The Buzz 03.23.23

FREE SPEECH

There is still free television, even in this era of streaming. Through his company Cocola Broadcasting, TV veteran Gary Cocola owns Channel 19 (KMBY) and offers a variety of content from old movies to music videos to gameshows. Three hours on Sunday nights (6-9pm, viewable at kmbytv.com) are set aside for Cocola’s own show, Monterey on Tonight with Gary Morris. (Morris is his middle name, and the name he used when he appeared on the original KMBY starting in 1962 while stationed at Fort Ord – before a detour to Fresno and a return to the Monterey Peninsula in 2005.) The show features three short interviews with local personalities, such as recent appearances by Monterey Mayor Tyller Williamson, photographer Steve Zmak and restaurateur Chris Shake. Cocola, now 83, first got into TV broadcasting at age 17. After a Covid infection in 2022, he set his sights on making his own show: “It was a near-death experience. When I came out of that, I decided what I wanted to do with the rest of my life was something that would be fun. A Sunday night TV show is fun.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Rather than try to prove any culinary point, why don’t I give people what they want?” - Chef Klaus Georis on his Seaside restaurant Maligne, which closed after just nine months in operation, and will reopen with a revised menu including wood-fired pizza (see story, mcweekly.com).

GOOD WEEK / GREAT WEEK

GOOD:

Good news is ahead for anyone in search of a spot to grab a refreshing, post-shopping beer and a meal in The Dunes shopping center in Marina. A franchise location of the Tampa-based craft beer bar The Brass Tap is opening soon at 99 General Stilwell Drive, building out the food and beverage options in the mall. The location will be led by Marina-native Karl Waller. After nearly 40 years away and a career in supply chain management, Waller is poised to build a business in his hometown­ – a place he envisions as a local destination for social gathering, with live music, TVs, an outdoor game area and 60 beers on tap. The bar will be the first of its kind in Monterey County, and The Brass Tap’s fifth location in California. A groundbreaking takes place on Thursday, March 23, with estimated opening in the late summer or early fall of this year.

GREAT:

Great news for all Monterey Peninsula water users comes as California American Water reaches a compromise with the California Public Utilities Commission’s Public Advocates Office. The agreement has Cal Am signing a water purchase agreement, in which the utility commits to the wholesale purchase of recycled water from Monterey One Water’s Pure Water Monterey system. The expansion of Pure Water Monterey – which will generate up to 2,250 acre-feet of additional water per year – had been approved by various entities but still needed a water purchase agreement before construction could begin. Cal Am had been seeking an additional $21 million in reimbursement in the agreement, but settled for $10 million toward the cost of two wells in Seaside. The total cost of the expansion project is estimated to be $141 million.