Morning News Round-Up -- 1.22.10: One giant leap for lights at M-A...

Storm, storm, storm... but drought not over... power out because of storm... etc., etc., etc....

Watch Dog loves this story: Menlo-Atherton High School may get lights on its football field. (Welcome to 1985... right?) Anyway, because of where M-A is located (in the NIMBY capital of the world), the Sequoia Union High School District is approaching the idea carefully. They are doing an Environmental Impact Study and talking to "stakeholders." We expect lawsuits to challenge the EIR but that lights will be a reality before the current crop of Freshman graduate... hopefully.

If State Senator Joe Simitian hosts it, anti-High Speed Rail people will come... that was the scene last night in Palo Alto when hundreds showed up to have their voices heard, or at least their heads counted for a State Senate Committee hearing in Palo Alto.

Tesla is getting an influx of cash the new (as opposed to old) fashioned way... from the Federal Government... $465 million from the Department of Energy. That's a lot of scratch for a company that sells $100,000 cars to venture capitalists...

This is the type of story that warms your heart, and may hasten your grabbing your kid's cell phone from their hands and smashing it on the floor... A substitute teacher pleaded no contest to sexting (and having phone sex with) a San Mateo High School student... There were 400 "sexually explicit text messsages" involved in this case -- now there are 60 days in jail where John Oliver Jacobson will no doubt learn some interesting things about sex that he never knew...

This isn't good. Both Congressmembers from the area said yesterday that they will not vote from the Senate health care bill. It is unclear why Speier and Eshoo did this now, other than the fact that Democrats are worried about a Republican winning in Massachusetts. Trust Watch Dog Jackie and Anna, San Mateo County is more blue than Massachusetts. Vote for the health care bill that comes back before you... please. Watch Dog needs to see the vet sometime soon...

Morning News Round-Up -- 8.18.09: Tesla/ OTB/ Bay Meadows Trifecta Edition

Not a ton of stories today, but several updates on stories you have heard before...

Much to the dismay of the City of San Jose (and probably San Carlos as well), Tesla is moving its powertrain production facilities to Palo Alto. For a recap of Tesla's on-again/off-again love affair with every City in the Bay Area, check out Watch Dog Silicon Valley's Tesla Chronicles.

The OTB Battle rages on... another chapter in San Mateo County's quest to keep OTB out of San Francisco happened yesterday when the San Francisco folks yanked their application that was being considered by the California Horse Racing Board. Why did the San Francisco folks pull their application at the 11th hour: "business reasons"... yeah right. Anyway, the OTB Battle rages on...

In other race track news... As if you couldn't tell from driving by the eye-sore, we get this headline from the County Times: One year after Bay Meadows' closure, redevelopment of racetrack has been halted by economy.

You may have heard that the State of California is in a bit of a financial bind... now, fees are going up at local State parks. HMB Review has the rundown...

The aftermath of the averted BART strike will carry on for several days and/or weeks... riders were angry and didn't support the strike, etc., etc., etc.

"We didn’t know they were closing the store until we read about it in the Daily Journal," those are the words of Maurissa Heffran who owns the property formerly occupied by Starbucks at the Gateway Crossing in San Mateo. Starbucks pulled out of their lease, which was to run until 2017. We guess landlord/tenant relationships aren't what they used to be. (We feel you Maurissa, we don't really know anything until we read it in the Daily Journal either...)

Morning News Round-Up -- 2.12.09: The electric car hum you hear is Tesla leaving town...

Well, there was a good news/bad news Tesla story yesterday which we wrote and commented on. The good news is that the San Carlos-based electric car manufacturer is getting a huge $350 Federal loan to build a manufacturing facility. The bad news is that in early February the New Mexico Business Weekly reported that the company was in "late stage" negotiations to move the (previously slated for San Jose) manufacturing plant there...

San Mateo County history was made yesterday when a 14 year old kid, Vladmir Santos of Redwood City, was the youngest person in the County ever to be charged as an adult. His crimes -- attempted murder and other felonies. The will instill community pride...(In an (un)related and ironically timed story, the County Times profiles the County's juvenile camp program to help young people in trouble with the law...)

But better history was being made yesterday as well. A Burlingame-based law firm is suing the CEOs of Merrill Lynch and Bank of America for lying/misleading investors and paying out huge bonuses as the two companies lost billions (trillions?). San Mateo County's own Super (Hero) Lawyer, Joe Cotchett is spearheading the class action lawsuit...

Surprise, surprise. (NIMBY) Hillside residents in (unincorporated) San Mateo don't want any neighbors...Ticonderoga Partner's San Mateo Highlands project was the on the County Planning Commission's docket last night and people made sure to have their voices heard. The current plans is for 11 homes...but remember, (apparently) the original plan 20 years ago was for 199.

Michelle Durand's "Off the Beat" column today in the Daily Journal talks about the State's gamble on gambling...Michelle offers that the gamble doesn't seem to have paid off, based on the State's new IOU strategy...

Ed McGovern, COME ON DOWN...San Mateo County's busiest (and most successful) political consultant went from consultant to contestant recently on The Price is Right...no kidding...the show hasn't aired yet, however.

Here is a nice piece on the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice that honors Congressman Tom Lantos' legacy...

Palo Alto is considering transferring money from its Utility Department to its General Fund...to the tune of nearly $20 million. And why not? It is a way to get into Palo Alto residents' pocket books without having to raise taxes...just raise electric/water/gas rates...And if robbing rate payers isn't enough...Palo Alto is also considering "altering" their hotel tax to make sure they collect every last penny from visitors too...

1,000 folks showed up on Sunday for a job fair for the soon-to-open Rosewood Hotel in Menlo Park. 75 folks were offered jobs and 125 folks will be called back (like on American Idol?) for interviews...Watch Dog is waiting patiently by the phone...

Just when Half Moon Bay's lawsuit with Chop Keenan dies down, a different lawsuit pops up. This time over the ownership of the Oak Avenue Park. The dispute is between the City's contention that the Oak Avenue Park is City land and the Cypress-by-the-Sea Homeowners Association who believe it is private land...for Half Moon Bay's sake, Watch Dog hopes Joe Cotchett isn't working for the Homeowners Association...

Pacifica Riptide must not read Watch Dog because they go on a mini-rant about capturing methane in landfills and ask why San Mateo County's landfill (Ox Mountain in Half Moon Bay) can't do this. Well, apparently Ox Mountain can and does...we posted about it in our Morning News Round-Up on January 8th.

Tesla Chronicles: A Good News (for Tesla)/Bad News (for San Jose) Story

Watch Dog has covered it all here before about Tesla. Today, there is a good news/bad news story about the San Carlos-based electric car company. For the Bay Area, it may be one of the last Tesla Chronicles stories...

The Good News for Tesla:
Tesla got the $350 million Federal loan it was seeking. Congrats Tesla.

The Bad News for San Jose:
By all accounts, including this one just posted on the mercurynews.com, Tesla isn't really coming here anymore.

If the Merc's Tesla reporter Matt Nauman (or San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed) had been following the story, they would have realized that Tesla announced in early February at they were in "late stage" negotiations to build the San Jose plant in New Mexico...

Watch Dog correction on Tesla...

Watch Dog readers know that we have been following the Tesla story for some time. (For a review of the stories, you can read them here, here, here, here, and here.)

But when we make a mistake on our site -- we must make corrections.

We learned from Tesla's spokesperson that we misstated some information previously -- so below is a reprint of an email that we received late yesterday from Rachel Konrad, Tesla's spokesperson. It is below, unedited:

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Hi. I realize you are super busy and are simply aggregating information elsewhere, but your blog post about Tesla says "spokeswoman Rachel Konrad said the company couldn't raise $100 million in venture funding to make the move to San Jose." That's not accurate, and if you could correct the post I would appreciate it.

Tesla announced in September the intention to build an assembly plant to manufacture our four-door, five-passenger, all-electric sedan. The site was an 89-acre vacant lot in San Jose on Zanker Road, known as a "greenfield" site because there has never been construction on it.

However, we reconsidered the San Jose site for a variety of environmental and financial reasons. One reason was that the US Department of Energy is awarding low-interest loans to automakers who develop "brownfield" sites (in other words, sites that used to be factories or plants but have been abandoned, mothballed or shut down).

Tesla is applying for a roughly $250 million federal low-interest loan that would finance a 500,000-square-foot assembly plant to build the sedan. Tesla does not want to jeopardize our low-interest loan application, and we believe that building from scratch on a greenfield site would put us at a competitive disadvantage against other automakers and suppliers competing for the $25 billion in low-interest federal loans.

We are in late-stage negotiations with another site to build our sedan, known as the Model S. We will likely have an announcement about the site soon. Tesla is still on track to begin production of the Model S in 2011; it will take roughly 24-30 months from the time Tesla secures financing to begin producing cars off the assembly line.

We still plan to unveil the Model S to the media and public in March in Hawthorne, Calif., where Tesla's design studio is located.

Rachel Konrad

Morning News Round-Up -- 2.2.09: Groundhog Day Edition...

Downtown San Mateo hopes to buck the economic trend (somewhat) by marketing itself to the world. Not to sound overly pessimistic, but good luck Downtown San Mateo Association...

Everyone's favorite electric car company, Tesla, is (apparently) not-ready to leave San Carlos -- which is a good thing, because they are not ready to move to San Jose either...For a full Tesla update, check with Watch Dog Silicon Valley who first broke the story that Tesla abandoned their San Jose plans...

The battle of government agencies continues in San Mateo between the City and the San Mateo Union High School District about the cost of using each others' fields. San Mateo Union jacked up their fees first, the City followed suit. Now, no one is happy, which is too bad for them -- but it is good reading for all of us...

If you park at the BART stations in Millbrae, San Bruno, or South San Francisco, expect to start paying for those hard-to-get spots...and if you take SamTrans to avoid having to get one of those hard-to-get BART parking spots, your fares are going up too...

Everest Charter School (finally) gets a thumbs up (recommendation) from the State. This means they will (almost certainly) receive a thumbs up for next school year. Watch Dog says "finally" because the school has been rejected locally twice: once by Sequioa Union High School District and once by the County Board of Education. The writing was apparently on the wall that Everest was going to succeed in getting State approval because the District set aside some temporary buildings in East Palo Alto last week...So much for local control of schools..

It turns out Watch Dog was right (again)...on January 23rd, we wrote this about the much-discussed lane closure near Carlmont High:

Nothing gets people more angry than forced changes to their routine. Changes to traffic patterns and kid drop-off routines at schools are especially sensitive. So when Belmont eliminated a lane of traffic around Carlmont High, Tierra Linda Middle School, and Immaculate Heart of Mary schools, people went ballistic. Belmont is standing firm that they did the right thing -- but this may cause a full-scale riot...

Well, the rioters went to the Belmont City Council, where they were met with an unsympathetic City Manager who said, "...It’s a school zone — for those who think they have a right to get to work faster during that time, they don’t..." Well, one person went (a lot) too far in expressing his or her concern over the lane closer by sending threatening letters to the Belmont City Council and City Manager. Police are now involved...

San Bruno's ban on Styrofoam still has restaurant-owners upset...

The County has to repay $1.5 million to the Federal government because a consultant told them they were due the money from the Feds. That consultant screwed up -- now the County has to pay. Perhaps the ultra-litigious County can go after the consultant? Just an idea...

$2.8 million grants were given out last week by the Peninsula Health Care District. At least one local agency is doing ok financially therefore spreading those ok finances around.

You may remember this story: a jail cashier responsible for collecting and storing folks stuff while they were locked up was stealing...well, the cashier is getting 60 days in jail. I wonder how she'll be treated while serving her time...

Supervisor Gordon is exploring a run for Ira Ruskin's seat...that shouldn't be news to anyone who reads the PP Examiner who wrote about this story at beginning of January...Watch Dog followed up on PP Examiner's posting with some analysis as well in a post titled: A Friendly Blog Disagreement...The County Times finally catches up...Try reading some insightful, interesting blogs around the County and you might learn something...

Speaking of the PP Examiner, they wrote a piece called: The Failed Leadership in the County and provide some historical perspective to where County government went wrong. PP Examiner also gets on Watch Dog's bandwagon complaining about the number of appointments versus elections happening in the County these days...

Garbage rates going up in Menlo Park...Watch Dog hasn't talked about garbage for a while, but with 24% rate increases on the horizon, we guess folks will be talking about it more and more...perhaps 24% more...

Tesla Update...from Watch Dog Silicon Valley

Excerpts from our friends at Watch Dog Silicon Valley about everyone's favorite San Carlos-based electric car company...(or soon-to-be former company)...

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The rest of the world is catching up to Watch Dog...slowly...

You'll remember the full complement of Watch Dog's Tesla Chronicles previously posted on this site here, here, here, here, and here. And finally, on January 15th, Watch Dog broke the story that Tesla would not be coming to San Jose.

Well, it officially hit the old-school news outlets today. The SiliconValley/San Jose Business Journal, the Merc., and KCBS are reporting on the "news" that Tesla may not be able to move to San Jose. I guess the Business Journal, the Merc., and KCBS should check us out more often to see what is really happening...

Morning News Round-Up -- 1.16.09: The Jerry Hill Fan Club Edition...

Watch Dog has a crush on Assemblymember Jerry Hill today. Here's why...In discussing the Governor's State of the State, Hill (coincidentally?) channeled yesterday's Watch Dog Morning News Round-Up when he said the following about the fact that taxpayers due a refund from the State government may get an IOU instead:

“When working men and women pay taxes all year, and their refund is an IOU they will be outraged, rightly so. And I think everyone is aware of that injustice that will affect the citizens of the working men and women..." -- Assemblymember Jerry Hill

Watch Dog went a bit further than Hill yesterday, going so far as to issue a Tea Party Alert...

And speaking of Assemblymember Hill -- he will be the Chair of the Budget Subcommittee on Health Care.

When times get tough -- local governments start doing a really good job of collecting unpaid taxes. The Residence Inn in San Mateo is finding that out. San Mateo is seeking $300,000 in unpaid Transient Occupancy Taxes (TOT). Good luck Mr. Residence Inn getting out of this one.

In the unsurprising news category today, people in Hillsborough think their (fancy) school district does a good job of educating kids. Apparently, there is no room for more students, however -- at least if you can believe some of the recent NIMBY protests about 25 new homes being built...

You can put your wetsuit away...Mavericks isn't happening this weekend. The swell of interest turned about to be less interesting than forecasters thought...

In case you were under a rock this week -- Steve Jobs of Apple is taking a leave of absence. Apple stock prices are feeling the pain...

Watch Dog Silicon Valley had an interesting update on everyone's favorite electric car company, Tesla. The San Carlos-based company is apparently scrapping its San Jose manufacturing plant...Does this mean that they will be permanently located in San Mateo County? Don't bet on it...rumor has it that Southern California looks more likely...

This Week Around Watch Dogs...

An eventful week on Bay Area Watch Dogs -- San Mateo, Silicon Valley, East Bay, North Bay.

• Watch Dog unearthed the fact that Legislators around the Bay rip off San Mateo/Santa Clara County State Senator Joe Simitian...and we believe there oughta be a law against ripping him off that bad...
• A school district in Marin debates naming a school after President-elect Barack Obama -- as opposed to using the current name Dr. Martin Luther King Academy. (Un)Surprisingly, there are some folks that aren't that psyched about the possible name change.
• The Tesla Chronicles continue as Tesla gets nothing (so far) from the Big Three bailout. Apparently Tesla's 100 cars that have rolled off the lot don't qualify as "big." Watch Dog Silicon Valley predicts Tesla will not make it to their San Jose plant set to open in 2010...make that 2011...or never...
  
• Not to seem self important, but Watch Dog San Mateo called out Palo Alto Weekly Editor Jay Thorwaldson for his blog...or lack thereof. You see, Mr. Thorwaldson has a blog, but has only posted 8 times in 2 years. That's why Watch Dog San Mateo asked if this was a real blog or an afterthought for the Editor. Watch Dog predicted that after the public shaming, Thorwaldson would post within in a week...well, it took less than 24 hours for Thorwaldson to post. Watch Dog success...
• The garbage saga continued in San Mateo County, and this time it may be serious. The Civil Grand Jury is taking a look at one of Watch Dog's favorite topics in San Mateo...trash..
• Watch Dog Silicon Valley uncovered the (blogo)sphere of influence between a local blog, San Jose Revealed, and San Jose City Councilmember Nora Campos. The blog recommended a strategy at the beginning of the day that Campos implemented at the end of the day. Watch Dog was there to point it out...

Thanks for visiting your local Watch Dog -- and come back again next week...

Tesla Chronicles: Is there another electric car company that needs space? San Jose will cut you a great deal...

from our friends at Watch Dog Silicon Valley...

Watch Dog called this some time ago. (November 19th to be exact ,with a post titled: "Absolutely certain" Tesla won't go out of business...)

And the saga with Tesla continues today...and gets more serious. But first a review of where we've been:

• When San Jose Mayor announced in September that the new Tesla manufacturing plant for their sedan would be in San Jose, everyone cheered. Since then a flurry of bad stories have surfaced and been covered here on Watch Dog.
• Almost immediately after the announcement, there was a second announcement (from Tesla) to say the SJ plant wouldn't open until 2011 at the earliest, pushed from the original 2010 date.
• Then there were a slew of shake-ups at the top of Tesla mixed in with some drama. That's when Watch Dog asked if the San Jose's leaders were nervous. ( Tesla Chronicles: Harry/Paul/Chuck are you guys nervous yet?)
  

Then, this week auto insiders learned that Tesla pulled their car that is supposed to be built in San Jose from of 2009 Detroit Autoshow...no big deal right, it is only going to be, "the biggest and best auto show next year."

And for Tesla (or the City of San Jose for that matter), that wasn't even the worst news of the week...You see, Tesla has been hoping/praying/begging for money ($450 million to be exact) from the (possible) bail-out for the Big Three pending in DC. But that doesn't look promising with Republicans in Washington putting up a huge stink about the bailout anyway.

So, as Watch Dog asked previously -- are we nervous that this company that is the centerpiece of the green tech revolution in Silicon Valley going to go out of business before they are really in business?

More shake-ups at the senior level merry-go-round known as Tesla Motors...

Watch Dog reported recently on stories that all was not as it seemed at the green-tech poster-child Tesla. Well, another senior level shake up was announced today.

Michael van der Sande was named Tesla's new Senior VP of Global Sales, Marketing and Service. He is from Harley Davidson previously.

While this is the story as written in the press release...between the lines, the story is a bit more interesting.

Tesla is saying that Darryl Siry, whom van der Sande is replacing, left to "pursue other opportunities"...

Darryl Siry said, via his blog, that he is leaving "due to some disagreements in strategy."

This isn't good for San Carlos -- where Tesla is now, or San Jose -- where they want to be...