From the archives

County officials were set to disband the Emerald Lake Hills Design Review Committee the week of Dec. 9, 2006 to prevent the controversial group from making any more decisions before the group was revamped.

The decision was welcome to outspoken critics of the committee who fought its regulations on house size, shape and appearance.

Emerald Hills includes more than 1,700 property owners in unincorporated Redwood City. The homeowner’s association spent two years promoting 32 pages of new design and building guidelines, including types of plants to acceptable exterior colors. Design guidelines are not law, but offered a strict direction for the committee.

Hetch Hetchy plans to disrupt residents

Details of a $4.3 billion plan to rebuild the 167-mile Hetch Hetchy aqueduct was announced the week of Dec. 9, 2006 and officials were warning of upheavals to main roads along the Peninsula and frustrations for homeowners whose land fell on the pipeline’s right of way.

While residents in 2002 voted in favor of upgrading the pipeline, dams and tunnels along the aqueduct, they may not have realized the extent of construction needed to complete the project, said Julie Labonte, director of the water system improvement program for SFPUC. The upgrade, involving 70 projects in seven counties, includes 16 ventures in San Mateo County.

Ninety percent of San Mateo County households and businesses receive water from the Hetch Hetchy system, leaving many fences, sidewalks, parking lots and roads sharing space with the aqueduct.

The county’s projects, which were set to cost more than $1 billion, included a new Crystal Springs bypass tunnel, an upgrade to the Bay division pipeline and improvements to the lower San Mateo dam.

Mom pleads no contest in baby dumping case

A Redwood City mother charged with involuntary manslaughter after her dead baby girl was found wrapped in plastic inside a trash dumpster more than a year prior pleaded no contest the week of Dec. 9, 2006 to child endangerment.

Hilda J. Figueroa, 30, changed her plea in return for no more than a year in the county jail when sentenced Jan. 24, 2007.

Figueroa told San Mateo Medical Center staff Nov. 30, 2006 she was several months pregnant but miscarried at her home. Figueroa claimed she flushed the stillborn and premature fetus down the toilet. After an exam proved Figueroa was likely lying, Redwood City police detectives went to her home in the 600 block of Buckeye Street and discovered her plastic-wrapped child in the trash dumpster.

Fatal fire claims 87-year-old Daly City woman

A two-alarm fire in Daly City the week of Dec. 9, 2006 claimed an 87-year-old woman and hospitalized another.

Firefighters called to the blaze at 79 Castleton Ave. in Daly City found Dorothy Wissing dead in a back bedroom. Another resident of the home was hospitalized.

Arriving at the home, firefighters found heavy smoke and flames coming from the second floor, but they were able to confine the fire to a front bedroom. The fire was under control in 20 minutes and extinguished in two-and-a-half hours, the fire authority reported.

From the archives highlights stories originally printed five years ago this week. It appears in the Thursday edition of the Daily Journal.