WHO’S IN TOWN?
The pool and spa industry has plunged since the recession in 2008, and has yet to fully recover to pre-recession levels. In California – which, at 1.2 million, has more pools than any other state – the drought hit, and suddenly pools and spas were on the hitlist for cities that sought to ban new construction to save water. Nevertheless, there are still more than 10 million pools and 5 million spas in the U.S., and someone’s got to take care of them. This week a few thousand pool and spa professionals are in town for the 31st annual Pool Industry Expo, which combines educational workshops and vendors showing off all the latest trends and gadgets in the pool world. Attendees come from as far away as Russia, France and China.
Thur-Sat Sept. 28-30. Portola Hotel, 2 Portola Plaza, Monterey. $90. poolindustryexpo.com.
FREE SPEECH
A proverb might say, if a public record has been through the shredder, is it still a public record? The nonprofit First Amendment Coalition tried finding out in court. When termed-out Los Angeles City Councilmember Tom LaBonge left office, FAC filed a California Public Records Act request seeking thousands of documents connected to the councilman’s last two years in office, relating to business with everyone from the L.A. Department of Water & Power to the California Film Commission. City officials denied FAC’s request, based on the fact that the records had already been boxed up, marked for destruction and removed from LaBonge’s office. FAC sued the city in August of 2016, and on Sept. 20, 2017, the parties announced they’d reached a settlement. The city agreed to retain records for at least two years, and to pay $20,000 to cover FAC’s attorney fees. “The people’s right of access to public records is meaningless if the government destroys those records before the public can see them,” FAC Executive Director David Snyder said in a statement.
GOOD WEEK / BAD WEEK
GOOD:
The lack of affordable housing in Monterey County has become such a crisis that every new affordable unit counts, so a hat tip goes to the city of Monterey for continuing to chip away at the housing shortage in creative ways. The city put out a request for proposals with the intent of committing some of its remaining water allocation – up to 1.2 acre-feet – to proposed housing developments that include affordable housing units either onsite or off-site. And it’s a good week because on Sept. 19, Monterey City Council approved pre-committing to one of those proposals, a three-story, seven-apartment mixed-use building at 591 E. Franklin St. that includes four affordable housing units. Marina developer Dan Silverie III is behind the project. It still needs to go through the design approval process, but four of seven units will be earmarked as affordable.
BAD:
On Sept. 25, local history lost one of its most valuable sources: Frank Nelson Wright Jr., who passed away at 98. Wright was a member of the Pacific Biological Laboratories’ Men’s Group, 14 men who fronted $1,000 each to buy marine biologist Ed Ricketts’ former home and lab from Monterey teacher Harlan Watkins, who lived there after Ricketts died. The men’s group made the Cannery Row lab their headquarters starting in 1958, and every Wednesday for 35 years, they’d gather and drink Burgermeister beers from Wing Chong Market, talk shop and listen to jazz records just like Ricketts did when he had company. Wright had been a personal friend of Ricketts, who was famously fictionalized as the character Doc Ricketts by author John Steinbeck. Wright was instrumental in helping keep the history of the once-working-class neighborhood alive.