Stale and Uneasy 


All cities should sit up and take notice (“Fresh & Easy Abandons Peninsula Sites,” Fresh Squid newsletter, Aug. 13). These corporations are not motivated by caring about the residents of cities or our quality of life or infrastructure or traffic or water problems. That is the job of our elected representatives and executive staff. Investors’ only motivation is to extract profit. Shame on the foolish City of Monterey manager for not investigating the company adequately, and for not insisting on building on the boarded up parcel on Fremont (in Seaside) before agreeing to Fresh & Easy’s desire to tear down a business on a street already too crowded for more auto-centric businesses.


I happened to be at Monterey City Council on the evening Fresh & Easy made their glowing promises to the city. I felt like shouting, “The emperor has no clothes.” Now Monterey has a pile of gravel and a destroyed ’40s-era building, and the loss of a family-oriented, family-owned business.


Witness also the cold-hearted anti-labor games played by Marina Cypress Knolls senior project developer. They are hoping to turn up the heat on council to scrap the city’s wage language.


What Monterey Peninsula residents want and need in the long run should be at the forefront of good city management, with thorough fiscal investigation of any company or group wanting to do such projects.


Hear me Felix B.? A simple Google search on Brian Boudreau should be warning enough to run away from this horse race lobbyist’s idiotic proposal for a racetrack and gambling operation. You all owe it to your constituents to exhibit common sense, exercise your fiduciary responsibility, and stop being motivated by pie-in-the-sky promises and greed or we all lose. - Maenad | via Web


Need a Hero


I have to say, being that I’m the Hero focus customer – you know, chained to a desk, starving, can’t use both hands for utensils – maybe I’m a little too biased in his favor to offer a balanced review, but this man has literally saved my colleagues (“Rescue on a roll: Hero Sandwiches saves the day for busy breadwinners with inventive creations,” Aug. 9-15). Honestly. If he had not shown up with a menu and a sandwich, I may have eaten my receptionist.


I am a veteran of the delivered lunch. I used to order from people JUST BECAUSE they delivered, and whatever they had would fit in my mouth. Imagine my surprise when I order from Hero and get this gorgeous and delicious lunch. I ask him how much I owed for this miracle and he says with a stony-faced professionalism “$5.00.” I waited for the punch line and it never came. Even tipping him, my lunch was under $10.00. I asked him how much he charged for delivery, and he looked at me as though he was waiting for MY punch line.


I can’t say enough good things about David, his food, or the prices. Maybe all you need to know is that you won’t be disappointed. - Mikazuki | via Web


(Editor’s Note: Please, for the love of God, don’t flesh chomp the receptionist.)


Save Dave


Your swipe at Dave Potter over access to him is really off the mark (“Squid Fry,” Aug. 2-8). He has always been accessible to people; whether they agree with him or not. I know this from years of personal experience and talking to others. - Ken Ekelund | via Web


Thanks to Tomorrow


Tom Tomorrow’s “This Modern World,” is the print media’s answer to Jon Stewart and The Daily Show. Often edgy, occasionally grasping, and then sometimes… he just hits ’em out of the park! Like the Aug. 9 installment for example, “Experts Agree: Nothing Can Be Done.” Whether it’s guns or global warming, Wall Street malfeasance or the one percenters, it does indeed feel that average folks are completely stymied by “Big Everything” to change anything. And yet… by naming the despair so incisively, Tomorrow miraculously creates a glimmer of hope. Thanks to The Weekly for faithfully publishing a therapeutic salve for this modern world. - Michael Baer | via Web


Duck and Cover


A recent local newspaper article on foie gras was informative, but also brought to light the responsibilities of a civilized, caring Christian society and its moral obligation of kindness and humane treatment of our farm and recreational animals. A photo companion of the article featured an overweight middle-aged woman dining in a plush S.F. Presidio social club, a connoisseur no doubt of expensive gourmet foods. 


She was being elegantly served a platter of foie gras by a nattily dressed waiter. The article stated that with great delight she commented she had waited three weeks for the opportunity to savor this very special delicacy.


Did she know or realize her dining experience violates a new California law? I would suspect a majority of California voters would support enforcement of this newly established law prohibiting the cruelty of force feeding ducks and geese with tubes to abnormally enlarge their livers required to prepare this specialty dish. But part of the problem seems to be restaurateurs finding loopholes in the law and who continue to serve foie gras because of their customers’ insatiable demand. 


But enjoying a plate of foie gras does not justify cruelty and inhumane force feeding of our feathered friends. A survey would be most interesting to know how many Monterey Peninsula restaurants offer foie gras on their menus. - Jim Willoughby | Pacific Grove


(Editor’s Note: The Presidio of San Francisco, as a federal institution, is exempt from the state law referenced above.)


Drilling Down


There are no words to express my disappointment. All of my research into fracking spells disaster.


Oil companies inject hundreds of thousands of gallons (or more) of hazardous chemicals into the ground when fracking a well, sometimes without reclaiming a drop. One small company I know of is forced to make a $5000 deposit to Alameda County Department of Environmental Health because they spilled about one gallon of air compressor oil onto the ground and didn’t clean it up, hence the spill must be remediated with oversight from the county. Gathered from what I have read, there is no remediation with oversight for fracking, none. By my calculations, or should I say Alameda County’s, each well drilled should require a deposit of about $5 billion. I vote for Alameda County to oversee all fracking everywhere.


The long term effects of fracking remain generally unknown. Please, do what you can to put a stop to this madness. I fear more is at stake than we know. - irkshnoitz | vita Web