WHO’S IN TOWN?
About 100 students from across the U.S. – and Hungary, Russia, Afghanistan, Sudan and Mexico – have been in Monterey this summer learning languages. The Summer Intensive Language Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies asks students to do a full year’s worth of college – or graduate-level language study in eight weeks. Now they showcase what they’ve learned, welcoming the public to an expo featuring artwork, performances, videos, food and games. The expo runs five days, with Arabic on Monday, then Chinese, French, Russian and concluding with Spanish on Friday.
2-3pm Mon-Fri July 25-29. Holland Student Center, Middlebury Institute, 453 Van Buren St., Monterey Free. 647-4115, miis.edu.
WHAT’S UP WITH THAT
A reader got an email from Amazon Fresh promoting local produce delivered to doorsteps and asked: Is it really local? An Amazon rep the Weekly reached searched by zip code to reveal where they obtain food for our area. The results included Beauty’s Bagel Shop in Oakland and El Porteño Variety Empanadas of San Francisco Bay Area. She added that Amazon has regional centers that fill produce orders but didn’t have access to locations. Items like “local Valencia oranges” and “local farmers market salad bundle” are provided by Fresh Nation San Francisco.
OVERHEARD
“The first time a girl sat on my lap was in the rumble seat of my brother’s car. It was nice.”
- One senior to another at
Pattullo Swim Center in Seaside
GOOD WEEK / BAD WEEK
GOOD:
The Monterey Bay Housing Trust, a $10 million loan fund to develop affordable housing projects in Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties, launched with $500,000 already committed from Monterey Bay Economic Partnership, and a pledge from Housing Trust Silicon Valley to loan at a 4-to-1 ratio. Good housing news also came for farm workers, with the redesign of apartments at Camphora, previously a run-down labor camp in Soledad. The 44 units, developed by Eden Housing and nonprofit South County Housing, feature a solar array that will offset all common-area electricity usage. And in Spreckels a couple of months ago, Tanimura & Antle opened Spreckels Crossing, a complex with furnished units for farm workers, including those on temporary agricultural visas from Mexico.BAD:
It was a bad week for under-the-table contractors on the Central Coast. The Contractors State License Board did a sting operation July 13-14, and arrested 12 people. The state board’s investigative fraud team invited suspected unlicensed contractors to bid on jobs for landscaping, painting and fencing installation at a home near Laguna Seca, for jobs ranging from $2,000 to $14,100. Three of the 12 people arrested were cited for charging an excessive down payment (in this case, they asked for down payments as high as $7,050, even though the law allows for a maximum down payment of 10 percent of the price of the job, or $1,000, whichever is less). The suspects hail from Pebble Beach, Castroville, Seaside, Pacific Grove, Carmel Valley, Marina and Watsonville. They’re scheduled to appear in court Sept. 29 and 30.
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