May 4 - 10, 2012
Dear Readers, Ten people — with widely different and, in some cases, very impressive resumes — have submitted applications to be appointed to the city council seat vacated by Jason Burnett when he became mayor. Which is funny, when you consider that only four people ran for council when two seats were open. Mary Schley has brief profiles of all the hopefuls, and reports what happens next. If you checked your mailbox this weekend, you probably found a notice from the water management district about the 'user fee' they're planning to add to your property tax bill. A lot of people think the procedure for protesting the fee is too complicated, perhaps intentionally so. Kelly Nix has that one. In our department of criminals with a lot of gall, we have a story about a woman who presented a fake driver's license and a stolen credit card at a downtown jewelry store and walked away with a $10,000 Rolex. Mary has that one, too. A man was revived with 45 minutes of CPR after suffering an irregular heartbeat at a local hotel. A newcomer with a very distinguished background is running for city council in Pacific Grove. The garden at Carmel's city hall will get a major re-do in honor of one of its longtime members. Joe Livernois takes you on a rather frightening tour of a typical local TV newscast. My editorials strongly recommend the city council give the vacant council seat to one of the candidates who participated in the election, and cite several reasons why the water district should go away instead of trying to impose new fees on the people it's supposed to serve. And extinction is a bad thing, right? But what if it happened 250 million years ago and gave us the world we have today? That's a question I raise in my hot Internet links.To get this week's complete Pine Cone, please click here. If you have an informed 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. And, as always, you should not hesitate to contact me if you have questions, comments or concerns. Paul Miller, Publisher |