Beautiful Mountain Blog of Belmont

70 State Parks Slated to Close in California

The What:

Govenor Jerry Brown announced today the closing of 70 State parks in California.

Voters had a chance to save the parks back in November when proposition 21 was on the state ballot.

It would have imposed an $18 vehicle registration fee to provide a windfall of cash for ailing parks. The measure would have provided for $500 million a year as a new permanent funding source for parks, protected from the year-to-year roller coaster of the state's general fund.

But voters gave the measure a strong thumbs-down.

It failed 58 to 42 percent, winning in only 10 of California's 58 counties, nearly all of them in the Bay Area.

The Where:

So what parks will be closing?

• Anderson Marsh SHP
• Annadel SP
• Antelope Valley Indian Museum
• Austin Creek SRA
• Bale Grist Mill SHP
• Benbow Lake SRA
• Benicia Capitol SHP
• Benicia SRA
• Bidwell Mansion SHP
• Bothe-Napa Valley SP
• Brannan Island SRA
• California Mining & Mineral Museum
• Candlestick Point SRA
• Castle Crags SP
• Castle Rock SP
• China Camp SP
• Colusa-Sacramento River SRA
• Del Norte Coast Redwoods SP
• Fort Humboldt SHP
• Fort Tejon SHP
• Garrapata SP
• George J. Hatfield SRA
• Governor's Mansion SHP
• Gray Whale Cove SB
• Greenwood  SB
• Grizzly Creek Redwoods SP
• Hendy Woods SP
• Henry W. Coe SP
• Jack London SHP
• Jug Handle SNR
• Leland Stanford Mansion SHP
• Limekiln SP
• Los Encinos SHP
• Malakoff Diggins SHP
• Manchester SP
• McConnell SRA
• McGrath SB
• Mono Lake Tufa SNR
• Morro Strand SB
• Moss Landing SB
• Olompali SHP
• Palomar Mountain SP
• Petaluma Adobe SHP
• Picacho SRA
• Pio Pico SHP
• Plumas-Eureka SP
• Point Cabrillo Light Station
• Portola Redwoods SP
• Providence Mountains SRA
• Railtown 1897 SHP
• Russian Gulch SP
• Saddleback Butte SP
• Salton Sea SRA
• Samuel P. Taylor SP
• San Pasqual Battlefield SHP
• Santa Cruz Mission SHP
• Santa Susana Pass SHP
• Shasta SHP
• South Yuba River SP
• Standish-Hickey SRA
• Sugarloaf Ridge SP
• Tomales Bay SP
• Tule Elk SNR
• Turlock Lake SRA
• Twin Lakes SB
• Weaverville Joss House SHP
• Westport-Union Landing SB
• William B. Ide Adobe SHP
• Woodson Bridge SRA
• Zmudowski SB

The When:

Expect the closures to begin in September, with all 70 closings completed by July 2012.

Garbage Strike Hits Belmont and San Carlos

What's that wafting about in Belmont? The rumblings sure aren’t from the Allied Garbage trucks but rather disgruntled garbage workers.

If you live in Belmont you must have heard, if you haven't smelled it yet, that the garbage strike has left San Carlos and Belmont’s waste removal program canned for the time being. Apparently the garbage workers decided to strike when contract negotiation broke down with Allied Waste--while it’s actually the truck drivers who joined their co-worked in a showing of solidarity that stalled the pick-ups.

The only thing worse than the stench of garbage sitting on the curb for days is the foul way it was handled by the Allied Waste management.

Wednesday night at 11:05 we received two phone calls, courtesy of Allied Waste, telling us our garbage would be picked up on Friday. Couldn’t they have waited until morning? Pick-up would be for two more days. Another wasted opportunity to demonstrate customer service.

So if you’ve got the blues thinking your neighborhood is going downhill with trash littering the street take heart, Allied promises to dump their current strategy and resume pick-ups soon.

 

 

 

The Streets Around Us-Sharon Road

EXCERPTED FROM OUR MORGAN REPORT NEWSLETTER:

In our last newsletter issue we mentioned how some of Belmont’s streets got their names and we were coxed to include some more in this edition. We also included a teaser about Belmont’s first and only golf course so we’ll dispense with that first. Unfortunately for golf fans, the course is not some well kept secret—in fact it has been gone for years.

Around 1925 the team of Lyon, Monroe and Miller had a grand scheme to create an 18 hole golf course adjacent a tony club house complete with swimming “tank”, tennis and handball courts and a children’s wading pool that would be the envy of the Peninsula. The clubhouse would be called “Belle Monti” and cost $65,000 to complete. An innovative tactic was employed to attract would-be buyers and included free bus rides from San Francisco where prospective buyers were plied with beer and induced to buy a lot. Membership for the club cost $100 but was included with every home sale on the very streets that bore their names.

Around 1929 the Belle Monti project fell on financial hard times and an attempt to salvage the operation was launched by opening the club to the public. But in 1929 the stock market crash forced members to either drop out or move away and the corporation went bankrupt. The “Hillcrest” golf course was eventually subdivided into lots for the WWII returning veterans and today we find only remnants of a bye-gone era with street names such as Fairway and a few stately homes (now on Belmont’s historic registry) which lay on what was once the perimeter of the course.

On the topic of streets, did you know Senator William Sharon was a U.S. Senator from Nevada, who has a small street, Sharon Road, named after himself in Belmont? Find out why Belmont had a lake named after him too in our next issue or visit our web site at local Belmont blog at BeautifulMountinBlog.org and find out what happened to the old club house before it became what is now the Congregational Church of Belmont.