If you've ever driven on Scenic Road from the Carmel city limit to Carmel River State Beach, you've gone around the famous hairpin curve, and probably said to yourself, "Is this really a two-way street???" Now, county planners and local residents are saying it soon won't be. Meanwhile, at the nearby Carmel River Lagoon, a plan is afoot to build a vinyl barricade along the southern edge to protect homes from flooding. But will it be too ugly? Chris Counts has both those stories.

With Rich Guillen on his way out, the city council decided this week to use a headhunter to help find his replacement. Mary Brownfield has the details of what could be a long and contentious search.

The man who base-jumped off the Bixby Bridge in December is facing felony charges for the stunt, and for allegedly threatening a police officer after he was arrested. Is that inexplicable or what? Kelly Nix reports.

One of those scary floor furnaces nearly burned a home down on Santa Fe Street last week. A notorious local activist is suing Monterey County and seeking to overturn what he says could be ten years of illegal permits. An art-sale fundraiser will help build a new school in Mali, thanks to an altruistic local engineer. And my editorial takes note of what can go wrong when employees have the power to pick their own boss.

As always, I am available to answer your questions and respond to your comments. To get this week's complete Pine Cone, please click here. If you have an opinion about one of our stories and would like to submit a letter to the editor, please click here. And if you want to find out what's weird about the national news media's coverage of the unrest in the Middle East, be sure to visit my hot Internet links.

Paul Miller, Publisher
paul@carmelpinecone.com

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