Finally! Valorie Pollard's photo

As you may remember me lamenting last month, we were never able to find a photo of 2nd Lt. Valorie Pollard.

Pollard was a pilot in the Army Air Force in World War II and he remained missing until the Defense Department finally identified his remains this year.

I wrote about it on this blog after my request for records on him failed because the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis lost them in a horrific fire in 1973.

Good news though! I was just talking to his daughter, Sandra Pollard, on the phone and she sent this image along. Sure, it is not the best, but it is still pretty cool.

I had called Sandra Pollard because Gov. Jerry Brown has ordered all Sacramento flags at half-staff in honor of Pollard today.

Fort Ord Gambling: Part One

In early June, I was doing a lot of stories that included a discussion of gambling on the county's former Army base and one question kept bothering me.

Officials at the Fort Ord Reuse Authority told me a horse race track would be OK with its current anti-gambling policy because it was considered "a sport."

I began to wonder: "Are they just saying that? Or is there some basis for it?"

So I made a California Public Records Act request for, basically, any time FORA discussed gambling in its history. I got so many documents back I needed to split this one up into several posts.

Included here are my response letter, documents related to a 1995 to 1996 saga between Monterey and the authority over gambling and a letter from then-Mayor Dan Albert about the whole ordeal.

In the second document make sure to check out pages 14 to 15 which describes the laws (at that time) on horse racing. It actually explains how a local district could stop a horse track (which I would think something Measure M folks have probably already explored).

I know there is a lot of interest in this subject, so I hope someone finds use of this material. More coming next week ...




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Fort Ord Gambling: Part Two

Today, we will continue our search for answers in the Fort Ord Reuse Authority gambling saga.

As described in my previous post, I have too many documents on this one for a single post.

First, I start with a brief letter from the Fort Ord Reuse Authority to the Monterey city manager in 1996. It is just to let him know FORA's board voted to not have casinos or card rooms.

The next two deal with the fear the local Native American tribe would build a casino on the former Army base. I did an update on this one in May which, hopefully, set the record straight on the Esselen Nation.

The deal is it would be basically impossible for the Esselens to get the land, get tribal status to do what they want on whatever land they may get and, most importantly, the tribe itself said it does not want a casino.



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