No world-ending event means one final column for 2012.

Iwas half-hoping the Mayans were right, because if they had been, it would have meant I didn’t have to write a column this week. It also would mean the Weekly could cease a holiday schedule that has the staff putting out two papers in just three days, thanks to back-to-back Monday-Tuesday holidays. But alas, the prophecies were wrong. Just as Squid last week did a look at the 12 months of Squidmas, I’m taking a run at my own list from the past 12 months at the Weekly:


January: The Monterey County Board of Supervisors does an end run around public transparency and hands off a discussion on the strawberry pesticide methyl iodide to the powerful ag lobby Grower-Shipper Association of Central California, myriad labor interests and Planned Parenthood, which band together and hold “stakeholder” meetings in private. 


February: Those same county supervisors ignore the recommendation of Ag Commissioner Eric Lauritzen and make a symbolic gesture by asking Gov. Jerry Brown to reconsider the registration of methyl iodide. The United Farm Workers pushed away from that stakeholder table and declined to participate. Maybe the smell of backroom maneuvering was too much for them to take?


March: La Coasta Nostra, the Insane Clown Posse, the Marina Coast Water District (the gift that kept giving all year) proves again it’s a board given too much power with too little common sense. They vote 4-0, with lone female member Jan Shriner abstaining, to send Shriner to the county Grand Jury allegedly for revealing closed-session intel to the Weekly. (Which never, ever happened.) 


April: Back to methyl iodide, as manufacturer Arysta LifeScience (I love it when their name and mine pop up together in Google alerts – it makes their P.R. people insane) which is about to get its ass handed to them by Alameda Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch in a lawsuit brought by Earthjustice and California Rural Legal Assistance, pulls the product’s registration. They say it was for financial reasons; Roesch tells them a few days later he was going to rule against them.


May: The Fort Ord Reuse Authority, after being sued by the group Keep Fort Ord Wild for the release of details on a $99.3 million U.S. Army grant to fund cleanup, turns around and sues its clean-up contractor, Arcadis U.S. FORA reveals that Arcadis told it to withhold documents. 


June: Not a highlight, but here it is anyway – I spend three weeks in Chicago, the first half helping my mother die and the second planning and executing her funeral. And I am overwhelmed by the cards, letters and phone calls of support from Weekly readers, many of whom I’ve never met. 


July: While I’m in Chicago, vice president Joe Biden comes to Carmel for a no-media-allowed fundraising session. Weekly reporters do what reporters should do and get access anyway, prompting Joe Heston, KSBW’s chief and King of Emphatic Assertions, to question our ethics. Which prompts me to write another in a series I’m calling, “Surely you jest, Mr. Heston.”


August: Three pitbulls belonging to my neighbor in Oldtown Salinas escape from his yard and kill another dog they encounter on the street. Salinas police shoot and kill one of the pits in my front yard. I hope to never see anything like that again.


September: I write about a radical idea from a group called Mortgage Resolution Partners to reset the mortgage industry and help homeowners stay in their homes rather than go into foreclosure. In September, the city of Salinas, which has nearly 2,000 homeowners this plan could help, starts thinking about doing it. It’s an idea that requires moral courage – I hope the City Council has it.


October: The Weekly writes endorsements for the November elections, and endorses Jose Castañeda for Salinas council. That alone prompts more hate mail than anything in my two-plus years here, and that’s just from people I consider friends. “Really, Mary, how do you sleep at night?” one pal asks. I shrug and say, “Ambien and earplugs.”


November: Because we’re sometimes morons, we time our annual Monterey County Gives! issue (our campaign to support the big ideas from qualifying local nonprofits) for the same issue as the 2012 elections. Collectively, the reporters and editors get about four hours of sleep. (Psst: There’s still time to donate. Go to www.montereycountygives.com.)


December: A man murders his mother, drives to a nearby school and shoots and kills 20 first-graders and six other adults before killing himself. And in Marina, David Wasson, who has waited 18 months for his federal license, plans to open a firearms store between Christmas and New Year’s. 


MARY DUAN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com.