Morning News Round-Up -- 5.12.10: Move Your Horse!

The courting of San Carlos police services is in full effect. Redwood City and the Sheriff's Officepresented their credentials to the San Carlos City Council. "We have a really, really fast car..." Redwood City police didn't say... "Oh yeah, well our uniforms have more starch..." The Sheriff's Office didn't say...

Also doing their best to court a local community is the High-Speed Rail Authority... and it isn't going that well if you read this story about a High-Speed Rail presentation in Atherton... Why bother?

From the big trains to the little ones...

Caltrain is in a deep financial hole, and Michael Scanlon was talking about it yesterday to the San Carlos Chamber of Commerce...

If it is the second week in May in California it can only mean one thing... teacher pink slips... there will be a bunch locally. But not in Menlo Park City Schools...

Skyline Stables may be going away to make way for a water storage tank. Thank the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission for this one and get your horse to Portola Valley quick...

Morning News Round-Up -- 11.30.09: Tryptophan Hang-Over Edition...

Good morning and welcome back loyal readers. Watch Dog is sure that our watching eyes missed some stories over the holiday. Heck, what better time to release crappy news than over Thanksgiving weekend? If we missed things, please let us know.

And this was something that Pacific Riptide thinks the City of Pacifica was trying to slip by Pacificans: A Community Forum on Solid Waste Disposal set for tonight. If you want folks to not know about and not attend a Community Forum, there is perhaps no better time to schedule such a Forum than the Monday after Thanksgiving. Unless, of course, you want to schedule it sometime between Christmas and New Years... Kudos Riptide for keeping a good look-out...

Here is something that is long overdue -- the County is revamping an ethics review panel. This surely has nothing to do with San Mateo County havin a Sheriff who was found at a brothel and is running unopposed for reelection...

Speaking of Sheriffs... if you were out driving around this holiday weekend you probably saw dozens and dozens of police stopping cars. The result, DUI arrests were up slightly versus last year.

It is Monday and Monday is Sue Lempert's day in the Daily Journal... she goes into giving, including a piece about her own childhood appearance in a newspaper. Here's to you Sue for figuring out a way to mention lollipops and Ayn Rand in the same column...

Some day you might be able to bike up and down San Mateo... safely. That's part of San Mateo's plan anyway.

Citizens of Woodside gave us their own version of a Round-Up -- but their Round-Up is of the Woodside Cowncil meeting... from October...

And finally, a sad note: A man from Walnut Creek died when his sailboat capsized off of Pillar Point this holiday weekend. Sad.

Morning News Round-Up -- 8.17.09: (Fugitive) Karma Edition...

Federal authorities officially named former SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory employee, Silvya Oommachen as a fugitive. She is accused of having destroyed $500,000 worth of research at the federal facility in Menlo Park to reverse "bad karma.” She disappeared after being released on July 28 on $50,000 unsecured bond. Watch Dog wonders if her good karma will help her on the run...

San Mateo is cracking down on dog owners who are allowing their canines to run free with out a leash. Both citizens and park rangers have been tattling on these dog owners, complaining about potential safety concerns, aka pit bulls without a leash. (No comment from Michael Vick...)

Davina Drabkin easily won the election to the Burlingame Elementary School District Board of Trustees. She had no challenger, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t up for the challenge to grapple with education spending woes.

No strike today. It seems that BART union workers and its management finally reached a “tentative” deal Sunday night. Or perhaps union officials read this...

Seventeen middle school and high school teachers from the Bay Area recently traveled to China for two weeks hoping to impart some wisdom on their students about Chinese culture and history. The trip was co-sponsored by the San Mateo County Office of Education.

It took 10 minutes for the Palo Alto council to gave the long-awaited Lytton Plaza in downtown the final approval. What's 10 minutes more on top of many, many years?

Hopefully, your car wasn’t parked in the Emerald Lake Hills area of San Mateo County Saturday. It seems that occupants in a truck were allegedly seen throwing rocks at the windows of parked cars, damaging 19 of them. Fun for the whole familiy...

Pacifica residents are being asked to write to their Senators advocating for new legislation on food safety. Pacifica folks have never met a cause they didn't love...

San Bruno celebrated the return of roughly 100 Marines from Echo Company Saturday. They are among the first group benefiting from President Obama's withdrawal of troops in Iraq.

Cars, bikes, and pedestrians are having a bit of trouble co-habitating in Woodside. The COWS have a run-down...

San Mateo resident Joseph Ortega is in critical but stable condition a police detective shot him Thursday in a drug raid.

San Mateo County is banking on the State to let more money flow into building a new prison facility locally. Money is one issue, but locating the facility is quite another... just ask the Sheriff.

Morning News Round-Up -- 6.23.09: "No Bail Out for You!"

And we thought the Swine Flu stories were on hiatus... the County saw its first death from the H1N1 flu. Could renewed Mask Hysteria be far behind?

This quote from Assemblymember Jerry Hill pretty much sums up what happened to the Half Moon Bay Bail Out Bill:

“I will no longer pursue the passage of AB650 this year... Unfortunately, the collective actions of the City Council last week and the recent announcement that the city would not file for bankruptcy, coupled with the $20 billion state budget deficit impacted the willingness of my legislative colleagues to support AB 650.”

Perhaps the Sheriff could be in line for a bail out then. 9 positions are being cut from that County Department...

The Mid-Peninsula Open Space District is actually taking advantage of the down economy by purchasing two prime coastal properties. You may have a new place to hike soon...

Speaking of government agencies with money to spend... Menlo Park has a big reserve fund, compared to other cities. Next year the reserve fund could be $25 million... Perhaps they could send some cash to Half Moon Bay or the Sheriff?

Foster City's Mayor John Kiramis may not finish his term in office... this is big news.

Even though times are tough, it looks like the Belmont Sports Complex might see a Redevelopment Agency-funded revamp.

To nobodies' surprise, the Burlingame Safeway project got "mixed reviews" at the Planning Commission meeting last night. What else would you expect?

The Daily Journal's Michelle Durand gets in on Statue (Testy) Gate up in Sacramento. She's funny.

Over the objections of many, Palo Alto will have a business license tax measure on the ballot in November. The measure is a tax based on employee-count -- the more employees you have, the more you pay. The obvious objection to this measure stems from the first day of Econ 101 -- people, and businesses, respond to incentives. In Palo Alto, the incentive will be to NOT add head count...

There will be a public hearing about Coastside healthcare held by the Sequoia Healthcare District next Monday. This announcement was included in the Coastsider blog, which also had a piece about the (possibly political) motivations of Sequoia Healthcare District's interest in Coastside healthcare...

And two coastside rescue stories...

A 6-year old girl was rescued from the water near Half Moon Bay and flown to the hospital with hypothermia. The boat she was on had capsized.

Finally... yesterday we included a story of a surfer who went missing off Pomponio State Beach and Coast Guards were searching for him. Well, they got him, he's fine. Sometimes the news of the rescue is far less interesting and far less timely than the news of the disappearance...

Morning News Round-Up -- 12.31.08: Bon Ano...

A dead man was found floating in the Bay by an unsuspecting boater. The San Mateo County Sheriff 'caught' the case because of where the body was found. Watch Dog loves jurisdictional battles so much on Law and Order and perhaps we'll see one here too...the investigation into continues...

Hey, another story about the Sheriff's Office/jails in San Mateo County. (Remember these two recent stories: two kids escaped from the Log Cabin Juvenile Detention Facility and a man escaped last week from a Redwood City minimum security facility...) This one is about a cashier who was in charge of deposits of the folks the Sheriff was holding but took some personal withdrawals...

Another Mavericks story about the season starting late, diminished sponsorship, etc., etc., etc.

San Mateo Union High School District is getting with the program that college professors have been using for sometime to catch plagiarized papers. Watch out kids -- it just got a lot more difficult to cheat, now you'll actually have to read Of Mice and Men...