Delta Deception
California’s booming salmon season belies the species’ precarious future
As Monterey County’s own water troubles persist, the Bay Delta’s water battle also rages on – with a species and a local industry that depends on it hanging in the balance. California is currently experiencing ...
Salmon Skeptics
Many anglers doubt the government’s optimistic salmon numbers.
Driving rain, choppy seas and the superstition of Friday the 13th weren’t enough to keep a handful of eager anglers from the Moss Landing harbor. They boarded the sportfishing vessel Kahuna in hopes of hooking ...
Home & Garden 2012: Freeze, Gopher
Why raised beds are paramount to a well-tended – and well-defended – garden.
here’s nothing quite as frustrating as spending hours of diligent work and fists fulls of cash on a humble home vegetable garden, only to see the literal fruits of your labor nibbled, stripped or – ...
Traumatic Arts
Central Coast Center for Independent Living helps victims put a face to traumatic brain injuries.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but some photos do more than share a story. Victims of traumatic brain injuries (TBI) attending a support group at the Central Coast Center For Independent ...
Leading By Example
SPCA’s Take the Lead program trains at-risk kids to train shelter dogs
Whether it’s a small group of middle school students in Salinas or at-risk youth at a probation center, the SPCA for Monterey County has found a way to train dogs while serving young people in ...
Devoid of Dungeness
Standoff over crab price pushes holiday staple off the menu.
While the vast majority of households in the U.S. look forward to a nice turkey this Thanksgiving, many residents of the greater Bay Area anticipate dunking fresh Dungeness crab in melted butter. But this year ...
Turtle Tracking
Feds launch leatherback protections on the Central Coast; conservationists log sightings.
The leatherback turtle is a rare and cryptic animal that has existed, almost unchanged, since before the dinosaurs. A select group of these resilient reptiles travels trans-Pacific every year to spend their late summers munching ...
Cut and Rumble
A local barber uses motorcycles (and metaphors) to help out strangers.
Books like Falling into Grace by Adyashanti and Love by Mother Teresa aren’t usually the type of literary fare one finds in a men’s barber shop. But Fred Reynolds isn’t your average chap with scissors ...
To Air, With Humans
Sean D. Tucker, Canadian Snowbirds lead symphony of aerobatics at International Airshow Salinas.
Normally International Airshow Salinas organizers like it when stunt planes lead the news. Not this time. On the heels of the fatal crash that killed 10 at the Reno Air Races a week before its ...
Trawlers’ Tribute
Long-time local fishing family hopes to memorialize those lost at sea.
Having stuffed the hold of his 50-foot trawler, Relentless, with Dover sole, David “Rowdy” Pennisi, 43, and crew member Michael Odom headed to San Francisco in the early hours of June 21, 2004 to offload ...
One reporter investigates rumors regarding more than a massage.
Tucked back in a fairly quaint and non-descript little strip-mall in Salinas is a well-advertised Asian massage parlor that, from its ads, suggests beautiful women are at the ready to help release the stresses of ...
Slipping Containers
On Feb. 25, 2004, the container vessel Med Taipei headed south through 30-foot swells on its way from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Rolling violently, the freighter lost 15 containers inside the Monterey Bay National ...
Marina mariner detained in Greece after setting out on humanitarian mission to Gaza.
After spending four nights in a foreign prison and appearing for a baffling legal proceeding, local mariner John Klusmire is back home in Marina with a better understanding of the term “It’s all Greek to ...
Local Heroes 2011 - John Pearse
Because protecting the tiniest of ocean creatures is the work of a lifetime.
Following in the wading boot impressions of local marine biologists like Julia Platt and Ed Ricketts, Dr. John Pearse is a humble hero with simple goals: Keep an eye on our oceans, and get kids ...
Flag For a Fallen Uncle
As Flag Day nears, a young Pagrovian keeps his tribute to his late soldier hero flying.
On a cloudy morning in Pacific Grove, three fifth-grade boys, one holding a carefully folded American flag, make their way out of a Monterey Charter School classroom and head for the pole in front of ...
League of Women Voters forum centers on shared services trend.
From the cash-strapped boroughs of New Jersey to the budget-squeezed Bay Area cities, the topic of consolidating services is one that, according to League of Women Voters board member Linda Agerbak, “comes [with] uncertainty… But ...
Hot Wheels
The smokingest sport in town, roller derby, readies for a fast-moving rematch in Marina.
Torn stockings, heavy makeup, leopard print undergarments and colorful tattoos blur by. The smacking of polyeurathane wheels echoes off the curving, crosshatched roof. A sell-out crowd pours in from the damp night and fills bleachers ...
Crash Course
Panetta Institute discusses future of California’s public education.
For a high school graduate, being accepted into college is an exciting accomplishment, but California State University Chancellor Charles Reed says, “It’s not only getting students in, it’s getting students to graduate.” With the state’s ...
