It’s Academic 


Bay View Academy will open August 15 (“Bay View Academy charter school finally finds space, and the students to fill it,” June 23-29). BVA has state and county approvals, grants and students, with only a few openings in the 4th and 5th grades. I have watched with awe, appreciation and admiration as these wonderful, hard-working folks have faced seemingly insurmountable odds to create a public charter school for our children. 


Yes, they do have a site across town that will add lots of traffic to an already overburdened Lighthouse/Del Monte corridor. New Monterey is a land-locked neighborhood island encapsulated by the Defense Language Institute, Highway 68, and the Bay. We house 30 percent of Monterey’s population. The quality of life in New Monterey and property values have been greatly enhanced by the presence of children in our midst.


The existing Bay View school site has been a continuously operating school site since 1893. New Monterey children for generations have walked to school – and now they have to be driven to school. 


According to state law, MPUSD must first offer the Bay View school site to the city of Monterey. We urge the City Council to buy the Bay View School site and lease it to Bay View Academy so we can bring our children home. - Barbara Bass Evans | Monterey


Hacking Away


It’s not only kids who should be vaccinated for whooping cough (“Whooping cough cases soar, but experts say a simple vaccine can save the day and lives,” June 23-29). My husband and I came down with it last winter and coughed for more than two months. It never occurred to us that we might pick up a disease that we had only heard of, but never seen. My advice: Make sure your vaccinations are up to date, no matter your age. You don’t want to be responsible for passing a serious (perhaps fatal) illness on to someone more vulnerable. - Maureen Girard | Pacific Grove


Saying No on Styro


There’s a citizen-based effort currently occurring to recognize businesses that have made the switch away from styro, and we need volunteers to be part of it (“Local cities have been slow to enforce their polystyrene bans. So the Weekly invites you to do the job,” June 23-29). The Monterey Chapter of Surfrider Foundation, in partnership with local sustainability groups, is offering compliant restaurants window decals that say “This Establishment is Styrofoam Free for Our Oceans.” Volunteers are making the rounds to restaurants of their choosing and offering the decal. About 20 businesses have already accepted and posted the sticker. We need more volunteers to help us chip away at the long list of restaurants and make this decal highly visible around the county. Please contact Oren for some basic training at orenfrey@gmail.com. - Orenfrey | via Web


Latino Power


Your story on Latino power cites Latinos comprising 72 percent to 94 percent of the population in Salinas and South County (“If it voted en masse, the Latino electorate could change America’s political balance for decades,” June 9-15). The majority can’t rule until they can vote. What percent of those Latinos are actually U.S. citizens with the right to vote? California has created a new obstacle to the right to literacy and voting with the California Budget Act of 2009. This new law gives K-12 school districts with adult schools the flexibility to take money used to fund adult education. Adult schools have been either closing or undergoing drastic reductions all over California. For the last 150 years adult education has been the primary route to literacy, English and citizenship in this country. 


The Salinas Union High School District has managed to keep our adult school open, but we’ve reduced from 60-70 temporary part-time teachers and 34 full-time permanent teachers to only 15 full-time teachers. Next year we won’t be able to serve all the adults in this community, and there is no citizenship class planned for next year for the first time in our 95-year history. What can Republicans and Democrats do to seal the Hispanic political deal? Fund education, and don’t use short-sighted and phony solutions that just rob Peter to pay Paul. Literacy of the parents is the primary factor in school success for the children. - Kathleen Slattery | Salinas