If You Are The Butterflies, Show Me Your Badges

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Hey Monarchs, big brother is watching you..

Approximately 3,500 of the gold-black-and-white lepidoptera have been tagged by the Ventana Wildlife Society as part of the Monarch Alert project.

The tagging has been going on since 2001 but only recently in Pacific Grove, Johnson said, because Monarch Alert had to get a waiver from the Pacific Grove City Council to catch butterflies in the sanctuary and George Washington Park. A city ordinance levies a $500 fine for disturbing or molesting monarch butterflies.

If You Are The Butterflies, Show Me Your Badges

Seaside Driver Flees P.G. Cops, Meets P.G. Tree

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Driver was also arrested for drugs. Duh.

The officer gave chase, police said, and the driver of the Suzuki sped up, reaching speeds of more than 60 mph before he lost control of the car and ran into the power pole at Sinex and Dennett avenues.

The driver, Cameron Ferguson, 18, of Seaside, and a juvenile passenger, were taken to Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula for observation, police said, while PG&E crews and firefighters cleared up the accident scene.

Seaside Driver Flees P.G. Cops, Meets P.G. Tree

Tow Surfers And Tow Craft Wipe Out

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Tow Surfing in P.G? Begging for hurt.

As officials warned residents to stay away from Central Coast beaches and bluffs, several surfers who braved the waves were uninjured after wiping out in giant breakers off Pacific Grove on Sunday.

Riding a personal watercraft shortly after noon, Ed Guzman tried to rescue a surfing friend he’d been towing amidst the 20-foot-plus surf off of Ocean View Boulevard and Coral Street when another large wave hit, the second in a towering set.

Guzman was washed off his craft, firefighters said.

Guzman, owner of Club Ed surfing school in Santa Cruz, was trying to aid his surfing partner, Don Curry, who had wiped out in a 25-foot wave and lost his board, said Monterey Fire Division Chief David Potter.

Tow Surfers And Tow Craft Wipe Out

Dog Owners Blame Others For Everything

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Mindy Barker? Sorry, gotta laugh at the pun.

Can a cause be not having your pet on a leash in an area that is not your private property? Sorry to sound cold, but would you let your dog run loose on Holman Highway too?

Owners pursue cause of dog’s death, mad about barely buried carcasses.

Mindy Barker believes what killed her dog was barely buried a few feet from a popular hiking trail used by many dog owners in the Del Monte Forest.

That day, Bode bounded into an area with fresh bulldozer tracks, soft ground, traces of black plastic bags poking through the dirt and the strong smell of decomposing flesh, she said. Before her husband could stop Bode, the dog picked up something and gulped it down. A few days later, Bode’s health started to decline.

 

Dog Owners Blame Others For Everything

iPod Nation II – Library Cuts Hours

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Apple Computer’s Steve Jobs says no one reads books anyway. More time for TV.

Pacific Grove Public Library will reduce its hours from 52 to 40 hours per week beginning March 3 as a result of library budget cuts.

The new hours will be 1 to 5 p.m. Mondays, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays, and closed Sunday.

iPod Nation II – Library Cuts Hours

P.G. Looking To Save With Budget Cuts

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Budget cutback strategies approved by the Pacific Grove City Council this week are expected to save the city $2.8 million during the coming fiscal year.

The cutbacks include:

· $410,000 from the police budget by eliminating unfilled positions, including one sergeant, three police officers and a police services technician;

· $182,000 from the firefighting budget by eliminating three firefighter positions and full- and part-time office assistant positions, and reducing the part-time firefighter program;

· $296,000 from the administration budget, down 15 percent from the current budget;

· $410,000 from the public works budget, down 20 percent;

· $473,000 from the library, down 50 percent;

· $325,000 from recreation, down 34 percent; and

· $148,000 from the museum, down 52 percent.

P.G. Looking To Save With Budget Cuts

Parolee Busted For Burglary In P.G.

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Nyunt just told everyone we don’t lock our doors. Great.

They learned he was Jorge Gonzalez, a Seaside parolee whose prior convictions include burglary, possession of stolen property and resisting arrest.

Nyunt reported Gonzalez’s car contained numerous items that appeared to have been stolen, including cell phones, a GPS unit and a compressor. “We’re still trying to identify the victims,” he said. Gonzalez also allegedly possessed burglary tools, and Nyunt said he had been rummaging through boxes stored in the carport when the officer first spotted him.

“Individuals know that communities such as Pacific Grove and Carmel are considered a safe haven, and people don’t lock their doors,” Nyunt said, adding that residents persist in believing, “This is not going to happen here.”

Parolee Busted For Burglary In P.G.

More Idiots In Country Club Gate

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Remember the doofus that said he was kidnapped when he couldn’t score a drug deal? Same shopping center.

Initially, the man stated he was simply eating when a male juvenile confronted him, punched him in the face and then chased him around the restaurant with a stun gun before running outside and jumping into a white car with North Carolina plates.

“Apparently they were throwing chairs at each other also, so we may end up charging everyone with a crime,” he said, adding that the license plate number, as well as some other witnesses, yielded useful information.”We have identified all the players,” he said.

More Idiots In Country Club Gate

School Administrators Get $1,700,000 Offices, Students Get None

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Money to pay for the projects will come from Measure D, a $42 million bond passed in 2006 to pay for repairs and renovations of classrooms, schools and other education facilities.

Next time someone asks you to give and give for the schools, remember the $1.7 million dollars the school kids will never use.

There’s no mention of the fate of the old buildings that are unfit for administrators – will our kids end up attending classes in them?

Sixty years after the Pacific Grove Unified School District administration moved into military barracks at Fountain and Sinex avenues, the buildings are on their way to retirement.

Board members voted last week to build a new district office at the former community high school site, located near a field used by Pacific Grove Middle School.

The new building will be about 7,000 square feet, or about 1,000 square feet more than at the district office’s current location. Cost of the new district headquarters is estimated at $1.7 million.

School Administrators Get $1,700,000 Offices, Students Get None

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