Morning News Round-Up -- 4.16.10: All Tea Partied Out...

San Mateo City Councilmember David Lim has something to say about the planned San Mateo-Burlingame marraige of Police Departments. Specifically, he does not like the idea of the San Mateo Deputy Police Chief becoming Burlingame's Interim Police Chief... Marraige is a very difficult thing... Remember what Rita Rudner said about marraige: "I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life." Perhaps San Mateo and Burlingame have already started annoying each other...

Ah, more Charter School/School District drama. This time in the Ravenswood City School District and the Charter School is the Stanford New School... the District denied the charter.

Burlingame and San Mateo may not need to consolidate their Police Departments after all... because Jon Mays at the Daily Journal declared an end to the recession. From your mouth to the economy's ear Mr. Mays...

Morris Brown, a Menlo Park anti-train dude, filed another lawsuit against the California High-Speed Rail Authority and Caltrain yesterday. When all else fails, get legal on their asses...

The San Francisco Chronicle's Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area has been published... and there are only two in San Mateo County. One in the north part of the County -- Koi Palace, and one in the south part of the County -- Kaygetsu in Menlo Park. Happy eating everyone...

Morning News Round-Up -- 1.11.10: A Double-Double/Animal Style Monday...

Your (eventual) ability to order a double-double, animal style in San Carlos could mean a one-time boost to San Carlos' bottom line of $1.5 million. Like any good government agency worth its salt, the City Council is going to look at how to spend that money before they even have it... For those of you who don't know what a double-double, animal style is -- welcome to California.

Now we are talking drama: Belmont may oppose the Cargill development in Redwood City. If there is one thing Watch Dog loves it is inter-governmental agency fighting. Think Foster City versus the San Mateo-Foster City Elementary School District. This could put that fight to shame. More tax dollars to lawyers, that's what we say...

It is one thing to piss off Belmont if you are Redwood City -- but it is another thing to piss off online hotel booking websites if a huge chunk of your revenue comes from online hotel bookings... Such is the case with what South San Francisco did with their Measure O hotel tax increase which took effect January 1. It seems websites were pulling SSF hotels from their sites because of a mess up in SSF's ordinance -- which will be fixed so that SSF can get back online. Pretty big mess up on SSF's legal department, Watch Dog would guess...

Yesterday was a pants-free day on BART. If that doesn't seem to make any sense, then you are a fuddy-duddy... and you certainly weren't on BART yesterday.

Sue Lempert chimes in today in the Daily Journal where Bruce at PP Examiner did last week: the County Charter Review Committee. She writes her column today in a form of an open letter to the new Charter Review Committee members...

East Palo Alto has a new (familiar) Mayor in place this year: David Woods. His third go 'round at the center of the dais in eight years. This time, though, he wants to make meetings concise and have EPA stop waiving fees for events...

We like to point out examples of when the San Francisco Chronicle remembers that there is a County south of the City and County of San Francisco. So when food critical Michael Bauer visits a restaurant in Montara, we have to capture it on Watch Dog... he went to La Costanera three times and his review was in Sunday's paper. Welcome Mr. Bauer...

Morning News Round-Up -- 11.16.09: Bad, Sad, Scary Edition...

A series of really bad, sad, scary stories appeared late last week and over the weekend...

• A man was charged with stabbing his roommate in South San Francisco...
• A different guy in SSF is getting two months in jail for beating his girlfriend with a broom...
• There was a fatal hit-and-run in Menlo Park involving a 6 year old girl on Thursday...
• The Redwood City pool where a Palo Alto man was found dead has been cleaned, thank goodness...
• There was a 30-bullet shoot-out in East Palo Alto on Thursday night injuring two folks...

And this: A robbery of a 25 year old Redwood City man on the boarder of Palo Alto and Menlo Park that turned into a sexual assault...

The ability (or lack thereof) to ride horses on Half Moon Bay beaches is going to be reconsidered by the HMB City Council. Expect fireworks...

You may have noticed that the Mi Pueblo grocery store opened in East Palo Alto on Saturday... and not one full day into operation, Mi Pueblo got a threatening phone call that was described as "...not a bomb threat..." by officials. However, the caller did say that something bad was going to happen at 9 p.m. Welcome to the neighborhood Mi Pueblo. There is something hysterical in this story, however: apparently a nearby bank is upset at the bright colors that Mi Pueblo is painted... has the bank seen the enormous blue and yellow structure across the parking lot?

The big rail-side development in San Mateo has planners wanting to take a closer look... more details = more time.

It is Monday, which is Sue Lempert's time in the Daily Journal... she breaks down the winners and losers from the election.

Cuts are coming to the City of San Mateo workforce -- but layoffs have been avoided... for now

When you were in high school, how many times did you wish your science teacher would take a long trip to the South Pole? If you are like Watch Dog -- you spent most of your time making such a wish... well, a Carlmont High teacher is heading to the South Pole to advance science, not to grant his students' wishes... the Chronicle gives us the run down.

Morning News Round-Up -- 8.26.09: The Dominant Story of the Day

More details are emerging from Alex Youshock's violent plan at Hillsdale High School in San Mateo...

So do the heroic actions of the staff of the high school to prevent the worst. The Daily Journal's Jon Mays gives the heroes props.

Also, the Chronicle is now realizing there is a story worth covering south of the airport... unfortunately, it is this story and not anything else.

But more amazing than the Chronicle covering the story is the Mercury News' coverage. They are now realizing there is a story worth covering north of Palo Alto... but they aren't really covering it. You see, the Merc is pulling (some/all) of its coverage from the Associated Press. That should tell you something about that newspaper...

And as the details emerge from the Youshock's plan, the District Attorney enters the scene: they may charge Mr. Youshock as an adult.

In other crime news:

Jury selection in the 2006 murder of EPA Police Officer RIchard May begins today. Instructions to the jury include: No Tweeting... seriously.

That's most of the news this morning. Sorry it is all somber.

Morning News Round-Up -- 8.21.09: These Eyes, These Eyes...

We are pleased to know that the Chronicle is reading Watch Dog (or perhaps some other San Mateo news/blog outlet)... they have a piece today about the Safeway/ Girl Scout non-criminal charge, which was a Wednesday story here.

It is County Fair time, and aside from healthy food at the Fair, the bands have been announced: Boys II Men and Guess Who. And no, wiseguy, it isn't the County Fair from 1989 or 1969.

In other County Fair news... Twelve-year-old Anika Rianzares beat out a bunch of adults, placing second in the County Fair's adult painting competition last weekend.

Roughly 60 employees of the San Mateo County’s courthouse will be out of a job, thanks to the State. The court — and those throughout the State — is already preparing for closures the third Wednesday of every month to help ends meet. But don't worry, because all those folks in prison will be out soon.

It will be an interesting few months in Half Moon Bay, with eight candidates vying for two open City Council seats. Why is there so much interest this year? Half Moon Bay is stuck with bond payments for the next 30 years to pay developer Chop Keenan.

A 30-year-old man pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and will go to trial in January, two years after he allegedly beat an elderly woman in her Daly City home. There should be plenty of empty beds in Pelican Bay...

It was probably easy for U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier to stand (in heels) for two hours at the Hot Harvest Nights farmers’ market in San Carlos listening to her constituents natter away about health care reform. Easy, because majority of them agreed with her attempt to overhaul the nation’s health care industry. And those who didn’t agree with her were “well-behaved.”

Desperate times call for desperate measures. A man was arrested at the Mollie Stone’s in Burlingame yesterday afternoon for stealing items from a Federal Express truck while he was pretending to be the driver.

Kelly James Weston, the assistant cross-country coach at Menlo-Atherton High School accused of making racially charged remarks to a group of children and pushing an 11-year-old boy, said he only scolded the youngsters. He added that a former Menlo-Atherton coach who was talking to him on the telephone during the dispute can corroborate his account.

Notre Dame de Namur University seems to be benefiting from this recession. Enrollment is surging as more people get laid off from their jobs. So far this year, nearly 1,400 students have already registered for classes, which resume Wednesday. That’s double what it was this time last year. Go Fighting Irish... just kidding.

San Mateo County is suing the owners of a high-end office park in Redwood City, attempting to recover the nearly $1 million in unpaid taxes the office park may owe the County.

Members of the Palo Alto Architectural Review Board criticized the revised plan to expand the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, saying it was “boxy, intimidating and far too massive.” (Enter your favorite Michael Scott joke here...)

Did you notice the red waves off the coast last night? Biologists attribute the “spectacular” glow to an algae bloom off the shore of Miramar. Cool.

Morning News Round-Up -- 6.3.09: A good news/bad news type of day...

Here is a good news, bad news story, depending on your point of view. Good news if you need to take summer school in San Mateo Union High School, that's because the bad news is that the summer school is cut because of bad budget times in San Mateo Union High School.

Another good news, bad news story, this time from Caltrain. The good news is that weekend service will continued, but the bad news is that fairs are going up and some trains are getting cut mid-week.

And this one is just bad news... the Redwood City Elementary School District had a parcel tax on the ballot earlier this week. It lost. Expect big cuts in Redwood City Elementary School District.

The bad news: a man was car-jacked, robbed, and beaten in Redwood City. The good news: six folks were arrested in connection to this incident.

This issue is a long-time coming, the Petaluma teacher that was set up by his students to meet a "teenage" girl, was sentenced to two years in State prison.

Ironically, State prisons were in the news yesterday, and not in a good way. State parks and State beaches were also in the news, not in a good way. Prisons, parks, and beaches are on the chopping block because the Governor didn't leave any State stone unturned yesterday in a 12 minute speech...

Menlo Park is about to have a battle about parking spaces at MP's Civic Center area. A new gymnasium will make the parking more crowded, meaning library patrons will have trouble getting a space... expect this battle to continue. Folks love their parking spaces in MP, if you don't believe Watch Dog, we can only assume you haven't been grabbing an outside coffee in MP when a parking space battle erupts...

Developer David Bohannon is doing outreach meetings for his Menlo Park hotel-office project. Our guess is the outreach meetings will be "on-message" -- because the last time we wrote about this, Bohannon was doing polling.

The San Francisco Chronicle must read Watch Dog... because they just wrote a story about the Half Moon Bay Bail-Out Bill... welcome to the story Mr./Ms. Chronicle...

Morning News Round-Up -- 3.10.09: Little Jerry Seinfeld Seized?

The animal cruelty stories are back. Watch Dog can't decide if these are more depressing than the sex-video extortion crime report from yesterday. Either way, a cock fighting ring was raided over the weekend in Pescadero. 150 roosters were seized...so was the guy who owned the property. No word yet if Little Jerry was among the seized roosters...



And an update on the Girl Scouts and others involved in the parking lot accident on Sunday: Of the 5 folks that were hit, 3 have been released from the hospital while a mom and her 6 year old daughter remain in serious condition.

It is Millbrae's day to look at raising taxes to bridge a $1.7 million budget gap. Revenue is down, sales taxes are down, etc., etc., etc.

The Burlingame Elementary School District is also looking to voters...not for a new tax, but an extension of a parcel tax already on the books. Here is some free advice to the Burlingame Elementary School District officials: make sure parents aren't super-pissed at you before going to the ballot and figure out a better lottery system...

Half Moon Bay is looking at at judgement-obligation bond to pay the $18 million it owes to developer Chop Kennan. HMB's process to get this done is pretty complicated -- they need to get court approval and on a parallel track Aseemblymember Jerry Hill and Senator Leland Yee are trying to get urgency legislation passed in Sacramento...what a mess.

In other HMB news, the City was featured in a Chronicle piece this weekend about spending stimulus funds on road repairs. (Sorry we missed it yesterday...it's just that the Chronicle is so light these days that we thought it was an under-the-door flyer, rather than the Sunday paper...)

San Bruno is also looking at the stimulus package for some funds for some water projects. Pacifica is looking for stimulus too (thanks Riptide)...

Michelle Durand's "Off the Beat" in the Daily Journal explores Obama's graying hair...actually, it is a critique of the coverage of Obama's graying hair -- to which Durand adds a few more column-inches.

A bio-tech job fair (obviously) attracted an overflow crowd yesterday in South San Francisco. The City of SSF was a partner in this job fair trying to connect newly laid off workers with bio-tech jobs. Bio-tech jobs got a big boost from (quickly-graying) President Obama yesterday when he declared that he believed in science...

Morning News Round-Up -- 2.25.09: A Truly (Un)Churchillian Round-Up...

Watch Dog mentioned yesterday that we were tired of all the budget cutting/revenue enhancement stories...not because we don't think they are important, just that we are numb to them at this point. Today's list of updates: the City of San Mateo and San Mateo Union High School District.

And the outlook for local governments looks worse moving forward. That's because Warren Slocum, the San Mateo County Assessor, estimates that 40,000 homes that were sold since January 1, 2002 will be reassessed. He thinks 20,000 of them will have dropped in value, meaning local governments will take another tax revenue hit.

To deal with some of these harsh budget decisions, the Daily Journal's Editor Jon Mays suggests consolidating local services. (Watch Dog would point out, however, that sometimes the consolidated services, like garbage, can cause friction between cities and sometimes pit them against one another and the consolidated agency...I'm just saying...)

Also getting into the action of proposing ideas to save our cities' budgets in the Daily Journal -- Edwin Hawkins of the San Mateo County Firefighters Union. He (obviously) thinks that fire departments have too many folks at the top and not enough firefighters on the ground...

Un/Surprisingly, Congresswomen Eshoo and Speier liked (loved!) the President's speech last night. Eshoo called it "Churchillian." (That is a fun word to say...go ahead, say it...)

Now, two stories about Belmont neighbors. (And neither one is about traffic around Carlmont High...)

T-Mobile, put up your cell tower in Belmont...wait, scratch that, reverse it. The Belmont City Council is backtracking on a T-Mobile plan to install a cell tower on Lyon Avenue on a Mid-Peninsula Water District piece of property. Belmont neighbors (NIMBYs) have had their voice heard, it seems...

If active neighbors can stop a cell phone tower from being installed, they can do lots of other stuff too. Neighbors are also going to help clean up/maintain Waterdog Lake in Belmont...(By the way, the rumor that Waterdog Lake is going to be renamed Watch Dog Lake is untrue.)

More trouble with the Palo Alto Police Department. At a meeting last night that was meant to strengthen the relationship between the Police Department and the Community, folks vented and the Interim Police Chief got an earful. Perhaps Chief Johnson's departure was just the tip of the iceberg...

And adding fuel to the fire...A Palo Alto Police Lieutenant ended his moonlighting gig as a "consultant" for Page Mill Properties. Who is running the show in Palo Alto?

A group of (stupid) Fremont teenagers broke into Half Moon Bay High School on Monday night and broke into 34 lockers looking for money to steal. Really? High school lockers. That's where the geniouses thought they'd find lots of cash?

A Riptide writer is pissed about the big, yellow "Apartment Homes" signs sprouting up everywhere...Watch Dog has noticed too. Fight the good fight Riptide.

Watch Dog's primary competition (ha!) the San Francisco Chronicle, is in deep trouble. The Hearst Corp. said that they are looking to sell or close the paper because of the tremendous losses being incurred...

Morning News Round-Up -- 2.5.09: Bribing Businesses in Belmont Edition...

Belmont is hungry for more businesses. They want to annex the remaining, non-San Carlos parts of the Harbor Industrial Area and reap the tax money that comes with it. They are even willing to bribe/pay the folks there with $5,000 each in expenses related to the annexation...This is the latest in a long, drawn out battle for annexation of the area -- part of which went to San Carlos a bunch of years ago.

If you live in San Carlos, you will be voting on a school parcel tax by mail starting the first week in April and ending the first week in May. $78/parcel/year. If you need an explanation as to why the San Carlos School District needs money, look north and east to the State Capitol...and then look at the failing economy...PP Examiner has a run down of other school-related taxes headed for the May all-mail ballot...

And while we are blasting Sacramento...PP Examiner also reviews the local media's criticism of the Legislature. Specifically, PP Examiner reviews Jerry Hill's ill-timed "there oughta be a law" contest roll-out. (Watch Dog has focused on this contest before in our Bay Area-wide expose...) Anyway, get to work Sacramento folks -- don't worry about new laws...

Another school district budget story...skip to the next story if you are tired of these. Tired not because they aren't important, but they are here everyday. This time, the San Mateo Union High School District is considering a number of measures to close the $5.8 million budget gap, including having employees pay more for healthcare. Perhaps they should look at raising their field-usage fees...just an idea...

All you good folks (and NIMBYs) who were concerned about the Verona Ridge project in San Mateo, the construction on the 34 homes is slowing down considerably and the developers are trying to time the market. With the way things look -- timing the market might take some time...

Another month, another mysterious death in Pacifica -- the second in about three months. This time, Pacifica resident Jeanette Hazel Santos's body was found floating near the Pier. The Coroner will have an official cause of death soon. On the "inside the media" part of this story: the Pacifica Tribune doesn't have the story online yet, the Half Moon Bay Review does, and so does Riptide (via the Chronicle)...

San Mateo County and animal cruelty. So many stories, so little time. The thief/vigilante who stole a pitbull and served 40 days in jail, is out. 19 year old Tyler Hill loves animals so much that he needed to rescue ones that were being mistreated...hence stealing the pitbulls. He has learned his lesson apparently, saying, "What I did was not right...My heart was in the right place, but I could have gone another route to saving the puppies..." 40 days in lock up for a 19 year old tends to teach a pretty good lesson Watch Dog would think...

A funny (online) headline appears in the Half Moon Bay Review: City wants roads paved as part of stimulus. If you've never been to Half Moon Bay -- you may get the wrong picture, (most of) the roads are paved out there...Watch Dog thinks the headline should probably be "re-paved" but who cares?...

Stanford canceled its (widely popular) Community Day. Is this punishment for the push-back they are getting from the City of Palo Alto about their hospital and mall plans...