In other news

Then, here comes Orchard Partners (a nice, friendly, soothing name) with a proposal to reclaim a dwindling quarry on the Brisbane side of the mountain and build a warehouse project said to be larger than 15 football fields. The site is 144 acres, will include a three-story warehouse and a parking lot and garage with space for 1,500 vehicles. They might have a better chance of success if they actually built 15 football fields.

Orchard partner Tyler Higgins said, “This is a project that was designed with the environment in mind.” Sure. Profit is incidental, no doubt.

What should have been in mind, however, is the political environment. Since this property first was claimed through a Spanish land grant, politics have governed much of what happens on San Bruno Mountain. Orchard can put any kind of spin they want on this proposal, but for all their fine planning, they have energized a hardcore group of environmentalists who knows how to fight just this kind of thing.

OFF AND RUNNING: In the past several weeks, San Mateo County supervisors Ray Mueller and Noelia Corzo officially announced they will run for reelection. … Daly City Councilmember Juslyn Manalo also announced she is running for the North County seat currently held by Supervisor David Canepa. Canepa was reelected only a year ago, having run without opposition; he began his third and final term only three months ago. An open seat at any level frequently attracts early attention, but this extraordinary. But there may be more afoot. Manalo has been endorsed by Canepa. Canepa, meanwhile, is openly considering — preparing? — to run for county assessor-clerk-recorder, a job that also includes running all local elections. Mark Church has been in this office since 2010, after 10 years on the Board of Supervisors. Church, now in his early 70s, was reelected in 2022 with almost 83% of the vote. Asked directly some months ago whether he would seek another term, Church said, in essence, that he would wait and see.

I CAN’T HELP MYSELF: It may take county officials months to figure out how to oust Sheriff Christina Corpus. But there ought to be some residual and lasting momentum for the effort given the totality of the political wipeout she suffered in the special election March 4. The 90,839 votes in support of Measure A swamped the 82,622 votes Corpus received when she ran for sheriff in 2022. This is significant in that it undermines Corpus’ argument that the special election was disenfranchising all those voters who supported her in 2022. Apparently, she was able to do that on her own.

The political tsunami extended well beyond the vote tallies. The No on A committee raised what appears to be a total of $4,944 in loans from Corpus to pay for campaign signs that dotted the Peninsula in the waning days of the campaign. Signs are the weakest ammunition in a campaign arsenal; in this race they appear to have had a negligible effect. … The No side raised no other money; it is unclear if the committee organizers even tried to raise money for her, or ever intended to do so. The Yes on A committee spent $171,830, as of a mid-February report — more than 35 times the money spent on the No side. … An interesting tidbit: One $250 donor to the Yes campaign was former Sheriff Carlos Bolanos, who lost to Corpus in 2022. No word if he signed the check “I told you so.” … An odd tidbit: The No finance report lists Corpus’ address as Los Altos. I thought elected officials in the county have to live in the county? … I have had bad luck making this kind of statement, but if Corpus resigns before she is fired, I will eat this column.

INDEED: Then there is this gem from a county official talking to the Board of Supervisors about spending Measure K funds: “We are looking at really making sure there is meaningful and meaningfulness in regards to these things that are Measure K.” Yep. Even meaningfulnessosity.

Mark Simon is a veteran journalist, whose career included 15 years as an executive at SamTrans and Caltrain. He co-hosts a podcast/videocast that can be found at TheGamePeninsula.com, and he can be reached at marksimon@smdailyjournal.com.