Pacifica Riptide

Sit Less, Move More: Manon Williams Takes It to Heart by Training for Avon Walk for Breast Cancer

Hello, everyone, I'm Manon Williams. This July, I will participate in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in San Francisco. It's going to be a huge challenge for me. I start training next week so I can be fit enough to walk a marathon and a half over the course of the Walk weekend. Everyone in the walk is required to raise at least $1800 in order to participate. I could really use everyone's help so I can reach that goal. I don't want all my training to go to waste, and it's for a very good cause. I hope I can count on your support! I can always use walking buddies as I train, so if you're interested in that as well, let me know! My personal page for the walk (and where you can make donations) is here:

http://info.avonfoundation.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=2173&px=6362544

If you want to read more about the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, go here:

http://www.avonwalk.org/

(from Pacifica Patch)

Fog Fest Needs Your Help

Would you like to help put on Fog Fest? Fog Fest Organizing Group (FFOG) is looking for good people to help us keep Fog Fest going as strong as it has for the past 26 years. We seek volunteers in various capacities. If you’re interested, we’re especially interested in people who have experience in (or a desire to learn about) publicity and marketing, sponsorships, social media, stage managing, and the logistics of putting on a major event like Fog Fest. Even if you’re not interested in these areas, we still need your help in producing Fog Fest. If you want to help, we’ll find a way for you to do that. We work hard, but we have more fun and provide more fun to the community than anyone else in town.

Help Fog Fest continue to provide the biggest two-day fundraiser and party in town, with a parade, arts and crafts, and community booths, three stages of live music, food and beverages, including the famous Fog Cutter, Family Fun Fest, sand castle contest, photo contest, fog bank contest, Fog Jog, activities for the kids, and a bunch of other fun things. All proceeds are shared among 45 local community groups that participate in Fog Fest – the total raised in just the past 12 years exceeds $610,000! Please join us in keeping this great tradition alive! Questions? Comments? More information? Contact Linda Jonas at 650-438-4848 or email lovethatbabykins@sbcglobal.net

San Bruno Mountain Watch Events and Volunteer Opportunities

CLICK HERE FOR INFORMATION on San Bruno Mountain Watch stewardship programs and upcoming events. We have volunteer opportunities for everyone from students to grandparents. Our wetlands restoration group meets every Tuesday from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the end of Cypress Lane. Mission Blue Nursery volunteers meet every Wednesday  from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. We also have two grassland restoration groups. The Weed Rangers meet every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Join the Weed Warriors for fresh air and exercise, and help weed San Bruno Mountain's south slope, which has grasslands critical to resident butterflies. Work days are on the fourth Friday and Saturday of each month from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. You're welcome either day. Gloves provided. Wear long pants, layers, and sturdy shoes. Bring water. For information, email lorettaandchuck@sbcglobal.net or call 415-467-6631. Meet behind Mills Montessori School at 1400 Hillside Boulevard, South San Francisco.

Help Win Tents and Laptops for Your Favorite Occupy Site

150+ Occupy groups were nominated for a chance to win a tent or laptop from Occupy Supply. Vote your top 10 choices for outstanding community activism in the Occupy Movement. Round 1 voting ends midnight on Wednesday, 2/1 for the chance to win a 11x11' command post tents or laptop with webcam for an Occupy Movement protest. The top 20 occupations to receive the most votes will advance to the final round, and DADT activist Lt. Dan Choi will personally deliver the tents to winning occupations and hold a celebration, courtesy of Occupy Supply!

Over 250 different actions were nominated from over 150 different occupations - an impressive list that serves as a true testament to the level of support for this movement and the amount of good work being done by activists across the country. Vote your top 10 choices for outstanding community activism for a chance to win a tent or laptop with webcam for an Occupy Movement protest.

CLICK HERE TO VOTE

We're thrilled with the response to our contest so far and thank you for sharing it with your friends, family, followers and fellow-occupiers. Happy voting!

Jane Hamsher
Founder & Publisher
Firedoglake.com

P.S. After voting, please be sure to check your email for your confirmation number.

Team Gearhead Cleans Up San Pedro Creek

Daniel Blake, Justin Olsen, Michael Olsen, John Dolan, Anders Chippendale, Liam Miller, and Matt McPhail show off their haul.

Michael Olsen carries debris from San Pedro Creek.

North Fork of San Pedro Creek as it is today.
 
STORY AND PHOTOS BY IAN BUTLER
 
San Pedro Creek in Linda Mar drains Pacifica’s most extensive watershed. Clean water runs off the pristine slopes of Montara Mountain, creating ideal steelhead spawning habitat in San Pedro Valley Park on the middle and south forks. Fingerling rainbow trout still swim in the Sanchez fork behind St. Edmund's Church. But the neglected north fork is the creek's abused stepchild.
 
Paved over decades ago to build homes, streets, and schools, this steelhead paradise was reduced to a hidden network of concrete tunnels. The water now passes through miles of these tunnels before finally being exposed to dirt and daylight in the dense thicket behind Park Mall, adjacent to the site of the proposed assisted-living facility.
 
Recently, while Councilmember Mary Ann Nihart was given a tour of the area, a tremendous amount of litter and debris was found clogging the creek where it emerges from the tunnels. Matt McPhail, owner of nearby Gearhead Bicycles, offered to organize a cleanup with a group of kids from Team Gearhead.
 
So on Saturday, January 14, the kids arrived by car, bike, and unicycle, three even decking themselves out in full wetsuits, complete with abalone knives hanging from their belts. They quickly went to work, some scouring the creek for debris, others rigging up a rope system for pulling larger items up the steep bank. A few hours later they had hauled up an impressive collection of junk, including a mattress, two shopping carts, an old car tire, and—ironically—a rusted bicycle. Parents who knows what it’s like to get their kids to clean their rooms would have to be impressed with the effort these kids put into cleaning up a neglected waterway.
 
The north fork’s problems remain, including unnaturally high water flows, erosion, and pollution from paint, oil, detergent, and coliform bacteria, but on this day it was the beneficiary of hard work by an enthusiastic group of kids learning to care for the environment.

Oceana's Naftali Moed Wins Cox Conserves Hero Award

Oceana High School student Naftali Moed has won the Cox Conserves Hero award in the Bay Area and was awarded $5,000 for the Oceana High School Garden, which he made a reality, complete with chickens and now maybe goats! For more of the story and a video, click the link below and search for San Francisco Bay Area:

CLICK FOR COX CONSERVES HEROES

Naftali selected Pie Ranch to receive the $5,000 award. Naftali had a vision for an organic vegetable garden to teach fellow high school students about the value of organic gardening and sustainable agriculture. Under his leadership, the vision has become a reality with 10 garden beds, a chicken house, and an outdoor classroom space. The garden is a living lab for science classes and a source of food for the nutrition classes.

National Night Out

Help Pacifica Marathoner Vanessa Rodriguez Run Against Cancer

My name is Vanessa Rodriguez. I live in Pacifica and I’m a member of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) Team in Training. I am training to run the Nike Half Marathon on October 16 to honor individuals who are battling blood cancer. In the process, I am trying to raise $5,000 to donate to LLS. This money will be used to support research aimed to curing blood cancer. I will dedicate my run to two of my family members. In the memory of my aunt Norma Rodriguez, who survived the breast cancer by mastectomy 8-9 years before she died of sepsis, a bacterial blood infection. And I will also run for my cousin's daughter Shaliam Quiles-Ortiz, who is now 5 & 1/2 yrs old. She had a neuroblastoma tumor that also caused ataxia. The chemotherapy was horrible for her, but she's also a strong survivor.
 
CLICK HERE TO DONATE SECURELY ONLINE

 

Opinion: Medical Cannabis and the Fringe Majority

The mayor, police chief, and county supervisor walk into a cannabis dispensary... . You are probably expecting a punchline right about now, but this is no joke, it actually happened. No, they weren't there as customers (as far as I know). They were on a Mayor's Walk and happened upon a shop that one of the participants actually described as having "a wonderful smell."

Let's be honest: Marijuana is no stranger to Pacifica. It used to waft through the local speakeasies during Prohibition, and has been an integral part of Pacifica's surf culture since the early Sixties. But in all those years, no one ever tried to sell it here legally until August 1, 2011, when Ruben Salvatierra and the Wellness Center Collective quietly opened up shop and began providing cannabis to patients. They managed to fly under the radar for 19 days, until the Mayor's Walk suddenly put their little shop very much on the radar.

Six days later the police issued the dispensary a Cease and Desist notice. Apparently the collective got a business license as a "flower seller," which, although technically true, is the legal equivalent of a liquor store getting a license as a gas station. So after a historic 25 days, Pacifica's first medical cannabis dispensary was shut down, before Alan Wald's newest palindrome TO PACIFICA POT could be put to proper use. [Editor: Alan's palindrome and comments are posted on Riptide.]

The day after the dispensary was discovered, I started hearing about it from people around town, and word got around fast. This opening got more buzz than Fresh and Easy, and so far, everyone I have heard from is wildly in favor of the dispensary. Admittedly, the people I know are by no means a representative sample of Pacificans, but you know what group is? Voters. And as I already have pointed out, last November some 8,600 Pacificans voted to legalize marijuana. By comparison, the Peebles measure lost by 400 votes, but Proposition 19 passed here by 2,800 votes, with 59.13 percent in favor. And in almost every survey, medical cannabis polls about 25 points higher than legalization, which would put us well over 80 percent. So it would appear that medical cannabis supporters are an overwhelming majority in this town, and yet we are still on the fringe. Call us the fringe majority.

Well, now it's time for the fringe majority to come out of the shadows and let everyone know how we feel—that the war on drugs is a failure, that after 30 years of Just Say No, marijuana is the number one cash crop in America, and we want a cut. Tell them that when Californians voted to allow the sale and taxation of medical cannabis, we expected it to be available in our progressive county within, oh, 15 months, not 15 years and counting. And tell them that lots of Pacificans really do need safe access to cannabis; many are elderly and have mobility issues, and let's face it, they probably shouldn't be driving to San Francisco to get high!

Of course, not all medical cannabis supporters actually smoke it themselves, but many do. And if the fringe majority wants to come out of the closet, we need to go all the way, publicly. Because marijuana users are where gays were in the Seventies, when everyone knew one but didn't KNOW that they knew one. "I have this friend" won't cut it anymore.

So I'll go first. I, Ian Butler, smoke marijuana. I have a medical card and use it for medicinal purposes, but must admit that I do enjoy the side effects. The first time I purchased cannabis from a dispensary was like a dream, or an alternate reality. The friendly young woman behind the counter showed me more strains, concentrates, and edibles than I could possibly keep track of, using terms like "couch lock," "body buzz," and "head high." It was more like shopping for iPads at the Apple store than scoring drugs on the street. It was safe, reliable, and I even used my credit card. When I left, it dawned on me that this is the way it should really be, and should have been all along.

Six weeks ago I advocated for a cannabis dispensary in Pacifica [see op-ed in the post below this]. I thought it would take at least a year, but miraculously, one opened a mere three weeks later, showing that we do have a viable market and that a dispensary would very much like to be in business here. And we should welcome them with open arms. The City Council, the Police Department, the Planning Commission, and the Chamber of Commerce all need to know that Pacificans demand a dispensary; we need the access, we need the tax dollars, and we need to figure out how to help this dispensary reopen, fast.

Wellness Medical Solutions made history when it opened up its shop. And in so doing, it just may have awakened a sleeping giant. Well, not exactly sleeping, but sedated. Now it's up to the fringe majority to rise up from their couch lock and make themselves heard.

Anyone interested in working on this issue can email me at ianbutler@netzero.net

IAN BUTLER

Opinion: Let's Get Serious About Medical Cannabis

In 1996, some 56 percent of California voters approved Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act, which legalized medical cannabis (marijuana) throughout the state. Fifteen years later, medical cannabis is an established part of California life. Dispensaries across the state safely provide the drug to patients, getting it off the streets and bringing in millions of dollars in tax revenue.

Yet San Mateo County has no dispensaries. This severely limits access to patients with a legitimate medical need, while robbing our communities of precious revenue in a time of draconian budget cuts. In 2009, San Mateo County passed regulations discouraging medical cannabis in unincorporated areas, but those regulations don’t apply to cities, which under Prop. 215 can craft their own policies.

Currently, Colma, Half Moon Bay, South San Francisco, Millbrae, Brisbane, Daly City, and San Bruno have outright bans in place, and other cities have either no official policy or restrictive regulations, which add up to a complete lack of access throughout the county. Meanwhile, in San Jose, 78 percent of the voters approved Measure U last November, taxing medical cannabis and generating $290,000 for the city in the first month, and an estimated $3.5 million in the first year.

Obviously, there is a tremendous demand in the region for medical cannabis, and the city that can meet that demand will reap a tremendous windfall. I believe Pacifica should be that city. Last November, Californians weighed in on Proposition 19, which would have legalized cannabis for adult use. The measure failed, with 46.2 percent voting yes, but here in Pacifica, a whopping 59.13 percent of us voted in favor of legalizing cannabis for all adults. The number of us who support medical cannabis is far higher. Recently, the Pacifica Tribune polled its online readers for their views on this subject, and only 17 percent opposed both medical cannabis and outright legalization, making it one of the most universally popular issues in the city.

But you’d never know it. Unfortunately, after 60 years of Reefer Madness-type hysteria, most cannabis users still are in the closet, afraid of losing their jobs or being branded as drug addicts. Even the protein smoothie I have every morning is made from hemp seeds that have to be imported from Canada, a telling remnant of our insane drug policy.

Yes, serious problems are associated with cannabis; it can influence the mental development of minors and affect long-term memory, among other things. But our laws against cannabis have been far more damaging than the drug itself, and most of us figured that out long ago. We now know that medical cannabis is a valuable treatment for many debilitating conditions, such as AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, ALS, MS, depression, and arthritis. Often, due to limited mobility and other problems, patients who need it most have the most difficulty obtaining medical cannabis.

The most common argument against medical cannabis is that some people use it who don’t really need to, and that is no doubt true. But with nearly 60 percent of us in favor of outright legalization, that argument is irrelevant here. The pertinent question is whether it is better for Pacificans to get their legal medical cannabis from San Francisco or for that money to stay here in town. To anyone who has been paying attention to our city’s financial woes, the answer is obvious: We absolutely need that money, which could easily add up to millions of dollars.

Up until now, it made sense for smaller cities to wait before jumping on the cannabis bandwagon. The courts had to sort out the conflicts between federal and state law, and only larger cities had the resources to do so. Also, Prop. 19 loomed on the horizon, threatening to throw a monkey wrench into whatever local regulations were enacted. But now, with Prop. 19 in the rearview mirror, drastic cuts in important city services, and even more severe cuts on the way, the time to act is now.

It’s time for Pacifica to craft a reasonable policy that would allow and attract a well-run, compassionate dispensary, while safeguarding our community with reasonable limits, such as regulating proximity to schools. (Eureka Square might be a good location, next to the yoga studio, gun store, and hydroponics shop.) Eventually, a ballot measure like San Jose’s could be considered, which collect an extra 5 percent to 10 percent tax for the city’s general fund. Such measures are extremely popular, and usually exceed the two-thirds majority vote needed to pass a tax increase.

Yes, it’s controversial. A vocal minority will speak out against it. Even medical cannabis supporters may not want a dispensary in their own neighborhood, but a strong majority of Pacificans favor medical cannabis. It could quickly bring significant revenue into our city, while providing safe access for those who need it most. It’s the practical thing to do, and it’s the right thing to do.

IAN BUTLER