Retired / Localspin
The Fort Ord Reuse Authority sues its contractor, releases invoices to the public.
February 2012, page 6 of 8: $537,722.92. That’s the cost of non-specific “professional services” in the $1.1 million monthly bill sent to the Fort Ord Reuse Authority by Arcadis U.S., the lead contractor in the ...
GOP wants to know your thoughts, and tell you what to think.
So the GOP’s National Senatorial Committee would like to know your thoughts. But first, the committee clearly wants to give you those thoughts. And after they’re done giving you your thoughts, you can then turn ...
Alleged victim in Diocese sex case says he forgives.
In 2005, a 15-year-old boy toting a heavy childhood walked through the doors of Madonna del Sasso church in North Salinas looking for a place to belong. He had lived for more than 10 years ...
Supes vote to send a pointless methyl iodide message.
Just when you think you know exactly what the Monterey County Board of Supervisors is going to do, they go ahead and do the exact opposite thing. And no, I’m not talking about Tuesday’s 180-degree ...
California’s elected federal reps should be ashamed.
What a bunch of (insert your favorite adjective – like ineffective, lazy, obstructionist, disdainful or interested-in-policy-failure-for-the-sake-of-political gain) cowards. I speak of the overwhelming majority of California’s Congressional delegation, which last Friday somewhat quietly let California ...
Our congressman says D.C. is even nastier than we think.
Sam Farr doesn’t strike me as a “the sky is falling, the sky is falling” kind of guy. And while he didn’t run around the Weekly’s offices like Henny Penny in the old children’s fable, ...
No medical marijuana for you – the feds are indifferent.
I had to call my 84-year-old, 90-pound, chronically ill mother in Chicago last week and share some bad news. Even if she decided to get over her abject loathing of her non-Catholic son-in-law (and general ...
Local Spin: Occupy Wal… mart
What jobs are SB 469 opponents trying to save?
My older teenager (the one with the bigger mouth and more world-weary attitude) wondered the other day when Occupy Wall Street might make a foray into Monterey County. The movement was going to our former ...
The Monterey Regional Waste Management District deserves a little respect.
Penny tears a chunk from her lunch of quail, swallows it quickly and goes in for another bite. Her eyes dart back and forth; she seems worried about someone taking her food away. After devouring ...
Valuing free and independent media, too.
Because the news is my business, I was stunned by Executive Editor Joe Livernois’ admission in Saturday’s Herald. It wasn’t the paper’s rationale to stop publishing the stock market listings that got my attention. What ...
A few days and opportunities to pay tribute to 9/11 victims.
A few local papers have been asking readers to send in their 9/11 stories for weeks now, memories and pictures that will be cobbled together into story packages to help note one of the most ...
Salinas housing prices are about to plummet again.
If you noticed the word Salinas popping up in the national news about a week and a half ago, you undoubtedly noticed it was more bad news for the nation’s lettuce capital. An outfit called ...
A veiled threat of litigation from desal partner Cal Am.
When we last left our little buddy the Desal Hydra (also known as California American Water, the Marina Coast Water District and the Monterey County Water Resources Agency – the hapless partners in the $400 ...
Congregants take accused priest’s defense to the web.
The plea on the website is simple, direct and even a little bit biblically poetic. “A thief,” the website states, “has entered our home and kidnapped a favorite relative in the middle of the night. ...
Give the Desal Hydra an inch. Just see what happens.
Starting in the 1990s, Laura Joffee Numeroff and Felicia Bond produced a series of adorable children’s books based on the premise that if you give a creature one treat, it will not only develop a ...
Through the lens of wild horses, a view on salvation.
There is a major land grab taking place on our public lands, one that is both criminal and exploitative, and it is being perpetuated by our government and with judicial approval. But there is a ...
Two looks at one subject: closure.
I ’ve had Green Vehicles Inc. on my deadpool list almost since the very first day I heard the words “Green Vehicles” put together with “incorporated.” Deadpool, for those unfamiliar, is a list of things—companies ...
Ratepayers are SOL if the current desal project proceeds.
Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote that Monterey’s Spanish landowners lost their property to unscrupulous Yankees because, unlike Americans, they had not been raised “to understand all business as a competition in fraud.” To the extent ...
Find the leak, says SVMH. Everyone else: stop wasting cash.
The hourly rate for a competent private investigator in Monterey County – the kind of guy a company might hire to run background checks – is about $125 an hour. The average hourly rate for ...
We have noble heroes, but my favorites are obnoxious.
Looking at the Weekly’s list of Local Heroes for 2011 is a humbling experience. A woman who teaches children to become micro-entrepreneurs, and in doing so, mentors them through a summer that might otherwise be ...
>Now we know: Marina Coast and Heitzman knew.
Dear Mrs. Collins, I get it. I really, really get it, that letter you wrote to the Monterey County Herald earlier this month in defense of your son, Steve Collins. I know where the urge ...
Mom wants pot. Now how do I send her some?
My 83-year-old mother in Chicago called me about a month ago with what sounded like a simple request. “I need pot,” she said. I thought I heard her correctly. “You need a pot? OK, you ...
An insider riffs on rivalries that haywire Latino influence.
We’ll call her Señorita X, or X for short. She’s an up-and-coming power player in Monterey County politics – educated, professional and forthright. You may have seen her at public meetings; if you have, you ...
Local water has disintegrated into local insanity.
On Friday, two San Francisco Bay Area attorneys who specialize in stupid public official tricks are slated to go in to a room with the Monterey County Board of Supervisors and hand over the results ...
Ted Turner can’t be contained, not even by the Packards.
Ted Turner moves in and out of the auditorium at the Monterey Bay Aquarium flanked by a bevy of security guards, a foursome of earnest, handsome young men wearing suits and earpieces, men who seem ...
Booming Business
As my Chicago Sun-Times pal and veteran columnist Neil Steinberg puts it: two columns for the price of one. One: Ten years ago or so, if you’d said a growing group of people would stop ...
Teachers call for CalSTRS to divest from methyl iodide.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asked for it, and it’s most certainly getting it. In March, the same federal agency that in 2007 approved the controversial soil fumigant methyl iodide decided it would take public ...
Unemployment spikes, while the boss rakes in millions.
A friend who works for Monterey County government describes the atmosphere around his office these days: “Nobody’s making a lot of eye contact right now. There are a lot of whispered conversations. There’s a lot ...
Carmel’s SmartMeter plan will roll out statewide.
Imagine if Apple upgraded the iPhone so that problems would be fixed without needing to report them. Imagine the upgrade let you easily manage your usage so your bill would go down. As a special ...
Farmers to Farr and Issa: The EPA is kind of a pain in the ass.
Mark Murai is understandably irritated with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. And at the most unusual hearing that took place Tuesday in the council chambers at Salinas City hall, he let that frustration fly. Murai ...
CPUC, Supes demand info on Steve Collins desal contract.
In the lexicon of great Monterey County-based financial scandals, what can be said about the Steve Collins desal consulting contract debacle is this: It’s certainly the latest. Lacking the outright public graft of the circa-2007 ...
Narrowcasting enables revolution, humor. Hop aboard.
One of the more bizarre interviews I had during my time as a tech reporter in Silicon Valley involved the co-founder of microblogging service Twitter, though it was more of an e-mail exchange than an ...
Keeping the “community” in community college.
Disclosure: I teach photography at Monterey Peninsula College. MPC is currently facing deep budget cuts to a number of programs, including my own. While the potential loss of my teaching position is certainly mournful, it ...
Cal Am wants to go back on desal ratepayer agreement.
At a time when Cal Am ratepayers deserve clarity, they’re getting a glassful of silt, and it seems they’re being asked to gulp it down all at once. Last week the Weekly reported Wedbush Securities, ...
Breaking down what makes the best, the best.
In some people, the best can bring out the worst. We’re not naming names, but consider the experience one staffer had while discussing this year’s “Best of Monterey County” with his own mother during a ...
The Diocese of Monterey mess gets messier.
Sometime soon – perhaps by the end of the month – attorneys for a 21-year-old man who says he was sexually assaulted by a Catholic priest as a teenager at Salinas’ Madonna del Sasso church ...
Killing the Workforce Investment Act budget suicidal.
The newly elected majority of the House of Representatives passed their budget bill, HR1, two weeks ago. It has been temporarily shelved while the leadership works until March 18 to avoid the government shutdown that ...
Monning floats a beverage tax as diabetes rates soar.
The “Sweet Surprise” website features a photo series of impish, multi-cultural children. There’s the adorable Asian girl, sitting in front of a short stack of pancakes drizzled with syrup and dotted with berries. The freckle-faced ...
A Catholic priest scandal in Salinas opens old wounds.
I grew up on the South Side of Chicago in a neighborhood so Catholic that I don’t recall knowing anyone who wasn’t until I was well into my teens. My neighbors were Polish-Catholic, Irish-Catholic, Lithuanian-Catholic, ...
Special envoy speaks at MIIS, lessons may fit the county.
James Dobbins has been sent by U.S. presidents to some of the most dangerous places in the world. Under Bill Clinton, Dobbins was special envoy for Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo. Under George Bush, and ...
Medical users face persecution from local law enforcement.
As an attorney who has been defending medical marijuana patients in Monterey County for 15 years, I was extremely surprised to read the article here two weeks ago describing local law enforcement as “thoughtful, forward ...
Salinas crime is down, but so are crimefighters.
There’s good news and bad news in Salinas. The 100th anniversary of the California Rodeo Salinas, celebrated in our cover package this week, is an annual event that combines rowdy fun with badly needed revenue ...
Questions and solutions for the regional water plan.
Alot of people on the Monterey Peninsula know a lot about the proposed Regional Desalination Project. The Public Participation Hearings held last week by the California Public Utilities Commission proved this beyond doubt. People from ...
Sacramento stalls while anger boils.
So I was sitting in the optician’s office, innocently waiting my turn, when a middle-aged guy came flying in, obviously out of sorts. Without my asking what the problem was, he volunteered that he was ...
Tough choices in mayoral, City Council races.
We wish Carmel voters had a different set of candidates in the mayoral election on April 13. Mayor Sue McCloud deserves credit for financial stewardship (the city is now sitting on more than $10 million ...
P.G. market ruckus symbolizes civic wrong turns.
Taken by itself, the decision by the Pacific Grove City Council to change the time and place of the farmers market might seem like just another action item in the humdrum routine of local government. ...
The national cold spell goes beyond the weather report.
It’s been one of those rare cultural and political moments when seemingly unrelated events come together to capture a cultural mood. The release of the movie Up in the Air, starring George Clooney as a ...
Taking healthy first steps to getting our house in order.
Amidst the generally lousy frame of mind most people are in these days about the state of the economy, and of the planet, it was interesting to note the collective response to major events that ...
Two steps in the right direction for environmental change.
The international climate talks in Copenhagen are certain to generate headlines, heated rhetoric, and finger pointing. Developing countries will say the historical problems originated with developed countries. Developed countries will point out that most of ...
Hoping for a better future in Salinas.
It had been a long day, beginning with a crack-of-dawn speech to the Salinas/Monterey Community Alliance for Safety and Peace, followed by day-long meetings with the mayor and chief, local academics and a two-hour training ...
A step forward on health care, a step back in Salinas.
Well, it could have been worse. After another depressing round of lousy unemployment statistics, and local elections in which most of those bothering to show up voted their fears, not their dreams, the Obama administration ...
Anti-feminist argument is a dumbed-down debate.
Am I happy? What a stupid question. Do you mean happy as in content? Joyful? Hopeful? Relieved? Counting my blessings? Intent on absorbing work? Depending on your definition – and when you ask me, and ...
Requiem for a (TV) heavyweight.
This week’s 60 Minutes was entirely devoted to recounting the contributions of its founding producer, Don Hewitt, who died Aug. 19 at 86. The eulogies for Hewitt, a hard-charging, larger-than-life character who created the shape ...
Cal budget crisis stems from simple arithmetic.
One of the things reporters tend not to do is tell their readers the important facts about government budgets. Maybe it’s because they think readers’ eyes will glaze over when they read about billions of ...
Solar/renewable energy age will dawn – if we act now.
Thirty years ago I worked for Solar Access of Santa Cruz, a business that designed and installed residential solar systems. With the dauntless vision of youth, I anticipated most buildings in the Golden State powered ...
Let’s print the news—not cover it up.
Two recent local stories have raised questions about the bounds of acceptable journalistic discourse, questions we think about every day and that evoke surprisingly strong passions in readers – not to mention the people we’re ...
The recession may help stop our activity addictions.
“Faster, faster, faster til the love of speed overcomes the fear of death.” That quote, from Hunter Thompson, seems to have been the motto of the last decade. Globalization, together with new technology, made everything ...
Think globally, act locally – and rapidly.
Monterey County recently celebrated the 39th anniversary of Earth Day with a Sustainable Cities Symposium. It was a chance to look back at the great progress the U.S. has made since 1970. In the past ...
Dueling belief systems won’t be resolved on May 19.
What is the May 19 Special Election really all about? Power. While television ads, political mailings and news coverage of the state’s seemingly never-ending budget battles would lead a person to believe that the election ...
Sustaining faith in the face of the global environmental crisis.
The Unity Church in Monterey wanted to save money, as all organizations do these days. And they wanted to “walk their talk,” to embody their spiritual teachings that God cares about all of creation and ...
Carmel Valley’s historic tree row threatened again.
Alarge banner with the message, “Spare These Trees,” went up last week along a fence at the intersection of Boronda and Carmel Valley roads. The message reflects the sense of outrage many area residents feel ...
Remember the greediest - and make sure they get theirs.
My husband and I were engaged in our usual dinner table rant about politics and the economy. Having made the mistake of opening my latest retirement statement and seeing that I, like millions, will now ...
Wal-Mart critics have a point, but Salinas needs the business.
The Salinas City Council recently passed a so-called big box ordinance. I respect my colleagues on the council and from time to time we disagree on critical issues.This is one of these times. The City ...
An old school editor who was young at heart.
There’s a funeral in Los Angeles on Friday. I wish I could be there, but duty calls. I’d like to think my old boss Jim Bellows would understand. A newspaperman to his core, Jim died ...
Legislators are bailing on California’s fiscal crisis.
Rain was falling outside the Embassy Suites last Friday morning, but there was a warm glow inside the main conference area, where AMBAG, The Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments (AMBAG), was hosting its 15th ...
Bread lines and bad times in the auto industry.
It’s easy to get pissed off at the Big Three automakers. For years they refused to see what was coming, insisting on making cars that were unsafe, environmentally unsound and unpopular with customers, getting their ...
Remembrance of past crisises – and accomplishments.
The old Chinese proverb, “May you live in interesting times,” has certainly been true of my six years in state government.Much has happened during my time in Sacramento – here’s a look back. In December ...
Building an economic stimulus package from the ground up.
This is not a joke: One of the ideas being debated in Congress this week as a remedy for the current economic crisis is for the federal treasury to lend $25B to the auto industry. ...
A new administration demands a new policy.
The ocean covers nearly three-quarters of Earth’s surface. Its 139 million square miles of water make up about 97 percent of the world’s supply. Our coastal regions are invaluable to the health of the nation. ...
Time is on Obama’s side – and ours.
We are bearing witness to history– all of us. The election of Barack Obama is a remarkable milestone not just for what it says about who we are, but about who we no longer want ...
As V.P. nominee, the senator brings foreign policy muscle.
And the winner is: Joe Biden. It did not take a newfangled text message, just an old-fashioned leak, to identify Barack Obama’s running mate. Word of the Biden selection spread late Friday night, barely 12 ...
Ice cream social yields more than a tasty dessert.
I found the flier tucked under the welcome mat at my front door. “Dear Neighbors– You’re invited to the party of the year. Our very own neighborhood ice cream block party, celebrating good neighbors, good ...
If Obama doesn’t talk about race, then who will?
Myron Wyckoff of Carmel Valley is troubled by the turn the presidential contest took last week. The retired Army sergeant first class was referring to assertions by John McCain’s campaign that Barack Obama played the ...
After 10 years, Thompson gives up poetry classic’s reins.
Poetry is thankless. It’s completely unmarketable. It’s the most punk of all art forms. It’s a world made up of almost no capital and 100 percent soul. Most people are never going to get paid ...
County food bank sees less food, more people who need it.
Last week, the New York Times ran a photo of dozens of people scavenging for food in a dump in Haiti. A dump. Starving people there have rioted, burned tires and forced the ouster of ...
Let’s Hear It
Fill out the
Maybe it’s this new aftershave I’ve been wearing. Lately I’ve been attracting all these know-it-alls who feel compelled to tell me how to run a newspaper. Last week I’m sitting in a restaurant and the ...
Primary Disasters
The rush to jump the presidential primary queue.
>>THELOCALSPINWith less than five months to go before California’s presidential primaries, the final calendar for primaries across the country is still being contested, and Republican legislatures in Florida and Michigan are in revolt. Both states ...
Tough Medicine
Healing our health care starts with a discussion of racism.
>>LOCALSPIN Current studies confirm that, while there have been overall advances in health care, racial/ethnic disparities remain. Recently, the Monterey County Herald reported that blacks “are more likely to die from chronic disease and… are ...
No. No. No. No.
Voters to leaders: Give us something better.
>>THELOCALSPINI got a phone call last month from a reader who wanted to talk to me about the general plan vote and a piece I’d written about it in this space. The column that inspired ...
Compromise Now
We can’t wait for a perfect immigration reform bill.
>>THELOCALSPINIt’s one of the basic facts of life: To get what we want, we need to be willing to give something. It’s a lesson we are supposed to learn when we are very young, but ...
Numbed by War
The pain that crippled one Marine cripples all of us.
>>THELOCALSPINAdrian Jimenez accepts his cruel fate with a shrug. Reading his story, that is what’s most troubling. At 22, he is too world-weary to feel even a little bit sorry for himself. It’s as if ...
Solar Future Now
Saving the world, one rooftop at a time.
>>THELOCALSPINI am amazed to find myself sitting in a solar-powered office, composing this column on a solar-powered computer. Maybe I’m being naïve, but I can’t get over it. From where I sit, it seems like ...
Big Small Steps
We can’t fix China, but we can do something.
>>THELOCALSPINThe smoggiest city in the world is a place few Americans have ever heard of. According to an informal poll—conducted over the past five minutes here in the offices of the Weekly—seven out of eight ...
Paradise Abandoned
The closing of Fort Ord created a land of opportunity—for a lucky few.
>>THELOCALSPIN Among the thousands of bicycle enthusiasts here for the Sea Otter Classic this weekend, there will be hundreds of mountain-bikers swarming the hills around Laguna Seca, riding a course that wanders through what used ...
Revolution, Inc.
Can big business help change the world?
>>THELOCALSPIN It was only half a lifetime ago that many young Americans hoped for something like a revolution. It was not impossible, back then, to imagine that a profound change could happen, that a myriad ...
A New Biodiesel Car and Old Big Trees
A report from a successful road trip to the redwoods.
>>THELOCALSPINThe road trip was not all about burning the biodiesel efficiently. That was not the main reason we decided to drive to Arcata last weekend. We have talked about going up to Humboldt County for ...
Fear of Nations
Learning to love America in Kosovo.
>>LOCALSPINI do not expect that many readers reacted with shock to the news from The Hague this week that the World Court has acquitted Serbia on charges of genocide against Bosnia. The atrocities that were ...
We Should Not Kill
A national conference considers legalistic details of the death penalty. The larger debate remains unheard.
>>THELOCALSPINWillie Williams spent 22 years, half of his life, on Death Row in a Georgia prison. Three weeks ago, on Jan. 23, he was released after DNA evidence proved beyond a doubt that he did ...
The Roots of Change
To make a better world, we have to be able to imagine it.
I came across this quote the other day: “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for ...
Post-Party Politics
California shows the way to a bipartisan future.
>>THELOCALSPIN Arnold Schwarzenegger waxed boldly optimistic during his State of the State address Tuesday night, painting the future in bright tones and proclaiming the greatness of California and its people. That is in keeping with ...
Good, Bad and Ugly
The top ten local stories of a (mostly) weird year.
>>THELOCALSPIN10. GOOD: GLOBAL WARMING DISCOVERED—BIODIESEL COMES TO SOUTH COUNTY. Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth premieres in Monterey at a Weekly-sponsored event, featuring a panel of local scientists who are even smarter on this topic than ...
