Category Archives: Pacific Grove

The Pensions That Pain Us

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So, it must be true, that the former city councils are the ones that made bad decisions.

Pacific Grove is looking at a $2.3 million-a-year money pit in retirement liability that increases every year while city revenues remain relatively static.

When the bubble burst at the end of the decade and the stock market plunged following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, income in the system fund dipped while pension benefit costs continued to climb.

“The primary reason we have the current crisis,” mathematician and City Councilman Daniel Davis said in a report he submitted to other city officials in August, “is the city employee pension fund.”

The City Council approved an increase in benefits under CalPERS in the late 1990s at a time when it appeared the added cost to the city was negligible, Davis said, but from 2000-02, “the CalPERS return on investment in the retirement fund was negative.

The Pensions That Pain Us

Moth Spraying Returns In June

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Guess the moth lovers lost that one.

Mothra

The state’s agriculture department announced Wednesday it plans to resume aerial spraying of pheromones over the Central Coast on June 1.

In a new 2008 “action plan” for fighting the light brown apple moth in California, the state also said it would likely release a stingless wasp in parts of Carmel, Marina and Seaside in hopes of controlling the moth, which officials say presents a threat to agriculture and the environment.

Moth Spraying Returns In June

Motels Against Public Safety

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Pacific Grove’s innkeepers are crying foul over a signature-gathering campaign by the Pacific Grove Police Officers Association to put an increase in the city’s transient occupancy tax — or room tax — on the ballot.

The city supported an economic advisory committee with an annual $107,000 contribution to the Chamber of Commerce for various city activities and events. With the formation of the Hospitality Improvement District, the city now uses that money to pay part of the Convention and Visitor Bureau dues.

Pacific Grove entered a contract to pay the Convention and Visitors Bureau through 2012, said Chamber of Commerce president Moe Ammar. He and innkeepers met with police association members Monday and emerged with “an understanding that they will consider our request not to pursue a room tax.”

There’s Moammar In The Middle again.

Motels Against Public Safety

Who Runs Pacific Grove? Part II

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The city leaders or the labor unions? Looking for day to day representation or benefits and unions are slow to respond. But threaten them with loss of dues and they bump the performance up to “meets expectations”.

Laborers Local 270 in Santa Cruz filed the complaint after the City Council’s adoption on Oct. 3 of a city reorganization plan developed by City Manager Jim Colangelo.

The charges contend that Colangelo’s plan deleted 21 full-time and two part-time employee positions while adding 23 lower-paying full-time and two half-time positions.

The changes were made without prior notice to the union or offering an opportunity for union members to meet and confer with management over the changes. A settlement conference has been set Feb. 26 in Oakland.

Union Facts

Who Runs Pacific Grove? Part II

Suicidal P.G. Contractor Runs From CHP

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A Pacific Grove contractor wanted on outstanding warrants slashed his throat with a box cutter after a lengthy police pursuit Thursday morning, the California Highway Patrol said.

Michael T. Kelly, 57, was seriously injured in the apparent suicide attempt and was taken by helicopter to Regional Medical Center in Fresno.

Kelly immediately sped up, the officers said, before losing control and veering off the south side of the road. After traveling some 30 feet, the car came to a stop against a barbed-wire fence, Hall said.

At that point, officers said, Kelly took a box cutter and “began to slash his throat in an apparent suicide attempt.”

Public records show Kelly is a licensed general contractor in good standing with the state and the proprietor of Kelly Home Inspection Services in Pacific Grove.

Court and police records show he has had numerous scrapes with the law, including several warrants in recent years for probation violations.

In one of those cases, in June 2006, Monterey police reported that Kelly’s car had smashed into a residence in the 1300 block of David Avenue. Kelly was arrested for driving under the influence of cocaine, cocaine possession and driving under a suspended license, police records show.

Suicidal P.G. Contractor Runs From CHP

Lighthouse Cinema – Open This Summer?

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Lighthouse Cinema

No real new news, but this sentence brings back memories:

Enea was challenged before he built the Lighthouse Cinema in 1986 by a group opposed to the movie house project, and it was the subject of a citywide ballot referendum, which drew a large majority of votes in its favor.

Mayor Dingbat Flo was an opponent. Said that the theater would bring undesirable people from Seaside to PG.

Moe chimes in

“I am really excited,” said Pacific Grove Chamber of Commerce president Moe Ammar. “I believe the cinema will do great, since it will be the most modern movie site on the Peninsula with the latest technology in the safest town.”

Pfft. The Imax in the old Edgewater Packing Company is the most modern. Moe just wants to suck more money from the business community and city. The dude is clueless.

Lighthouse Cinema – Open This Summer?

Good Old Days Police Motorcycle Competition Canceled

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Now there’s nothing to do at Good Old Days except buy overpriced schwag.

God Motors

The city’s police chief, Darius Engles, announced today that the Pacific Grove Motorcycle Competition has been canceled this year. Engles cited “the lack of private donations and the city budget restraints.

The competition has been running in Pacific Grove for 20 years in conjunction with the city’s Good Old Days in April. Engles said the event was, when it started in 1987, “the first of its kind” and attracted participants from throughout the western states.

Good Old Days Police Motorcycle Competition Canceled

Who Runs Pacific Grove?

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In Letters From The Editor

Have other people noticed whenever there is a significant controversy, including this latest episode, the P.G .Chamber of Commerce is right in the middle, its president quoted in the newspaper. Frankly, I wonder who is running this city, the chamber or our elected representatives.
Ron Sanchez
Pacific Grove

Well, the one who thinks he does is Moammar. Clueless Moe.

Moe Ammar

The Pacific Grove year is marked by seasonal celebrations. The Feast of Lanterns celebrates the culture of the Chinese fishermen who used to live along the water’s edge.

Moe refers to Pacific Grove by the words, “It’s a Small-town Thing.” He himself moved here 20 years ago. After graduating with a Hospitality degree from the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, Moe honeymooned at Pacific Grove’s Bid-a-Wee Motel. The contrast between Pacific Grove and Las Vegas captured Moe’s heart. He couldn’t wait to get back. He returned in 1986 with the intention of never leaving.

“We’re about the same as we were 50 years ago,” Moe says. “And we’re going to be the same 50 years from now, if we can help it.”

“We’re keeping something alive that shouldn’t vanish forever from our world,” Moe says. Pacific Grove is filled with residents who would agree with him.

I was here about 50 years ago and it is nowhere near the same. Once Moe moved in and said the answer lies in tourism did the small town family atmosphere cease to be. P.G. once had service stations, several grocery stores, pharmacies, a department store, a dime store, a municipal pool, multiple schools, things that served residents and families. Now we have bistros, art galleries and boutiques that change owners with the seasons, all there to fleece the vagrants. Families have moved out – there’s little for them to do in a town full of tourist attractions.

And Feast of Lanterns had nothing to do with the the Chinese fishermen, it was to celebrate the end of the Methodists’ Chautauqua Assembly. Moe is just trying to be politically correct – the Chinese fishing village was burnt down, presumably by intolerant residents.

Who Runs Pacific Grove?