The Weekly Tally 02.09.17

FREE SPEECH

After President Donald Trump announced his U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press released a report on Gorsuch and the First Amendment. They found only a few decisions, but what they found bodes well. “His decisions in libel and invasion of privacy cases show a willingness to uphold protections for speech rights,” RCFP reports. For example, a 2007 decision in Alvarado v. KOB-TV held that a local TV station had not invaded privacy of undercover officers by broadcasting their names. In ClearOne Communications v. Bowers, Gorsuch agreed to keep documents sealed, but wrote: “We generally regard court records sealed from public scrutiny with a healthy skepticism.”

WHO’S IN TOWN?

A band of seven professional jazz musicians will be traveling all over Monterey County for four days to share their musicianship with student bands at 21 middle, high and charter schools. It’s all part of the Monterey Jazz Festival’s annual Monterey Jazz in the Schools Traveling Clinician Program. Professionals like trumpeter Peck Allmond from New York, trombonist Robynn Amy from the Berklee College of Music in Boston and pianist Eddie Mendenhall, a long-time MJF instructor and former director of jazz studies at Monterey Peninsula College, help school band leaders improve their ensembles’ musical abilities. The program is paid for by numerous donations from corporations, foundations and individual donors.

Feb. 13-Feb.16. Schools all over Monterey County. Not open to the public. www.montereyjazzfestival.org.

OVERHEARD

“I don’t want to feel like a product.”
- 50-something man telling 50-something woman at Spanish Bay why he doesn’t do online dating.

GOOD WEEK / BAD WEEK

GOOD:

It’s a good week for Monterey-Salinas Transit, which broke ground Feb. 6 on its expanded operations and maintenance headquarters at Ryan Ranch in Monterey. The 31,000-square-foot facility will provide parking spaces for up to 88 buses, and enable MST to serve more Monterey Peninsula routes without sending empty buses back to Salinas, saving on fuel and labor costs. The new digs will also include an energy-efficient bus washing station, tire servicing area and four additional maintenance bays.

BAD:

It’s a bad week for supporters of Measure Z, the countywide ballot measure that passed in November that bans fracking, new oil wells and, over a phase-out period, wastewater injection. On Feb. 9, the California Department of Conservation, Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) holds a public hearing from 4-7pm at the King City Fairgrounds on local oil industry applications to exempt the Aurignac and Lombardi aquifers from the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. Because of a misunderstanding between DOGGR and the federal Environmental Protection Agency, oil companies have been illegally injecting into those aquifers – which are not sources of drinking water – for decades. This exemption would make it legal. The County Board of Supervisorssent a letter to DOGGR Feb. 7, urging the agency to take the voters’ will into consideration, and to ensure it does not negatively impact public health.

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