As the city of Pacific Grove figures out how to end its PERS contract, recruit a new city manager and squeeze water from concrete, freshly minted Councilwoman Carmelita Garcia is starting her term with a whinny. On the heels of her Dec. 3 swearing-in, she asked City Attorney David Laredo to expand residents’ rights to keep chickens, ponies and monkeys.
With All Of P.G.’s Problems Solved, Carmelita Works To Keep Service Monkeys
Pacific Grove will go down in history as one of the few cities to pull out of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.
Former P.G. City Councilman Dan Davis, a mathematician whose term ended earlier this month, has been arguing for the city to quit CalPERS for years. New reports show the state retirement system has lost 31 percent of its value– more than $81 billion– since its peak in October 2007.
“You don’t really need to understand the details to know that we’re in trouble,” Davis says. “If [CalPERS] doesn’t recover those losses, we need to make up the difference. Cities don’t have the money to do that.”
It may seem logical for P.G. to jump from a sinking CalPERS ship– but the timing is terrible. If the city had terminated the retirement plan in June 2007, Davis says, CalPERS would have refunded P.G. about $10 million. In June 2008, the refund would have been about $1 million.
“Now,” he says, “the city of P.G. owes CalPERS about $20 million.”
Yah, I know. Attract and keep quality workers with CalPERS as a benefit. But by winning workers from another town you’ll fill the ranks with workers that are prone to jump ship. If they left one job to come here, what keeps them from moving on. I have worked at jobs that were not as good as offers from Oakland. But who wants to work in Oakland?
What, no chili dogs?
The 60-year-old Bath House perches on some of Pacific Grove’s best oceanside real estate– but the building has been vacant since 2005, when the previous tenant folded under financial troubles.
On Oct. 23, the P.G. Planning Commission approved a permit to improve the landmark and its surroundings at Lovers Point Park. Enea Properties LLC and the city of P.G. plan to remodel and build additions to the Bath House, bring the building into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and demolish the shabby restrooms next door.
Those shabby restrooms were repaired for thousands of dollars after a fire in the cinderblock building. Money well spent. The building never was a bath house. It’s always been a restaurant.
Burglars broke into First Night Monterey’s Archer Park Community Center headquarters Tuesday night, robbing the small nonprofit that stages the city’s ambitious and art-heavy New Year’s Eve celebration of their Mac computer and external hard drives.
“To break in and rob us … of our artwork, desktop publishing and the two external hard drives which were the backups…it’s all gone.
Concept #1 – Thieves do not care if it’s a Mega-Corporation, a working person, or an artiste. They will steal anything they can.
Concept #2 – Don’t store you backups in the same place as the computer. In a fire, flood or yes even theft, your backups are only as safe as the computer. Keep your back ups off site.
Biologists are debating the cause of the decline. Theoretical culprits include more frequent summer droughts, invasive parasites and habitat degradation. Griffiths looks to milkweed, the only plant on which monarchs will lay their eggs.
Milkweed thrives in the Central Valley’s hot, dry conditions. But the valley is also prime ag land, and some farmers have planted crops that are genetically modified to tolerate the popular weed-killer Roundup. The resulting blanket herbicide applications have likely killed much of the valley’s native milkweed, she says. Ranchers also target the plant, which is toxic to cattle.
The past two dry years foretell another low monarch turnout this winter, but Griffiths hasn’t lost all hope for P.G.’s airy mascot. “They have the ability to reproduce quickly,” she says, “provided they have the right conditions.”
Take a small but affordable home, tear down all but one wall, build something 3 times as big around that wall and replace the little hysterical home society plaque back on. The price? A Million-Seven. A nice symbol of the new “Lost Home Town”
The plaque by the door reads “L. Gydison 1889.” The original owner and date of construction thus define Pacific Grove’s historical homes but in this case, a second plaque could read “Love’s Labors Rewarded 2007.”
Elizabeth says, “It was 600 square feet with two bedrooms and a kitchen/ bathroom arrangement.” Now nearly 2000 square feet, it includes a third floor dedicated to the master suite.
To build it all, one side of the house was removed, leaving the part with the original Victorian veranda, always the front entry, but now has become the side veranda with access from inside through a paned-glass living room door.
On Aug. 20 Cort got the City Council’s nod to design a new city reservoir to store stormwater. Now he plans to ask the council to consider solar panels for all city buildings, and possibly P.G. schools.
The array could produce an estimated 550,000 kilowatt-hours per year– almost 90 percent of city buildings’ electricity needs, Perelman says. The electric bill savings could be used to help pay off the loan. In roughly 10 years the city would own the solar panels, which could last another 20-30 years.
That 550,000 kilowatt-hours per year – does it take into consideration things that naturally block the sun in Pacific Grove? Trees, fog and bird poop come to mind..
Deborah Lindsay has announced that her campaign will be “carbon neutral.” The green radio host plans to offset carbon dioxide emissions from campaign-related driving, marketing, merchandise and office equipment by creating a community solar project.
Right, solar in foggy forested Pacific Grove. The woman is a kook.
And suspect was suicidal. Nice work, P.G.P.D. for ending this incident with no shots fired and no one assuming room temperature.
Pacific Grove police tased a reportedly suicidal suspect on Aug. 22. According to a PGPD press release, police responded to a report that Glenn Preston had a gun to his head. Preston left his residence before the cops arrived, and police chased him through the city, eventually forcing him to stop. Police tased him when he allegedly resisted arrest, later charging him with evading an officer, resisting arrest and possessing a firearm.
Squid has been stuck to the edge of Squid’s seat– mainly to stave off “office butt”– while following three pigeon poop threads on the P.G. message board www.morriefisher.com.
But nastiness crept into the thread when Palmer posted a Photoshopped picture of P.G. Chamber of Commerce President Moe Ammar (who is of Lebanese ancestry) in an Iraqi official’s uniform, to which Guest1 replied, “Nice photo of Mohamad!” Colburn responded with more Photoshop art, this one depicting Ammar’s head on a Lebanese Army soldier’s body.
Squid thinks that load stinks worse than pigeon poop.
No, the Chamber Of Commerce’s propaganda and fear mongering stink more than pigeon poop. The Iraqi satire was of “Baghdad Bob” (who in real life is known as Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, the guy that stands in front of cameras proclaiming victory over the US) since Moe stands up and makes stupid statements praising the Chamber. The other is of Muammar al-Gaddafi, the terrorist dictator. The names are similar. And Moe is a bit of a socialist dictator, IMO