4 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY January 4-10, 2024 www.montereycountyweekly.com THE BUZZ FREE SPEECH We’ve written in this column recently about challenges facing the news industry overall, and the world of alternative news media is no different. Three of the Monterey County Weekly’s peers announced in the final weeks of 2023 that they are contracting. The Chico News & Review will publish its final print edition on Jan. 11. “For the past three-and-a-half years, the newspaper has persevered, publishing monthly with the hope that ad sales would bounce back postCovid pandemic,” Editor Jason Cassidy wrote in a letter to readers. “Unfortunately, they haven’t.” CN&R plans to continue publishing digitally. Meanwhile, Colorado Springs Independent Publisher Fran Zankowski announced on Dec. 20 that the paper is taking a break. “Faced with overwhelming debt and an unsuccessful rebranding attempt, we have had to make difficult choices,” Zankowski wrote. The hope is to pay down debt and return to publishing as early as February. And in Oregon, the Eugene Weekly stopped publishing amid allegations of embezzlement by an employee, and laid off all staff on Dec. 22, the day after publishing a final print edition—for now. The paper’s staff hopes to bring it back. Good: Good news for Pajaro families, specifically for Pajaro Middle School students, is that in December, the Division of State Architects approved remodeling plans for the school to repair the water damage it suffered during flooding in March 2023. The project was approved less than four months after Pajaro Valley Unified School District submitted the application. The $4 million project will repair an area of 45,600 square feet, including classrooms, offices, a library, locker rooms, restroom renovations to fulfill ADA compliance and more. Pajaro Middle serves 450 students and has been closed since March. The project will go out for bid on Jan. 16; construction could start in February and be completed by the end of June, ready for the next school year. Most project costs will be covered by FEMA, CalOES and PVUSD’s insurance. PVUSD anticipates spending $2 million from its general fund. GREAT: Families are moving into the newly completed Alfred Diaz-Infante Apartments in East Garrison four months early, after a push by nonprofit developer CHISPA, State Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, and Pacific Gas & Electric, which agreed to streamline metering issues. The first family moved into an apartment in late November, and since then more families have moved in, including a family of eight from a garage and a family of seven who’d been living in a condemned one-bedroom trailer, just in time for the holidays, according to a joint CHISPA/PG&E press release on Dec. 25. CHISPA received 1,800 applications for the 66 apartments. The complex was named for Diaz-Infante, CHISPA’s late president and CEO. “I hope that somewhere, Alfred is smiling down on us for finally beginning to move residents in,” current President and CEO Geoffrey Morgan said. GOOD WEEK / GREAT WEEK THE WEEKLY TALLY Books per Monterey resident checked out from the Monterey Public Library in 2023. A total of 275,000 items were checked out during the year. Source: Monterey Public Library 9.72 QUOTE OF THE WEEK “Never turn your back to the ocean!” -A forecast from the National Weather Service’s Monterey office regarding the potential for up to 40-foot waves on west-facing beaches when a high tide and large swell converged on Dec. 28 (see story, mcweekly.com).
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