4 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY JULY 16-22, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com THE BUZZ FREE SPEECH For 15 years, Joel Feder, a journalist with The Drive, an automotive news website, has reviewed press vehicles from manufacturers as his career. So it was just another Sunday afternoon when he was testing a $155,000 Range Rover, until four police cars came “flying out of nowhere and boxed us in,” he wrote. Turns out, the Plymouth Police Department in Minnesota had been tracking his movements for days via Flock license plate cameras, which had erroneously marked the vehicle as stolen in Los Angeles. After a tense situation, with officers keeping their hands on their weapons, Feder learned that the vehicle’s license plate number was similar to the plate in question, yet the cameras began alerting local police. The kicker? The Los Angeles vehicle wasn’t stolen at all—its plate had just been “misplaced” during an earlier photo shoot. “Whether you’ve actually stolen a car or are just rolling down the road having done nothing wrong, like me, once these systems have you in their crosshairs, there’s pretty much only one way it can go,” Feder wrote. “Welcome to the future. It’s scary out there.” Good: Parks in South County got a little more inclusive for all families. Seven parks, including Orchard and San Lorenzo parks in Soledad and King City, respectively, will have communication boards, which are visual signs with words, images and symbols that will help non-verbal park-goers and speech learners to communicate with others. The initiative was sparked by a Soledad resident, a mother who has three children on the autism spectrum who used similar boards at a park in Fresno. She reached out to the Soledad City Council, with Councilmember Fernando Cabrera advocating for them. County Supervisor Chris Lopez’s office funded the boards using District 3 discretionary funds. On July 20, Soledad will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the communication boards. “Having this tool can help them to socialize with their peers,” Soledad City Manager Megan Hunter says. Great: Some big news for our fearless leader here at the Monterey County Weekly was delivered on Thursday, July 9, when the national Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN) recognized Erik Cushman as Publisher of the Year. “I love the business of newspapering,” Cushman said while accepting his award at AAN’s annual conference in Palm Springs. “I love the people who work in this business. I love the spirit of journalists, the egos, the competitiveness, the intelligence and the passion.” He talked about some of the secret sauce that goes into sustaining a successful news outlet during these tough times including a diverse advertiser mix, a collection of six glossy Best Of Monterey Bay® magazines annually and working with the best vendors in the business for back-end needs. He also, of course, shared his tagline: “Good journalism is good business.” GOOD WEEK / GREAT WEEK THE WEEKLY TALLY 61 That’s how many instances of a new type of PG&E scam have been reported in Monterey County so far in 2026. The scam has callers posing as PG&E and threatening disconnection if a payment isn’t made at a convenience store. Source: Pacific Gas & Electric QUOTE OF THE WEEK “You want to help your developer friend.” -Carmel City Councilmember Alissandra Dramov, speaking to Mayor Dale Byrne, claiming he was against a housing plan because a developer wants to build a luxury hotel on the Sunset Center parking lot. Byrne denied the allegation (see story, montereycountynow.com/news).
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