July 29 - August 4, 2011
| Dear Readers, Even as a petition drive gets started to try to overturn a new law requiring public schools to teach students about the contributions of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders to the development of California and the nation, Carmel school officials are scrambling to figure out exactly what the law requires them to teach. Mary Schley has that story. A zip code survey of tax returns filed by people who don't have social security numbers shows that Monterey County has the highest proportion of illegal immigrants in the state. Kelly Nix has the numbers. Now that smart meters are everywhere, and they haven't killed anybody, a lot of people are asking, "What do they do?" We have a story that explains, and I wrote it. A well known local doctor serving six years for forcible sodomy is trying to get his conviction overturned because, he claims, the jury was given the wrong definition of "forcible." Mary has that one, too. A former county water director took a lie detector test to try to prove his innocence of conflict of interest charges. Kelly Nix reports. The coastal commission says some ugly light poles installed by the federal government near a local beach don't have to be torn down. A former Carmel City Council member doesn't want a 9/11 memorial in town. A reporter and photographer from Town and Country magazine were in The Pine Cone offices this week. My editorial explains what you can do to curtail the partisanship in Washington. And If you want to know what's wrong with the idea of making it illegal to discriminate against ex-cons, be sure to visit my hot Internet links. 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. To comment on our Facebook page, click here. Of course, you can also contact me personally if you have questions, comments or concerns about this week's paper. Paul Miller, Publisher |