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 -- 2.19.10: Please take a number...

Here's a twist. The possible sale of the Crestmoor High School site in San Bruno was going to be a tough sell with neighbors... and this isn't going to make it any better: the chair of the committee charged with looking into the Crestmoor sale for the San Mateo Union High School District had to resign his post because of a "perception of a conflict of interest..."

Get ready all you Menlo Park-ans... High-Speed Rail officials will be in Menlo Park this afternoon. Please take a NIMBY number...

Just down the street, Atherton will be writing lots of big checks to developers who paid "road impact fees" there... you see, road impact fees may be illegal and Atherton will be $1.65 million less rich for the dubious legal imposition of these fees. There was one person on the Council, Kathy McKeithen, that apparently would like to litigate the impact fees first... which would fit an Atheronian pattern...

It isn't just the folks that were sitting on the risers that are concerned about Mavericks... so are the good folks at the national marine sanctuary.

Morning News Round-Up – 7.1.09: Chubby factor, uncensored...

Things are heating up in Half Moon Bay with Sequoia Healthcare District board member Don Horsley outlining his annexation plans. Roughly 4,000 Coastside patients are without doctors – all are without medical records. Horsley’s plan for a clinic doesn’t seem to include record distribution…

Everyone is belt tightening these days, in spite of that voters in San Mateo and Foster City overwhelmingly approved a levee assessment district. Chalk one up for sensible voters.

San Mateo's Grand Jury ended its year with one last slap at (un)electing County Supervisors and went a step furthur calling for district elections in a letter released yesterday.

The union-management battle is spilling over into BART trains. Meanwhile, the State has sent mediators and a letter from legislators asking for “good-faith” negotiations.

San Carlos residents are asked to weigh in on land use outlined in the weighty general plan. More power to you, over here it’s called a doorstop.

Members of Palo Alto’s city council backed away from a “prevailing wage” requirement for city projects, again. Staff estimates an increase in project costs though public works assistant director Mike Sartor agreed studies didn’t support that belief.

“Residents only” could be the message Palo Alto’s Parks and Recreation Commission sends tonight. The flip side of the message is use for teams that don’t cut players…

A big Watch Dog “Woof” to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and the County for $1 million in grants to “safety net” groups around the county.

Steve Jobs home, or pieces of it, may have a savior. Gordon Smythe has stepped up to save “historically significant elements” such as roof tiles, an organ, mailbox, flagpole and tiles.

State Senator Leland Yee lost a biggie when his bill, Fair Sentencing for Youth Act, was shot down. Yee has a week to convince the Assembly’s Public Safety committee that locking up and throwing away the key on kids wasn’t the voters shining moment.

HopeLab is one of President Obama’s fav non-profits as an example of “social innovation” with their kid friendly (exercise laden) video games…

When you head into your favorite fast food joint for lunch (and breakfast and dinner) today don’t be surprised to see the depressing news on the chubby factor.

The little city that could… Atherton lands, again, and again, in the news…

• Censorship. The accusation comes from Councilmember Elizabeth Lewis as colleagues lay on rules on making it more difficult get stuff on the agenda. Fretting items on the council’s agenda could be “very dangerous,” Councilmember Jim Dobbie supported the new rules. Right, because spirited public discourse is scary.
• Spanked for overcharging residents for business license taxes, Atherton heads into the red to payback the overcharged. Email from residents reminds Watch Dog that the budget hit should have landed earlier but a councilmember managed to delay the red ink while bolstering their campaign rhetoric…
• Today should mark the end of the ongoing assault/battery drama for Atherton’s public works supervisor Troy Henderson. On the stand Henderson says it was all a set-up...

Morning News Roun-Up -- 4.27.09: Atherton's BFF Edition...

Just when you thought all the controversy in Atherton was dying down...it roars again. Watch Dog (and the Civil Grand Jury) wrote about the Menlo-Atherton High School facilities' report that the Civil Grand Jury recently came out with. Well, it seems Atherton Councilmember Kathy McKeithen (and her BFF on the Atherton Council Jim Dobbie) are "disgusted" with the report. However, McKeithen didn't say, "These damn kids make so much noise...don't they know this is Atherton?!" (Ms. McKeithen and Mr. Dobbie, here is what BFF means...)

Congresswoman Speier is busy...really, that's what this story is about. Well, it talks about her first year in office. If you read Watch Dog at all, you know that we know Speier is busy, and effective.

More plans for the (much anticipated/much delayed/much written-about) Burlingame Safeway have been released. Take a peak, pictures and all...

The San Bruno Mountain Watch Conservancy is born. They are trying to raise enough money to buy private property and maintain some sense of nature on the mountain...

Lots of school news to Round-Up today...

• Two Sequoia Union High School District principals have said good bye recently, so two new were just named: Bonnie Hansen at Sequoia High School and Raul Zamora at Carlmont High School. Hansen is already well-known in the District because she has been at Sequioa for 14 years. Zamora, is coming back to the District after a stint in Orinda. Welcome to Watch Dog friends.
• In other (musical chairs) school news, Palo Alto Unified's Assistant Superintendent Scott Laurence will leave the District to become the Superintendent of the San Mateo High School District.
• Hey all you out-of-work Auditors (and CPAs too) -- you should check out the Palo Alto Unified's website, they are looking for folks to give a check-up on their performance related to the spending of nearly $400 million in bond money. Your future starts here...
• The La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District is in trouble. They (seemingly) botched the spending of a bunch of bond money, their Superintendent is leaving, the District is being sued by the local watchdog/lawyer, and the San Mateo County Office of Education has some ideas about they need to do to get their act together. The spot light has been shone upon the La Honda-Pescader Unified...we'll see how they respond.

A Half Moon Bay group of folks concerned with the sudden closure of the Coastside Family Medical Center have launched the "Phoenix Project" to see about re-launching a medical facility on the Coast. Perhaps its time for another Coastside Town Hall Supervisor Gordon?

Riptide delves into some truth: Pacifica is in fiscal trouble if Measure D (the sales tax hike) doesn't pass...but they are in trouble if Measure D does pass too. Sort of like California with Measures A-F...

And it isn't just finances that are on folks' minds in Pacifica, so is the General Plan update.

Redwood City is taking advantage of a down real estate market (while at the same time drawing down some capital funds from a variety of sources). They will purchase a 9.5 acre site for $4.45 million for a water tank (?), a park, a place to park its trucks, public access to the Bay, and a commercial use.

The dusky-footed woodrat will take center stage tonight at the San Carlos City Council...along with NIMBYs and a developer...about the Devonshire Canyon (5-home) development being considered.

Sue Lempert's Daily Journal column today reminds us that there was once a crappy President who wanted to let us put our Social Security money in the stock market...seriously.

San Mateo City Council candidate David Lim checks in through his campaign blog about overcrowding in some San Mateo apartment complexes. It isn't that we are only following David, it is just that other folks don't seem to be that "with it" with their web presence. Supervisor Rich Gordon, who is running for a much higher office than San Mateo City Council, hasn't really updated his site since he announced he was running...

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...
  

Morning News Round-Up -- 2.4.09: Hoping for Rain Edition...

(Before we begin...Last evening, Watch Dog posted a correction to its latest Tesla story. Please click here to see the correction...)

Unsurprisingly, the Everest Charter School got a thumbs up from the Advisory Commission on Charter Schools (ACCS) in Sacramento. This was widely expected to happen, even though all the local folks (Sequioa Union and the County Office of Education) said no...from the Commission, it will go to the Department of Education for final approval/rejection.

There are sometimes mountain lion sightings around the County...but rarely does someone catch the big cats on camera. As a Watch Dog, we don't really like big cats, but the video is pretty cool...

Police apprehended 3 of the 4 folks that robbed and held captive a 90 year old woman in San Mateo. There were two men, one (19 year old) woman, and one under-age kid...Scary...

Parents in Foster City want more schools in their neck of the woods because their part of the San Mateo-Foster City School District is crowded. The District asked for their feedback, and boy did they ever get it...

We have had our share of animal cruelty cases in the County over the past couple of months: the cat stomping, the dog punching, the puppy stealing, etc. Watch Dog isn't sure this counts as one of them, but...yesterday, Justin Bhagat Thind was sentenced to 6 months in jail (and 3 years probation) for threatening a scientists who experiment on animals...

Coastside residents that use Rancho Corral de Tierra as their own personal playground and backyard are concerned because the management of the 4,200 acre property is about to be transferred from the (anything-goes, dogs off leash, equestrian-friendly) Peninsula Open Space Trust to the (more strict) Golden Gate National Recreation Area...

Palo Alto is facing a massive budget shortfall of (somewhere near) $8 million over the next couple of years. They are doing all the standard things, hiring freezes and no more raises...but it doesn't look like that will be the end of the painful decisions...

Kelly Park in Menlo Park is likely to get a huge ($4.5 million) face-lift that includes tennis courts, a basketball court, a soccer field, and other fun stuff. With this park and the foreclosed home-buying effort they talked about yesterday, Menlo Park must be flush with cash these days...perhaps they can share some with Palo Alto...

We have (hopefully) one last campaign update from November's race in Atherton. The final fundraising numbers for the folks that ran can in this week. Elizabeth Lewis raised the most ($32,548), then incumbent Kathy McKeithen ($20,390), then David Henig ($14,017), and finally Richard Moore ($8,380). In case you forgot, Lewis and McKeithen won seats. (Perhaps) Proving the adage that whoever raises and spends more has a better shot at winning...

In Menlo Park, while they are a highly educated bunch, they can't seem to fill out their political fundraising compliance forms correctly. Of the three that were supposed to file their final November campaign statements, only Kelly Ferguson seemed to do it right. Rick Ciardella didn't detail how his money was spent and Andy Cohen forgot to turn his in. Where is the outcry for open government Lee Duboc?