Were you expecting to find information about Coastal Open Space Alliance here? Read on to find out what happened.
COSA (Coastal Open Space Alliance) Frequently Asked Questions:
What is COSA (Coastal Open Space Alliance)?
COSA (Coastal Open Space Alliance), or Coastal Open Space Alliance, is (was?) an alliance of environmental groups that supported the annexation of the San Mateo County coastside by the Midpenninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD). You can read about the formation of the Coastal Open Space Alliance at the Committee for Green Foothills (CGF) website.
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Who started COSA (Coastal Open Space Alliance)?
According to the above referenced website at CGF, the formation was led by Committee for Green Foothills.
They say:
Committee for Green Foothills' highest priority in San Mateo County is supporting the proposed expansion of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD) boundaries to the coast. As part of that effort, CGF has taken the lead in forming a new partnership among environmental organizations and coastal activists to strengthen regional support for the preservation of coastal agriculture and open space.
Why did COSA (Coastal Open Space Alliance) form?
To support MROSD's annexation (later called an "expansion" and known as the "Coastal Protection Program").
A group of concerned residents of the San Mateo County coastside wanted to vote on whether they should be annexed or not. Years before, there had been an "advisory vote" to explore the annexation and residents were told they would be allowed to vote before the final annexation took place.
This did not appear to be happening
A grassroots group of locals, Citizens for Responsible Open Space, using the legal path open to them, began gathering signatures on a protest petition so that the annexation would be put on the ballot.
The groups that formed Coastal Open Space Alliance objected to the local residents protesting the automatic annexation without a vote of the people and so formed an alliance to promote the annexation and combat the efforts of the local citizens' group.
What did COSA (Coastal Open Space Alliance) do?
The stated purpose of Coastal Open Space Alliance (in their own words) was:
COSA provides opportunities for public outreach and education to promote coastal open space preservation
Coastal Open Space Alliance was behind the "Decline to Sign" campaign, urging people not to sign the protest and asking those who had already signed to rescind their signatures.
Again, to quote Committee for Green Foothills:
COSA (Coastal Open Space Alliance) volunteers have been busy with community outreach, providing information at key Coastside locations and distributing buttons and bumperstickers to supporters of the MROSD boundary expansion, dubbed the Coastside Protection Program.
Why isn't COSA (Coastal Open Space Alliance) at this URL anymore?
I can't say for certain. After the Coastal Open Space Alliance website disappeared, the domain (coastalopenspace.org) was registered to a reseller in Kenya, Africa. They held it for awhile, perhaps hoping someone would wish to reclaim it. An email from them stated:
FROM: support@kenyatech.com
Any unregistered domains are free for public to register. According to ICANN rules, when domain expires the owner is given enought time to reclaim the domain during REDEMPTION PERIOD, failure to do so will result in the domain being released to the available pool and sold on first-come basis.
If you are interested in obtaining the domain then make an offer. When you make an offer on a domain the owner will receive a notification by email and may accept or reject the offer, or respond with a minimum acceptable price at which they are willing to transfer the domain.
Once an agreement has been reached and payment received in full, Kentech will execute a legally binding domain name transfer agreement that is compliant with ICANN rules on domain name ownership transfers to turn ownership and control of the domain name(s) over to you.
Good luck, we look forward to serving you at http://kenyatech.com.
Kentech Support http://www.kenyatech.com
Recently the domain name became available for anyone to register, so it appears that kenyatech was no longer handling it.
At this point it is not known whether Coastal Open Space Alliance is still active with community outreach or not. If so, they no longer have this domain registered.
Can I view the old COSA (Coastal Open Space Alliance) site?
Yes! The Wayback Machine is your friend! You can view an archive of the old COSA (Coastal Open Space Alliance) site there. This is a direct link to various archived snapshots from January through October of 2004. (The snapshot from 2005 appears to be from after the reseller obtained the domain name.)
What if COSA (Coastal Open Space Alliance) is still active?
If Coastal Open Space Alliance is still around or is reborn, please let me know. I will put a referral to their new website or contact information so that folks coming to their old URL can find them
Other than that, I suggest contacting the groups that made up the Coastal Open Space Alliance and asking them what became of COSA (Coastal Open Space Alliance). The groups are: Committee for Green Foothills, Half Moon Bay Open Space Trust, Midcoast Park Lands, Peninsula Open Space Trust, Surfrider Foundation SMC, Sierra Club and Save Our Shores. (In 2004, Committee for Green Foothills gave COSA $12,168 and POST
