Year in Review
Partnership with Military Neighbor Expands
Trouble Desk - This is Lisa. How can I help you? Since spring, this is what residents of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center & Presidio of Monterey hear when they call to request maintenance and repairs for buildings and facilities.
And this voice belongs to one of our City employees – Lisa Hanes.
As part of the City’s effort to build upon our successful civic-military partnerships, we continue to develop unique ways to provide cost-effective municipal services to our local military installations.
For more than a year now, the U.S. Army has paid the City’s costs to maintain the wastewater, stormwater and street systems at DLIFLC & POM. This past fiscal year, the Army expanded our contract to include carpentry, electrical, plumbing and painting maintenance and repair for more than 140 facilities. New employees have been hired to maintain the diverse array of buildings and facilities, including a shopping mall, library, fitness center and chapel as well as dining halls, barracks and classrooms.

Looking Ahead
Local Businesses Important
Healthy, stable local businesses make for a strong, vital city. The City continues to encourage the retention and expansion of existing businesses by promoting and helping fund several programs and projects this year.
Some of these include the New Monterey Business Improvement District; the Citywide commercial Facade Improvement Program; and the Downtown Main Street Program.
The City works with owners and local business organizations to develop programs that meet the growing needs of our commercial areas.
This year we will be working closely with business and residential groups in the North Fremont area to develop a revitalization plan similar to the ones in the downtown and New Monterey commercial districts. Such plans bring improvements that are compatible with and serve neighboring residential communities.
In addition, we are reviewing plans by the property owners at Del Monte Center to bring a new “anchor” to the Center.
The owners have applied to relocate the new anchor to the east end and develop it as an entertainment use –a 16-screen theater complex. The owners look to enliven that area of the Center, use the existing Mervyn’s parking structure more efficiently and encourage balanced access from both the north and south entries to the Center. The proposal is currently undergoing environmental review.
For more information on these projects, please call our Planning Division at 646.3885 or e-mail fell@ci.monterey.ca.us

New Plaza Brings Multiple Benefits
Art, foreign and specialty crossover films are coming to downtown Monterey with the completion of the three-story Osio Plaza on Alvarado Street.
Once a former City parking lot that generated no tax revenue, the Plaza promises to bring an economic boost to the area. Completion of the Plaza, which will bring a six-screen theater, convention meeting space, retail shops and 30 affordable housing rental units, is a priority.
Walk by the project and let us know what you think!
Check the newspaper for upcoming announcements on grand-opening celebrations. For more information, call our Housing Division at 646.5615.

Tourism Market Share Vital to City
The visitor industry is an important part of our regional economy and contributes a very large portion – more than 50 percent – to the City’s revenues.
It is because of the visitor industry that the City is able to deliver such high level services.
While we don’t want a city overrun with visitors, it is important to our region to maintain a vibrant economy and a healthy tourism industry. And today, the competition between visitor destinations is fierce.
We constantly work to develop ways to maintain an active economy and at the same time protect the interests of our residents. Many of our strategies focus on retaining our existing share of tourist dollars. In addition, we are working to expand the type of tourism that has less impact on our local community, including off-season (fall, winter, spring) and midweek tourism as well as conference groups that are self-contained at the Conference Center and local hotels.
This year, we will continue to explore opportunities to better coordinate our visitor marketing efforts on the Peninsula with other local organizations and find ways to maintain our share of the tourism industry in a cost-effective, balanced manner.

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