The Buzz: August 18-24, 2022

FREE SPEECH

Hundreds of journalists that work for Gannett, a media company that owns newspapers across the country, including the Salinas Californian, staged a lunchtime walkout Aug. 11 to protest planned layoffs, which started Aug. 12. (It was not immediately clear how many employees were laid off in this round.) At the Californian, the local staff of two was reduced to one, and the Spanish-language paper El Sol suspended. A statement about the walkout from NewsGuild, which represents more than 50 newsrooms across the country, says that Gannett’s CFO was recently given a $1.2 million bonus for his “‘sacrifices during the pandemic,’” and added the CEO takes home $8 million per year, about 160 times the average worker. Reporter Susanne Cervenka of the Asbury Park Press said, “Gannett wants to pretend it can report on our communities with fewer journalists while still spending lavishly on executives. We deserve better, and our readers, equally, deserve better.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I had to immediately get the board flipped, get myself on the board, then get my dog on the board.” - David Stickler speaking about getting himself and his dog, Brutus, to safety after a shark off Lovers Point bit his stand-up paddleboard on Aug. 10, knocking them into the water (see story at mcweekly.com).

GOOD WEEK / GREAT WEEK

GOOD:

It’s a good week for fire prevention measures, especially as the region enters the belly of wildfire season. The Santa Lucia Conservancy, the organization responsible for stewarding more than 18,000 acres of the Santa Lucia Preserve in Carmel Valley, secured a grant of more than $1.2 million from Cal Fire to clear out more than 20 miles of fuel breaks on the Preserve, including a 12-mile stretch that divides the Big Sur and Carmel Valley regions. Known formally as the Palo Corona-White Rock Fuel Break, the stretch follows a ridgeline that played a critical role in allowing Cal Fire to cut off the 2016 Soberanes Fire from breaching Carmel Valley and threatening thousands more homes in a populated community. Jamison Watts, executive director at the Conservancy, called it “one of the most important fuel break systems on the Central Coast.”

GREAT:

Great news for recreation on Fort Ord National Monument comes in the form of a $78,000 grant from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to the Monterey Off-Road Cycling Association (MORCA) to improve two popular spots. It will fund construction of a bridge across lower Couch Canyon (Trail 47) to reduce erosion at a failed culvert, and to map and flag a re-route of Trail 60, providing an alternative to heavily used Trail 50, to improve safety for users. The hope is to complete the bridge before the April 2023 Sea Otter Classic; a more complete Trail 60 reroute plan will be submitted to BLM for review by mid-2023, with a timeline of a new trail by July 2024. “The BLM is thrilled with the trail stewardship leadership of MORCA and thrilled with the upcoming improvements that will benefit cyclists, hikers, joggers and equestrians,” Eric Morgan, monument manager, said in announcing the grant.