Monthly Archives: January 2008

Things Looking Very Bad

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For police & fire departments

Up for review:

elimination of five positions and four layoffs in the fire department, five positions and two layoffs in the police department, five positions and two layoffs in public works, and four positions and three layoffs in the library. Other layoffs could occur, Colangelo said.

Also proposed is elimination of the city’s Golf Advisory Committees and ad hoc committees on campaign finance review, the city charter review and oversight of Crespi Pond, and conversion of the city’s ad hoc budget and finance committee to a permanent committee.

Things Looking Very Bad

Hear What The Winter Tourists Come For

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(Sacramento Bee)

Joke all you want about tourists from Modesto but they in my opinion are the most down to earth visitors and much more tolerable than L.A. refugees that end up wanting to move here.

They are looking for enriching experiences that don’t necessarily mean spending lots of money on big meals, paintings, fake country charm or pretentious hosts. They want to get away from home and go back with pictures and memories. Maybe a sweatshirt if they thought it was warm in the spring (hint: best souvenir sweatshirt is one from Mission Ranch, affordable and impressive).

Exploring Monterey during Winter

And there’s this: The tourists who crowd the peninsula in the high season will be absent. That means you’ll actually be able to tour the Monterey Bay Aquarium, find a parking space in Carmel, book a dinner reservation before 9:30 p.m. and ride on the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail without getting entangled in a six-bicycle pile-up.

Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk
Santa Cruz Surfing Museum

Moss Landing
Pot Stop at Little Baja
Phil’s Fish Market & Eatery

Monterey
Monterey Abalone Co.
Willy’s Smokehouse BBQ & Grill

Pacific Grove
Little Chicken House
Lattitudes

Carmel
Pine Inn
Chez Christine
Church of the Wayfarer

On the way to Big Sur
Point Lobos State Reserve
Rocky Point

Hear What The Winter Tourists Come For

Storm Racks Up Costs

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Would a full time arborist really be of benefit in the storm? Money is better spent on tree cutters and police/fire. The tree-trimmer contractors should offer inspection services in exchange for the business of trimming the trees.

The winter storm that ripped through the Monterey Peninsula two weeks ago cost the financially strapped City of Pacific Grove about $30,000.

Employees from numerous city departments worked a total of 316 overtime hours during the storm, which brought down at least 20 trees, said city manager Jim Colangelo.

The $30,000 represents the cost in overtime pay, damage done by city trees, and the fee for independent contractors, which Colangelo said included mainly tree crews. The city doesn’t have a full-time arborist.

Storm Racks Up Costs

Lighthouse Cinema Update

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Lighthouse Cinema

Let’s hope they study the populations of the are and put some thought to what movies they bring to town.

The improvements planned for the 8,500-square-foot building at 525 Lighthouse Ave. include new seats, new carpeting, new curtains, new wallpaper, new sound system, remodeled snack bar lighting, new interior and exterior paint and awnings, he said.

But all that investment comes with some risk, Enea acknowledged.

“The success of the proposed venture will be predicated upon the patronage from Pacific Grove residents,” he said.

North American Cinemas, a Santa Rosa company, which Enea said owns 125 screens on the west coast, is slated to operate the theater.

 

Lighthouse Cinema Update

Hot News! KSBW Vehicle Set On Fire

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A KSBW News camera man woke up just before 4 a.m. Monday, police said, and headed outside because he had forgotten to bring his equipment and camera inside. He went to his parked KSBW Jeep Liberty to pick up his things when he saw the fire and called police, Pacific Grove police said.

The rear bumper was on fire and the gas cap was off, they said.

Police said the camera man filmed the emergency teams’ response.

Ah, there’s a media-man all the way. Don’t take a fire extinguisher and put out the fire, pick up the camera and film the burning car . .

Hot News! KSBW Vehicle Set On Fire

Study: $90 wine tastes better than the same wine at $10

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(C|net)

Winos – sheesh. At least they are happy when the fork over $90 for a bottle of cheap wine at a P.G. eatery.

Wino Wisdom

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology and Stanford’s business school have directly seen that the sensation of pleasantness that people experience when tasting wine is linked directly to its price. And that’s true even when, unbeknownst to the test subjects, it’s exactly the same Cabernet Sauvignon with a dramatically different price tag.

Specifically, the researchers found that with the higher priced wines, more blood and oxygen is sent to a part of the brain called the medial orbitofrontal cortex, whose activity reflects pleasure. Brain scanning using a method called functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) showed evidence for the researchers’ hypothesis that “changes in the price of a product can influence neural computations associated with experienced pleasantness,” they said.

Study: $90 wine tastes better than the same wine at $10

Wake Of The Storm

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After it’s over and the streets are opened, the electricity is back on, the news catches up with last week’s story.

1/13/08
Residents learn emergency preparedness the hard way

“People have got to be prepared at least a bit on their own,” said Dave Leist, an emergency services management planner for Monterey County.

“This isn’t anything new,” Leist said, adding that the recent storm “was predicted well in advance. (People) think there’s a fire truck with their address on it to respond in an emergency, and that’s just not the case. In metropolitan areas — Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach, for example — you get these folks who are unaccustomed to power outages and think there’s a big response out there.”

Too many people, Leist said, mistakenly rely on government response in a catastrophe, large or small.

Must explain the high concentration of government dependent Democrats around here.

1/9/08
Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach residents critical of PG&E

Pebble Beach and Pacific Grove residents who have been without power for five days say their frustration is growing with what they perceive as a lack of communication and services after Friday’s walloping storm.

“This is serious after five days,” said Kathie McAweeney of Pebble Beach.

As of late Tuesday, 3,855 Pacific Gas & Electric customers were without power on the Monterey Peninsula.

McAweeney said that five days without power — or heat — is taking its toll on residents, particularly her older neighbors. She said she accompanied an 85-year-old neighbor to Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula on Monday. The neighbor was admitted with pneumonia, she said.

“Planning is everything for events like this,” said Dave Leist, an emergency services management planner. “In today’s society, everybody is hooked to power — e-mail, ATM, phone — and they just demand it be up and running right away and it just can’t happen.”

Learn how to use those trophy kitchens, folks. You’ll be prepared the next time. Oh, what’s that? You eat at Whole Foods 5 times a week and go to happy hour for snacks? Might as well face it – you are hopeless.

John and Jennifer Johnson had been hunkered down in their home for five days. Both were dressed in knit sweaters and caps. “We stayed in bed,” said 82-year-old John Johnson.

He said they are preparing to pack their car and head to the Carmel Mission Inn.

Ah! there’s hope!

1/08/08

7,200 customers still out; PG&E drawing criticism

Some customers, dealing with lanterns for night lights and throwing away food from powerless freezers and refrigerators, expressed raw anger at the utility company.

They accused PG&E of not being prepared for winter, of putting the Peninsula on the bottom of the repair list and of relying on a painfully inadequate customer-service system to provide information updates on outages.

“I’ve been furious the whole time,” said Maureen Girard of Carmel, whose home was without electricity since Friday. “I’ve been here 34 years, and the trouble is always ‘A tree fell on the power lines.’

I believe it, but in all these years you’d think PG&E would have figured it out how to maintain the trees around the lines more effectively.”

Primo Waldsmith of Pebble Beach said: “One night that’s tolerable, but not four of five days. It’s ridiculous.”

Waldsmith – you live in Pebble Beach for cryin out loud. You have no sense of living this close to the nature’s beauty and Earth’s power. Buy a generator. Or move to LA.

Wake Of The Storm

Letters From The Editor

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Elin Kelsey Writes:

Traffic is the price I pay for living with popular tourist events. The only problem is, unlike Carmel and Monterey, Pacific Grove enjoys all the traffic and almost none of the sales tax and tourist dollars. Outdated liquor restrictions and curfews keep our restaurants and other businesses empty while our neighboring cities rake in the tourism dollars.

If I am sitting in traffic anyway, I would rather be doing it reading a library book.

Elin, please put the book down and drive.

Letters From The Editor

Winter Might Not The Best Time To Take Up Sailing

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Especially in a ten foot boat.

An amateur sailor trying out a new hobby needed to be rescued by the Coast Guard Saturday afternoon after he capsized his 10-foot sailboat off Lovers Point.

Coast Guard Boatswain’s Mate Russell Howard said the sailor, whom he didn’t identify, apparently misjudged the strength of a stiff breeze and flipped the boat over.

Though he managed to flip the boat right-side up, the sailor couldn’t bail the water out fast enough and needed a tow back to the Breakwater Cove Marina.

Winter Might Not The Best Time To Take Up Sailing