WHO’S IN TOWN?
By now, you’ve probably read the reports about tests that showed your favorite cheap wines contain arsenic levels exceeding U.S. Environmental Protection Agency limits. Perfect timing for a winegrowing and winemaking workshop for professionals, who will gather in Salinas Wednesday to talk about all things wine, from irrigation methods and genomics to grapeskin extraction and the impact red blotch disease has on grapes. Faculty from the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology are traveling around the state delivering this half-day workshop; their next stop is Monterey County.
8:30am-1:30pm Wednesday, April 1. UC Cooperative Extension, 1432 Abbott St., Salinas. $20. 759-7350, https://registration.ucdavis.edu/Item/Details/160.
WHAT’S UP WITH THAT
The National Steinbeck Center has been jumbling messages – acquiring Steinbeck letters and notes, but canceling this year’s Steinbeck Festival. Some wondered if their popular Salinas Valley Comic Con would return this year. It will. They announced last weekend it will take place Dec. 18-20 at the Steinbeck Center and Monterey Marriott.
OVERHEARD
t“It’s like the hypocritical oath. I called the cops and they’re all corrupt.”
- Man in the Monterey County Superior Court
file room, trying to look at his records.
GOOD WEEK / BAD WEEK
GOOD:
Today, Jolon is barely more than an intersection, a fork in the road. But when the town formed in 1851, it was a booming stop on the Camino Real, boasting hotels and four saloons. An 1886 railroad extension redirected traffic, and in the 1920s,
William Randolph Hearst bought what was left of Jolon. Then in 1940, the U.S. Army bought 154,000 acres of Hearst’s land, including Jolon, and created
Fort Hunter Liggett. Hearst leveled most of the buildings, but the
Tidball Store, now on the National Register of Historic Places, still stands. The good news comes March 27 when U.S. Rep.
Sam Farr, D-Carmel, and Monterey County Supervisor
Simon Salinas join Army officials in celebrating the transfer of 2 acres of land from the Army to the county. This means there’s a chance the store will finally reopen to the public, under management of the
San Antonio Valley Historical Association.
BAD:
The fire broke out early on March 21 at the
Food Bank for Monterey County in Salinas. A video from a nearby security camera shows a hoodie-wearing person of indeterminate gender setting fire to a pile of pallets at the Food Bank’s loading docks. Minutes after the person walked away, the fire spread to the Food Bank’s fleet of refrigerated trucks, completely destroying four of them and damaging others – the dramatic footage shows those trucks exploding. The dock was also destroyed, leaving the Food Bank no way to deliver or receive food. As Food Bank Executive Director
Melissa Kendrick put it, 20 percent of the Monterey County population depends on the Food Bank to eat, and half of those served are children. “The thought that one person will go to bed hungry because of this, especially a child or senior, is killing me,” she says. Us too. Cash donations are being accepted at
www.foodbankformontereycounty.org
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