Marina Coast Files $20 Million Claim Against the County
Marina Coast Water District isn't going away without a fight. The district filed a claim Friday against the Monterey County Board of Supervisors and the Water Resources Agency, alleging their former Regional Water Project Partners may owe them more than $20 million. The claim tells a story not unlike the ...
Alisal Union School District Employee Wanted For Child Molestation
An Alisal Union School District tutor is wanted for alleged child molestation involving an 14-year-old student. On June 25, Salinas Police started investigating the case involving Hector Ortega Zermeno and a seventh-grader at La Paz Middle School. Zermeno, 29, tutored the girl starting when she was in sixth grade at ...
BREAKING VIDEO: State Budget Keeps California State Parks Open
All state parks, even those that had not been spared with last-minute partnerships, will remain open—at least for now.
SCOTUS Upholds Affordable Care Act; State Moves to Increase Capacity for Newly Insured
"Obamacare" might not have lost its negative connotation as an epithet today, but the Supreme Court of the U.S. voted 5-4 Thursday morning to uphold the controversial individual mandate that came as part of President Barack Obama's major health care reform package. "I’m thrilled," says Assemblyman Bill Monning, D-Carmel, who ...
Grocery Outlet Planned for Seaside City Center
Seaside’s plan to bring a supermarket to the City Center Shopping Center has been more than four years in the making. Those efforts are finally bearing fruit: Grocery Outlet, the nationally branded supermarket, is finalizing plans for a Seaside franchise, according to City Center developer Patrick Orosco of The Orosco ...
At Last…California Has A 2012-13 Budget
Gov. Jerry Brown signed a deficit-closing budget just in time for the start of the 2012-13 fiscal year.
Transportation Agency Takes First Steps Toward Tolling Highway 156
Highway engineers, county transportation planners and hospitality industry leaders have long been in agreement that Highway 156 is in need of major upgrades. The two-lane road that forms the Peninsula's only narrow artery to Highway 1 northbound is often clogged on Sunday evenings as tourists depart en masse. The proposed ...
Salinas Developers Indicted for Bank Fraud
Three developers have been indicted by a federal grand jury for a scam to sell Salinas homes at inflated prices to unqualified buyers. Muhammad Safadi of Los Gatos and his nephew Scott Safadi of Saratoga Springs were arrested Tuesday. Fremont-based Raquel Ramirez, the broker and owner of Salinas-based Mission Homes ...
Regional Park District, Big Sur Land Trust Partner to Keep Garrapata State Park Open
Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District's board agreed to step up to keep Garrapata State Park open, with a labor assist from Big Sur Land Trust.
Wine Grape Values Fall to Lowest Since 1996
It's not all green in the Salad Bowl of America. Agriculture, Monterey County's leading industry, was down by nearly 4 percent last year, according to the annual crop report released Tuesday by Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner Eric Lauritzen. The report calculated a total crop value of about $3.85 billion last ...
Monterey County To Take Cal Am to Court over Desal Proposal
Once they were partners in a desalination proposal to supply the Peninsula with water. Now Monterey County and California American Water find themselves as opponents in a legal battle over a new desal proposal, as state regulators' clocks tick toward a 2017 deadline for Cal Am to stop over-pumping of ...
HCA Drops Bid to Buy Salinas Valley Memorial; Natividad is Last Prospective Partner Standing
The two potential private partners for Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital have dropped out of the running. That leaves the financially struggling hospital with one prospective partner: county safety net Natividad Medical Center. The nation's largest private hospital company, HCA, backed out with less than two weeks to SVMH's deadline for ...
State Considers Regulating Fracking, Officials Come to Salinas
The oil and gas industry's dearly held practice of keeping much information, including the contents of fluids used in hydraulic fracturing, to itself, may be coming to an end on certain federal lands. State and federal officials are collecting reams of public input to decide how, and whether, to regulate ...
Possible Clostridium Botulinum in Carrot Juice
The manufacturer of Liquid Gold Carrot Juice has issued a recall on the product due to potential Clostridium botulinum contamination. Healthy Choice Island Blends is recalling all products with UPC Code 7-63213-00130 and advise consumers to return or dispose of all gallon, half-gallon and quart size containers of the carrot ...
Pebble Beach Buildout Receives Final Approval
You'll see new homes, a hotel and equestrian center going up at Pebble Beach over the next 20 years as part of a development proposal 25 years in the making. What you won't see are 18 recommended units of affordable housing, for which Pebble Beach Company agreed to pay up ...
SVMH Leads, CHOMP Lags in Patient Safety Report
Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital is the safest major hospital in Monterey County, according to a new analysis released by The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit coalition aimed at improving hospital quality. Leapfrog reports that more than 400 people die every day in the U.S. because of a preventable hospital error. Leapfrog's ...
State PUC Approves San Clemente Dam Removal
This morning, the California Public Utilities Commission approved the San Clemente Dam removal project—siding with California American Water on a contentious detail about who bears the costs. The PUC, by a 4-1 vote, sanctioned Commissioner Catherine Sandoval's proposed alternative decision to let Cal Am recover more than a decade of ...
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden Woos Carmel
The Sunset Center was just about packed, and spirits were high this morning as U.S. Vice President Joe Biden dropped into Carmel-by-the-Sea for a fundraising rally in the 2012 presidential campaign. (The screen's backlight washes him out, but that's Biden at the podium, above, with Carmel Mayor Jason Burnett on ...
Monterey Peninsula Water Fee Passes
Monterey Peninsula Water Management District is breathing easier now that it's secured a major piece of its future funding. About one-third of the district’s 30,509 water users protested a proposed annual fee, MPWMD announced today, but it would have taken half to defeat it. So the fee looks like it ...
UPDATED: 18 Salinas Valley State Prison Inmates Injured in Riot
Eighteen Salinas Valley State Prison inmates suffered stab wounds or head trauma after a riot broke out Tuesday morning on the prison yard. A preliminary prison investigation showed 69 inmates were involved in the riot, which left one severely injured man airlifted to a hospital, 10 others hospital-bound by ambulance ...
LULAC and La Raza Lawyers Association Honor Crecencio Padilla
The breadth of the lineup scheduled to present Tuesday at an event honoring Crecencio Padilla is as much a testament Padilla's enduring mark as is the stature of the speakers—they include a judge, a public defender, an honorary consul for the Mexican Embassy, a county supervisor and a Salinas city ...
Changing of the Guard in City of Monterey; City Manager Fred Meurer Retiring
Monterey City Manager has a then-and-now slideshow documenting his big accomplishments in a 26-year career with the city, the last 22 years of those as the city's top staffer. Besides the obvious changes in city leadership and economic conditions since then, he says resident shouldn't lose sight of how dramatically ...
Sanchez Gains a Few Votes in Updated Count, Not Enough to Edge Out Barrera; Greenfield Mayor Still in Limbo
Though the most recent vote count showed Greenfield Mayor John Huerta hanging onto his seat by a thread, he's not resting easy until the County Elections Department certifies this too-close-to-call recall election. The most recent vote count, completed Friday, showed Huerta escaping a recall by just 59 votes. Registrar of ...
Salinas Experiences Homicide, Multiple Shootings Over the Weekend
A gang-related homicide on Friday evening was just the first incident in a spree of violence that rocked Salinas this weekend. Joel Flores Amador, 18, was sitting in his car at 914 Acosta Plaza when two males approached his car and after a brief conversation, Flores was shot multiple times ...
Monterey-Salinas Transit’s New Bus Rapid Transit Line Gets Jazzed
Even the word “jazz,” jay-ay-zee-zee, has movement. Now the sumptuous sounds, grit and swagger of the Monterey Jazz Festival's 55-year archive gains new momentum along Monterey’s first bus rapid transit line, which breaks ground Friday. Monterey-Salinas Transit seeks to put its own spin on faster public transit, tapping Monterey’s jazz ...
Proposed Panoche Valley Solar Farm Heads to Appeals Court
A proposed solar farm on nearly 5,000 rural acres in the quaint Panoche Valley near Hollister is pitting Big Solar against small farmers and wildlife conservationists, as the Weekly reported in early 2010. The legal battle shows no signs of wrapping up soon. The San Benito County Board of Supervisors ...
Carmel City Council Passes Budget, Looks for Fiscal Solutions
Carmel's new city council did a lot of math Tuesday night. They came to unanimous 5-0 decisions on a 1-percent sales tax increase, the annual budget, and a hotel improvement fund. The city's $13.4 million budget for 2012-13 projects a $500,000 shortfall in revenues, leaving a gap expected to double ...
Marina Coast Moves to Annex Cemex Property—The Same Site Cal Am Wants for Desal
The timing could be purely incidental, but when the Marina Coast Water District board acted Tuesday night on a 1996 agreement regarding a coastal parcel currently owned by CEMEX, they raised eyebrows in the water watchdog world. The board voted 4-1 (with Jan Shriner dissenting) to proceed with environmental analysis ...
Voters to Decide on GMO Labeling Initiative: Certified for November Ballot
You might've gotten an informal education on genetically modified foods from one of the activists canvassing grocery stores and farmers markets in recent months, as they've pressed clip boards toward thousands of shoppers. Those canvassers successfully gathered 12,195 signatures in Monterey County, about 2 percent of the total turned over ...
Two Sunday Events Celebrate Big Sur/Carmel Conservation
Sunday, June 10, was one delicious day to be a conservation donor. On the agenda: a gourmet al fresco lunch, featuring a seldom-seen vista of the Carmel coastline, at Big Sur Land Trust's Whisler Wilson Ranch; and afterward, Ventana Wildlife Society's "Feathers in Flight" condor benefit at Holman Ranch. BSLT ...
Dorothy's Place Undertakes Major Fundraising Campaign
Dorothy's Place has so excelled at what it does—provide services to the homeless—that it's tremendous growth leaves the non-profit in a financial lurch. They're looking to raise $48,000 by June 20, or risk cutting back programs and staff. Cash flow generally dries up starting this time of year, as most ...
Updated Elections Results Put Marc Del Piero in the Lead
Days after the thrill of campaigns and election night parties has worn off, County Elections Department staff keep working through the hangover. The semi-official results received their first post-election night update Friday afternoon, and gave challenger Marc Del Piero a slight lead over incumbent Dave Potter. The two will face ...
Career Fair Today for Disabled Veterans
Wounded Warrior Workforce Conference is featuring career fair for wounded veterans taking place today from 1:30- 5pm at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. This is an annual event that is put on by Project HIRED a non-profit organization focused on getting disabled veterans into the workforce.
Pacific Grove Lands Green Grant
The city of Pacific Grove bagged a nearly quarter-million-dollar Urban Greening Grant last week, fueling three projects to further the city's environmental goals. The state's Strategic Growth Council announced the $240,000 award in a May 29 letter to the city manager. The SGC awarded $20.7 million for 50 projects statewide. ...
Fifth Graders Graduate MPUSD's Only Dual-Language Immersion Program
Eleven graduating fifth-graders were awarded medals of recognition Wednesday at George Marshall Elementary School in Seaside for their bilingual abilities. They're the first class to complete Monterey Peninsula Unified School District's only dual-language immersion program, where students receive instruction in English half the time and Spanish the other half. The ...
Carmel Council Passes Plastic Bag Ban
The city of Carmel is poised to join Monterey in banning single-use plastic bags from retail stores. The City Council unanimously approved the ban last night (June 5), despite a May 9 Planning Commission recommendation against the ban. The sticking point at that time was the requirement for a fee ...
Most Incumbents Fare Well; Three Greenfield Recalls Successful
After celebrating their own victories for state office, Santa Cruz County Supervisor Mark Stone and Assemblyman Bill Monning (Assembly and Senate, respectively) joined County Supervisor Jane Parker at Me-n-Ed's Pizza in Seaside to celebrate her victory over challenger Byrl Smith. Met by a cheering crowd, Parker gave a short speech ...
Retiring County Public Health Leader Reflects on H1N1, Childhood Obesity
Monterey County Health Officer Hugh Stallworth is retiring and says his successor's biggest challenge will be addressing childhood obesity and diabetes.
Bill Monning Appointed to State Health Task Force
A newly appointed task force is charged with developing a 10-year plan for major health improvements in California. California Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Diana S. Dooley announced the Let’s Get Healthy California Monday, naming 24 members, whose appointments are approved by Gov. Jerry Brown. Task force members include ...
Kelly McMillin Named as New Salinas Police Chief
Deputy Chief Kelly McMillin will lead the Salinas Police Department starting June 11. "This is the right choice for Salinas," said Mayor Dennis Donohue, who described McMillin as the "hometown favorite."
BREAKING NEWS: Fatal Plane Crash at Salinas Airport
One person is dead following the crash of a single-engine plane on Friday morning. A pilot was taking off from runway eight just before 11am when an unknown error occurred, causing the plane to crash near the edge of the runway. It ignited a fire, says Brett Loomis, Battalion Chief ...
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