Morning News Round-Up -- 5.27.10: San Mateo is the new Ohio...

The Menlo Park City Council had a nice conversation about the Bohannon "Menlo Gateway" project on Tuesday night. (Admit it, you were there...) But two Councilmembers, Kelly Fergusson and Andy Cohen, are not buying what Menlo Gateway is selling and it is making Councilmember Heyward Robinson "uncomfortable" that the two aren't supporting it. He's probably uncomfortable because Menlo Gateway is huge, and in the future if the project is hated, Robinson will be the one who voted for it... except he hedged his bets and abstained last night.

The Civil Grand Jury says that consolidation of fire fighting services could save money for local communities. Thanks Civil Grand Jury, everyone is already on the case (San Mateo/ Foster City, Coastside, etc., etc.)

Which leads us to our daily dose of pointing out the screw ups of others... the San Mateo/ Foster City fire merger is so important that it has to appear on the homepage of the County Times twice...


100+ layoffs coming to a school district near you -- that is, if you live in the Redwood City School District...

Friends and farmers celebrated Jack Olsen's life yesterday at his funeral.


Fresh off the Mercury News endorsement this week, Rich Gordon gets the Will Oremus treatment...

Steve Poizner will be holding a town hall meeting today at noon at the Hiller Aviation Museum. Don't all jump for joy at once... try to contain your excitement. Whitman is in town tomorrow at Graniterock in Redwood City. Apparently San Mateo County is now Ohio.

Morning News Round-Up -- 5.20.10: Calling all Steinbecks...

The big news today is that workers living in a labor camp in Pescadero may have been drinking contaminated water for a decade... this is a troubling story. The housing is part of Marchi farms and has been closed down by the County, although it seems families may still be living there. Where is John Steinbeck when you need him?

The Daily Journal gives a run down of the candidates in the 21st Assembly District... Rich Gordon, Yoriko Kishimoto, and Josh Becker... How many more run-downs do we really need?... Endorsements anyone?

Lee Duboc must be very pleased today... the pension reform initiative is heading to the ballot in Menlo Park. Could this be a Silicon Valley trend among cash-strapped cities? The Mayor of San Jose has been talking about asking voters in San Jose to vote to do away with the often-expensive binding arbitration...

The County is considering requiring (?) companies to offer employees a pre-tax transit option to get to work. This should help SamTrans and perhaps Caltrain and BART too...

Welcome to Millbrae, where the City might cut a program to help feed needy seniors... That's probably not fair of us, they are looking at cutting employees too...

You know the black box that records the last seconds of plane crashes... well Congresswoman Speier would like one in your car too... I'm sure privacy advocates will love that.

The Jefferson Union High School District may be asking voters to dig a little deeper into their wallets this fall... their polling looks good.

Silicon Valley has some serious interest in the upcoming Republican primaries for US Senate and Governor. New polls are out together. The first one actually confirms what Steve Poizner said a few weeks back -- that his race against Whitman is tightening... The second has Carly Fiorina leading (slightly) over Tom Campbell, but within the margin of error... (Joey Lucas will explain everything later...)

Morning News Round-Up -- 5.6.10: Too...Many...Margaritas...

Here's something that has been in the news for as long as Watch Dog has been in San Mateo... the Sequoia Union High School District and the Everest Public High School (charter school) settled their long-standing legal dispute about Everest's facilities... Everyone seems to be turning over a new leaf, as the current Superintendent (Pat Gemma) packs finishes packing his bags.

Speaking of long-standing pissing matches... the new owners of the former Page Mill Properties apartment buildings (Wells Fargo) will be reducing rents in their units.

This will send shock-waves up and down Silicon Valley. Menlo Park is imposing a two-tier pension system for its municipal employees. The beginning of a trend, or the shot heard round the union world?

The Daily Journal gives a run-down of the Supervisors race to replace Rich Gordon... Don Horsley - whose name you probably recognize, April Vargas - a coastside Democrat, Matt Grocott - the always fun to read about San Carlos City Councilmember, Jack Hickey - everyones favorite Libertarian, and Michael Stogner - a car salesman. "A Sheriff, a Democrat, a City Councilmember, a Libertarian, and a car salesman walk into a bar..."

Guess what Steve Poizner's internal polls say? That he's catching up. Guess what Sarah Palin's polls said about her? That she was qualified... it doesn't make it so Steve, it doesn't make it so...

In other political news (about people way behind in the polls), Yoriko Kishimoto gets a write up in the Palo Alto Weekly/Almanac. She is running for State Assembly for Ira Ruskin's seat against Josh Becker and Rich Gordon.

The Tweet that launched a thousand comments... San Carlos City Councilmember Omar Ahmad should probably keep his Tweets to himself during the actual City Council meetings, instead of making comments about who is in the crowd and who isn't...

Stanford Hospital and nurses still aren't getting along nicely. The hospitals just rejected a proposal from the nurses... who previously had rejected the "last, best, and final" offer from the hospital.

Finally, Tom Campbell's campaign has released an online campaign video (and taken their gloves off) that you absolutely have to see. Seriously. It makes the weird sheep thing Carly Fiorina's campaign put out a while ago seem mild. Take a gander... love the head-bob...

Atherton Resident (Residents?) for Governor...

At least one County resident will be running for Governor in 2010.

Meg Whitman officially announced her intentions today.

This is (obviously) big news in California, but her announcement is also gracing the homepage of nytimes.com...

It is a pretty safe bet that this Atherton resident or this Los Gatos resident won't get national coverage when they officially announce their intentions.

I guess covering a near-trillion stimulus package isn't as exciting for the nytimes.com as an Atherton resident throwing her had in the political ring...