The Buzz 02.29.24

FREE SPEECH

Throughout the country, laws require governments to post announcements about city council meetings, elections and other public business in the newspaper. These postings are often the largest source of revenue for news outlets, especially critical for those treading water. But in recent years, citing declining print readership, governments have increasingly introduced legislation that allows them to bypass the local newspaper and instead post notices on their own websites. However, that concerning trend seems to be reversing so far in 2024, the Public Notice Resource Center reports. As of the end of January, new legislation authorizing local news websites and papers to provide statutory notice in lieu of print had been introduced in at least six states, while bills allowing the move from print newspapers to government websites had been introduced in only two states, one of which has already died, according to PNRC. By this time last year, 12 states had introduced legislation to forgo newspapers.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“This is going to be a very costly exercise for the city.” - Pacific Grove City Councilmember Chaps Poduri, speaking on the council voting 4-2 to extend sidewalks and demolish parklets (see story, mcweekly.com)

GOOD WEEK / GREAT WEEK

GOOD:

It’s a good week for local nonprofit organizations who serve children, after the National Charity League  – Monterey Bay Chapter donated over 2,500 books to the Village Project, Inc., Community Partnership for Youth, the Salvation Army and others. The books were collected in January by the NCLMB charity book drive committee, led by volunteers Shira Diallo of Monterey, Lupita Cepeda of Seaside and Sharla Klingel of Carmel, and made up of mothers and daughters in grades 7-12. In its second year, the book drive committee collected 1,200 books, with another 1,300 readers donated by the Tularcitos Elementary School Parent-Teacher Organization. The readers were delivered on Feb. 21 to the Village Project, which plans to use them to help pre-K to fifth-grade students learn to read and improve their skills. NCLMB members also donated 100 homemade bookmarks and several Reading Rainbow-style read-along videos.

GREAT:

On Jan. 8, Monterey-Salinas Transit had 10 interviews scheduled to fill 19 open positions. That same day, the MST board, after their meeting, tried their hand at bus driving on MST’s training course in the former Fort Ord, which both the Weekly and KSBW covered. After those stories, MST General Manager Carl Sedoryk says the agency received a flood of applications, and now has 23 new coach operators, which he believes is the largest class in MST’s 50-plus-year history. Sedoryk says even though 23 is four more than positions they officially had open, they’re going to retain all of them and put them to work on the agency’s busiest routes, mainly between Salinas and Monterey. He adds that MST is planning to start hiring again in April, with the hope of adding intercity routes in Gonzales, Soledad and Greenfield, where a minibus circles each city every 30 minutes on weekdays.