City Briefs
1610
AM, Your Info Station |
Recycling
For a Better Monterey
Community
Helps Shape City Priorities | Storm
Water Utility Fees Go Up
1610 AM, Your Info
Station
Not simply another station on your radio dial, 1610 AM is your
link to conditions and traffic information during an emergency or
disaster.
During this year’s storms and floods, our radio station
enabled us to send important information to residents as quickly as
possible. Within minutes, we were able to announce up-to-date messages on
road closures, flood warnings, evacuations and emergency shelter
locations.
Traditionally, 1610 AM is the Traveler’s Information System
(TIS). The station directs visitors and residents to various points of
interest within the City. During peak tourist months, the station also
informs visitors and residents where to park in the City.
Generally,
the radio station’s recorded messages can be heard within the City limits,
but remember it is not a powerful station and the message may fade in
certain areas.
Recycling For a Better
Monterey
Recycling and waste reduction are working in Monterey.
Why?
Because people like you have enthusiastically embraced our environmentally
sound programs.
“Recycling has become a welcomed habit,” said resident
Tam Hennessy. “It has decreased the amount of waste we generate at our
home by at least half.”
And it’s easier than ever to recycle.
Our
local collector, Monterey City Disposal Service (MDS), continues to
provide simple pickup methods throughout the City, encouraging residents
to recycle more and more.
Many products are recyclable, including
plastic, metal, aluminum and glass containers; junk mail; office paper;
flattened cardboard (including cereal, shoe and laundry detergent boxes);
and yard waste.
Kristine Thompson, a new resident to the area, is
pleased to join our team effort.
“The Monterey Peninsula is so
breathtaking and our City so clean, recycling is a small but significant
way to help keep it that way.”
Business owners also benefit. They
receive a 50% discount on renting drop boxes when they use them to recycle
clean building lumber, concrete and landscape materials.
Please do
your part to help preserve our surroundings and help us reach the mandate
to reduce our waste by 50% by the year 2000!
If you have questions
about recycling or disposal, please call City Recycling Specialist Angela
Brantley at 646.5662.
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Community Helps Shape
City Priorities
Affordable childcare, a greater emphasis on the arts and increased
promotion of tourism were hot topics at a community forum held earlier
this year.
Residents and business owners from throughout the City
attended Community Connections to hear an update on our City and to ask
questions and help shape this coming year’s budget priorities.
The
forum was held as the City began developing its new budget for 1998-99.
Community residents said the public forum was a success.
“It gave
all the citizens the opportunity to comment upon programs, upon needs of
the City and upon their view on the direction the City is moving,” said
Colleen Sullivan, board member of the Old Town Neighborhood Association.
“It showed the different viewpoints that people have.”
Participants
said the open forum was an important place for citizens to talk with City
officials and staff. They encouraged more meetings focusing on different
topics.
Other priorities mentioned at the forum include: increasing
citizen involvement in the budget process; creating a Police canine unit;
expanding historic zoning; and establishing more programs for youth.
Most participants encouraged the City to continue to purchase land for
Window on the Bay Park on the bayside of Del Monte Avenue.
Interestingly, there were no City programs or services that
participants said should be discontinued.
Call the City’s Suggestion
Hotline at 646.3799 or e-mail us at suggest@ci.monterey.ca.us with
your ideas.
Storm Water Utility Fees
Go Up
City residents will see small increases in their storm water
utility bill over the next five years.
The fees will pay for upkeep of
storm drains and storm-drain pipes. In addition, the money will be used to
protect the Monterey Bay from further pollution and educate the public on
how to keep pollutants out of our storm drains.
Residents recently saw
an increase of 67 cents a month for single-family homes. You will see the
same increase each March during the next four years. By March 1, 2002, the
fee will be $5.44 a month for single-family homes. Fees vary for
commercial properties and apartments.
The rate increase is necessary
to implement a section of the Federal Clean Water Act that requires small
cities like Monterey to pay for permits based on how much storm water we
put into the Bay.
While the Federal government requires Monterey to
create and operate a program to manage and evaluate storm water, we have
to pay for the total cost ourselves.
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