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."

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:

What do you think of the Monterey Conference Center design?

Above is a high resolution image of the initial design of the Monterey Conference Center that debuted last night.

Architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP sent me the photo around 1 a.m. last night, so it was not able to make print. Designs are not set in stone but the next meeting is fairly soon  -- Dec. 23 -- so it is not as if there is no urgency.

There was a lot of concern raised by the business and hotel community at the meeting to get something done because of groups trying to book events. At the same time, the City Council, Planning Commission and Architectural Review Committee are under pressure because of the $32 million price tag.

As the only reporter at last night's meeting, I have already received some backlash for having the gall to put in print some objections by elected officials to the design.

Monterey city manager Mike McCarthy wrote this to my boss: "The article in today's paper left the impression that it was very negative--I think early in the meeting it appeared negative, but by the end of the meeting, it was pretty clear that most agreed the drawings were right on track."

The video of last night's meeting should be uploaded here in a few days for those that want to see comments from officials for themselves.

The hotels might want it done soon, but it is something residents will need to see almost everyday and tourists are paying for.

Three hotels surrounding the center will cover the majority of the cost, with the other 65 hotels, motels and inns implementing a 1.6 or 0.8 percent tax on each bill. That means if you visit Monterey, and stay in a hotel, you are paying for this thing.

I have set up the comments on this site to not require a sign up on Blogger.com or anything like that. Please post your opinion! You might not own a hotel but your opinion is valuable (to me, anyway). Do you think the building is "right on track"?

NOTE: In the comment section, the easiest way to post is to select "Anonymous." But, feel free to leave your name if you want.

Monterey passes law to require tobacco permits

It is getting a lot harder to be a cigarette smoker, and seller, in Monterey.

Smoking is banned on the Recreation Trail, city beaches, public parking lots and even Fisherman's Wharf. Also, good luck finding an ashtray downtown.

The City Council took it a step further last week by passing a new law to requiring  the city's roughly 50 retailers who sell tobacco apply for a $236 yearly permit. The county, which already requires unincorporated areas to get a county permit, would distribute the license on Monterey's behalf.

Permit requirements likely not be needed until mid-summer after the city works out logistics with the county.

The permit may be revoked if a retailer is found to have sold to minors. Fines will range from $1,000 for the first violation to $5,000 for the second violation and suspension of tobacco selling privileges.

Dale Hillard of Monterey County Collaborates has been working hard to get local cities to pass similar permit rules.

Hillard talks about why he thinks the new law is important here:

Is Goldenvoice hiding First City Festival numbers?

Best Coast performs on Saturday at First City Festival 

As someone who attended First City Festival both days two years in a row, I can tell you attendance was down this weekend from 2013.

I think it is noteworthy a potential major tourism draw for Monterey did not get more popular in its second year (probably not a good sign for a music festival), despite arguably better known acts such as Beck and Phantogram.

This is perhaps why concert promoter Goldenvoice has been ducking me for three days. Despite repeated attempts to reach them by phone and email, I keep being told they are too busy to talk. 

This could be some sort of "small town newspaper" scenario. Who cares about the Monterey Herald if you have Rolling Stone on the other line? Yet, last year, I got them on the phone almost immediately. 

In that article, Goldenvoice executive Rick Mueller told me the morning after the festival his company's attendance estimates and its hope for future events. I was told Monday by Goldenvoice they could not talk until Tuesday, told Tuesday they could talk that day but then did not respond to my email, and then this morning told they could talk but did not reply to my response.

The festival drew roughly 10,000 people both days in 2013, Goldenvoice told me at the time. My personal guess for attendance this year was around 8,000 on Saturday and 5,000 on Sunday.

A few estimates were made in other media: SF Weekly said the festival "didn't have a huge attendance," Herald freelancer Beth Peerless said she spoke to someone at Goldenvoice on Sunday who put it at 9,000 each day and the San Jose Mercury News made a Saturday estimate of 8,000.

I'm fine just using what Goldenvoice told us Sunday for attendance (although, I would guess that is a bit high) but, for the newspaper, I would like to ask the promoter what it means and why they think it happened. 

Monterey police have already told me attendance was down for the festival, which law enforcement statistics at least partially reinforce. 

Last year, there were 12 arrests inside the fairgrounds and 23 citations outside during the festival on Saturday and Sunday, Monterey police said.

Lt. Leslie Sonne said there were no arrests inside the fairgrounds this year and just five citations outside.

One person was arrested outside Sunday around 1 p.m. for possession of methamphetamine, Sonne said. There was also a report of a theft of a wallet out of an unattended purse Saturday. 

I happened to be there for all the major acts both years -- and took video. Unfortunately, they both look pretty bad but you can see the Modest Mouse crowd was much thicker toward the front.

Here is Modest Mouse closing the show Sunday night in 2013: 

Here is The National closing the show Sunday night in 2014: 

I guess one could just argue Modest Mouse is more popular than The National, which is another reason why I can't really say for sure what happened on Sunday when attendance appeared to have gone down significantly.

Also, another anecdotal observation that I cannot pin down until I talk to Goldenvoice is the high amount of give-away tickets and last-minute deals on tickets. I ran into three friends that told me they got free tickets and you should have seen my friend Jeff's face (who flew up from Los Angeles and paid full price) when two Santa Cruz women told us they got their tickets for $50.

There are a lot of  factors to consider in the success of the festival. Even attendance may not be a fair analysis if you consider all the free tickets. They also could have made a high profit on concessions after it bought out concessionaire services from the Monterey County Fair.

Monterey County sea monster is just a whale carcass

My dream of covering a Monterey Bay sea monster story will have to wait another day.

About a week and a half ago, Michael Bell of Seaside contacted me about a possible sea monster found on the beach off of Tioga Avenue in Seaside.

This is how Bell described it in an email:

"It's about 50ft long &looks as if it had underwater wings :) & it's amazing!! I am unable to tell exactly what it is, yet with Earth's oceans vast greatness, I wouldn't be (sic) suprised if it's an undiscovered creature of the deep seas?!"

Unfortunately for newspaper sales, the good people at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station have cleared up the confusion.

Randy Kochevar, a researcher at the station, looked it over with some colleagues and they concluded it was an old, dried up whale carcass.

"You can see the characteristic folds from the underside of the mouth cavity in some of the photos," he said.

I'm sure there is all sorts of crazy stuff out in the Pacific Ocean we have not discovered. I will hold out hope for the next unique thing that washes up on shore.

Monterey City Council wants taxpayers to pay for ...

Monterey City Council members asked to be reimbursed for more than $3,000 from January 2011 to May 2013.

They asked for everything from plane tickets to business cards.

I could not find anything troubling about any of the purchases and compared to a lot of municipalities and cities I've covered, it seemed like Monterey politicians were a little more careful with this kind of thing.

I did find it a bit odd Nancy Selfridge had to buy her own business cards. Also, it looked as if Frank Sollecito had asked to be reimbursed for a ticket to an art event which, at least on the surface, appeared to be for his wife.

At the end of the day, it was only for $30 and hardly worth clearing the front page.

 Check it out for yourself:    
Monterey City Council -