Pacific Beach Coalition
“Trash in the Bin, not in the Pelican!”

March General Meeting

March 10, 2026
6 – 7:45 pm @ Sharp Park Public Library in Pacifica, CA

Mission Statement 
The Pacific Beach Coalition is dedicated to preserving the ocean, coastal habitat and wildlife, and ending litter through advocacy, education, community-building and citizen action.

2026 February General Meeting Minutes

Meeting opened at 6:05pm

Introductions, Welcome New Friends!

Present: ​​Jim, Ana, Gail, Pete, Jan, Shari, Greg, Barbara, Myrna, Mark, Julie, Bill, Susan, Danila, Margo, Nicole, Patrick, Cecily, Sarah P., Paula

Site Captain Reports, Information

• Greg (Program Coordinator):
  • Thornton Vista – ongoing fence blocking public access to beach, doesn’t seem to impact us at the moment for cleanups and habitat restoration activities. 
  • Looking for new Site Captains! Will be continuing our outreach to recruit.
  • PBC has been reviewing Golden Volunteer as a Volunteer Management platform to support our event coordination and data governance efforts. Golden is a preferred solution for partner organizations such as Surfrider and California Volunteers, and should improve and expedite our participant registration waiver submission, onsite check-ins, and data reporting. To maintain consistency and standards across our various sites, we look to coordinate with our cross-functional teams to prepare for the change before rolling out the new procedures. More to come!
  • In partnership with City of Pacifica’s CivicSpark fellows Sam and Bella, our Water Warriors are doing great work, with 375 plants to water on a weekly basis.
    • Interested to join PBC Water Warriors? Currently meeting Wednesdays at 2pm on the Rockaway side of CA Coastal Trail for 60-90 mins.
• Jim (Linda Mar): Used to have about 120 volunteers, now about 80 volunteers coming out, expect more high schoolers. 
• Julie (Mussel Rock): lots of boys from Mills for habitat restoration. Ted’s son passed away, we are sending our condolences to Ted’s family.
• Gail (Esplanade): new garden with native plants being put in by privately contracted team through the Coastal Commission, behind the OceanAire apartments
  • PBC is not involved, it’s a private company doing the work and (hopefully) the ongoing maintenance on behalf of OceanAire. A subsurface drip irrigation system was installed. Nice to see!
  • Patrick: Dr. Kate Huckelbridge, Executive Director for the California Coastal Commission, has responded positively to our outreach and may be attending/participating in EcoFest this year if you would like to request more information. With “50 Years of the CA Coastal Act” and “Save Our Shores” campaigns currently underway, there may be larger priorities to discuss.

Naturalists’ Report

• Wildlife news and sightings:
  • Velella velella animals (see photo) may be washing up on our beaches this time of the year due to the currents and wind. Make sure beach cleanup volunteers know that they are not plastic and to leave them alone, they will decompose on their own. Also, dogs should not eat them (Intestinal issues). Here are 5 more facts about velella.
  • Gray whales were recently spotted at Mussel Rock. They are on their migration north.
  • A rare bald eagle was sighted at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve and at Coyote Point.
• April 1 will be a Naturalist meeting. We have these meetings twice a year. We will be sharing best practices and preparing for our new earth hero, the steelhead trout. 
• San Mateo County Parks Department hosted a Steelhead Trout Nature Hike at Memorial Park on Saturday, March 7. Participants were able to learn about the unique lifecycle and treacherous journey steelhead must take to return to and breed in Pescadero Creek. Exciting sneak peek into our 2026 honoree!
• Año Nuevo State Park has closed public access to the elephant seal viewing areas for the remainder of the season after receiving confirmation that seven weaned elephant seal pups have tested positive for the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1.
  • This may be the first instance of the flu transferring from birds to mammals. Keep your pets away, but if your animal starts to show signs of different behavior after being in the area, contact the Marine Mammal Center.
• International Ocean Film Festival: April 10-12 – internationalfilmfest.org 
• Additional item (Jim): We’ve received inquiries about our San Pedro Creek activities, and there are concerns about vegetation growing over the creek – primrose and reeds – especially where the bridge goes to San Pedro Shopping Center.
  • Mark: It’s a difficult task. We need waders to go underneath Hwy 1 and pull the garbage out that gets trapped in the vegetation, which can hinder how the water flows beneath. Members of the San Pedro Water Quality Coalition and PBC support this effort. On both sides where you enter that area, there is a lot of poison oak and homeless encampments. It’s important to rake out the trash, the reeds are fine.
  • Pete: in 2007-2008 the city, working with the US Army Corps of Engineers, brought in 30,000 tons of spawning gravel. (Maybe it was this project: San Pedro Creek Channel Restoration of Incised Channel to Eliminate Perched Bridge Apron)
  • Bill: advises not to walk in the creek, use waders because of high pollution levels in the creek
  • Greg: action item to set up a meeting with Mark.

Director’s Report

• With the official retirement of our past president, Lynn Adams, the Board of Directors has implemented the succession plan: Jim Fithian remains Board Chair, Shari Bookstaff named Vice Chair, and Patrick named Executive Director. 
• San Mateo County Resource Conservation District’s 2025 First Flush Water Quality Results report has been published. PBC members participated in the sampling event; it’s important, relevant data.
  • Bill: Linda Mar Water Quality Coalition tests the water of the San Pedro Creek on a weekly basis. Results are available at his naturalist table. Relevant historical context available here.
• PBC has been pursuing a broader grant and development fundraising strategy. 
  • We were offered the opportunity to apply for federal funding from Rep. Sam Liccardo’s office. The current House Majority’s appropriations committee constraints, to require a local government partner as lead applicant, prevented our completed submission. It was a useful exercise for our team to develop multiple project proposal ideas that will be available for future opportunities. We wish City of Pacifica and San Mateo County best of luck with their own applications!
  • In partnership with Dr. John Keener, Dr. Fuhar Dixit and the University of Tennessee, PBC provided a letter of support t for the proposal titled “Investigating Previously Unrecognized PFAS Reservoirs in San Francisco Bay Biosolids and Land Application Sites” submitted for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, San Francisco Bay Geographic Program, Region 9 (EPA-R9-SFBay-26-01) Water Quality Restoration Grants funding opportunity.
  • We are exploring an opportunity from the Pacifica Lions Club, shared by Gail Benjamin.
  • We submitted an application for California Volunteers Climate Action Corps one-time funding up to $1,500 through the 2026 Climate Action Event Microgrant Program to support volunteer climate service events throughout the state.
  • If you have suggestions for additional grant applications, please contact patrick@pacificbeachcoalition.org.
• Greg: PBC will host a community beach cleanup with CA State Senator Becker’s office on April 10th 10am-12pm at Pacifica State Beach in Linda Mar. All are welcome! Questions? Contact: greg@pacificbeachcoalition.org
• We are visiting Skyline College on Friday, March 13 for their “Sustainability Social” and will be attending an Earth Day event on Wednesday, April 22
• An active, friendly, mission aligned organization working out of San Francisco had a recent article in SF Examiner highlighting the cigarette butt pollution problem, with some useful context regarding local policy to advocate for better handling of this toxic waste.
  • To learn more about the org and challenges we are all facing, Vince Yuen, the founder of nonprofit Refuse Refuse, is hosting an SF Trash Talk presentation on Thursday, March 19 from 7:00pm-7:45pm. Here is the Zoom link.
• The KPFA Community Radio Local Station Board welcomes presentations from local community and media organizations to their meetings. Patrick was invited via the “Bay Area Permies” mailing list to join their March 11 event “to share what you are working on in alignment with KPFA’s mission, telling the group about your organization, and current activities. We are especially interested in your upcoming community events.”
  • In addition to espousing the mission statement of PBC and EcoFest date, Patrick shared the next Bay Area Applied Mycology group’s social is March 30, a “Spring Swap” event

Board and Financial Report

• Financial Data was shared in AI Generated chart visualizations
• Recruiting more board members and a Treasurer – if you’re interested, contact Jim Fithian
  • Meetings are held on every 4th Tuesday of the month

Earth Day EcoFest – April 18, 2026

• Next planning meeting: Monday, March 16th, 6-7:30pm – all are welcome!
  • Use the same Zoom link as above.
• Booths (Barbara): 26 booths, 3 spots are still open, reach out to Barbara Sondag.
  • NOAA will be unavailable
  • Myrna: nursery booth not possible this year
• Possible eco-friendly food trucks: Send any suggestions to Barbara Sondag.
  • Cecily: will send Peruvian food truck info to Barbara
    • Info shared to Patrick by Ruby Mayne: https://lacostanerarestaurant.com/
    • This was the restaurant that was in the now vacant really cool looking building near Montara State Beach, they have expanded since, including the fast-casual Sanguchon, which started as a successful food truck in the Mission District serving hearty sandwiches stuffed with Peruvian ingredients (2021).
  • Moonraker Mobile
  • Mr. Frosty
  • Sam’s ChowderMobile
• Activities (Shari): 11 activities set up in the space, including a marine robotics team bringing a robot pool demo, and Hearty with Earthcapades entertainment bringing the circus
• Patrick: City planning meeting with Public Works, Parks, Beach and Recreation, scheduled for March 18th 
• Pelican Squad: Plan is being worked on to have a VIP tour in the morning, followed by 2 tours during EcoFest for the public. Teens will lead groups over to San Pedro Creek along Hwy 1 to trail – keeping to 20-25 people, where a docent will deliver prepared talks at the creek mouth. Teens will also walk around with props, including Stella the stuffed animal trout, for selfies, and share temporary tattoos.

Communications Team

• Our info@pacificbeachcoalition.org serves as the main external contact point for PBC inquiries; Margo monitors the email inbox and will reply directly or forward as needed. Coms@ is a group email to our marketing/communications team and staff: Chloe, Jana, Margo, Media Volunteer, Celine, Greg and Patrick. 
• 110 people at Rockaway last weekend, awesome report, Site Captain Sara Snyder!
  • Sarah Lai Stirland, a freelance journalist, joined the cleanup to record audio for a potential 3 minute piece as entry into the AudioFlux competition.  She grew up in Hong Kong, where the beaches used to be filthy, and is working on a story related to that. Patrick has also worked in Hong Kong in 2008; had shared “I am familiar with what you mean about the beaches. Incredible to watch the dragon boat races, but I would prefer to visit the outlying islands before getting in the water.” To be determined, what comes next.

Pelican Squad!

• 52 teens in total! Trained 3 new teens over the weekend.
• With the support of our Naturalist / Ops coordinator Sasha Lower, we are looking to standardize and expand the program, potentially adding a college-age level component.

Coming Up

• California State Senator Josh Becker announces Lynn Adams: Woman of the Year!
  • Event to be held March 16 in Sacramento- details TBD

Roundtable: Let’s hear it from you!!!

• Nicole: though it may be a powerful tool and very convenient, we should be more mindful about our use of AI; among many potential risks, it’s bad for the environment, impacting our water and energy supply
  • Friday, March 27, 2026 | National AI Literacy Day
• Cecily: Sports Basement will recycle corks, tennis balls, shoes
• Jan: idea to collect past PBC t-shirts to make for a quilt
• Margo: Next meeting is Tuesday April 7 at 6pm (1 week earlier than normal because of Earth Day)

Meeting adjourned at 7:32pm.