Fort Ord veterans cemetery seeks bids

The effort to find the company who will build the Central Coast Veterans Cemetery has begun.

In Monday's edition of The Herald, the state Department of Veterans Affairs advertised for bids for the cemetery, which it estimates will cost $6.3 million and take 525 work days to complete.

Prospective bidders must attend the mandatory pre-bid meeting and site inspection tour July 9 at the Fort Ord Reuse Authority office in Marina.

The advertisement said the work involves labor, demolition, excavation, earthwork, storm water pollution prevention planning, monitoring for unexploded munitions, building fences, concrete, asphalt paving, electrical wiring and transformers, interior and exterior lighting, landscaping, installation of PG&E infrastructure and AT&T substructure, improvements to Parker Flats Road and more.

The bid opening will take place July 30 in Sacramento.

Organizers are on a tight Aug. 24 deadline for a $6.7 million grant to be approved, which has been complicated by some environmentalists protesting the environmental review process through comments to the state Department of General Services.

They said the state should complete a much longer environmental impact report, or EIR, as opposed to the environmental assessment the state produced. Although, they have stopped short of saying they will pursue legal action.

Fort Ord veterans cemetery comment period pushed back

Source: CA Department of Veterans Affairs

Those interested in the state Department of Veterans Affairs' environmental assessment for the Fort Ord veterans cemetery will now have six more days to comment.

The last day to comment on the Central Coast Veterans Cemetery assessment is now July 18.

The change was the result of the assessment accidentally being shipped to the San Francisco City and County Clerk instead of the Monterey County Clerk-Recorder, according to State Sen. Bill Monning's office.

You can view it online here.

I read the whole 629 pages because I am insane. Trust me on this one: You are probably better served reading a copy at the Seaside Library at 550 Harcourt Ave. or the Marina library at 190 Seaside Circle.

Reading it on an iPad isn't bad, but I found printing it out (I only did that for about 100 pages) was the best.

Some environmentalists plan to ask the state to complete a much-longer environmental impact report. More on that story as it develops.

To comment:

Email: environmental@dgs.ca.gov

Or by mail: 

Valerie Namba, Senior environmental planner
Californian Department of General Services
RESD-Environmental Services
P.O. Box 989052 (MS 502)
West Sacramento, CA 95798-9052

Monterey County Sheriff Scott Miller signs vandalized

Monterey County Sheriff Scott Miller, who is seeking re-election in the June 3 primary, had at least five signs vandalized or destroyed in the past few days.

Not surprisingly, no one has come forward to claim responsibility. At the time of this blog posting it was unclear if there was any investigation.

Monterey County Probation Association breaks silence on sheriff endorsement

One of the most contentious endorsements of the Monterey County sheriff's race was made by five people.

The 5-person board of the Monterey County Probation Association, which represents 198 Monterey County Probation Department employees, voted to endorse sheriff candidate Fred Garcia in January, according to past president Dawn Allen.

Garcia was the only candidate to speak to the board. Allen said it is not that Garcia was the only candidate allowed to speak, it was that he was the only one to reach out to the association.

Mike Richards, Steve Bernal and current sheriff Scott Miller are also running in the June 3 primary.

The endorsement became an issue last week when Garcia was forced to issue a correction press release after he mistakenly told 12,000 voters in a flier he was endorsed by the county Probation Department, which would have been illegal for the department.

After comments by Miller about the matter in The Herald, Garcia fired back with a press release accusing the sheriff of "dirty politics" and implied the probation department's chief Manuel Real was playing politics.

"Is Mr. Real using his position at the county to campaign for Scott Miller on the public dime?" Garcia wrote.

Allen distanced herself from the comments Monday morning while speaking to The Herald.

"While our Probation Association, not the Probation Department, has endorsed Fred Garcia for sheriff," she said in a prepared statement, "we do not endorse any negative commentary by any candidate about each other, the Probation Department and, especially, our chief."

Allen said the association is considering changing its bylaws to allow all members - not just the board - to vote on endorsements, similar to the Monterey County Deputy Sheriff's Association.

In that association's vote in March, no candidates received its approval because a majority is needed for the endorsement. Miller got the most votes with 49 out of 135 votes cast, or 36 percent of members. Garcia got 21 percent, Bernal got 16 percent and Richards received 9 percent.

All four candidates are expected to address members of the legal community Monday at 3 p.m. at the law offices of Miguel Hernandez at 40 Central Ave. in Salinas. It is open to the public.

Sheriff Scott Miller claim on Hwy 68 to be removed

Submitted photo

A message likely seen by hundreds of drivers between Salinas and Monterey is in the process of being removed.

Sometime around May 6 an individual, or group, hiked up a hill off of Highway 68 near the Reservation Road exit and spray painted a message about Sheriff Scott Miller.

It said, “MEDIA SHERRIFF (sic) MILLER GOT $10,000 FROM P.G. ART HEIST SCAMMERS.”

Whoever wrote the message never came forward or produced any evidence. Miller said he had no idea what the message meant and the other campaigns distanced themselves from it.

The property is owned by Santa Monica-based Domain Corporation and leased to cattle ranchers.

In a letter from Domain Vice President Mark Kelton, he tells the sheriff the matter is a mystery to him too.

“We are very sorry to learn of this incident and have no knowledge about who is responsible for these statements,” he wrote. “. . . Upon discussing this matter with the cattle ranchers, they told us that they were also disappointed that someone would trespass on the property to spray paint any type of message.”

It is impossible to say for sure, but the message seems to point to a two-year investigation by the Sheriff’s Office into stolen artwork from a Pebble Beach home.

The men who said they had been robbed, Angelo Amadio and Ralph Kennaugh, said they lost $80 million of dollars of art.

Current sheriff candidate Mike Richards said in 2009 (as then-spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office) investigators suspected Amadio and Kennaugh of possible fraud.

Richards, who remembers the case well, said Thursday he has no idea who wrote the message.

There are no records of Amadio or Kennaugh donating to Miller’s 2010 or current sheriff’s campaign.

Fred Garcia accuses Sheriff Scott Miller of 'dirty politics'

A day after Sheriff Scott Miller criticized sheriff candidate Fred Garcia for a campaign error, Garcia has accused Miller of playing "dirty politics."

Garcia mistakenly listed the Monterey County Probation Department as his top endorsement in a campaign flier. He had actually been endorsed by the county Probation Association, the union for department employees. 

It was a big deal for the probation department, and its chief Manuel Real, because a county entity is forbidden by state law for endorsing candidates. Miller called it an "egregious error." 

"(Miller) continues to slander his opponents because of his personal record of failure," Garcia wrote in the release, which is posted below. 

A central theme in the release is that Miller somehow gave The Herald a letter the Probation Department had sent to Garcia in order to create a smoke screen from his son's sentencing earlier that day. 

I actually got an anonymous email about Garcia's election trouble Friday and had some difficulty obtaining it from the county until Tuesday (mostly because I thought the letter actually came from county counsel). It was me who pursued getting the letter and not Miller who gave it to me. I called him for comment, and the other candidates in the June 3 primary, as I do for every sheriff's race story. 

Garcia also implies Real may have an ulterior motive for asking him to correct his flier. 

"Is Mr. Real using his position at the County to campaign for Scott Miller on the public dime?" he wrote. I have sent an email to Real to see if he wants to comment about this. 

Garcia's press release ends by raising questions about Miller's ballot claim to have saved the taxpayers $500,000 by refusing to "double dip." I have written about that issue here.

Candidates Steve Bernal and Mike Richards are also running for sheriff.

Fred Garcia press release: 

press release garcia may 14 _1_.docx

Stonewalled by the Defense Department on Guardian block

I am being stonewalled by the U.S. Department of Defense.

This summer I wrote a story about The Guardian being blocked on Army bases because of the leaks by Edward Snowden.

As a follow up, I did a public records request to see all the websites the Army was "filtering" on its bases.

I got the request back, which showed the Army had only blocked one website all year - a link to a 2010 diplomatic cable from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on The Guardian's website.

This is weird because:

The diplomatic cable had been on the website for three years.

The Army told me in June it had restricted access to The Guardian because of the National Security Agency leaks. 

The same cable is on the New York Times website and not blocked there. 

To get to the bottom of this I contacted the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command, or NETCOM, because it had answered my questions for the story in June. 

This time, the agency's spokesman Gordan Van Vleet said I needed to contact U.S. Army Cyber Command (NETCOM is a subordinate to Army Cyber Command). So, I made some calls and was told to contact Jennifer Downing, a spokeswoman for the command. 

On Nov.22, I emailed Downing (at the time I couldn't find a phone number) about some questions about my public records request. She emailed back on Nov.25 that "OSD Cyber PAO will be replying to your questions below. I am passing your information to him."

She did not bother to tell me who it was or what "OSD" meant but - after two emails - she coughed up a name and phone number. The man who would answer my questions was Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Damien Pickard. 

I called Pickard on Tuesday and got him on the phone right away. I was feeling good about it because Pickard said that he had been consulted about my Freedom of Information Act request earlier in the summer. 

Unfortunately, he had to get going to a previous engagement and would call back in an hour and a half. I normally just start asking questions but, for some reason, I just let him go. 

He never called.

So I called later that day, again on Wednesday and now Monday. Nothing. 

I am not giving up. I still have plenty of folks to keep bothering and I've only become more determined. Yet I thought it was worth noting on my blog that there seems to be a coordinated effort not to talk about this.  

The Army blocking an individual website on its bases made international news, I think with good reason. The Army did admit it and explained why (classified information on those websites, etc.) but just what the heck is so bad about this public records request that no one wants to give any answers?