On Wednesday, the council voted 6-1 to grant an 8 percent raise to police, retroactive to Jan. 1.
Police were allowed to convert their health benefit payments from the city to salaries, which has the effect of boosting their Public Employee Retirement System benefit when they retire.
That part about taking $$ instead of health benefits is just wrong.
(picture from www.morriefisher.com)
Gift shops, galleries and restaurants tempting us with free prizes. There was some amplified music, balloons and a fair amount of people wandering around with diddly bobber antennae (was that the prize?).
To help revive a struggling downtown Pacific Grove, some business owners have come up with a unique idea they’re hoping will draw customers.
Friday night, more than 50 businesses on and around Lighthouse Avenue will take part in the city’s, and perhaps the county’s, first-ever public scavenger hunt, billed as a “Scavenger Hunt with a Twist.”
“It’s a great way for people to get to know downtown P.G. while having a ball and maybe winning a fabulous prize to boot,” said Sally Aberg, one of the event’s coordinators.
The way the game works, Aberg said, is participants will receive a game card with 53 clues and riddles about each participating store, restaurant and gallery. The game will take place April 18 from 5 to 9 p.m.
Meanwhile, up on Forest Hill, Trader Joe has a packed parking lot all day. What do they have that downtown doesn’t? STUFF THAT PEOPLE WANT.
The Monterey County District Attorney recently settled a civil suit that accuses a Pacific Grove elderly care company of false advertising led to placing personal attendants with criminal records in the homes of seniors. Central Coast Senior Services allegedly hired several employees without conducting background checks while, at the same time, advertising that the company screens all employees.
Senior Services has agreed to pay $125,000 in penalties to the district attorney and $50,000 in restitution to Seaside-based Legal Services for Seniors as part of the judgment filed March 26.
Just one question – how do we enforce such a law? Is there going to be a packaging posse kicking in kitchen doors on the hunt for taboo table wares? It could be a cruel way to drive someone crazy – go to Smart’n’Final, buy a package of clamshell to-go plates and stencil the name of an eatery on them and leave at bus stops and such.
Pacific Grove banned food service containers made of polystyrene and plastic utensils at restaurants — cups, plates, bowls and takeout boxes — by unanimous vote of its City Council.
Violations will be punished as an infraction, with a warning the first time and a $100 fine for a second citation. The person paying the fine can use the $100 to buy biodegradable food containers rather than write a check to the city and show a receipt for the purchase to city officials.
I swear, it I didn’t know that that measure U is supported by the Police Officers Association I’d think that the organizers were all smoking some good ganga.
First they forgot the deadline to add arguments for the measure in the voter guide, then they put up a website with eye wrenching colors and misspellings.
(note, the spelling has since been corrected)
A proposal to turn Monterey’s Cannery Row into a one-way street has some people concerned over the negative impact on business. The topic will be discussed Tuesday night at City Hall.
Rich Deal, the City Traffic Engineer will recommend the permanent change, following the reopening of Cannery Row in May. The street has been partially closed, and on a one-way configuration for over a year, during the construction of a new hotel.
The Cannery Row Company, which owns 70% of the property, is challenging the city, and requesting the street return to the two-way configuration in May.
City Manager Fred Meurer recommended setting the matter aside after he learned that Clement Chen, developer of the 208-room Intercontinental The Clement Monterey hotel in the 700 block of Cannery Row, had indicated he may change his mind about supporting the change in traffic flow. Part of Cannery Row has been one-way during construction of the hotel.
In a letter to city traffic engineer Richard Deal, Chen earlier wrote that he was concerned about double-parked delivery trucks in the 700 block of the Row, which he said created gridlock when the two-way street was open and that he felt a one-way routing would solve that problem.
Make deliveries between 7 and 10 AM. Or provide loading zones. No reason to screw up traffic with one-way streets.
(KTVU 2 News)
SAN FRANCISCO — A woman is dead following a freak accident in which a fallen branch from a Redwood tree struck her near Stern Grove in San Francisco Monday.
The woman, who was possibly in her 50s, was letting her dog into her Subaru Outback in a parking lot off Sloat Boulevard at Sigmund Stern Grove when the branch fell and struck her and the car around 11:30 a.m.
It all started way back in yesteryear when the Puritans put their mark on our Piney Paradise. I’m not sure what prompted the City Council to change history, but I suspect it was influenced by the Episcopalians and the Catholics. Somehow communion just wasn’t the same with grape juice.
My mother explained to me that wine in the Bible was not the same as wine today, and even if it was, Jesus said a little wine was good for the stomach.
Now, with a little experience, I realize that Mom was passing on what she had learned from her Congregational heritage and didn’t really know what she was talking about. In later years, she preferred a good Manhattan and there was no mention of that in the Bible. I might add that after 1969, there was very little stomach trouble in Pacific Grove.
Great story, I can vouch very true.
It was part of what kept the town small, and the wino tourists away. I wonder how many votes a council/mayor candidate would get running on a prohibition platform?
While checking the mail, I took a stroll up and down The Street. The weather was real warm this year. Not much pizazz, the usual high cost carnival goods and a few distinct items.
Cheap Eats
Expensive Shirt
Expensive Hats
Expensive Slippers
Expensive Kid Dresses
Tighty Tiedyes
Junk Metal made into art trinkets (several booths were selling these)
Junk Metal that still looks like junk metal. And sharpie on cardboard box art.
Like Posters, only more expensive.
Like Skateboards, only uhh nailed to the walls
Too many dogs
Too many people to have obstructing signs in the walkway
For those that have searched the far reaches of the earth for a melted beer bottle, and only from Key West (Florida, I presume)
Where’s the Zantac? (oh, all the pharmacies downtown are gone)
For the hippies that don’t use much, Soap By The Slice
Recycle Exhibit in tossing distance from Hollys’ trash overflowing.
Climb The Giant Terd/Turd (getting a lot of fluff on the spelling – I say that terd is less offensive – kind of humorous to misspell. I deliberately chose the misspelling even after Firefox warned me, just to not become another floater in the Google searches for scatology).
I’m outta here
Another nice story. Brought back memories when he mentioned donkey baseball played in P.G.
Somewhere along the line I suppose the city passed a law against them, and while not every home had a hen house, most people had fresh eggs. There was a nice sort of cluck cluck from back yards, and a strident cock a doodle doo from a rooster or two.
And speaking of pigeons, you will remember the early days of television when most of the houses in town had spindly aluminum antennas wired to the chimneys. Well, in flew a wave of wild pigeons, big and black, and they roosted on those antennas just long enough to bend or break them, and away they went. All over town, antennas either gone or pointing down!
Ocean View Cablevision was releasing hundreds of pigeons from it’s office/headend on Forest Hill.