City of Monterey makes it official with a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its rainbow crosswalk.

The City of Monterey held a short ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10am today, June 20 to celebrate the addition of a rainbow crosswalk in downtown at the intersection of Alvarado and Pearl streets. 

The crosswalk has been there a week already—it was striped by the city’s public works staff June 13 in the early morning hours—and came after the Monterey City Council approved the crosswalk June 3 at the second of two public hearings to consider it.

Both hearings had dozens of residents chiming in to voice their support or opposition to the crosswalk, with detractors decrying the cost and politicization of a public space, while supporters argued it sends a vital message to the local LGBTQ community, particularly the youth, that the community welcomes and embraces them. (Monterey Pride agreed to pick up the cost to the city to install it, about $2,000.)

About three dozen or so supporters gathered on the corner of Alvarado and Pearl, and Assistant City Manager Nat Rojanasathira kicked off the ceremony by saying the city was proud to have the crosswalk as a gateway to downtown, and he thanked the city’s public works staff, noting they had freshened up the paint last night for the ceremony, which drew applause. 

Nick Zafiratos, Monterey Pride’s communications officer, spoke next. ”I want to thank our lovely community for supporting this initiative, it was an entirely humbling experience to have so many of you show up and uplift our organization and our community as the whole,” he said. 

Zafiratos added there are number of Pride-related events in the coming week, including a parade that will start at the rainbow crosswalk at 11am June 28 and proceed down Alvarado Street to Custom House Plaza, where a Pride celebration will be held at noon. 

Monterey Mayor Tyller Williamson, who is openly gay and was the catalyst behind the crosswalk project, gave the final, brief remarks. 

“We got a rainbow crosswalk, let’s go!” Williamson said with a smile, drawing applause. "We know this wasn’t a straight path to get here—no pun intended— there were some challenges along the way, but really, the reason why this is so important is because of queer visibility…If this can save one queer person’s life, this has done it’s job."

And with that, the small crowd spread out along the crosswalk, photos were taken as Zafiratos cut the ribbon with oversized scissors, a round of cheers went up and then everyone dispersed. The whole affair was done in less than 10 minutes.