Editorial

Whether you call it a sinkhole, a void, a cavern or the blue-light special, the hole that opened in Highway 92 last week is a nightmare for Coastsiders. So, perhaps it doesn’t matter what you call it.

The series of storms that hit the Bay Area over the New Year’s weekend and early this week caused flooding … on the Coastside on Monday and the closure of the Devil’s Slide section of Highway 1 Monday afternoon.

This week, we dedicate a lot of space in the newspaper to looking back, at things that have already happened on the coast. That’s the easy part. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say. Foresight is a little blurry.

The news release issued in the days before Christmas looked like a rare bit of good news. San Mateo County was trumpeting an eight-figure investment in local, state and federal funding “to create more affordable housing across San Mateo County.”

Today is the first day of winter, but we are smack in the middle of a blizzard of trouble. And that means people, your neighbors, are hurting.

Al final de otro día de trabajo duro, Juana y Carolina atravesaron el frío y la creciente oscuridad para reunirse con el editor del periódico de la ciudad en el poco iluminado y casi vacío patio de La Piazza, justo al lado de la calle principal de Half Moon Bay. Dios sabe que tenían cosas me…

At the end of another hard-working day, Juana and Carolina traveled through the chill and the growing darkness to meet the town’s newspaper editor in the dim, mostly empty La Piazza courtyard just off of Half Moon Bay’s Main Street. Lord knows they had better things to do with their precious…

It’s time to preserve journalism in a country that literally depends on it. In fact, it’s past time.

How much do you cherish your voting rights? Would you travel to another country to secure free elections? Would you seek citizenship in a foreign land so that you had a say in the governance of your child’s school?

My adult daughter calls this week’s big holiday “Thankstaking.” Anyone who will be sitting down to a big dinner of plenty in the expansive former home of the Ohlone people will be hard-pressed to argue with her. However the holiday has evolved, it hearkens back to a great taking.

It’s been a busy news month at the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office and we’re only two weeks into November. One development gives us hope and the other is depressing beyond measure. Let’s start with that one.

In the weeks to come, Half Moon Bay High School administrators say they will begin a new program called “Community on Campus.” The idea is to invite vetted adults onto campus to augment existing paid staff in hopes that these trusted community members become mentors and more over time. These…

If you live on the coast, by now you have likely heard about Richard Punquieli and an odyssey that began with his arrest for trespassing on the night of Oct. 21. The 25-year-old Moss Beach resident — who family members say is autistic and has additional mental health challenges — was release…

Like insurance, the Harbor Patrol is merely an expense on the ledger until it’s the only thing that matters. Be that as it may, the San Mateo County Harbor District, which manages and funds the ocean rescue crews, says standing ready, 24 hours a day, for a maritime emergency is an expensive …

In the past, it seemed there were two kinds of candidates on the coast: those who talked about revolutionary environmental protections, often with an eye toward mitigating the effects of climate change, and those who talked a good game even if they didn’t consider climate the purview of a sm…

The last couple of years have surely been a test for students of all ages. Ditto for parents and school teachers and administrators. They’ve lived through months of fear and trepidation, best efforts to make do with virtual classes, and now an uncertain return that has included confusion ove…

For several years now there have been growing calls for citizen oversight of our Sheriff’s Office and others around the country. It’s such a good idea as to be obvious. Your local police departments need civilian oversight for the same reason the nation’s military needs it: Men with guns and…

Happy TDM Week!

T

If the pen is really mightier than the sword, someone should tell that to Vladimir Putin or any one of countless other misanthropes who dominate our discussions. So, what good is a poem now? What is a collection of words against our modern travails?

Observant readers may have noticed that over the last month we’ve begun to report on government meetings differently. That’s intentional, obviously.

There is a lot of talk of the importance of democracy and the republic these days. You can’t turn on a cable television news show without hearing that someone is either saving it or subverting it.

“A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

San Mateo County needs civilian oversight to keep meaningful watch over the Sheriff’s Office. And, with the help of a powerful citizen-led nonprofit and a newly elected sheriff, now  is the time to get it.

When we heard that the city was in talks to finally do something with its long-dormant housing site at 555 Kelly Avenue, across from Cunha Intermediate School, we had two thoughts.

Saturday is San Mateo County’s Disaster Preparedness Day. Depending upon your predilections, it may not sound like a day at the beach, but then again the next disaster isn’t likely to be much fun either.

If you paid $3 million for a building and it developed a $250,000 leak 10 months later, how would you feel about it?

In today’s newspaper, staff writer Peter Tokofsky looks at a forgotten corner of many public meetings — the consent agenda. It may signal the mundane machinations of government that can’t possibly be of interest to mere taxpayers, but that is often not the case. In fact, sometimes, elected o…

I am writing these words in the hours following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson, overturning the 50-year precedent created by Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. They will change the mind of no one.

I am writing these words in the hours following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson, overturning the 50-year precedent created by Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. They will change the mind of no one.

What is it about a rainbow flag that drives some people nuts? Are they just colorphobic? Do they take offense at flags generally? Or is the idea that all people might be welcome — in our communities, at our civic events, in our schoolyards — just too much to take for people who don’t want to…

What will it mean to have a new sheriff in San Mateo County?

Webster’s Dictionary says, “graduation is the conferring or receipt of an academic degree or diploma marking successful completion of studies” and “a ceremony at which degrees or diplomas are conferred.”

Loosening restrictions. A new, highly transmissible subvariant. So here we are.

If you’ve taken a stroll down Half Moon Bay’s Main Street in these waning months of the pandemic, you’ve likely noticed most of the retail shops threw open their doors in a fit of late-pandemic exuberance, a few eateries added outdoor dining options and you can even see the smiles of the mos…

If there is one thing we learned from the panic over the future of Pacifica’s Boys and Girls Clubs, it’s how important these facilities are on the coast, across the Peninsula and throughout the United States. The world needs more — not fewer — safe, inclusive spaces for kids of all backgrounds.

For years, decades actually, people around the world have known about the dangers of climate change and sea level rise and largely chosen to ignore our collective fraught future. There are a number of reasons for that willful denial. One of them is that it’s sometimes difficult to picture wh…

Our county is a little bit safer, or it will be soon, because of a relatively minor expenditure authorized by the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors last month.

Lost in the wake of world events that include an unfathomable war in Ukraine, global supply chain issues that only seem to worsen and galloping inflation on the home front is the fact that the pandemic is entering its third year. You remember the pandemic, don’t you? Masks, vaccines, social …

It is hard for the average citizen of the United States to know what, exactly, to do about Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine. While Ukraine is bludgeoned with seemingly indiscriminate violence, we are bombarded with images we can hardly believe: Families fleeing west with whatever the…

Seventy years ago, a bow-tie-wearing San Francisco Chronicle reporter named Michael Harris penned a 10-part series he called “Your Secret Government.” His expose on what happened behind closed doors in Bay Area government offices was important but not nearly as important as the law that came…

The California Voting Rights Act of 2001 seeks to put minority voters and candidates on equal footing with the rest of us by changing from at-large to by-district elections. In many, if not all, instances, it’s a good idea. But there has got to be a better way of getting there than this.

If you are looking for a job that requires exacting scientific credentials, pays less than you can expect elsewhere and is sure to inspire derision from the people you serve, may we suggest a career in public health.

Where there is smoke, there is fire. And there were surely some people on the coast who saw smoke on Friday and worried that wildfire was licking at our door once more.

Are you increasingly worried about crime in the streets?