty Budget Balanced...

Belmont also got a new Mayor -- Christine Wozniak. Her priorities are little more "big picture" than her counterpart's in San Carlos: High-Speed Rail (or stopping it), Green Initiatives, Water, the Economy, and Communication. Welcome to the hot seat Mayor Wozniak...

We all know that there is one bill everyone in the country is talking about pending before Congress right now... loud television ads. And our own Congresswoman Anna Eshoo is on top of that issue. This will surely bring jobs and healthcare to the District and address climate change, coastal erosion, and traffic...

Morning News Round-up --12.04.09: Watch out for Peeping Shon

Surfers await the world-class Maverick wave(s), which may or may not arrive off the coast on Tuesday.

A 75-year-old Daly City man lost control of his vehicle near Skyline Elementary School Thursday afternoon, hitting three young students who had just gotten out of class. Fortunately, the kids are expected to survive.

San Carlos is getting the shit sued out of them. Literally.

And Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Menlo Park said she opposes President Barack Obama's plan to increase the number of U.S. military troops in Afghanistan, which she referred to as “the graveyard of nations.” Leave it to the Democrats to be divided.

Caltrain riders will soon (as in 2011) be able to check online or even call to find out about delayed trains. Please welcome Caltrain to the 20th Century!

Convicted peeper Shon Yean Chow will face trial in December for four new counts of peeping. Shon gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'peeping Tom.'

Highway 1 re-opened after a 12-year-old boy was hit by a vehicle while riding a bike across the highway at Moss Beach. The highway was shut down to all traffic. Be careful, people.

Erick Romeo Morales, 29, the extradited Long Island man who was accused of participating in the death of a Daly City teen eight years, ago pleaded not guilty to murder charges.

San Bruno continues the debate about whether to allow dogs to roam freely off leash at some city parks. More to come in 2010. Woof!

And finally.... high speed rail derailed….again?