The Buzz 03.12.20

WHO’S IN TOWN?

Much of Monterey County agriculture relies on manual labor but more and more farmers are relying on technology in the fields to produce successful harvests. The seventh annual Salinas Valley Ag Tech Summit is in town this week to keep growers in the know about the latest advances. Education sessions include how to use automated weeders, new ways to control disease and insects on strawberries and using a smartphone app for insecticide planning. The summit kicks off with three panelists: Mareese Keane of the company Fieldin which developed a Smart Farming Platform to optimize spraying and harvesting; Paidrig Whelan, chief scientist for ApisProject, which uses technology to help beekeepers prevent losses; and Mick Heatherington, vice president of sales for Prophet, a company that develops accounting tools for the fresh produce industry.

Tue-Wed March 17-18. Hartnell College, 411 Central Ave., Salinas. $25-$110. svagtechsummit.com.

FREE SPEECH

There’s been lots of attention on Assembly Bill 5, which took effect Jan. 1, and its unintended consequences. Meant to give gig economy workers employee protections, it also set strict limits on some side gigs, including freelance journalists, photojournalists and cartoonists who were capped at 35 submissions per year if they were to remain independent contractors. AB 5 author, Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, introduced AB 1850 earlier this year to iron out some problems in the new law. Most recently, on Feb. 27, she amended AB 1850 to exclude freelance journalists from the 35-piece-per-year cap, “as long as the services are not replacing an employee,” according to the proposed language. The bill is now in the Committee on Labor and Employment. “Having heard additional feedback from a variety of freelance writers, photographers and journalists, we are making changes to Assembly Bill 5 that accommodate their needs and still provide protections from misclassification,” Gonzalez said in a statement.

GOOD WEEK / BAD WEEK

GOOD:

Technically, it’s a bad week for Juul Labs Inc. But it’s a good week for local school districts that are finding strength in numbers by banding together, alongside other districts statewide, to sue the e-cigarette company for its role in the vaping epidemic sweeping schools. On March 2, North Monterey County Unified School District signed onto the class action lawsuit, initially filed by the Los Angeles Unified School District. Pacific Grove Unified School District will soon join, after their board voting unanimously March 5 to sign onto the lawsuit in Monterey County Superior Court; they join Monterey Peninsula Unified which joined in January. One focus for the plaintiffs is Juul’s advertising, which seems to target adolescents with pod flavors like mango and cucumber. Additionally, schools have argued they spend too much taxpayer money combating the use of vaping products on their campuses.

BAD:

The stock market is tanking and yet the economic impact from the spread of COVID-19 is only just beginning. Locally, organizers have canceled multiple events. Among them are the Sea Otter Classic at Laguna Seca (which draws some 80,000 athletes and spectators); the 500-person-plus EG Conference at Sunset Center; the International Council of Shopping Centers’ annual conference at the Monterey Conference Center (with more than 1,000 people registered) March 8-12; the Corporation for Network Initiatives, scheduled to meet at the Hyatt Regency Monterey March 16-18. Kimbley Craig, CEO of the Monterey County Business Council, says it’s too soon to measure an economic hit, but notes that the potential is there. “Our two major industries could be affected, hospitality and agriculture,” Craig says. “The cancellation of these events is impactful to our economy.”