Showing posts with label hillsdale high school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hillsdale high school. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Morning News Round-Up -- 5.25.10: 2-40-2 Head line Bold herej head line bold goes here and here's more headling bold jyg

San Mateo County loves LOVES trying to consolidate things... trash, water, sewer, police, fire... and now the San Mateo Fire Chief Dan Belville is also going to be the Fire Chief in Foster City. Why pay two dudes when you can pay half a salary? That seems to be the thinking... and it may just be tip of the San Mateo/Foster City Fire Department iceberg...

The former Hillsdale High student who planned to pipe bomb the school last year was indicted by a grand jury Friday. Alex Youshock now awaits psychiatric evaluations about whether he is fit to stand trial...

Caltrain's spokesman Mark Simon writes a piece for the Daily Journal today about electrification... and he uses the word "diminishment," which looks funny.

Yesterday there was a story about how Belmont just launched their red-light cameras, and today there is a story about how Burlingame is abandoning theirs. Does Belmont not pay attention?

A two-pronged bond approach will be hitting voters in the Belmont-Redwood Shores School District this November. One for the elementary schools and one for Ralston Middle.

Some of you were probably at the big Stanford Hospital/ Palo Alto public meeting last night at the Palo Alto City Council... well, it is a busy week for the NIMBY set because tonight there is a big public meeting on the Bohannon "Menlo Gateway" project...

Finally, does pointing out the Merc's technical difficulties ever get old? (Remember the re-launched County Times?) Watch Dog doesn't think so... this was a headline for a breaking news story last night:

Friday, April 30, 2010

Morning News Round-Up -- 4.30.10: Shhhhhh...

High-Speed Rail could be in trouble, according to a new State audit because it... "...suffers from 'weak oversight,' 'lax' management and a shaky funding plan..." Funny, we thought that was the norm for things coming out of Sacramento... One thing for sure, this audit will be the talk of the country-club set in Menlo Park and Atherton this weekend...

Students at Aragon, San Mateo, and Hillsdale High are having a silent-in today to protest Arizona's ridiculous new immigration law... We stand quietly with you students... shhhh...

Lee Duboc must be happy, sort of. The Menlo Park City Council is going to "impose terms" on part of its unionized work force. That is a unions worst nightmare, obviously. San Jose imposed terms earlier in the week and Menlo Park followed suit. Trend. Growing...

In other union news, sort of. The teachers in Redwood City School District are contesting their pink-slips... the union thinks the District issued more layoff notices than it needed too. Well duh... doesn't every District do that?

The Daily Journal Editorial Board is endorsing Joe Galligan for his bid to replace Lee Buffington as County Treasurer...

Joshua Melvin at the San Mateo County Times might win the Best First Sentence in a News Story Award this year: "...A San Mateo woman who tied up her teenage daughter with duct tape and poured dish soap in the girl's mouth after a fight over a cell phone bill was sentenced Thursday to probation and six months in jail, a prosecutor said..." It is a creepy story obviously, but we are sure that Mr. Melvin will clip that one for his cubicle... reporters have very sick senses of humor...

Monday, March 22, 2010

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

  • 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...

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


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."

Friday, November 13, 2009

Morning News Round-up --11.13.09: Thank. God. it's. Friday.

Here is a good use of time...environmental economists have taken up “surfonomics,” putting a $23.9 million price tag on the Maverick wave.

And the winner is… Leonard Woren has retained his director seat on the Granada Sanitary District, beating challenger Lisa McCaffrey by just 10 votes. Recount!

The Belmont City Council decided to purchase about 35 acres of open space in the San Juan Canyon. But Councilman Warren Lieberman voted against it, saying he doesn’t believe the purchase would be revenue neutral. Open space = no money.

A South San Francisco man is in jail after he allegedly abducted his daughter and cleared out the family’s joint bank accounts. His attempted vacation is now a staycation.

Alexander Robert Youshock’s preliminary hearing was pushed back until Jan. 7 when he will learn whether he will stand trial for plotting a massacre at Hillsdale High School.

T.G.I Friday's in San Mateo has even more to be thankful for....the shuttered restaurant gets a second chance after a homicide and employee issues forced the popular chain to close its doors last year (thank God?)

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Morning News Round-Up -- 9.24.09: High-Speed Rail Politics...

The would-be Hillsdale High School killer, Alex Youshock, pleaded not guilty yesterday. Expect another high-profile case in the San Mateo County Courthouse...

To leash or not to leash (your dog), that is the question in San Mateo... we await David Lim's position on this vital issue. Michelle Durand talks dogs too in the Daily Journal...

Speaking of campaign issues, is there a candidate up and down the Peninsula that ISN'T talking about High-Speed Rail. The issue probably would have been better to talk about before everyone in the County voted FOR High-Speed Rail last year...

Belmont is losing its City Manager. Jack Crist will take over the day-to-day operations of Watch Dog San Mateo... just kidding.

The Performing Arts Center at Menlo-Atherton High School will celebrate a grand opening on October 11th. Expect a wonderful building, and lots of NIMBY crying from its Atherton neighbors...

The race for the Sequoia Union High School District board is broken down by Bruce at the PP Examiner... crowded field. Who wants to take bets?

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Morning News Round-Up -- 8.27.09: Score one for the NIMBYs...

Alexander Robert Youshock had been plotting Monday’s attack on Hillsdale High School. He ordered the explosive material, he built bombs while telling his mother he was constructing model rockets, and then videotaped himself making the weapons.

And here come the copy cats

San Mateo School District officials told us what we already know… derailing the former Hillsdale High School student’s plot to kill students and teachers ended ideally – with nobody hurt and the wannabe killer in jail. To make the school grounds even safer, officials are considering other security devices, like cameras or text messaging alerts.

High-Speed Rail foes have something, other than their never-ending NIMBYism, to hang their hats on today. A Judge questioned the Environmental Impact Report for the proposed route over Pacheco Pass (and into San Jose). This has NIMBYs pretty psyched. Not so fast, say High-Speed Rail advocates, because the Judge also called the other possible routes, over Altamont Pass and across the Bay, too expensive. Nonetheless, this means delay, and cost, and probably huge parties up and down the Caltrain corridor this weekend. Remember, if you drink at these parties NIMBYs, take the train home...

And while Hillsdale High talks security, Brewer Island Elementary School in Foster City showed off its new digs.

Same story, different agency – budget cuts. This time Sequoia Union High School District.

The southbound lanes of U.S. Highway 101 near Brisbane are open again after a chemical spill Wednesday night. It appears that five one-liter bottles labeled "thionyl chloride," were the culprit.

A San Mateo County Superior Court judge has lowered the bail for the former Belmont Chamber of Commerce President charged with molesting a young girl in San Mateo. It went from $1.5 million to $1 million. (Remember this story?)

Now government is stealing from scavengers… those who are caught taking recyclables from curbside bins will soon face a $100 fine under a new law approved by the Redwood City Council.

Police had to turn away insistent gate-crashers from Congresswoman Anna Eshoo’s panel event on high-speed rail Wednesday, which drew hundreds of people. Naturally, people couldn’t resist brining up healthcare reform.

Menlo Park City leaders think less government is good. A majority of City Council members are trying to find a way for the city to extricate itself from running a child care program for preschool-age children.

Residents in East Palo Alto are pissed that a twice-convicted rapist is moving to town. Stay tuned for protests.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

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.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Morning News Round-Up -- 8.25.09: A gloomy local news day...

Hillsdale High School remains closed today after Police arrested a 17-year-old former Hillsdale student on suspicion of detonating two bombs inside the school before being tackled by a teacher and arrested. San Mateo resident Alex Youshock was armed with 10 pipe bombs on a vest, a chain saw, and a 2-foot-sword. News reports suggested he might have been angry with teachers. According to San Mateo Union High School District officials the school’s disaster plan operated “smoothly.” The plan, of course, didn’t include a teacher tackling Youshock, putting themselves in danger, but that’s what happened anyway and it worked out fine.

The woman who had a massive eucalyptus branch fall on her while driving Friday afternoon died from her injuries Saturday. Lisa Fellini died after a massive eucalyptus branch fall onto her gold 1997 Lexus and impaled her as she took a connector ramp from northbound Highway 101 to eastbound State Route 92.

Rocked by the Friday night suicide of a 13-year-old girl, Palo Alto Police plan "a large presence" at schools and at train crossings this week to reach out to the community's young people, Sgt. Dan Ryan, a police-department spokesman, announced Monday morning. Caltrain officials addressed the recent spate of suicides with some advice for the community: address mental health issues and tone down the media coverage of the recent Caltrain deaths.

A "motorist shooting at pedestrians" in East Palo Alto shot one resident in the right thigh late Sunday night when the resident said he was walking in the 1300 block of East Bayshore Road, police reported. In an unrelated incident, a bicyclist was injured after he was hit by a Toyota Tacoma pickup truck while crossing El Camino Real in Palo Alto's College Terrace neighborhood Monday afternoon.

Union workers plan to hold a rally today to call for an independent audit of the San Mateo County Superior Court's finances after court officials said they may lay off 60 employees to plug a recently discovered $3.89 million deficit in last year's budget. Members of the Service Employees International Union Local 521, which represents 250 court workers, are expected to turn out for a noontime rally in front of the courthouse in protest of the possible layoffs.
Court officials initially placed blame for the shortfall on state budget cutbacks, then said Friday that "internal accounting, tracking and analysis deficiencies" had made them unaware of the $3.89 million deficit in the fiscal year that ended June 30.

In his first year in state government, Assemblyman Jerry Hill, a San Mateo Democrat, knows how to get on the Governor's good side: Make government more efficient and green. He recently had two bills passed and signed into law that well, do just that. Perhaps Hill can give some advice to the San Mateo County courthouse folks...

San Bruno Police know how to share the pain… they will take a 1.15 percent salary reduction, equivalent to a three-day furlough, as part of a one-year contract that goes before the City Council tonight for a vote.

A 65-year-old San Bruno woman who was arrested several years ago in a large-scale federal drug investigation dubbed Operation Urban Harvest has been sentenced for stashing more than $10,000 in an offshore bank account. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ordered the woman to turn over roughly $24,000 and a 2000 Mercedes SUV. Not the wheels!

The California Highway Patrol on today will conduct the second zero-tolerance enforcement this month of the State's hands-free cell phone law. A similar campaign on Aug. 11 resulted in 300 Bay Area drivers being cited by the CHP, and more than 350 other drivers being cited by other Bay Area law enforcement agencies, according to the CHP.

Young adults from HOPE Services continue to clean up the beaches and pier on Tuesdays. The time is changing to 9.30-11.00 a.m. and you are invited to join them. The beaches are big and the job larger than they alone can cover.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Morning News Round-Up -- 8.24.09: Pay Cut Gate Revisited...

BREAKING NEWS: The Chronicle reports that San Mateo’s Hillsdale High School is being evacuated this morning and the bomb squad has been called to the scene in response to a blast. That's no way to start the new school year...

Daly City sent a letter to the San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury saying the City refuses to restore the salary that City Clerk Annette Hipona got when she got elected last year. You remember the Pay Cut Gate story, right? In June, the Grand Jury concluded that the City was unjustified in slashing Hipona's pay from $101,374 to $52,988 a year and recommended that the decision be reversed.

State cut-backs are one thing, stupid accounting mistakes are quite another. Both are leading to cutbacks in the San Mateo County courthouse.

Scientists + Sharp Park Golf Course = Less and Less Golf...

What's better than Target? A bigger Target. That's what's coming to Colma, along with increased sales tax revenues to City cofers..

San Mateo and San Carlos are thinking about forcing its commercial businesses to recycle. Steve Sherman of Cascadia Consulting, which is working with the South Bayside Waste Management Authority (SBWMA), noted that while recycling is popular, “Americans, in general, do not like to be told what to do.” Good point, especially by these guys...

Jury selection starts today for the trial of the East Palo Alto gang member accused of shooting and killing a police officer more than three years ago in front of a teenage police explorer doing a ridealong. It’s the first County death penalty case in six years.

More than 300 supporters and opponents of the proposed healthcare reform bill showed up to voice questions and opinions at a relatively peaceful Sunday Town Hall meeting in Montara hosted by Congresswoman Jackie Speier. She restated her support for healthcare reform to the 300 people who showed up. She also told them that in her district there are 46,000 uninsured folks who would be eligible for healthcare under the reform proposals. All this and she managed to make her point without relying on the phrases “single-payer” or “public option.”

In case you didn't get enough: Congresswoman Anna Eshoo is having her own telephone town hall meeting tonight so residents can vent about that public option plan.

Palo Alto is reeling after the suicide death of a 13 year old on Caltrain tracks where two other Gunn High School students died in the past several months. Former Palo Alto Mayor Victor Ojakian and Supervisor/former Palo Alo Mayor Liz Kniss are considering a committee to examine the issue.

Here are two stories about how things get done (or not) in Palo Alto:

Here's a shocker... The City of Palo Alto doesn't like the design of the new Lucile Packard Childrens' Hospital.

Bowlers are hoping to spare the popular Palo Alto Bowl from being demolished. The group plans to let the City Council know how they feel about the 53-year-old alley.

Residents living near the Caltrain tracks and their intersections with Encinal, Glenwood, Oak Grove and Ravenswood avenues should buy earplugs. The next four weeks Caltrain will be working on nearby railroad crossings.

And more good news from Caltrain… higher parking fees and fewer trains starting Aug. 31. Who doesn’t love paying more for less?

Screw Caltrain and ride your bike. About 500 cyclists from all over the Bay Area took part in the fifth annual Tour de Menlo Saturday. All riders stopped at the Picchetti Open Space Preserve and Winery in Cupertino for lunch, before heading back.