Monthly Archives: May 2008

Is This Why Teachers Need More Money?

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To support cocaine habits? The next time you get a letter from skool asking for permission to drug test your children, say “only if the faculty goes first…”

Raul Herrera Arteaga

Greenfield police and officials from the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office raided the north Salinas home of Raul Herrera-Arteaga on Tuesday morning, removing computers, animals and other items. When he returned to his home Tuesday afternoon, police said they found two bags of cocaine in his right sock and arrested him on suspicion of possession of a controlled substance.

Herrera was lodged at Monterey County Jail with bail set at $10,000.

Is This Why Teachers Need More Money?

Why Do They Call It The Green Spot?

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Looks real brown to me.

Green Spot Dump 2

Substainable P.G. cannot get enough gray water to sustain a few weeds. It’s been there a month, and there never seems to be anyone there. There really is not much interest in this sustainable stuff beyond the small cult of Agenda 21 followers.

For the past several months, three groups have been working to render the neglected little spot green. The one-room building’s 650 square feet are rather drab at first glance, but it’s a work in progress. Applied Solar employees have hung photos of local photovoltaic installations along one wall. Sustainable PG’s Joy Colangelo painted waves, stars and a jellyfish over the bullet holes in the window.

Ultimately, the G-Spot’s enthusiasts envision the space as a magnet for eco-oriented meetings, potlucks and live music – a place for the community to experiment in shades of green.

Why Do They Call It The Green Spot?

Hear-Old Says Yes On “U”

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Herald Hear-old

Public safety salaries and pensions have lost touch with private sector wages and benefits partly because city councils and boards of supervisors were not as frugal as they should have been, but even more so because cities and counties are competing from a shrinking pool of candidates. Fixing the too-costly pension system in California will require a systematic, statewide approach, not anything city by city.

Measure U on the June 3 ballot would raise sales tax from 7.25 percent to 8.25 percent. It doesn’t apply to groceries or other major expenses such as rent. It would provide the city about $1.3 million each year, much of it paid by tourists and visitors. On average, the additional tax is expected to cost each resident less than $5 per month.

It would provide the city about $1.3 million each year, much of it paid by tourists and visitors.

Tax the Tourists!!

Hear-Old Says Yes On “U”

That Take-Out Will Get You A Ticket In P.G.

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Styrofoam & plastic ware is banned from restaurants.

Any way you spin it, whatever take-out is packaged in will still be overflowing from hotel dumpsters.
Sea-Breeze Motel:
Dumpster Sea Breeze Motel 071216a

..or spilling out of restaurant’s trash cans
Holly’s Lighthouse Cafe

Dumpster Hollys Cafe 080622

The ban applies to city contractors and special-event promoters using disposable food-service ware. Foods prepared or packaged outside Pacific Grove are exempt, as are ice chests, coolers, other containers meant to be reused, and shipping containers.

Ryan Kenny of the American Chemistry Council told the council that supporters of the ban did not provide scientific evidence that it does more harm to the environment than other packaging or food service containers, and that switching to alternatives “will replace one type of litter with another.” Organic containers buried in landfills, he said, produce methane gas that can harm the environment.

That Take-Out Will Get You A Ticket In P.G.

Lighthouse Cinema Open For Business

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Glad to have a movie house back in town. Now let’s see some creative movie marketing – not just the same Hollywood dreck.

the new theater owner of Lighthouse Cinema has negotiated running new Hollywood blockbusters, and has spent roughly half a million dollars on renovations to draw more people, including new seats, tiling, and digital sound system.

Maybe better sanitation, too.

Dumpster Lh Cinema 080720b

Lighthouse Cinema Open For Business

City Attorney Warns Council About Illegal Rentals

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Rooms For Rent

The city cites water, parking & building permits as reasons why some of the landlords were refused to go legit. No one needs a permit to rent a room of a house, wouldn’t that situation would add the same real burdens as a rental unit? Yesterday’s “basement apartment” becomes today’s “room for rent”, life goes on.

If Pacific Grove moves to crack down on illegal residential rentals, it had better move carefully, City Attorney David Laredo warned the City Council on Wednesday.

Laredo said state and federal housing laws could require the city to pay for finding a new home for evictees if it initiates shutting down the illegal rentals.

“Relocation is a complex process,” he said. “A public agency may be liable if it undertakes a project or program that requires relocations.”

Laredo said the city needs to have a written relocation policy and should hire an enforcement officer. The council unanimously instructed him to draw up the policy.

 

City Attorney Warns Council About Illegal Rentals

P.G. Police Raises Matter In Budget

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The police pay increase — amounting to 24 percent over three years — drew criticism from council members Dan Davis and Susan Nilmeier, who voted against final passage of the pay raise late Wednesday.

Nilmeier said predictions of a “modest” recession and the low level of city cash reserves — about $800,000 — made her hesitant to approve a pay raise that was contained in an agreement made last year, before the economic downturn and when the city was banking on the passage of tax measures to increase revenues. The tax increases were rejected by voters in November.

“I don’t know how we can honor these commitments. I can’t vote yes on multi-year increases in a recession,” she said.

Davis, who argued against the raises at the April 16 meeting, said he was dissatisfied with the methodology arrived at by Colangelo and Becklenberg for computing pay raises to make police salaries competitive with surrounding cities, particularly trading health benefits for salary increases that boosted police retirement pay.

I agree with Davis. If the cops want to make more money – go to work in Monterey, Salinas or Oakland where you have to get out of the cruiser and chase a rapist or gang member with a gun. The work is not real tough in P.G.
PG Cops On Break
(picture from morriefisher.com)

P.G. Police Raises Matter In Budget

Real Science vs. The Poser

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Dilworth’s feelings proven to be not of sound mind.

Dapper Dilworth

Task force members found several points of debate in Dilworth’s presentation.

Steve Shimek, executive director of the Otter Project, said that data show the density of traps required would “make trapping impractical.”

David Headrick, a pest management expert and professor at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, questioned Dilworth’s determination of what makes a successful eradication effort.

During his presentation, Dilworth said state efforts have fallen short in eradicating seven of nine targeted species since 1982. Headrick said that a species can be eradicated and reintroduced at a later date.

Sheri Lee Smith of Forest Health Protection disputed Dilworth’s contention that Hawaii is not concerned about the moth’s presence on the islands.

“To say Hawaii is not concerned about the moth,” Smith said, “would be a mistake.”

Dilworth said he does not know what percentage of a regional population is captured by traps, and so he does not know how many traps would be needed to control the population.

“The only way we’re going to have an idea if it works is if we use traps for a long period of time and don’t catch any moths,” Dilworth said after his presentation.

For instance, the HOPE’s proposal indicates that apple moths fly no more than 30 yards from where they are born.

“We’re not sure where the (20- to 30-yard) figure came from, but suspect it may have come from a (New Zealand) study,” the response said.

In that study, moths were caught at a median distance of 30 meters to 35 meters after being released, the response said.

“As these were median distances, half of the moths flew further, and males were caught up to 600 meters from the release site.”

HOPE also said the moths “do not fly higher than 10 feet above the ground.”

The working group response said “this is simply not true,” saying that apple moths have been trapped about 50 feet high in a New Zealand pine forest.

Dilworth said he acquired this information from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The response also shot down a HOPE claim that the sprayings “may have affected monarch butterflies or Smith’s blue butterflies, but not likely target moths.”

The working group response: “We don’t know why this statement is in the document or where it came from. The (Technical Working Group) is not aware of any information on either of these species relative to the LBAM treatments, nor is there anything in the formulations that we would expect to have any effect on these species one way or the other.”

Real Science vs. The Poser

Joy Colangelo – Darwin Theory In Practice

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I’ve been carless for three months after my car caught fire while being repaired at the dealer. I ride my bike daily and have lost 10 pounds, which I really didn’t need to lose. I eat more than my teenage children, who are junior Olympians.

I canceled my auto insurance. I fly by gas pumps and have a cholesterol ratio that defies science. But I don’t wear a helmet. And I don’t use bike lanes.

Okaaaaaay. In today’s Letters From The Editor, Greg Lindsey writes:

As a former traffic cop, I could only shake my head after reading Joy Colangelo’s column Sunday.

Apparently, she doesn’t understand the traffic laws applicable to bicycles. Riders are required to ride as far right on the roadway as possible. The only two general circumstances where a bicyclist can be out in traffic is when they’re making a left turn or are riding as fast as the traffic is moving.

Cycle Against Oil

Joy Colangelo – Darwin Theory In Practice