The Buzz 10.15.26

FREE SPEECH

Few people get unfettered access into local government quite like those serving on the Monterey County Civil Grand Jury, a jury of 19 residents meant to find ways to improve efficiency and investigate the County of Monterey, cities and districts. But this year, unless you’re willing to trek out to the County Clerk’s office in person, you won’t know who they are. One grand jury member said an incident led to the names no longer being published online in order to not publicize personal information of jurors. The foreperson, Douglas Smith, confirmed the jury requested their names be taken down in 2025, but wouldn’t confirm why. There’s no law requiring that the names of jurors be published. The California constitution states that each county must form a civil grand jury. While they have court and county liaisons that allow them access to interviews and information about county operations, their power ends at the ability to give recommendations. It’s not particularly hard to end up on the jury either – Smith says they “desperately” need more people to help. Compensation is $15 per day of meetings.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“We have been deeply concerned for those who became ill.” - Taylor Farms CEO Bruce Taylor, responding to the cyclospora outbreak while outlining expanded safety protocols (see story, montereycountynow.com/news)

GOOD WEEK / GREAT WEEK

GOOD:

After 15 years, radio station KRML (94.7FM) has finally moved into a venue better suited to accommodate the team and their equipment. The station had been at the Carmel Valley Athletic Club, and on Sept. 18, relocated to Golden State Theatre in Monterey. (In June, Craig Vachon and Rhonda Howard-Vachon of Carmel purchased KRML from the company that owns CVAC.) Engineering work continues on two studios and a small venue to host musicians, with hope that the main studio will be wired up this week. “We’re still in construction mode, building out the studios,” says General Manager Jeff White. Public events at the new digs are expected to start in the coming months, thanks to a bigger space that can include a small audience, not just the band. “We can bring in our listeners in a way we never were before,” White says. “The goal is to become more than just a radio station.”

GREAT:

For the first time in California, lab-grown sunflower sea stars have been temporarily roaming the ocean floor in Monterey Bay. The species became functionally extinct in 2013-2014 due to a strain of the bacterium Vibrio pectenicida. Moss Landing-based nonprofit Sunflower Star Laboratory has been working on breeding efforts for the stars over the years, with the eventual plan to reintroduce them back into the wild. Over the summer, the Sunflower Star Laboratory got one step closer to that goal, leading a collaborative research project which took 16 of these sea stars out to Tankers Reef in the Monterey Bay. During a number of sessions over the span of a couple months, a team of divers monitored the invertebrates for two hours at a time, including observing their feeding habits, collecting data before bringing the sea stars back to the lab for analysis.