Morning News Round-Up -- 5.17.10: Pension Reform in Burlingame? Lee Duboc is jealous...

Here's something... Burlingame and its police department have started the long road toward pension reform. From the County Times: "Police sergeants and captains in Burlingame have agreed to pay freezes through the end of the year and are ready to cut retiree benefits, the first union contract that includes pension reform for a city struggling to deal with escalating employee costs..." Menlo Park, and everyone else, are you reading this?

If you have twenty minutes, perhaps you should take a look at videos put together by the candidates for County Supervisor (Rich Gordon's seat)... they are on Coastsider and a bunch of other places...

If you are going to build in Belmont, you are going to need to build it green. Trying to become the Emerald City that many in Belmont already view themselves as, the City Council adopted a green building ordinance...

This has been on Watch Dog before, but the San Mateo County Times gets in on the Garbage Saga II unraveling in Pacifica, where Lionel Emde is suing the City of Pacifica over the rate hike tied to Recology's takeover of Coastside Scavenger. We might all want to care about this because Recology is taking over on this side of the hill too starting next year...

Finally, Ken Yeager and the rest of the Santa Clara County Supervisors (except Don Gage and George Shirakawa) get props from Dorothy Dimitre in the San Mateo Daily Journal for their fast food toy ban...

Morning News Round-Up -- 5.4.10: Buy your Corona today...

If you have been sitting on your duff waiting to return the ballot you have in your house for your School Districts' parcel tax, please return it... well, if you are going to vote yes, please return it... (Menlo Park City School District and Portola Valley School District folks, that means you...)

Here's some good news, even if it is years off. One more lane in each direction of 101 between Marsh Road and Embarcadero Road... they will be "exit only" lanes, but still, that might help a little.

Pink slips - check. Fewer school days - check (perhaps)... Redwood City School District is having a tough go of it.

Big sewer rate hikes coming to Half Moon Bay...

Governor Schwarzenegger had a plan to fund parks with revenues from off shore oil drilling... um, not such a hot idea now... Because Pacifica and Half Moon Bay look much better with no oil spills on their shore.

And some great news. The Coastside Farmers' Market in Pacifica opens tomorrow...

Morning News Round-Up -- 5.3.10: CaliJersey, the home of the Garbage Saga...

Could this be the end of the Garbage Saga in San Mateo County? First, the South Bayside Waste Management Authority, the mouthfully-named organization that oversees much of the garbage collection and recycling in the County has changed its name to RethinkWaste. Second, we learn that the transition between the old company (Allied Waste) and the new company (Recology) will be fast-tracked to this summer, rather than next January -- sort of. The new carts will start this summer, but Recology's collection of them won't start until January. Confusing much?

Perhaps a new garbage saga is brewing... the County Times has a piece about "illegal trash dumpers" who put stuff in front of other folks homes...

Caltrain is in deep, deep financial doody. On Thursday, they are going to declare a "fiscal emergency" which helps them cut service quickly and avoid all the screaming and yelling at public meetings... or at least concentrate the screaming and yelling to a few public meetings...

Speaking of financial problems... the County is still trying to get millions of dollars of jet fuel sales tax, but an appellate court judge said they have to appeal to the Board of Equalization, not a regular court. (It would help to yell and scream at Oakland too...)

The Esplanade Apartments in Pacifica have been evacuated... can we really call this "news" anymore?

Lee Duboc is going ot the City Clerk... sort of. The petition to qualify a pension reform measure for November. The City Clerk will now start counting...

While we are in Menlo Park, the Bohannon project will be heard by the Planning Commission in Menlo Park. NIMBY alert... NIMBY alert...

Sue Lempert gets her day in the Daily Journal today and coins a new term: "Calijersey"... and it isn't good...

A day without NIMBYs is a day without sunshine... today it is Daly City and cell phone towers...

Morning News Round-Up -- 4.23.10: Uttering the "B" word...

Go electric or go to bankruptcy court... those seem to the options for Caltrain these days. That ain't fun. This will not be good news for Caltrain-dependent Peninsula cities. Caltrain is also the first (but certainly not the last) local government agency to utter the "b" word...

A Menlo Park woman wrote a letter to billionaire Warren Buffet about Proposition 13 and how it was hurting schools but was a windfall for businesses in California. Warren Buffet wrote back. Check it out.

The Daily Journal Editorial Board comes out in favor of the incumbent, Robert Foucrault... but does a good job summing up why the challenger has a chance...

More bad news for the Redwood City School District... or at least for 35 more employees. More pink slips.

Here's something you have never, ever read before, we (almost) guarantee it: solar panels were stolen from Oceana High School in Pacifica. 108 in all. And it is Earth Day week. Watch Dog is going to coin a new phrase: EcoThief...

Cow + Car = DUI + Hurt Cow.

Morning News Round-Up -- 4.9.10: Isn't it ironic?

It will cost four or five times as much to have High-Speed Rail go underground... that's the official word. Which means you HSR-NIMBYs should start bombarding the High-Speed Rail Authority now... Burlingame Voice folks were at the High-Speed Rail meeting yesterday and have a report...

Locally, we know that red light cameras are causing everyone grief. One city (SSF) needs to return money to the the couple of hundred folks who got tickets by mistake... now, San Carlos is likely to get rid of the cameras because they aren't catching enough people running red lights. In other words, the cameras work as a deterrent, which in this case makes them unaffordable. As Alanis said, "Isn't it ironic?... Don't you think?" Yeah, Watch Dog really does think...

New pretty pictures have been put together to give folks an idea of what a revamped downtown Menlo Park would look like. We actually like the way downtown Menlo Park looks now, but the pastel images are great looking too...

There have been some high-profile union vs. city fights recently (Palo Alto vs Firefighters, Menlo Park Workers vs. Ballot Initiative, etc.) But in Half Moon Bay, a big bargaining unit agreed to furlough days for a year...

Pacifica Riptide continues its critique of Pacifica's new garbage company. Initially, the critique was about how Recology got the garbage contract without a bidding process being conducted... now it is about Recology's "confusing and incomplete" information they are mailing to customers about recycling...

Morning News Round-Up -- 4.2.10: Home/Loan Gate... again

The Atherton Home/Loan Gate controversy will get an official airing on April 7th with the Town Council. If you have no idea what I'm talking about you should pay closer attention...

You think your city is having budget problems... check out Caltrain. They are about to cut weeknight service, weekend service, weekday service, and beer service... (they don't have beer service, but if they did, it might help with revenue...)

More folks are lining up on the pro-Saltworks side of things... well, sort of -- the head of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission and the BCDC Board Chair wrote that they think Redwood City should go through the development review process... Because filling in the Bay is such a good idea.

Speaking of development... what is going to happen to the site that was supposed to be a senior housing project in Foster City? We know one thing for sure, there are folks with the San Mateo-Foster City Elementary School District that would like a slice...

The Daily Journal editorial pages chime in too: "...What is the harm in weighing the possibility of a six-acre school with community open space and a nine-acre development that provides revenue, senior housing and sense of downtown?..."

The best/ biggest race happening on the political scene these days is for the Democratic nomination to the 21st Assembly District to replace Ira Ruskin. San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon, Palo Alto City Councilmember Yoriko Kishimoto, and Venture Capitalst Josh Becker are the candidates and they spoke at a Silicon Valley Leadership Group forum this week. The candidates were seemingly trying to out-geek one another... which is hard in that race if you have ever seen the three candidates.

The news gets worse and worse for the now-defunct Page Mill Properties... a group of former investors is suing claiming they were defrauded. Funny, that's how East Palo Alto feels too...

Do you remember the story of the man who got sucked into the Pacific in Pacifica and his friends left the beach right after? He washed up on shore on Tuesday.

Morning News Round-Up -- 3.11.10: San Carlos' Hurt Locker...

The Daily Journal's Reporters' Notebook catches up with what Watch Dog wrote about on Monday: that Hurt Locker Director Kathryn Bigelow's connection to San Carlos...

The budget mess locally continues...

• Redwood City Elementary School District plans for 140 layoffs...
• The Community College District will seek a parcel tax for its budget woes on the June ballot...
• Cabrillo Unified School District is planning for 100 pink slips...

The Coroner identified the victim of the hanging on the UP train...

Bruce Balshone at the PP Examiner looks into politics in Pacifica... always a fascinating topic... Pacifica and Atherton may be the most politically interesting places in San Mateo County.

Morning News Round-Up -- 3.2.10: A story so nice they ran it twice...

Yesterday we sent props to the Mercury News folks who allowed the County Times to have their own website. Well, it seems like they are still working out the kinks. Here is what their homepage looked like this morning. Maybe the story is so important they wanted to post it twice...:

Another rain storm, another chunk of land in danger of falling off a cliff in Pacifica. This time it is Pacific Skies Estates...

Are you surprised about the this headline about a meeting in Menlo Park?: High speed rail meeting fails to sway crowd. I can't believe Menlo Parkians couldn't be persuaded to love High Speed Rail...

On the opposite side of things...

Here is something new: an elected official in San Mateo County looking to work collaboratively with the High Speed Rail Authority to get some of the stimulus money they just received ($2.5 billion). We knew we liked San Mateo Councilmember David Lim when he launched his blog way back when...

Morning News Round-Up -- 2.17.10: Open Carry takes aim...

Watch Dog saw this coming... remember the East Palo Alto Police Detective that posted some funny comments on Facebook about Open Carry gun freaks? Well, the NRA-types are taking aim at the Detective, not literally, but figuratively... This is what we wrote on the 5th of February: This is a story the NRA is going to jump all over.

Everyone saw this coming... the Mavericks viewing area may be closed next time. Y'think?

The County Coroner may get a run for his money this June from someone who used to work in the office. Begging the obvious question, why is the Coroner elected in the first place? Of all the positions in the County, don't we want the Coroner to be highly trained and non-political? Just asking... In case you are wondering, we found this nugget from the California State Association of Counties: "All 58 counties in California have a Sheriff's Department and 41 of those counties also provide for the Sheriff to assume the duties of the Coroner."

And as the Coroner is being challenged, Jon Mays at the Daily Journal chimes in with a piece about how the mood of the public is one of unrest...

Like unrest in the race for Slocum's office... perhaps Ira Ruskin wants into the Assessor-Clerk-Recorder's office? That makes Supervisor Mark Church very, very uneasy... (Thank you Bruce.)

There is unrest in San Bruno certainly, that's because the string of home robberies in continuing... there is a meeting tonight to talk about it at the John Muir Elementary School. But lock your house before you go...

There hasn't been a story about Belmont schools, traffic, and crazy parents for a while. Luckily,a neighbor near Central Elementary School in Belmont gave the Daily Journal an ear-full...

Two stories of escape and survival: three kids escaped a house fire in Atherton and a man was struck by a train and survived...

Gilead Sciences got the approval for expansion yesterday by the Foster City City Council. We like writing the word City twice to describe the Foster City City Council, but the Daily Journal calls it the Foster City Council... just thought you'd be interested...

Pacifica Riptide is still pounding away on Pacifica's version of the Garbage Saga... this time, from a small business perspective.

Morning News Round-Up -- 2.8.10: When the Saints...

Garbage Saga Coastside... the Garbage Saga for much of the County is pretty much over, unless of course the construction off of 101 goes over budget. But in Pacifica, they have their own Garbage Saga. Pacifica was having major problems with its garbage company, Coastside Scavenger. And by major problems, we mean that Coastside Scavenger wasn't paying Pacifica what it was supposed to. So... Pacifica went looking for another company. Instead, what Pacifica seems to be getting, according to Pacifica Riptide, is a company that is taking over Coastside Scavenger (and the contract). Recology will get the sweet contract -- which is the same company that got the original Garbage Saga contract for most of the rest of the County. It is turning into a one-garbage company County.

We all know that the Coastside Family Medical Center is in bankruptcy... but the medical records are about to be released to the good folks at the Phoenix Project who will then begin to distribute those records to former patients. Here is some more info about the Phoenix Project and how to get your records...

While some School Districts do everything they can to stop Charter Schools (Sequoia Union High School District, we mean you), others are embracing them, sort of. The San Carlos Elementary School District has converted all but one of its schools to a District-run Charter School and they want to do the last one soon too...

While the turf (legal) war continues in San Carlos, the City got back bids for the soon-to-be-turfed park and it looks like it will cost a lot less than originally expected. Which is good news. Too bad the extra money can't go to legal fees...

San Bruno daytime, home burglaries are on the rise... sort of like in Atherton. A public meeting is slated for February 17th.

Just as Spring Training is about to start, a baseball story... sort of. Barry Bond's son will stand trial in June on misdemeanor charges of battery, false imprisonment, vandalism, threatening a police officers, and obstructing a police officer... all of this from a fight with his mother.

While Congresswoman Jackie Speier is going to stay Congresswoman Jackie Speier for a bit longer because she isn't going to run for Attorney General, it (apparently) doesn't mean she won't jump the Congressional ship in the future. According to Matier and Ross in the Chronicle, Speier's "confidants" are looking ahead to Feinstein's seat...

Morning News Round-Up -- 2.1.10: Nothing to sneeze at...

Big waves were all over the coast this weekend. Unfortunately, one wave brought a Berkeley woman out to sea and she drown in Pacifica.

On a more pleasant Pacifica note, the contractor hired to save the Esplanade Ave apartments in Pacifica are making headway...

Assemblymember Jerry Hill no longer likes red-light cameras. He wants the State to look into it. Perhaps Hill could do it quickly? Like before my $271 infraction needs to be paid...

Speaking of Assemblymembers, or wannabes, a new organization has sprung up locally: the Redwood City Woodside Democratic Club. As their coming out party, they are hosting the (trimmed down) line-up of candidates for the 21st Assembly District on February 24th in Redwood City. Is it too early for the candidates to use all the opposition research they are conducting?

Watch Dog is sick of the San Carlos artificial turf issue. While the anti-turf people are bringing a lawsuit, the City of San Carlos is looking for folks to do the laying...

$2 million in grants is nothing to sneeze at during these tough times... the Peninsula Health Care District handed that much out this week. Presumably some of it will go to stopping sneezing, ironically.

(Political) Martydym hits in San Carlos... Councilmember Andy Klein is passing up his $300 per month stipend. Perhaps he wants to donate that to Watch Dog to keep this blog up and running...

Speaking of Andy Klein...

Sue Lempert's column in today's Daily Journal looks a youthful trend on the local political landscape...

COWs of Woodside has an announcement for everyone... there is a seat on the ASRB Commission... for those of you who don't know Woodside Town government well, that's the Architecture and Site Review Board.

The San Mateo Union High School District would really like to sell the "Crestmoor" site in San Bruno. The problem is that the community doesn't necessarily feel the same way and sort of feels shut out of the process. Well, tomorrow the District is going to hold another (rowdy? unpleasant? boring?) public meeting on the issue. If you miss it, however, you can watch it on San Bruno TV...

And if you are one of the 7 or 8 people who ride SamTrans (just kidding) you should bring some extra cash today, fares are going up.

If there is an election coming up (and there is, in June) then there are likely to be School Districts looking for extra cash through parcel taxes. Menlo Park City School District and the Portola Valley School District are both expected to go to the ballot.

For years the City of East Palo Alto and Page Mill Properties spent time in court fighting about the rent control ordinance in that city. Now, Page Mill Properities is in bankruptcy court seeking protection. Today was going to be the day when the 1,800 units in East Palo Alto that Page Mill Property owns was going to be on sale... but it is delayed.

Morning News Round-Up -- 1.27.10: A local mad-dash, scramble, free-for-all?

We never came back for a post yesterday, apologies to everyone...

Oh my... Matier & Ross in the Chronicle have this tidbit: Congresswoman Jackie Speier is thinking about a run for Attorney General of California this year. Imagine the local ramifications of that? It would be a mad-dash, scramble, free-for-all. Hill? Yee? Ruskin? Watch Dog? Gavin Newsom?

This isn't getting top billing in any of the papers or on Watch Dog, but it is perhaps the most important story of the day, at least for the long-term. South San Francisco is considering a two-tier retirement system for public employees. Is this the shot heard round the (local government) world?

The County may have found the most popular thing to tax you on... the hospital. And if they are going to tax you, they better identify some cuts first -- which they did and they described them as "bold"... good timing.

The Belmont/San Carlos war of words (and dollars) about who is to pay what for the Fire Protection District continued with some action. Belmont rejected San Carlos' plan. San Carlos thinks Belmont should pay more, Belmont doesn't agree. The fun squabble continues... In response to San Carlos' unhappiness, Belmont Councilwoman Coralin Feierbach said these fighting words: “If San Carlos wants to go somewhere else, they can.... We subsidized them for 20 years.” She did not say: "And I will meet them on any street corner and kick their scrawny little San Carlos asses too..."

The Daily Journal's Jon Mays rocks. He outs the DMB Saltworks developers for political tactics trying to embarass the Menlo Park City Council's decision to oppose the DMB development. Mays ends with this: "...By engaging in subterfuge and ripping reputations, the argument for the development loses its focus..."

Speaking of the salt flats. The Redwood City Council will accept a report that says that the development of 12,000 homes and their impact won't have any "insurmountable issues" related to traffic or water or other stuff.

Cliffside engineering? Federal funds to rebuild? Disaster area? If it is raining, we are talking about Pacifica...

The Skyline College shooting suspect was convicted yesterday of possessing a gun in public as part of a plea deal. 3 years probation and he can't go to campus again... perhaps the dude is getting his application ready for CSM?

Morning News Round-Up -- 1.25.10: Enhancement Edition...

It is still raining... the Chronicle has a piece about how spectators are lining up to watch the Esplanade apartments fall into the Pacific in Pacifica... weird.

Ahh, good old "revenue enhancements" will be discussed this week at the Board of Supervisors. That is the well-known euphemism for tax hikes and the County will consider a bunch of options in advance of the June election. Of course, that puts Supervisor Rich Gordon on the spot -- if he approves putting a tax hike on the ballot, he'll be saying yes to higher taxes at the same time that he is running for higher office, which doesn't always work out that well for candidates...

Here is something we like to see... an anti-NIMBY/ pro-High Speed Rail group growing called Californians for High-Speed Rail. Watch Dog is a member -- well, in spirit if not financially.

The State of the City (of San Bruno) and the State of the (Hill Assembly) District were delivered on Friday. Times are tough... but when the going gets tough, everyone should blame Sacramento.

The State of San Carlos Crime is up (about 25 percent), which will be reported to the City Council this week by the Police Chief. Of course, the timing is good for the police department to report that crime is up as the City Council looks to cut budgets. Here's a prediction, the San Carlos Police Department won't get cut in the face of "rising crime"...

The State of Crime in Hillsborough is up too... Several cars were vandalized. We love the advice from the Police in Hillsborough: "Police are advising residents to park their vehicles in a garage or out of plain view whenever possible, and to remove all valuables from parked vehicles." That makes sense, especially because of this: "Police are also reminding residents that parking on any street in Hillsborough between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. is illegal without a permit." Yeah, so if your car is parked on the street it is either likely to be vandalized or towed...

The State of Pot in Redwood City is on hold... and will likely remain that way for a while... Sorry dude.

That State of Solar is thriving at San Mateo Union High School District... at a price tag of $31.5 million...

Brian Bothun, a former editor of the Palo Alto Daily News and former reporter for the Daily Post pleaded guilty to misdemeanor possession of pornography on Friday. Mighty. Fallen.

NIMBYs in San Mateo are holding up Serra High School's plans to put in a new pool based on noise concerns from coming from swimming activities. What type of noise? Student athletes having fun? How many of those Serra neighbors moved into their homes when Serra already had an outdoor pool?

Thank you Citizens of Woodside for providing a run down of the COWncil meeting a few weeks back. Good stuff.

(Very Short) Morning News Round-Up -- 1.15.10

Good morning all you Watch Doggers... we don't have a ton of time today, so we'll keep this short.

Local bio-tech firm Gilead wants to improve its campus in Foster City. There will be a Tuesday night special meeting if you are interested in this or pissed about this or are just looking for a public meeting's microphone to use...

A federal judge kicked out a lawsuit brought by a San Mateo County Sheriff's Deputy who was claiming sexual harassment and assault. Atherton is wondering why they couldn't be so lucky...

Coastsider chimes in on the County's Charter Review Commission... like Sue Lempert and PP Examiner previously.

As the economy still stinks, BART is considering hiking fares...

Pacifica Riptide has wild photos from 330 Esplanade...

Morning News Round-Up -- 1.12.10: EPA vs Army Corps & Belmont vs San Carlos

It isn't just Belmont that is concerned about the Cargill Saltworks development in Redwood City, it seems another government agency (the EPA) sent a strongly-worded letter to the Army Corps of Engineers talking about how the Corps needs to account for sea level rises when talking about the restoration of wetlands. In regular-people terms, it sounds like the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers don't see eye-to-eye on this -- sort of like Belmont and Redwood City... oh, and Menlo Park is jumping into the fray as well, and not on the pro-development side.

Speaking of Belmont, the opposition to the Cargill project will come with a (sort of) new Mayor -- Dave Warden...

And Belmont's Mayor Dave Warden will have to deal with a challenge on the Fire Board front as well. You see, Belmont shares that cost with San Carlos, and San Carlos has been unhappy with the way that Belmont is sharing (or not sharing) the cost. San Carlos' Mayor Randy Royce has taken an interesting step by replacing Councilmembers Matt Grocott and Bob Grassilli on the Fire Board with Councilmembers Omar Ahmad and Andy Klein. In San Carlos, this passes for political intrigue. Expect fireworks (that's a pun) at the Fire Board as San Carlos tries to lower its cost...

Safeway + Burlingame = Fun, Fun, Fun... and 19 more trees than originally planned. It passed the Planning Commission yesterday with flying colors.

Local leaders are mad as hell and they aren't going to take it anymore... so they held a press conference. Oh, and they joined with the California League of Cities to support an initiative (awkwardly) titled the Local Taxpayer, Public Safety, and Transportation Protection Act of 2010 to try to stop the State from taking more money. We just like the idea of someone standing a post and protecting transportation...

2,000 tons of riprap are in place near the 330 Esplanade Avenue apartments in Pacifica. That's the good news. The bad news? Well, it probably won't be enough as another storm approaches...

And even though the big waves may take out 330 Esplanade, there will be no Mavericks Wednesday.

Not actual waves, but political waves in this coastside story. The San Mateo County League for Coastside Protection (a political action committee) will be fined $3,500 for violations in the 2005 election cycle. It is good to know that the Fair Political Practices Commission works quickly...

Coastsider has a breakdown of the story too...

You have got to love the ever-vocal Lee Duboc. And finally, she is taking action by pushing a pension reform initiative in her Menlo Park. If you want to email Lee, her email is menlofuture@gmail.com.

Bruce at the PP Examiner has been busy typing... he provides us all a Top Ten Political Stories of 2009... number 1 is Pay-Gate... number 10 is Lee Buffington "retiring"... click through to the see the rest.

Morning News Round-Up -- 1.6.10: Tanforan Shopping Spree...

This is great: a flight attendant accused of using her roomate's credit card for a shopping spree at Tanforan pleaded no contest yesterday and will spend 90 days in jail. Was all that stuff from Sears and Target really worth 90 days in the hole? Ask yourself this: If you are going to steal a credit card and use it, would your first stop be Tanforan?

The Second Harvest Food Bank will be delivering/collecting greens green... with a new hybrid fleet.

And while we are talking about saving the environment: Jon Mays gets in on the action in his Editorial in today's Daily Journal. And he is pissed.

You know that apartment complex in Pacifica that is about to topple into the Pacific? Well, engineers have a few plans about how to put the buildings on more solid ground -- but none of those ideas are cheap or even close to it...

If you live in Menlo Park, you may have noticed that the library parking lot is getting a little reconfiguring/facelift work done. (Facelifts in Menlo Park, say it ain't so...) Nothing gets folks riled up in MP like parking, so we'll monitor the reaction closely. Expect a well-attended/angry town hall-type meeting when the work is complete about how the old parking lot was better...

A robber hit the Granada Sanitary District over the holidays stealing computer stuff and cash... which makes one wonder -- why would their be cash laying around in the GSD headquarters? In any event, it seems like the person who did it, "...may have known what they were looking for..." according to Sheriff's Lt. Ken Jones... Hmmm, an inside job at GSD.

Morning News Round-Up -- 12.18.09: Loud TV or Healthcare?

Not to say that keeping commercials quiet isn't important... but... Congresswoman Speier is working diligently on the healthcare bill and trying to get a provision stripped out of the bill that would allow insurance companies to circumvent California's strong consumer protection laws. Television commercials (Eshoo) or healthcare (Speier)... hmmm

The Daily Journal Editorial Board smacked the San Mateo Union High School District for cutting the health benefits of early retirees in today's paper...

The attorney for the would-be bomber of Hillsdale High would a mental evaluation of his client... y'think?

Just in time for Christmas: San Carlos may be cutting police officers and closing parks. Can they possibly remain the City of Good Living with fewer police and parks?

Coastsider provides a helpful map for all you big wave enthusiasts...

Not unrelated... In Pacifica an apartment building was evacuated because the building is close to falling off a bluff. Riptide has the full coverage...

We love this headline in the Merc/BANG papers: San Mateo, Santa Clara counties hosting sobriety checkpoints. The term "hosting" makes is seem like a party where they will be serving cheese, crackers, and perhaps some delicious pate.

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 -- 10.29.09: No Bay Bridge... still

Expect a barage of fluffy PR from the California High-Speed Rail Authority locally soon. They just issued a $9 million PR contract to a big-time PR firm based in Sacramento. Ogilvy Public Relations will soon be calling on Peninsula NIMBYs to explain the benefits of High-Speed Rail. Let me provide some free advice to Ogilvy -- don't spend too much time in Menlo Park or Atherton -- there is no changing these NIMBYs' minds...

Perhaps the good folks that run the Bay Bridge should invest in some PR help. That big bridge that connects everything to everything in Northern California is still not open... in case you haven't heard.

While you are waiting for the Bay Bridge to reopen -- why don't you head over to the new Trader Joe's in San Mateo... actually, don't go today, but head there tomorrow when they open.

While Pacifica gets green kudos this week for banning Styrofoam, they are getting slapped for dumping sewage into the Pacific in January 2008. A $2.3 million fine will be levied by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board -- the government agency with the longest name imaginable...

Congresswoman Anna Eshoo will be hosting a telephone town hall tonight for Coastside residents only to talk about healthcare. Watch Dog wishes we could be on that call and report back to all of you. If you are on the call, take good notes and shoot them our way...

Morning News Round-Up -- 10.20.09: Under-the-Radar Politics...

An under-the-radar race is happening for two open seats on the Sequoia Union High School District Board. We wrote about it here previously when the Daily Journal endorsed Chris Thomsen and Alan Sarver. But things are heating up. Check out the message board on the Almanac website about a controversy involving the Superintendent, some District staff, and a confidential leak of information to some candidates but not others... there are 100 comments! The Almanac also profiles the candidates and does some curtain-raising on the race.

San Mateo City Council voted last night to get its money back from the State, which took $2.8 million to cover its own budget deficit. Wow. The State government screws local government? Say it ain't so... Assemblymember Ruskin, can you spare a dime?

The trial begins for alleged cop killer Alberto Alvarez, accused of shooting an East Palo Alto Police Officer...

You remember this story about the Redwood City DUI checkpoint and the actions of a City Councilmember who had it shut down... Councilmember Barbara Pierce didn’t do anything wrong (technically). Case closed.

A body was found at the bottom of a steep cliff near Pacifica. Yikes!

And poor, poor Fox Theater owners… they are trying desperately to hobble together a deal that would save the historic theater from being auctioned off in a few days. “It’s not over til it’s over,” according to owner Mike Monte.

South San Francisco celebrated the groundbreaking of the new ferry terminal that will help people get to and from their jobs… at least the very few of you who have jobs.

Mavericks surf contest starts early this year. Let's hope the weather cooperates...

Another Palo Alto teen commits suicide on Caltrain tracks. Scary.

If you got a flat tire driving along Highway 84 on Sunday, this is why...