Hanni's gift store in Rockaway Beach right next door to Rockin' Rob's has a huge sign in the window saying that the store is closing.
Kerri's Coffee Shop in Linda Mar shopping center is closing after a zillion years in business. Wanna bet that the shopping center's high rents drove them out?
After a months-long investigation, South San Francisco police have shut down illegal gambling establishments on the 2200 block of Gellert Boulevard and the first block of South Linden Avenue, and arrested the operator, Frederick Zupancic, 53, of Pacifica.
Search warrants were served June 26 and police searched four different sites, including homes in Alameda and Pacifica, according to police. Police say they seized $40,000 in cash, multiple gambling devices, and documentation related to the illegal gambling operation.
By Shawn Kann, Special to Riptide
San Mateo County Community College District (SMCCCD) and sustainability? Fascinating. Sustainability of what?
Sustainably trying to destroy the historic half-century-old garden for a parking lot?
Sustainably removing more than 200 old-growth trees from the ridgeline and slopes of the College of San Mateo?
Sustainably chopping down additional mature trees to make way for a parking lot and an amphitheater with panoramic views of the bay after the recent court ruling, which stated that "SMCCCD failed to comply with CEQA when it failed to conduct mandated environmental review over 200 mature trees"?
Sustainably spending thousands of taxpayer dollars to fight two California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)-backed lawsuits filed by concerned community members and students?
Sustainably spending millions of dollars in false
advertising about how much the district cares about the residents and doing the Right Thing?
The only thing SMCCCD seems to be sustaining is the never-ending, relentless level of spending public money on artificial turf and private athletic-club locker rooms built relatively recently.
SMCCCD's Sustainability Initiative is pure fiction.
By Bill Collins, Riptide Correspondent
I was surprised when my swim coach told me that the College of San Mateo has a new Olympic-size swimming pool. Then he said it costs $20 per drop-in visit!
I searched the college's website, which says to call the private, for-profit company that manages the pool to find out the drop-in cost. I did find that college staff get free use of the pool, which may explain why it was built at district headquarters on the San Mateo campus instead of the other campuses (Skyline, Canada), which don't have swimming pools.
When the voters approved the prior college bond, the money was supposed to go for "constructing and modernizing classrooms ... and the replacement of aging ventilation systems, removal of hazardous materials such as asbestos, and installation of alternative-energy programs."
The voters weren't told the college district was going to build a big swimming pool, much less charge us taxpayers who paid for it the highest per-visit charge in the state for any community college swimming pool.
The next time the college asks us to raise taxes for academics, its argument will be undermined by how it handled the new swimming pool, paid for by taxpayers but run like a private club for the moneyed and district staff.