18 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY april 25-may 1, 2024 www.montereycountyweekly.com Pedal Power Amazing what this cycling team has done for this community (“Salinas High School has one of the state’s oldest mountain biking teams, and the sport is growing,” April 18-24). Mikey Baroni | via social media One of our favorite Monterey County Weekly covers ever! Mari Lynch | Salinas Note: Lynch manages bikemonterey.org. Down on Downtown The idea of creating a classic downtown in Marina is a fool’s errand (“Marina’s downtown plan envisions changes in density, traffic flow and landscaping,” April 11-17). The idea of downsizing Reservation Road and Del Monte Boulevard from four lanes to two in order to create a walkable downtown, a la Monterey’s Alvarado Street, Lighthouse Avenue in Pacific Grove or Ocean Avenue in Carmel is an economic disaster looking for a place to happen. Those old-fashioned downtowns work in those places because they are tourism cities with lots of hotel rooms nearby and a population of visitors who don’t mind walking about town to see what’s going on. Visitors staying in Marina’s motels are not there to see Marina but to drive into Monterey, P.G. or Carmel. I lived in Marina for 15 years and loved how easy and convenient it is to get quickly around town. Big wide streets, not much traffic and easy parking everywhere you need to go are actually a real and tangible benefit for community members. The small, narrow, congested streets in Carmel, Monterey and P.G. are a real pain in the ass. There’s nothing wrong with being a modern, suburban city built with personal transportation as a primary means of accessing goods and services. Marina should celebrate its modernity and convenience and reject efforts to create a faux downtown. Mark Carbonaro | Monterey Horrible idea—there’s so much traffic now, why would you give less lanes. Yvonne Bates | Marina The rent is too damn high Sure, rent control sounds good at first (“Salinas is working on an ordinance that would control rent increases and protect tenants from evictions without cause,” April 11-17). It’s supposed to keep rents from skyrocketing and protect tenants from getting kicked out unfairly. But here’s the thing: It might actually make things worse. When landlords can’t raise rents to keep up with costs, they might not bother fixing things up or building new places. That means fewer options for folks looking for a home. Plus, some landlords might just decide to sell their properties instead of dealing with all the rules. That means even fewer places to rent. Instead of relying on rent control, let’s focus on things like building more homes and helping folks who can’t afford crazy rents. That’s the real solution to our housing mess. Victor Manuel Tafoya | Salinas “Housing is a human right”? Ah, but property rights aren’t? Oppressive ideology…just forcibly take what you want by the bludgeon of government force. Jeff Woods | Monterey Google It Great reporting (“Google tries to strongarm California into backing down on legislation to save journalism,” posted April 15). I purposefully don’t use Google as any of my search engines. I use the Mozilla Foundation brands Firefox and Firefox Focus browsers. I like that Mozilla is a nonprofit, and has an interesting history going back to Netscape. For my search engine, I use DuckDuckGo which uses a different model that protects privacy. Steven Harper | Big Sur I use DuckDuckGo. Rowan Chandler | Big Sur The proposed California Journalism Preservation Act would require Google and other Internet media companies to pay for the news products they carry on their websites. Apparently, Google and others oppose this proposal. From my perspective, this is no different than Spotify, Pandora, and similar music streaming sites which are required to compensate artists who produce the music they stream, and derive considerable income from. Len Foster | via email Damn you, Google. Thank you, Weekly, for the work that you do. I’m guessing that you don’t get a ton of feedback but we silent readers are out here with our unexpressed gratitude always looking forward to the next issue. Steve Beck | Big Sur Under Sea The thousands of urchins in these barrens, especially the ones away from the edges, are starving (“Local kelp forests continue to die off. Can they be saved? Divers say yes, but scientists and regulators want more answers,” April 11-17). If you open one up it is essentially empty, just a thin skin of tissue on the inside and outside of the test. Urchins can exist for years in this starved state, getting by on the diatoms that get started on their little patch of rock and catching pieces of drift seaweeds, especially after storms. That includes any tiny seaweed that gets started on their rock as well. That’s one reason that commercial divers need to get paid…they can’t sell these starved urchins as there is no uni. That’s also why the otters don’t bother with them. Henrik Kibak | Seaside Corrections A story about the Salinas High School mountain biking team inadvertently omitted Rancho San Juan High School from a list of local teams (“Salinas High School has one of the state’s oldest mountain biking teams, and the sport is growing,” April 18-24). Salinas High is not the only high school team. A story included the incorrect surname of CHISPA’s President/CEO Geoffrey Morgan (East Garrison’s ‘Town Center’ is coming, allegedly. But the rollout has been messy,” April 18-24). It is Morgan, not Rush. 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