Pipeline Dreams
A single desal plant supplying the greater Monterey Bay area is a long shot.
The Monterey Peninsula and Santa Cruz have more in common than whale sightings and farmers markets. They also have overdrafted groundwater basins vulnerable to seawater intrusion. And they’ve both spent years, and millions of dollars, ...
New Seaside shopping center completes shell, courts tenants.
It took nearly three years, but two-building, 4,010-square-foot Laguna Grande Center between Sonoma and Amador avenues on Seaside’s Canyon Del Rey Boulevard is almost done. Developer Larry Scholink, a Carmel-based realtor, describes the Tuscan-style architecture ...
PG&E offers a SmartMeter opt-out, for a fee.
On Feb. 1, the state Public Utilities Commission approved Pacific Gas & Electric’s proposal to let residential customers reject the wireless SmartMeters being installed across the company’s territory. That same day, PG&E sent letters to ...
RunDown On Runoff
Peninsula cities grapple with a pricey new stormwater regulation.
When it comes to protecting Monterey Bay’s postcard-pretty coast, the stormwater that runs off the streets should be regulated as strictly as sewage. That’s the essence of a March 20 decision by the State Water ...
Stuck in Park
Despite courtship from several cities, MST stalls over its expansion ambitions.
Now that its plans to build a new headquarters at the Whispering Oaks business park are under the proverbial bus, Monterey-Salinas Transit is unsure which route to take. MST’s current facilities are so cramped, the ...
Spring Shredding
Agencies try to figure which records to keep, and which to destroy.
Like successful Facebooking, public record-keeping takes a savvy balance between sharing what’s relevant and too much information. “That’s a very fine line,” Monterey County Assistant County Counsel Les Girard says. “A lot of public entities ...
Home & Garden 2012: Baby, Take Notice
When it’s house versus toddler, making sure the kid wins can take help from a pro.
Gail Root picks an envelope out of the recycling bin and rips off a corner with her teeth. Looking me straight in the eyes, she starts chewing. I get it. The wet wad in her ...
Produce Party
Ambitious new monthly market leverages Sand City’s potential as a center of cool.
“Market” isn’t the most precise word for what’s coming to The Independent, a mixed-use building in Sand City, the first Thursday of every month. But since “experimental convergence of local food, drink, art, music and ...
Fish Fight
City of Monterey, Oceana butt heads over the management of iconic sardines.
The Cannery Row era of Monterey’s sardine industry has passed. But Pacific sardines – along with their fellow wetfish, market squid and anchovies – continue to dominate fish landings at Monterey and Moss Landing harbors. ...
Foreign Exchange
A year after disaster-relief fundraiser, Japan funds finally leave a Pacific Grove bank.
Ryan Zen Lama is doing what he does best: putting together a party. This one, March 29 at the Cannery Row Brewing Company, is the one-year anniversary of his fundraiser for victims of the March ...
French Fry Divide
Pacific Grove re-examines its fast-food ban; residents rally to keep it in place.
As a Pacific Grove councilman in the mid-’90s, Terrence Zito led the charge to adopt the 1995 city ban on “formula fast food,” any quick-stop restaurant with a standardized menu and corporate design. The four ...
Sheep On It
Springtime brings 2,500 woolly weedwhackers to the Fort Ord grasslands.
An ivory-colored wave advances over a grassy hill. The sound of 950 sheep bleating fills this otherwise desolate landscape as ewes and their lambs, separated during their journey by truck from Los Banos to the ...
The Value of Sewage
Peninsula agencies hammering out an agreement on wastewater recycling.
Your household wastewater is more valuable than you may realize, especially in a region facing crunch time in its water-supply crisis. Monterey Peninsula Water Management District has drafted a memorandum of understanding to partner with ...
Mudhen Madness
Feds poison 300 pesky waterfowl at Rancho Cañada Golf Club.
One customer calls them “rats with wings.” Other golfers have complained about the poo on the cart paths and the bald patches on the lawn. So Rancho Cañada had 300 American coots, aka “mudhens,” killed ...
Hole in Won
Pebble compromise earns broad support, but poor people still can’t live there.
After four decades following Pebble Beach Company’s contentious Del Monte Forest local coastal plan, Joyce Stevens of Monterey Pine Forest Watch never thought she’d see this level of consensus. “They did what we asked them ...
Thicker Than Water
Monterey Bay Aquarium stands by its sister aquarium through the disaster.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium and its sister institution, Aquamarine Fukushima, both sit on the 37th parallel, at the smoldering edges of what geologists call the “Ring of Fire.” Active tectonic plates make both aquariums vulnerable ...
No Parking
Four state parks in Monterey County are set to close in July. You’ll probably be able to play there anyway.
Austin Keegan kneels on a tiny footbridge on Garrapata State Park’s Rocky Ridge Trail and replaces a damaged plank with pre-cut lumber from home. “It’s just basic maintenance,” he says. “It needs to be done.” ...
Bridges to Somewhere
Frozen construction at Pfeiffer Big Sur is set to restart this month.
A walk through Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park turns up some odd structures: the rebar-studded foundation of a pay station that was never built; the four concrete abutments of two aborted bridges. They’re starkly institutional ...
Water Wooing
Nader Agha courts Pacific Grove as the potential lead of his desal project.
Local real-estate mogul Nader Agha is certain he’s got an affordable solution for the Monterey Peninsula’s water crisis. But his People’s Moss Landing Water Desalination Project can’t move forward without a public agency to lead ...
Budget Blowback
Seaside Fire Department reorganization could eliminate the chief.
On Feb. 16, the Seaside City Council suffered a major burn. That’s when councilmen learned the state-mandated dissolution of the Seaside Redevelopment Agency will force $880,000 in spending cuts by the end of June. “My ...
A New Acronym for Water Politics
Mayors form Monterey Peninsula Regional Water Authority to tackle supply crisis.
A silence fell over the inaugural meeting of the county’s newest water agency as Monterey Mayor Chuck Della Sala signed the joint powers agreement on Feb. 9. “It’s official,” attorney Russ McGlothlin said as the ...
Fort Ord Defense
Public opposition pushes supes to change course on MST/Whispering Oaks.
Valentine’s Day brought poetry to the County Board of Supervisors. The show of public passion also included entreaties to logic, emotional pleas and angry rants. After hearing from three dozen people adamantly opposed to the ...
Blue Gold
Feds look to the ocean for clean energy as scientists debate wave power potential.
Offshore oil drilling doesn’t stand much of a chance in the protected waters of Monterey Bay. But as the U.S. Department of Energy eyes the sea for renewable energy, local shores are strong contenders. Apart ...
Carmel River Issues Converge
New watershed coordinator brings more than a dozen groups together.
The river that inspired Jack London and Robert Louis Stevenson needs help. “It is a watershed that is on life support and that needs some very large investment,” a half-dozen agencies wrote in a successful ...
Caught in the Middle
Seafood startup hopes to forge a truce between Aquarium and local fishermen.
In a nation where shrimp, salmon and tuna account for more than half the seafood eaten, Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch cards encourage people to expand their palates to more sustainable choices. And in Monterey ...
Mr. Right for Marina?
Conservative Steve Emerson takes on Delgado for mayor.
The election for Marina mayor is nine months away. But the race is full term for Steve Emerson, a financial consultant and president of The Marina Foundation, who kicked off his campaign Jan. 28. By ...
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Local activists head to D.C. to push for Fort Ord National Monument.
With more than 60 public agencies and a dozen-plus citizens’ groups claiming a stake in the former Fort Ord, consensus on how to manage it is as rare as the black legless lizard. So the ...
Freeze Tag
Seaside stalls in the wake of redevelopment ruling.
One of Ray Corpuz’s final acts as Seaside city manager was to issue an immediate spending freeze, impacting all vacant full-time positions – except, apparently, his own. Corpuz, who was out of the office as ...
Water-Supply Polo
Regional Project’s death breathes life into Peninsula mayors’ alternative.
The Regional Desalination Project has absorbed a series of blows since entering the ring in March 2010: public backlash, unmet financial obligations, conflict-of-interest charges, a lost court battle. On Jan. 17, California American Water finally ...
The Mermaid Treatment
Aqua Wellness Day Spa brings a new element to pampering.
Eyes shut, I can’t see the meditating gold frog perched beside the pool. But I can hear my own heart, and the water flowing past my ears, and a low hum from the chest of ...
Swapping Sacramento for Salinas
Pacific Grove Mayor Carmelita Garcia retools her ambitions for higher office.
Hers was one of those candidacies everyone seemed to know about, but few could confirm – until Jan. 17, when Pacific Grove Mayor Carmelita Garcia announced she’s dropping out of the 29th Assembly District race ...
Communication Nation
From niche musings on sandwiches to holistic, holy views of Big Sur, here are some top online voices of the Central Coast.
Weblogs (or, in the vernacular, blogs), launched in the ’90s with a small and dedicated band of geeks, and they’ve never really fallen out of fashion. They’re the modern version of water-cooler chat. Hell, they’re ...
Hoarders’ Rehab
Winter is prime season for de-cluttering.
Aromas-based professional organizer Christy Best has seen hoarding at its worst. She recalls one client in Monterey who slept under her kitchen table because it was the only clear space in the house. That’s a ...
Pacific Grove’s ambitious tree plan makes its long-awaited debut.
The city of Pacific Grove is hoping to put a long battle over its tree policy to rest with a new Urban Forest Management Plan. But the 178-page draft, released in mid-December, might raise as ...
Making Goals
Seaside’s Cutino Park gets a water-wise makeover.
Grass is so 2011. The new trend at city parks is a low-maintenance native landscape. Seaside’s David Cutino Park, a multi-use ball field on Noche Buena Street and San Pablo Avenue, recently made the upgrade ...
Wrong Number
PGUSD attempts damage control on botched AT&T cell tower lease.
The Pacific Grove Unified School District screwed up on a lease allowing a cell phone tower at the P.G. Adult School. Now, PGUSD is asking AT&T to give it a break. Last January, the school ...
Bright Spots
Public schools are finding learning opportunities in solar energy.
B udget cuts and revenue losses are clouding financial forecasts at schools across California. Yet even as classroom sizes balloon and arts programs wither, one capital-intensive trend is making notable gains: solar power. Locally, private ...
Agha’s Empire
Nader Agha’s holdings span Monterey County, but he’s looking to conquer the world.
On a Tuesday afternoon at his Monterey Antique and Gift Center, Nader Agha holds court in a mahogany armchair beside a startled-looking Bulgarian photographer. Two reporters lurk near a $2,400 fairy statue, on deck for ...
Musing the News
Pacific Grove poet explores the intersection between journalism and the arts.
Pacific Grove’s Poet-in-Residence, Dr. Barbara Mossberg, quotes American poet William Carlos Williams to describe her latest fascination: “It is difficult / to get the news from poems / yet men die miserably every day / ...
Trail to Heaven
Big Sur Land Trust’s latest pathway project charms locals, leads to Palo Corona.
Strolling Carmel Valley’s new South Bank Trail on a sunny autumn morning, Eileen Cross recognizes the runner who bounds past with Zen-like focus. “I see her every time,” Cross says. But she’s surprised not to ...
Seaside moves to open access points at Hilby and San Pablo.
The question of whether or not to remove a few roadblocks has been churning through Seaside’s public process for more than a year. Now, it’s close to a resolution. On Dec. 15, after hearing from ...
Pacific Grove Mayor Carmelita Garcia makes a bold bid for state Assembly.
Pacific Grove Mayor Carmelita Garcia makes a bold bid for state Assembly.
Pacific Grove mayor Carmelita Garcia is fed up with Sacramento. So she’s making a play for Sacramento. Garcia launched her candidacy for the 29th state Assembly District on Facebook, as the Weekly reported online Nov. ...
Getting Warmer
Climate change workshop focuses on adapting to the inevitable.
The writing is on the seawall, so to speak: Global warming is happening harder and faster than even the most pessimistic predictions. Worldwide, greenhouse gas emissions were 6 percent higher in 2010 than in 2009 ...
Thinking CAPs
AMBAG helps local cities make sense of climate action plans.
Climate change policy doesn’t move at the speed of an SUV commuting from the suburbs, or even a bulldozer at a development site. It creeps along at the pace of a buffet line at Bayonet ...
Seaside Sprouting
Return of the Natives brings environmental education home.
In 1993, a group of Salinas teachers surveyed their drab campuses and decided they should really look prettier than prisons. When they teamed up with native plant experts at Elkhorn Slough, Moss Landing Marine Labs ...
Desal Déjà Vu
Pajaro Valley water district smells scandal potential with DeepWater Desal.
The conflict-of-interest charges hobbling the Regional Desalination Project are spooking other local agencies in search of a new water supply. Now, Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency is holding a private desal company at arm’s length ...
Jeopardy! cluemaster makes a cameo in a Seaside classroom.
The fifth-graders at Seaside’s Ord Terrace Elementary had a celebrity visitor Nov. 15: Jimmy McGuire, of Jeopardy!’s Clue Crew. Wearing an argyle sweater and a dimpled grin, McGuire led Jennifer Alexander’s class through a game ...
Brower narrowly keeps his seat; candidates sense voter dissatisfaction.
Less than 18 percent of voters turned out for the Nov. 8 election, but those who did signalled a desire for change on the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District board. In Division 4, former P.G. ...
Mobile-Home owners Mobilize
Seaside trailer park residents allege unfair property management.
Residents of Seaside Mobile Estates, complaining of “double standards and alleged double dealings” by their landlords, are hoping the city will back a rent-control ordinance similar to the one Marina adopted last month. Rhonda Somerton, ...
Scrapping for Seawater
Two private desal proposals jostle for a piece of the wounded Regional Desalination Project.
If the Regional Desalination Project is too hobbled by its own drama to move on, there are at least a dozen alternative water supply options to consider. But don’t expect them to be any less ...
