Gripe: The dog days of summer are coming as August is here. Before you know it will be fall. I believe my favorite time because of the sunflowers, leaves and cattails all bright red, yellow, orange and fits the season perfectly. Time to put away your summer things, and look for outfits for fall. Fires are ongoing, though water is here and I hate it; it’s wasted on so many fires, on dying lawns, brown hills and dry landscape.
Gripe: Things in the city are looking nice and the downtown is to encourage shoppers. Bloom Again in King City with trees having to be replaced with wind sculptors. We do have wind and dare not plant trees over the gas lines, yet is there anything so lovely as a tree, and now lost to the past? Also loss of Radio Shack and the Photo Center and as yet nothing fills in the gap, like loss of the trees also makes me feel sad. Changing the shape of the city is on the planning commission agenda so best pay attention to their meetings.
Grin: I did make it to the Young Legislator Program and a visit with Anna Caballero. I found more students have returned and now for a lesson on how to write a bill. Students are busy writing their own bill and may have an opportunity to argue their case as a trip to Sacramento is being planned. This week’s speaker was Rafael Vasquez, assistant district attorney of Santa Cruz County. Speaking to the group about what it takes to become successful while growing up living in King City with a hard-working immigrant family.
Grin: Assembly Bill 822 is in support of agriculture written by Anna Caballero. It would give California Ag growers advantage over out of state producers. In purchasing preferences for state run institutions, and if the bid is within 5 percent of out of state purchasing. Cost of California raising produce is so expensive this is an effort to level the playing field. I may attend the last class to hear about bills how they are approved.
Grin/Gripe: The courthouse has sat since 2008 unused and today the turnout was great for the reopening that all agreed closed for too long. Now filling the needs of many and with regular hours, the main speaker was District Attorney Dean Flippo, and tried to explain the waste. What we already knew remembering those services that had been lost such as victim witness, domestic abuse, etc. I recall a search was on in 2008 for a location to have the South County Superior Courthouse built here in Monterey County. Plans to have it a centerpiece of services just didn’t happen.
Gripe: However, the Deborah Mills story has been told with a memorial bench. Built by Rancho Cielo friends to remember the victim of violent crime and all she endured in the loss of Anthony in an effort to give her a voice.
