Today is the day the federal government parses essential from non-essential, following the budget impasse last night that triggered the first government shutdown since 1995.
At the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, some 1,300 employees showed up Tuesday morning to set up away messages and shut down their computers until further notice.
The semester started yesterday, and in anticipation of a government shutdown, faculty assigned two weeks' worth of at-home readings.
Things that will stay open, according to an email sent to NPS staffers: trash collection and janitorial services, as well as "quality of life activities," which include the gym and the Monterey Pines golf course.
About 1,300 of 1,800 NPS workers are on furlough until the government gets back into gear. Those still on campus include the incoming president, Ret. Vice Adm. Ron Route, who officially takes over on Friday—minus the ceremony originally planned to welcome him.
House Republicans refused to budge on a budget deal unless Obamacare was axed or delayed.
“The Republican leadership has repeatedly put our economy at risk in order to satisfy the constant temper tantrums of the extreme right,” U.S. Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, said in a statement.
Amid all the fighting, Congress did manage to pass the Pay Our Military Act on Monday, which means active-duty military will continue to be paid throughout the shutdown. It's largely thanks to that last-minute agreement that anyone's showing up at either military installation in Monterey.
At the Defense Language Institute, most of the 2,200 instructors are expected to stay on during the shutdown, as Army language instruction continues. As of Tuesday morning, officials were still calculating how many workers would stay.
"Due to government shutdown, this Facebook page might not be monitored, maintained or updated until normal government functions resume," the Presidio of Monterey's Facebook page states.
The phones were down at the Bureau of Land Management's Hollister Field Office on Tuesday morning. BLM manages public lands including the Fort Ord National Monument. Pinnacles National Park also shut down on Tuesday.
"None of this is fair to you," President Barack Obama wrote in a letter to the country's two million federal employees. "And should it continue, it will make it more difficult to keep attracting the kind of driven, patriotic, idealistic Americans public service that our citizens deserve and that our system of self-government demands."