Carmel Bay: Fisherman films close encounter with humpback whale

Monterey fisherman Lance Scott had a close encounter with a humpback whale three weeks ago while kayaking in Carmel Bay. He was only a half mile off shore.

Video:



Scott is a full-time fisherman in the Monterey Bay and he's no stranger to close encounters, but you can tell from the video he was pretty surprised.

Humpback whales have been close to shore in Carmel and Monterey because of all the anchovies close to shore, according to Barbara Block of the Hopkins Marine Station.

"We have a hot spot created by (underwater) points that then concentrate upwelling close to shore," she said, "and this leads to nutrient enrichment, plankton blooms. Anchovy feed on the plankton, the whales feed on the anchovy."

Do you have an interesting Monterey Bay video? Send it to me at pmolnar@montereyherald.com

Lance Scott and son Dylan, 10, with a 54-pound Halibut from the Monterey Bay

Monterey gets defensive over leases

Jody Hansen

Some in the business community are trying get Monterey City Council to change its mind over new leasing policies but it doesn't seem to be working.

You may remember back in March that the governing body made sweeping changes to lease policies that will likely have drastic changes for Fisherman's Wharf. The gist is wharf businesses get long-term leases on city property and often sublease that property to someone else, making a lot of money on land that belongs to taxpayers.

An example: Leaseholder Mary Alice Cerrito Fettis pays the city around $79,000 a year to rent a spot on the wharf but then charges a subleaser $264,000 a year to rent it from her.

However, wharf operators say they work very hard, bring tons of tax revenue into the city, are a gem for the community, take all the risk when subleasers go belly up and are being demonized.

Old Fisherman's Grotto owner Chris Shake lays out a cohesive argument here.

Trying to get City Council to change its mind has been mostly subtle so far, such as a letter writing campaign to The Herald and one or two business leaders addressing the council.

Monterey County Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Jody Hansen tried to appeal to the council Tuesday night to tell the council that businesses need flexibility to succeed. Part of that flexibility would be longer leases, as opposed to 10-year limits recently imposed.

Here she is:



Then, Monterey Commercial Property Owners Association immediate past president Mike Mosebach said the Monterey Bay Aquarium would have never come to the city if current leasing policies had been in place.

Councilman Alan Haffa did not take kindly to the remarks. He said the whole point of the changes was to give Monterey flexibility and predictability.

"What we have are leases in which politics determine who gets what. That's wrong," he said. "Predictability is the goal. So, you ask us about our goals? Predictability. No. 2: Flexibility. Each lease is negotiated independently. Unique considerations will be taken into consideration. They are guidelines."

He said the City Charter required Monterey to go for market-rate rents the goal was to generate enough revenue so that in the future the city doesn't need a sales tax, like Measure P, to pay for infrastructure.

"We specifically added a policy that gives a preference for local and independent vendors," he said. ". . . We certainly don't want Hooters. We don't want Applebee's on the wharf. However has been distributing that misinformation should be ashamed of themselves."

You can see some videos of his comments below:




Councilwoman Libby Downey backed him up and said an editorial from a local TV station was out of line by saying Monterey did not have all the facts:


 Councilman Ed Smith disagreed with both of them and said he appreciated the business community coming to the council meeting.

"It is important we hear from all sides of the coin," he said. ". . . You're (Haffa) offended by them coming forward and using this forum but I'm not sure what other forum they would have available to get their word to us. We use the power of the microphone and the TV to convey our expressions, so I'm not offended by somebody coming here and using their time to give us their opinion."

Inside baseball: Marina Coast Water District and Fort Ord

How much water the Fort Ord Reuse Authority gets for development from the Marina Coast Water District is the subject of a strongly-worded letter from district vice-president Peter Le.

In the letter to FORA, provided to the media, Le suggests the district will cut what it promised to FORA by roughly 600 acre-feet a year.

His reasoning was the authority — by not formally approving the district’s plan for a desalination plant at its recent meeting — must no longer want most of its water for the former Army base from desalination.

The most-recent FORA resolution from 2008 stated 3,000 acre-feet of water from the district would come from desalinated water. A 2005 agreement said 1,500 acre-feet would come from recycled water and 1,500 acre-feet from desal.

Assuming previous agreements are null and void, he now suggests the district drops down to 2,400 acre-feet a year (half from recycled water and half from desal).

District interim general manager Bill Kocher said the letter did not go before the district's board but noted that Le is the district's representative on FORA.

“The FORA Board’s action to not act on a recommendation regarding the MCWD water augmentation plan left many questions, particularly for MCWD who is trying to move ahead on fulfilling its obligation to provide additional water to the Ord Community for its build-out plans,” he said.

FORA attorney Jon Giffen said Wednesday the authority had yet to receive the letter.

The correspondence comes after the authority, once again, declined to endorse the district’s plans at its Friday meeting, largely because of legal concerns.

There is still an ongoing lawsuit from the Marina Coast Water District against California American Water regarding test wells for its planned desalination plant. A preliminary injunction hearing for the lawsuit will be heard May 1 in Santa Cruz County Superior Court.

“A leopard hasn’t changed its spot,” Cal Am attorney Tony Lombardo said of the district at the FORA meeting. “They are still doing everything they can possibly do to stop the Monterey Peninsula from finding out if this is a viable water source.”

Monterey County supervisor Jane Parker asked how the district's plan ended up on the agenda again after the board failed to endorse it at its previous meeting. Chair Frank O’Connell said it was an honest mistake that the item appeared as an “action” item instead of just information.

Del Rey Oaks Mayor Jerry Edelen continued to use strong language with the district for potentially blocking Cal Am’s effort to produce more water.

“It looks like (the district) is trying to cut Cal Am’s throat in court,” Edelen said.

Supervisor Dave Potter urged the agencies to stay out of court while Salinas Mayor Joe Gunter argued everyone needed to find a way to get along.

“You’re going to have to figure out how to work together,” Gunter said. “And maybe you’ll put your slant wells right next to each other and work it out and build a bigger, better desalination plant. You need to stop acting like bullies, children.”

Battle of the "Pacific Grove" songs

America's Last Hometown has a song battle going on and we are divided at The Herald which anthem is better.

Pacific Grove, where it is illegal to kill a butterfly (and apparently stay open past 6 p.m.), is the subject of songs by Julie Capili and Matt Costa.

Capili recently hit it big with "Butterfly Town," an insanely catchy tune with a new video financed by the Pacific Grove Chamber of Commerce (see the story in today's Herald).

But, local radio station KRML has been playing a song by Costa for a while now that I think it really swell.

Here is Costa's:




Here is Capili's:



Or, rather than argue over which song is better, we could just support both artists who were inspired by Pacific Grove.

Here are their websites:

Julie Capili: http://www.juliesingsjazz.com/

Matt Costa: http://mattcosta.com/

Where's Bixby? Monterey (After an 8,200-mile bike trip)

We get a lot of people stopping by The Herald but this one actually put a smile on our faces.

Mike Minnick, 38, and his dog Bixby, 5, stopped by the office after pedaling 8,200 miles by bike to get to the First City.

For nearly 19 months, Minnick has been on his Yuba Mundo bike, with the female border collie mix in a carrier over the rear wheel. From Lubec, Maine, to here, people have been following along on WheresBixby.com.

He arrived in Monterey on Friday and has been enjoying Cannery Row and other tourist spots. He said he was irked he could not ride on 17-Mile Drive because of the AT&T National Pro-Am.

Santa Cruz Sentinel was also visited by Minnick and wrote a story about him last week. He also rode his bike to other Monterey area media and will probably go to every newspaper and TV station as he travels south.

He says he does it to highlight the benefits of animal adoptions and local shelters. He said he paid for the trip by selling everything he owned and some donations collected on the Bixby website.

A little known song by a not that well-known artist gets him up the tough hills, Jerry Jeff Walker's "Maybe Mexico."

Minnick said he is looking forward to riding across the Bixby Bridge next, which he joked was named for his faithful companion.

Monterey's recent public records requests

Monterey City Council in  October (Molnar)

Monterey got about 80 public records requests in the last six months with no unified theme among them.

As expected, there are a fair amount of requests from journalists and attorneys.

Gordon Smith of Veterans Wild Fort Ord and environmental attorney Zan Henson had one of the more interesting threads of requests. They both were asking for a lot of information on La Sala's Bi-Rite Market on Casa Verde Way. 

"I represented a neighbor who lived down the street who was concerned that they were expanding their operations and it turned out they were," Henson said today. "So, they cut back some of their outdoor operations." 

No lawsuit was ever filed in the matter. 

Here are the requests: 

Presidio of Monterey's questionable FOIA response

Presidio in May 2014 (Molnar)

The Presidio of Monterey continues to be cagey about an incident that caused the evacuation of the base back in mid-August.

After months of silence, The Herald was able to determine hundreds of students, faculty members and military personnel fled because officials believed an instructor intended to blow himself up.

This newspaper was only able to figure that out using a California Public Records Act request for all communication from law enforcement to dispatch at the Monterey County Emergency Communications center in Salinas. All the Army said was  that a  "real world incident" took place, a suspect was in custody and there was no danger to the public.

A Freedom of Information Act request for the Presidio, made at the same time as the state request, came back empty.

The Herald asked for: "All emails, reports and correspondence concerning the
Aug. 8, 2014, incident at the Presidio of Monterey that required an emergency
drill to be halted."

What we received was three press releases without an explanation of why nothing else was included. This would mean: 1) No one sent any emails, made any reports or sent any letters on a major military instillation, and home to the Defense Language Institute, about a basewide evacuation or 2) It ignored the law in its response.

FOIA law says government agencies must give "the reasons therefor" not granting a request. The Presidio's response just says "please find enclosed partial response." The fine print of the act is on the Department of Justice's website.

You can view the Presidio's response below: