MORE PENINSULA BUDGETS SINK… Last week on www.montereycountyweekly.com, we reported the cities of Seaside and Pacific Grove have joined the growing list of local jurisdictions whose budgets are getting redder by the month. As Seaside’s projected gap grew from $3.1 million to $3.7 million (about 16 percent of the general fund) between December and March, non-safety staff took 10 percent pay cuts and furloughs, and cops and firefighters deferred raises for a year. In P.G., two years of dramatic cost-cutting measures have not prevented a $1.3 million shortfall for 2009-10. Residents can expect more service reductions and fee increases. [KA]

PAY DAY… The Salinas Police Officers Association March 18 narrowly voted against taking a pay cut to help the city balance its budget. The police union, by a margin of 50-47, rejected the city’s offer to forgo a 5-percent pay raise scheduled for next month, and take a 2.5-percent pay cut, with the option of paying the same amount into their health insurance policy. The officers’ move could derail the city’s strategy to plug a $12.6 million budget gap next fiscal year and a $16.2 million deficit in 2010-11. Without employee concessions from all groups, more than 100 people could be laid off. [ZS]

DAM BUREAUCRACY… The president of the Carmel River Watershed Conservancy has asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to direct state agencies to deny California American Water Company’s San Clemente Dam buttressing proposal, in hopes of reviving the scuttled dam removal project. As the Weekly has reported, Cal-Am ditched the $84 million dam removal effort because the state wouldn’t accept liability. But the national fisheries service has indicated that buttressing could imperil already threatened steelhead. [KA]

BRIDGE TO SOMEWHERE… Nine months after the blaze, Big Sur businesses are still damp. Low tourist numbers are partly due to widespread fears of imminent mudslides that, despite expert warnings, haven’t happened yet. But luckily Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park may gets its new bridge, thanks to lobbying by Big Sur crusaders including Jack Ellwanger and Stan Russell. The bridge to the park’s popular campground was removed last fall in response to mudslide danger, and the $2-plus million reconstruction was halted over the winter when the state froze payments to bond-funded projects. Locals are optimistic the state will restore the bridge project funds. [KA]