Aquarium’s Landlord Wants To Raise The Rent

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Money Calculator

Pacific Grove thinks the Monterey Bay Aquarium should pay more than $1 a year to lease the slice of city land the world-class facility occupies, drawing more than a million visitors annually.

Cash-strapped Pacific Grove wants the aquarium to pay more rent or help the city improve its services, including running the Museum of Natural History or fixing its storm water problems, said City Manager Jim Colangelo.

“Given our financial situation, we think we need to get more from that kind of an asset,” Colangelo said.

An aquarium representative said that while the nonprofit is sympathetic to the city’s financial situation, its money is better spent reinvesting in the exhibits and programs that draw tourists to its facility and to Pacific Grove’s hotels and shops.

Aquarium’s Landlord Wants To Raise The Rent

Sam The Sham Farr Named ‘Porker Of The Month’

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Farr Piggy

Citizens Against Government Waste today named Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, the nation’s Porker of the Month for adding $25 million for spinach growers to the fiscal 2007 emergency supplemental bill.

The House of Representatives will soon vote on the U.S. Readiness, Veterans’ Health and Iraq Accountability Act of 2007, which costs $21 billion more than the President’s request — mostly because of domestic spending unrelated to military operations added by lawmakers to the bill.

Sam The Sham loves to spend our money. Not in any way that is helpful to most Americans, just those that vote like him, in lock step with Democrats. Heck, if Farr needed to make a right turn, he’d spend more time and money by turning left three times.

Back in October the Californian reported that Sam was requesting ‘only’ 6 million for e. coli research. Looks like with each left turn the cost goes up . . .

Sam The Sham Farr Named ‘Porker Of The Month’

Robbery Suspect Arrested In P.G.

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A man suspected of being involved in a robbery at Del Monte Center on Monday was arrested late Thursday while sitting in a car in Pacific Grove, Monterey police reported.

John Vandenham, 28, one of three men who allegedly robbed the Monterey Bay Silver Co. at the shopping center, was sitting in a car at David and Forest avenues when a Pacific Grove police officer questioned him, police said.

Attract the tourists, and their predators follow . ..

Robbery Suspect Arrested In P.G.

KMBY 1240 Original Studios – Virtually Unchanged

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In a recent rare visit to Cannery Row I noticed that there are very few landmarks left. The cannery buildings are all but gone and replaced with replicas. What those that are still there have changed drastically to accommodate imprisoned fish, tourists and more commerce. Gone forever are original bohemian places like Odyssey Records, Kalisa’s, Capone’s Warehouse and The 812 Cinema. One thing that has not really physically changed in over 35 years is the radio station offices, studio and transmitter that broadcasts at 1240 AM. Once Monterey’s only top 40 pop station KMBY, it’s now a talk radio format known as KNRY. Back in the 1970s, friends and I would often visit the studio, whether to collect prizes won in the many call in contests, or just see the DJ working at the turntables. Here’s a photo collection of the studio as it is today.

Antenna sits on shoreline of Macabee Beach.Kmby 1240 Tower 1

View from Foam StreetKmby 1240 Tower

A long way up
Kmby 1240 Tower

Danger! Rock and Roll RF!
Kmby 1240 Danger Rf

Coverage from that antenna:
Kmby Coverage Map

The Bear Flag Building.
Kmby 1240 Bear Flag

1929
Bear Flag 1929

Sign over the door.
Kmby 1240 KNRY Sign

Sign on street.
Kmby 1240 KNRY Be Smart Sign

Entry Way.

Going upstairs. Everything is the same as I remember from the 70s.
Kmby 1240 Going Up

Reach the top, go around the corner . .
Kmby 1240 Corner

The Hallway. Door to studios, observation window, door to offices.
Kmby 1240 Hall

Here’s where you’d see real live DJs spinning 45s like The Monkees or Martha And The Vandellas.
Kmby 1240 Studio Window

If you went into the office lobby, you could pick up the latest survey of the “Top 12 plus 40”
Kmby 1240 720404

Time to leave. Going downstairs you’d notice the low ceiling. The redwood ceiling is from the 70s era.

Thanks for the memories. Step out and back out into the phony charm.
Kmby 1240 Leaving

KMBY 1240 Original Studios – Virtually Unchanged

P.G. Manhunt Locks Down Schools

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At least eight law enforcement officials from the Salinas, Monterey and Carmel police departments, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office, the California Highway Patrol, and California State Parks established a perimeter as Pacific Grove police searched for Gastelum, police said.

At 1 p.m., police took Gastelum into custody near Cedar and Maple streets. He was charged with suspicion of vehicle theft and suspicion of residential burglary. He is being held at the Monterey County Jail on $50,0000 and is on a no-bail probation hold, police said.

KSBW reports that the suspect got away, and brings up the pay issue.

More than a dozen officers went door to door looking for a man who they said stole a sport utility vehicle and then crashed it, officials said..

Schools in the area were locked down and additional officers were called in from other cities.

Police said they did not catch the man, but the incident is raising bigger questions about budget cuts and the staffing at local police departments.

Pacific Grove police said they had to call for backup because they only had three officers on duty at the time of the crime.

How many patrol cops does PG really need?

P.G. Manhunt Locks Down Schools

P.G.’s Mountain Lion Lunches At Bleachers

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Lion Bleachers

Mountain lion warnings have been posted at Pacific Grove High School and nearby Forest Grove Elementary School after the carcass of a deer apparently killed by a big cat was discovered on campus last week.

The slain deer was found under the visitors’ bleachers at Breaker Stadium at 4 p.m. Thursday, said high school principal Stan Dodd.

No lion was seen, he said, but an animal control officer and state Department of Fish and Game warden confirmed that the carcass was likely a mountain lion kill.

“We’ve alerted everyone,” he said. “We’ve informed everyone to take precautions at the school at night and before dawn. Luckily, the time they’re active is when the kids aren’t here.”

The deer was removed by the Department of Fish and Game to prevent the lion from returning to finish its meal, said Police Chief Darius Engles.

OK, so let’s tick off the lion and steal it’s food. Will it leave or just look for something else to eat?

P.G.’s Mountain Lion Lunches At Bleachers

Turn That @#$% Down, Part 2

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Police said a car occupied by Hector Cervantes, 26, and David Gonzales, 22, was stopped at Madrid and North Main streets at 6:15 p.m. because of loud music coming from their vehicle and for having illegally tinted windows.

Gonzales, police said, is on probation and a probation search of the car yielded a loaded .22 caliber semiautomatic pistol concealed in the center console.

Turn That @#$% Down, Part 2

P.G. Public Works Commits Herbicide

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Dead Ice Plant

Dead brown dirt surrounds Washington Park’s picnic benches and tables in Pacific Grove. Weeks earlier, groundskeepers doused sprouting weeds with such a wash of Roundup that passerby Ximena Waissbluth thought they were watering the ground.

“It’s never really occurred to me why there is no grass there, until I saw the enormous quantity of chemical they use,” she said.

Ximena makes it sound like they are pouring straight DDT on the ground. Roundup is diluted with water.

Would you rather have tall brown weeds amongst the picnic areas that could easily catch fire?

Roundup Vs Ice Plant

P.G. Public Works Commits Herbicide