CRA News March 2002

Selected articles from the newsletter of the Carmel Residents Association

CRA Meeting -- Parks, Shoreline and In Between

President's Message

by Monte Miller

March and April are focused on elections. I hope you all have been energized to support the candidates of your choice. The board has been getting mostly favorable comments regarding our emphasis on issues rather than endorsing candidates. I believe it was the right approach. You will find several articles in this issue of CRA News which deal with current issues and candidates' voting records. We have also reprinted below the statistical analysis of votes from our February issue.

Our candidates' forum, moderated by the League of Women Voters on February 28, was a great success. All six candidates were well prepared and the standing-room-only audience went away with a better understanding of the issues facing Carmel. We give special thanks to Rocco Cardinale whose Caffe Cardinale generously donated the delicious coffee for the forum.

I want to remind you of what issues are important to CRA as verified in last year's poll. Hopefully you will be evaluating the Carmel candidates on their views and records of support for these critical issues, a summary of which follows:

1) Our city should continue to protect its traditional character--no streetlights, sidewalks, traffic signals, street addresses, etc.

2) Our city parks and open spaces should be preserved.

3) Our historic character, residential and commercial, should be preserved.

4) Our urban forest should be maintained and preserved.

5) The city should provide mail service to elderly and disabled residents of our city. Mailboxes and street numbers should not be permitted.

6) Only one unit should be rented on lots that have both primary and subordinate units.

7) Traffic calming and street beautification should be emphasized to keep Carmel a pedestrian-oriented village.

In summary, evaluate the candidates against your views on these issues. Please be sure you are registered to vote and do so on April 9. All elections have a direct effect on the future of Carmel-by-the-Sea.

Just because you voted in the county election does not necessarily mean you are registered in Carmel-by-the-Sea. If you are in doubt, call the Monterey County Election Department at 647-7621.

Saturday, March 23
10 a.m. - noon

* Volunteers meet at foot of Ocean Avenue
* Please bring gloves
* Coffee and pastries served courtesy of Caffe Cardinale and Carmel Bakery

A look at how the City Council voted on specific issues

In the February CRA News, we looked at City Council voting patterns (reprinted above). Now, as promised, we will take a look at significant votes, correlating them, when possible, with the issues listed in the President's message above.

1) Protection of Carmel's traditional character: Design Traditions Project - May 15, 2001

After four years of work, when the final Design Traditions Ordinance came to the council for approval, McCloud, Ely, Hazdovac and Livingston voted yes; Rose, no. During the discussion, both Hazdovac and Rose were opposed to the required 25% of lot width setback, wanting 20% instead. The 25%, allowing more room for privacy and landscaping, prevailed. Rose was opposed to the new volumetrics system.

2) Preservation of open space: Sale of Hatton Canyon to Coastal Conservancy - August 15, 2000

After the freeway had been declared officially dead, Dick Ely requested that the council provide him with direction for his action on the county Transportation Commission regarding the proposed sale of the Hatton Canyon property to preserve it as parkland. Saying they wanted to keep the possibility of a freeway alive, especially until Highway One was improved, McCloud, Ely, Hazdovac and Rose voted against sending a letter of support. Barbara Livingston, wanting to ensure that this land would be preserved as a park, supported its immediate turnover to the Coastal Conservancy.

3) Preservation of historic character: Local Coastal Plan adoption - December 6, 2001

The final vote to approve the draft of the Local Coastal Plan was 4-1. Livingston was opposed to the last-minute change allowing two units to be rented on lots which have primary and subordinate units. The Planning Commission chair asked to have the matter sent to his commission rather than rush it through, but the request was denied. Livingston felt that the Historic Preservation Ordinance was not strong enough to protect Carmel's historic character.

On October 9, 2001, the council voted 4-1 to approve design standards for the commercial district. Livingston did not support the motion because of concerns with the increase in allowed height and lot coverage which would create a tunnel effect and the lack of provision for protection of historic buildings and courtyards.

4) Preservation of the urban forest: Forest and Beach Commission tree removal appeals

There have been several appeals of Forest and Beach Commission decisions to not allow the removal of trees. On Sept. 7, 2000, McCloud, Hazdovac and Rose voted to let an applicant cut down a 15" cedar. Ely and Livingston voted no. On Sept. 11, 2001 McCloud, Ely, Hazdovac and Rose overturned two Forest and Beach decisions and allowed two Monterey pines to be cut down. Livingston voted no on each appeal, saying she would follow the advice of the City Forester and Forest and Beach Commission that these trees were healthy and safe. On Nov. 6, 2001 the same voting pattern followed on an appeal concerning the removal of a 42" pine. In Feb., 2002, the Council unanimously approved the removal of a Monterey pine when City Forester Mike Branson said that new information gave him concern about the safety of the tree.

5) Mail Delivery to elderly and disabled residents

On November 7, 2000, the Council voted unanimously for an urgency ordinance to prevent mail boxes or house numbers in Carmel. On January 9, 2001, McCloud, Ely, Hazdovac and Rose voted in favor of investigating a courier contract. Hazdovac stated for the record that she was "opposed to city funding for courier service" and if more than 200 signed up, she wanted postal service mail delivery for the entire town. Livingston voted no. On June 5, 2001, McCloud, Hazdovac and Rose voted to negotiate a contract, not to exceed $60,000, with Peninsula Messenger Service for mail delivery; Ely and Livingston wanted to give the volunteer effort a try and voted no. At the same meeting, McCloud, Ely and Livingston voted to make the urgency ordinance banning mail boxes and house numbers permanent. Hazdovac and Rose voted no and the urgency ordinance, which required four votes, failed.

6) Merging the Carmel Municipal Election - July 11, 2000

Citing the concern about low turnout, conflict with the March primary election and with budget preparation, McCloud and Livingston agreed that Carmel's election should be moved to November. In holding its own election, Carmel spends approximately $16,000 more than a consolidated election would cost. Saying that Carmel's issues would be lost, Ely, Hazdovac and Rose voted no and the measure was defeated.

7) Reducing the Size of Commissions - Sept. 19, 2000

McCloud, Ely, Hazdovac and Rose voted to reduce of the size of city commissions from 7 to 5 members. Barbara Livingston voted no.

8) Removal of a Planning Commissioner from Office - Oct. 24, 2000

After he had spoken out strongly against the reduction in the size of commissions, acting Planning Commissioner Allan Paterson was fired by McCloud, Hazdovac and Rose. Ely and Livingston, who felt this was overly harsh punishment, voted no.

CRA PROFILE
by Howard Skidmore

They're committeed to beautifying an important part of Carmel

Dorothy and Greg Cole, CRA members, live on Carmel's San Carlos Street, that part from Tenth Avenue, at the edge of Sunset Center, south to Thirteenth Avenue. For the Coles, San Carlos is more than just an address, it is also a cause and a campaign.

Like the other members of the committee for the San Carlos Street Improvement Project, the Coles think the street, the main entrance and exit to a small, picturesque village, should be more bucolically beautiful and less like a section of state highway. And they don't want a Federal grant of $155,000, vital to the work, to slip through the city's fingers, as it now is in danger of doing.

The committee's improvement project for straight and wide San Carlos--an open invitation to trucks, buses and other vehicles to step on the gas--would put trees and drought-tolerant plants in set-in plots on both sides. For tourists and others entering or leaving town, or going between downtown and the Carmel Mission, the look would be more in keeping with the rest of Carmel's "village in a forest by the sea."

Dorothy and Greg, the rest of the committee and numerous residents who have contributed, hope that the City Council will see the light on making it possible to accept the Federal grant before it expires. It would also open the way to raising an additional $30,000, either through a state grant or some other means.

City inaction may be due to fear in some parts that the improvement project would interfere with the movement of trucks serving the Sunset Center renovation. That has proved groundless, since the trucks take a different route.

Both Coles are native Californians. Dorothy was born in Compton, in the southern part of the state, and she studied art at CSU Long Beach. Upon graduation, she joined the Peace Corps, and went to war-torn Nigeria, where she taught in a United Nations-sponsored college.

Back in California, Dorothy became director of art for the Huntington Beach schools. Travel called again, and she visited Mexico and Peru, followed by living in Brazil. An elementary school teacher, Dorothy next was in Marin County and Santa Cruz.

To show her work in watercolors and acrylics, Dorothy visited a gallery in Carmel. A powerful attraction seized her, and soon she was a Carmel resident. First a waitress at the Village Corner, Dorothy was then for ten years a teacher at Bay School on the coast. She also taught art at Carmel's River School.

Whereas Dorothy felt drawn to distant places, Greg claims his first travels were around the golf course and around the pool table. Although he has created a successful business centered in Carmel, Greg likes to tell about the games-related side of his life.

He was born in Sacramento, and attended City College there. He emphasizes, however: "I played pool seriously, and I learned a lot playing pool. That was my degree." A low-handicap golfer, Greg came to Pebble Beach to caddy in the 1972 U.S. Open. He liked what he saw and came back to stay, working first as a waiter at The Lodge.

Because of his own boyhood, when his father encouraged him to become a Boy Scout and to achieve Eagle Scout rank, Greg feels a strong commitment to working with young people. After he and Dorothy met and married, Greg coached the Middle School basketball team of their daughter, Tiffany. Today he is assistant coach of the Carmel High School golf team, privileged to practice on the Pebble Beach courses.

Daughter Tiffany lives in Walnut Creek with husband Matt, their son Cole and daughter Ella. Tiffany has written a children's book and Dorothy is illustrating it. Dorothy's mother, Mrs. Mildred Vuocolo, lives in Norton Court in Carmel.

Twenty-two years ago, says Greg, "with a bucket and a pole," he started what is today the Monterey Bay Window Cleaning Company. Seventy percent of business is with commercial accounts, stretching from Napa in the north to Greenfield in the south. There are 20 employees in the busy season.

Dorothy got involved ten years ago, and set up the all-important computer operation. Now there are six computers at the office, which is at Carmel Valley Road and Carmel Rancho Boulevard. As might be imagined, the Coles have fervent words for their chosen place of abode. "We love Carmel," says one or the other. "The light is golden, the fog is mystical. We feel blessed to live here."

Dorothy, who has seen much of the world and should know, says of Carmel and its coastal setting: "This is the most beautiful place in the world."

OLD CARMEL
by Connie Wright

Dr. Arnold Genthe and his home studio

Dr. Arnold Genthe was born in Berlin, Prussia in 1869, of an intellectual, academic and artistic family. He was educated at the Universities of Berlin and Jena. From the latter he received a doctoral degree in 1894 with a specialization in philology, archaeology and philosophy. His doctoral thesis was on a manuscript of the Pharsalia by the Roman poet Lucan. In 1894-95 he attended the Sorbonne, where he studied French literature and the history of art.

In 1895, he came to San Francisco as the tutor for the son of a German baron. He tried to sketch the mysterious Chinese in Chinatown, but the Chinese were frightened at being sketched. Completely untutored in photography, he turned to the camera and took a wonderful series, in black and white, of the Chinese in native dress. Portrait photography at the time was posed, formal and lifeless. Genthe's innovation was to take unposed, informal portraits. The subject was unaware at the time the photograph was being taken. In his autobiography, As I Remember, he says: "The emphasis was laid on portraying a person's character instead of making a commonplace record of clothes and a photographic mask." His portrait of a formidable San Francisco social lioness, Mrs. W.H. Crocker, started a stream of the wealthy and influential to his studio on Sutter Street. He was prospering in his vocation when the 1906 earthquake, fire and subsequent dynamiting of his home disrupted his career. Literally left with nothing, he borrowed a camera and took a series of photographs of the ruined San Francisco. Some of these are extremely affecting and were published internationally.

In 1906, Dr. Genthe moved to Carmel, drawn by low real estate prices and the desire to get away from the temptations of city life. He designed and built a home-studio on the east side of Camino Real between 10th and 11th. He says of it: "The sloping roof following the lines of the hills was shadowed by two great pine trees, the largest in Carmel, and was supported by four large redwood trunks, with the bark left on. A wide porch looked out to the sea. The spacious studio and living room, thirty by sixty feet with high ceilings and two skylights, was built entirely of redwood, the rafters being not box beams but solid redwood. My particular pride was the fireplace, which was large enough to take four-foot logs. And there was a cellar--the only one in Carmel--solidly built of concrete." The house-studio, although now somewhat altered, remains an important example of the Carmel Craftsman bungalow style of residential architecture built between 1906 and the 1920's.

The year 1906 was when Carmel was beginning to define its character as a haven for artists and Bohemians. Genthe's particular "cronies" were George Sterling, the poet, and frequent Carmel visitor, Jack London. These three, plus Mary Austin, Alice McGowan, her sister Grace McGowan Cooke and her two daughters, also Sinclair Lewis, the beautiful suicidal poet Nora May French and Frank Norris were part of a group which gathered on the beach for abalone and mussel parties. With Sinclair Lewis, Genthe strolled through the Carmel woods discussing philosophy in German, but both, as Genthe pointed out in his autobiography, were thinking too fondly of the fourteen year old Helen Cooke. Genthe made portraits of Sterling, London, Lewis, Norris, French and the painters Xavier Martinez and Charles Rollo Peters.

More importantly, Genthe began to experiment with color photography. The Autochrome process, invented by the Lumiere brothers in Lyon in 1905, enabled the photographer to obtain a color photograph on a glass plate. It could not, however, be printed on paper. Genthe wrote: "My first trials with this medium were made at Carmel where the cypresses and rocks of Point Lobos, the always varying sunsets and the intriguing shadows of the sand dunes offered a rich field for color experiments." Having mastered that technique, he turned to making color portraits, using as his subjects a number of beautiful women. His first ambitious endeavors in color photography were portraits of his friends, the leading Shakespearean actor and actress of the period, Edward Sothern and Julia Marlowe, costumed as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, taken in the garden of his bungalow. In 1911, he showed his photographs, both portraits and scenes of Carmel, in San Francisco. This show was perhaps the finest exhibition of color photographs in America to that time.

Genthe, who achieved a national and international reputation, did some of his most important work in his Carmel home-studio between 1906 and the late teens, when he moved to New York. He died there in 1942.

Our Favorite Places

Village Corner - a great local place

Clayton Anderson writes, "For a delightful breakfast, lunch or dinner, consider the Leidig family's Village Corner. We are always impressed by the wonderful menu, the excellent, friendly service and the chance to dine outside at this historic Carmel site. It is cozy even outside on chilly days because of the warm fire on the patio. In the late 70's, when the Village Corner, a traditional gathering place for locals, was threatened with a second story, the preservation group Old Carmel launched a Save-the-Village-Corner campaign. Led by former Pine Cone editor Frank Lloyd [father of CRA members Jennefer Santee and Skip Lloyd], this effort was the forerunner of many of Carmel's preservation efforts, which continue today."

Good scents make good sense

Melanie Billig writes, "If you are looking for the perfect gift for a friend or a special treat for yourself, be sure to stop at Rainbow Scent Company, on the west side of Lincoln just south of Ocean Avenue. This one-of-a-kind shop carries imported soap, bath products and home fragrances. Their popular brands include Crabtree and Evelyn, Caswell Massey, Thymes and their own private label scenting. In addition, owner Ellen Weston carries other great gifts, cards and candles. She also has nice products for men, including Bay Rhum.

"Ellen Weston started the Rainbow Scent Company 20 years ago in the Barnyard. Fortunately for Carmel-by-the-Sea residents and visitors, she moved to her current location five years ago. Previously, Weston ran Crabtree and Evelyn in Carmel Plaza and she also had a store on Ocean Avenue."

Remember that your City Council is on T.V.

City Council meetings are taped and re-broadcast
Sundays, 8 a.m. - 12 noon on
KMST Channel 26