Number of Homeless Students in Monterey County Skyrocketing
The number of homeless schoolchildren in Monterey County leapt last school year, and is nearly six times higher than a count five years earlier. New figures show that in the 2011/2012 school year there were 5,144 homeless students in Monterey County, says Cheryl Camany, homeless liaison for the Salinas City ...
Marina Coast Water District's Last Hurrah: Salary Increases
Marina Coast Water District President Dan Burns, who lost his bid for re-election on Nov. 6, called one last special meeting with a long agenda of labor agreements—then didn't show up Friday morning for the meeting he requested. The board voted 3-1, with Jan Shriner, the usual odd voter out, ...
Otter Project Sues State Water Board Over Ag Waiver Delay
Especially after this weekend's rain, the Salinas River is running much faster than the plodding regulatory process intended to clean up the watershed. New rules, approved in March by the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board after years of deliberations, would require the largest growers and worst polluters in ...
Big Sur Adopts Anonymous Bully Reporting System
This fall, the Big Sur School District implemented an anonymous, anti-bullying reporting system called Sprigeo. Sprigeo provides an online platform for bully prevention for $295 per year. Victims, parents and bystanders can log on and anonymously report bullying directly to their school’s principal. The principal is then free to verify ...
Planning Commission Reapproves Mucky Duck's Tight Leash, For Now
Time at the Mucky Duck can be measured in the number of live shows, beers consumed, or crime reports made. When the Monterey Planning Commission considered the Alvarado Street establishment's restricted hours for a six-month review Tuesday night, they looked at these stats: Since May 2012, police calls associated with ...
Gov. Brown Appoints Judge Adrienne Grover to Court of Appeal
Monterey County Superior Court Judge Adrienne Grover is shedding her title as "judge" for "justice." Gov. Jerry Brown announced Thursday he is appointing Grover as associate justice of the Sixth District Court of Appeal, which handles cases for Santa Clara, San Benito, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. She fills a ...
Election Results Final; Nothing Changes
But the final official vote count, released by the Monterey County Elections Department last night, shows no local election results have changed since the Nov. 7 semi-official report.
Rain and Strong Winds Expected Through Weekend
A series of storms starting Wednesday morning is expected to bring significant rain and damaging winds, according to the National Weather Service. A gale warning will be in effect Wednesday morning for southerly winds of 45 to 55 mph, with gusts up to 70 mph possible along the coast and ...
Navy Axes NPS Top Brass After Investigation Reveals Culture of Rule-Breaking
The two top leaders of Monterey's prestigious Naval Postgraduate School are stepping down after a months-long Navy investigation showed they flouted rules and failed to comply with certain Navy regulations. NPS President Dan Oliver and Provost Leonard Ferrari were fired by U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, according to a Navy ...
XL Grindhouse Owners Plead Not Guilty to Attempted Murder
The owners of an Oldtown Salinas bar and restaurant, accused of beating a homeless man so severely he remains hospitalized a month after the attack, stood silently in court today as their attorneys stated their pleas: not guilty. The brothers, 43-year-old Robert (pictured above left) DeLeon and 32-year-old James (pictured ...
San Mateo County Supervisor Appointed to Coastal Commission
The Central Coast's representation on the California Coastal Commission has inched northward yet again: San Mateo County Supervisor Carole Groom was appointed today to fill outgoing Santa Cruz County Supervisor Mark Stone's vacancy. Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, D-Los Angeles, appointed Groom after reviewing nine nominees from three counties. The ...
Pebble Beach Hosts Charity Tournament in Honor of Golf Great Seve Ballesteros
The Seve Ballesteros Foundation looks to Pebble Beach to raise money for the former golf legend’s brain cancer research charity.
Shopping Loca: Black Friday on the Monterey Peninsula
Daniel Vazquez is a veteran of Black Friday shopping. For the last 10 years, the Seaside resident has camped out nights before the biggest shopping day of the year to get great deals on electronics. On Thursday evening, he had only three hours longer to wait until midnight when Best ...
Marina Coast Attorney Fees for 2012 Top $700,000
If lawyers are sharks, then Marina Coast Water District is one fearless surfer. The district has been thick with contract law firms this year, hiring at least eight since January 2012—and rotating through three different attorneys in the role of general counsel. A public records request made by the Weekly ...
Burn, Baby, Burn: Backyard Fire Permits Launch this Winter
On a clear day in the winter from the Salinas Valley, you might see several tufts of smoke curling upward from backyard burns in the surrounding hills, where landowners have taken a match to some mix of grass and tree clippings. For the first time, when burn season begins on ...
Salinas’ XL Grindhouse Owners Charged with Attempted Murder
The owners of an Oldtown Salinas burger joint have been charged with attempted murder in connection with the alleged beating of a homeless man who regularly loitered outside their restaurant. Robert DeLeon, 43, and 32-year-old James DeLeon were booked into Monterey County Jail on one count of attempted murder related ...
UPDATED: The Quiet, Official End of Methyl Iodide in the U.S.
The regulatory nail in the coffin of the controversial fumigant methyl iodide came quietly today, with a notice in the Nov. 21 Federal Register that manufacturer Arysta LifeScience is asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to cancel its registration for methyl iodide. The notice comes eight months after Tokyo-based Arysta ...
Marina Coast Majority Rides the Lame Duck Wave
If the Marina Coast Board of Directors seemed confused about its own policies and procedures at a board meeting Tuesday night, they're not entirely to blame. Here's a sampling of an instructional memo interim legal counsel Roger Masuda prepared for this Kafkaesque meeting: "If the vote is to reconsider the ...
Audit Finds FORA Expense Reimbursements Mostly Legit
An audit of the Fort Ord Reuse Authority's employee expense reimbursements came up relatively clean, FORA announced today. RGL Forensics conducted the audit, which is posted to FORA's website. The FORA board ordered the audit after Keep Fort Ord Wild, a conservation group represented by the Monterey-based Law Offices of ...
Updated Vote Counts Show Early Margins Holding
What doesn't change stays the same, and that's about how it went with a week to count tens of thousands of absentee and provisional ballots over at Monterey County Elections. Updated vote counts released Friday night showed the closest margins in key Peninsula races—the District 5 county supervisor race between ...
Coastal Commission Rejects PG&E's Seismic Study Proposal
For a few months, there were rumblings—not like earthquake shaking, but chatter among environmental activists—about the potential damage Pacific Gas & Electric's proposed offshore seismic testing could have on sea life near Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. The California Coastal Commission took those rumblings into account and unanimously voted on ...
Sierra Club Gives Monning High Environmental Marks, Alejo Room to Improve
Assemblyman Bill Monning, D-Carmel, was one of just five assembly members to score a 100 percent eco-voting records this legislative session, according to a scorecard produced by the Sierra Club. The scorecard relied on a formula considering how lawmakers voted on 13 different bills on matters from bicyclist safety to ...
Pacific Grove Police Department to Close Nights
Beginning Dec. 1, the Pacific Grove Police Department will be closed for business from 11pm-7am. At least, partially closed: Officers will remain on patrol and dispatch will remain active 24/7, according to PGPD Commander John Nyunt. But the business and records department, which includes the folks who process arrests, will ...
Seaside Police Serve More Search Warrants in Further Attempts to Quell Violence
By Nic Coury and Arvin Temkar In a Seaside church parking lot, a group of onlookers murmured among themselves as a police scene unfolded across the street. “I hope they don’t start shooting,” says 44-year-old Eric White, a lifelong Seaside resident who stopped on his bicycle to watch the action. ...
Jan Shriner's Jedi Move at Marina Coast
Turn to page 14, item 32, of Marina Coast Water District's 55-page Board Procedures Manual, and you'll see that bringing an item back to the board for reconsideration requires voting on the winning side. Board member Jan Shriner, who's grown accustomed to standing alone in a great many 4-1 votes, ...
Cal Am Files Contingency Plans for Desal Roadblocks
California American Water wants its regulators to know it has options if the sh*t goes down in the proposed Water Supply Project. But, Cal Am adds, it probably won't. A judge for the California Public Utilities Commission had asked Cal Am to present contingency plans for potential roadblocks in the ...
Salinas could put up $160,000 to restore hat sculptures
Outgoing Mayor Dennis Donohue is looking to pull $160,000 out of a hat—or three hats, to be precise. Donohue is hopeful the Salinas City Council this evening will vote for a resolution to use city funds— a projected $160,000—to repair and restore the Salinas monument “Hat in Three Stages of ...
After Prop. 37 Loss, GMO Labeling Advocates Consider Next Steps
More than 4.6 million Californians voted last Tuesday in favor of requiring food companies to put labels on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), but that wasn't enough to make the labeling rule into law. Supporters, though, are spinning the loss to say it was enough to mobilize a movement. "Today is ...
Consultant Finds Cal Am's Desal Plant Could Come Online Earliest
A consultant finds the three competing desal proposals would produce water at roughly the same cost, but only Cal Am's could start flowing in time to avert a water crisis.
Gonzales Fertilizer Manufacturer Sentenced to One Year in Prison
While pro-transparency food advocates are reeling from a loss on California's Proposition 37, which would've required labeling on genetically modified foods, an organic fertilizer manufacturer who lied about the ingredients in his products is headed to prison. Peter Townsley was sentenced Wednesday to a year in prison, 1,000 hours of ...
New fishing label guarantees "No Overfishing"
Fishing industry advocates have created a new label they hope will build consumer demand for responsibly captured fish.
At Esalen, a Loss and a New Chapter
Change continues to shake Big Sur's Esalen Institute as it celebrates its 50th year. Esalen insiders report longtime Gestalt teacher Seymour Carter (pictured above, right), who is quoted in our recent cover story on the institute's 50th anniversary, died in the Ukraine while on a European tour, giving workshops on ...
Local Educators Thank Californians for Passing Prop. 30
Even though a CSU Monterey Bay professor is facing a lawsuit alleging he got too vocal in supporting Gov. Jerry Brown's tax proposal, Proposition 30, educational institutions could barely contain their glee Wednesday morning. “The governing board, faculty and staff of Monterey Peninsula College are gratified by this statement of ...
Eight Months of Campaigning and $1.7 Million Later, Board of Supervisors Remains Unchanged
What does $1.7 million and hundreds of hours of campaigning get you? On the County Board of Supervisors, an unchanged slate of elected leaders. Three supervisors faced tough re-election challengers this year, and all three incumbents prevailed based on preliminary Wednesday morning election data, despite fierce ground campaigns by the ...
Sea Changes in Marina, Seaside, P.G. Races
The nation may have stuck with the status quo in Obama, but on the Monterey Peninsula, voters were ready for new leaders.
County to Proceed Gingerly Toward Implementing Phase One of Obamacare
Despite the financial exposure Natividad Medical Center could face in offering insurance coverage to up to 1,500 low-income, uninsured residents, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors Tuesday directed Natividad CEO Harry Weis to proceed with concrete steps toward implementing such a plan. Weis will ask state officials to approve some ...
Prunedale Fire Forces Polling Place Relocation
Monterey County Elections Department officials were forced to relocate the Prunedale polling place at the American Legion Hall after a fire forced its evacuation. Firefighters are currently fighting the 10-acre wildfire that at one point looked to be encroaching on the polling station. Officials say engine crews and aerial assets ...
DA To Investigate Salinas City Council Candidate for Alleged Perjury
More than a year ago, Alisal Union School District board president Jose Castañeda pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge that he'd violated election code by failing to properly deliver paperwork in a failed recall effort against Supervisor Fernando Armenta. Now, as Castañeda faces the final days of his campaign ...
FPPC Clears Dave Potter After Investigating Trip to Ireland With Developer
Just barely in time for the Nov. 6 election, Supervisor Dave Potter was cleared in an investigation by the California Fair Political Practices Commission, though he's not out of hot water yet, with another investigation still pending. After reviewing financial statements and other documents, FPPC investigators concluded an investigation regarding ...
Neighbors Organize Against Ferrini Oaks Development Proposal
The public has less than two weeks left to weigh in on draft plans for an 870-acre development that hugs Highway 68 west of River Road, and neighborhood groups are using that time to brief themselves on hundreds of pages of environmental documents recently published. The Ferrini Ranch proposal includes ...
Seaside Police Arrest Eleven Gang Members; Seize Guns and Drugs
While serving a search warrant at a home on the 1100 block of Waring avenue in Seaside this morning, the Monterey Peninsula Regional Special Response Unit uncovered a small marijuana growing operation and several firearms. It was the most recent effort to help quell a recent surge in gang violence ...
Department of Justice Grant Could Put Ex-gang Members to Work Stopping Violence
Salinas only California city to receive Project Safe Neigborhoods funding
Advocacy Group Names Government Accountability Champions
Dems vote more “in favor of disclosure”
County's Bridge Plan for Obamacare Faces Costly and Uncertain Future
The county's uninsured poor may have to wait until the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, takes effect on January 1, 2014 to get health insurance. Monterey County is one of eight California counties that's delayed implementing a bridge plan, or temporary coverage, for some of the poor uninsured patients who ...
Former NPS Board Member Graham Spanier Charged in Sandusky Case
Former Penn State President Graham Spanier was charged Thursday with helping to cover up allegations of child abuse against former football coach Jerry Sandusky. He's facing five charges for perjury, obstruction of justice, endangering the welfare of children, criminal conspiracy and failure to report suspected child abuse, according to media ...
No Bodies, But Plenty of Trash in Laguna Grande Cleanup
A rickety little boat floats on Laguna Grande, bordering Seaside and Monterey, on an overcast Halloween morning. The three men inside steer it toward the thick clumps of green sedge that stick out of the gray lake like wild patches of hair. Fernando Avila, a staffer with Seaside Public Works, ...
Judge Blocks Steve Collins' Defense
Former Monterey County Water Resources Agency Director Steve Collins is running out of avenues to make the case that he wasn't the only one in the $160,000 side deal he had with RMC Water and Environment. Monterey County Superior Court Judge Pamela Butler ruled Thursday afternoon that Collins' defense attorney, ...
Despite Police Warning, Halloween Free of Violence in Seaside
The streets of Seaside were safe for trick-or-treaters last night, despite—or maybe thanks to—a public warning of potential gang violence from the Seaside Police Department.
Da Giovanni Restaurant
Carmel