Week in review

Devil’s Slide in danger ... A six-foot boulder and a growing gap at Devil’s Slide on Highway 1 closed the dangerous road indefinitely, cutting off crucial traffic to many coastside businesses whose owners fear they may not make it through the time it takes to fix the damage.

More than a month of solid rain has saturated the soil beneath the pavement and caused the dangerous road to slip closer to the ocean. A one-inch gap developed in the road on Friday and increased to four inches by Sunday, forcing Caltrans to close the road "indefinitely,” said Caltrans spokeswoman Lauren Wonder.

At the same time, crews are beginning construction on the Devil’s Slide tunnel — a $270 million project expected to be completed in 2011. The tunnel will allow drivers to safely bypass the narrow road along the cliff and travel safely through the bedrock of the mountain.

On Wednesday, the county declared a state of emergency — its fourth such declaration — a move that will businesses to receive federal loans to make it through financial hardship.

Two other slide locations — at Larchmont Drive in Broadmoor and Parrott Drive in San Mateo — are also jeopardizing homes.

Students walk out of class ... In protest of proposed legislation that could make helping illegal immigrants a felony, scores of school children from San Mateo, Aragon, Hillsdale, South San Francisco and Sequoia high schools walked out of class and marched on city halls four separate times this week.

District officials tried to tell students could organize in a more effective way by having guest speakers at their schools. City officials told the student they appreciated their peaceful protest and for sharing their perspective.

Mike King on trial ... The witness list for the felony fraud trial of former San Carlos Mayor Mike King read like a who’s who in local city government as court proceedings began this week.

At issue is a faxed invoice King allegedly sent to political consultant Peg Collier with instructions on how she should get paid for her work on a failed parcel tax campaign. Paying a campaign consultant through public funds is illegal. King’s defense attorney said the invoice was a mere template and that officials from Belmont were out to get King since they disagreed with how a shared South County Fire Authority was being run.

The trial should be completed next week and King faces up to a year in jail if convicted.

Year-round Beresford approved ... Beresford Elementary School in San Mateo got the OK to switch to the new schedule beginning next school year.

It was practically all praise for the idea to make the calendar change by parents, teachers and the San Mateo-Foster City School District Board of Trustees Thursday night before a unanimous vote was made in favor of the switch. The idea comes just months before the implementation of a year-round schedule change at Abbott Middle School. Most Beresford students go onto Abbott once they finish. Parents now have an opportunity to keep their children on the same calendar even if they were attending different schools. Proponents of a year-round schedule said students retain more without a long break in the middle of the year. Smaller and frequent breaks can also alleviate student stress. The new schedule would keep students in school for 45 days followed by a 15-day break. The extra breaks could be used to allow students who excel in class to enroll in enrichment courses while those falling behind have some extra time to catch up.

From the archives, five years ago this week

FEMA map to flood Shoreview with high insurance ... Residents in 8,400 homes in the North Shoreview and Shoreview neighborhoods learned the week of April 7, 2001 they could look forward to paying up to $1,000 a year in flood insurance once the Federal Emergency Management Agency states that the area is a flood zone.

City officials begain wading through federal bureaucracy to delay the issuance of the map and ensure that residents out there won’t have to pay to insure their homes against a flood they say will never happen. People with federally secured home loans were notified they could obtain flood insurance at low rate of $300 to $500 a year until the map is finalized, said Brandt Grotte, then president of the Shoreview Homeowners Association and the United Homeowners Association. After that, Grotte said the rate will rise to $1,000.

SFPUC to allow land access ... In what ended a dispute as long as the Redwoods in San Mateo County’s watershed are tall, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission the week of April 7, 2001 was set to open up the very publicly owned lands they have kept off-limits for years.

The commission voted to allow limited public access to a nine-mile trail in watershed land on the Fifield-Cahill Ridge west of the Crystal Springs Reservoir stretching from State Route 92 to San Bruno Avenue. The 10-foot-wide gravel trail in dispute was used as a service road by PUC trucks and trailers. Leading the charge to open the land to the public has been the Bay Area Ridge Trail — a nonprofit group founded in 1987.

Caltrain hit with lawsuit ... The family of a young woman struck down by Caltrain in Burlingame filed a lawsuit the week of April 7, 2001, claiming that if there had been a pedestrian arm at the station on Howard Avenue, their daughter would still be alive. In addition to Caltrain, the family named the adjoining Mike Harvey car dealership in the wrongful-death lawsuit. The business, which occupies the lot parallel to the Caltrain line, blocked all visibility of southbound trains, said Glenn J. Violett of Collins Schlothauer in San Jose, the law firm that represented the family.

<