CRA News January 2004

Selected articles from the newsletter of the Carmel Residents Association

Acting Fire Chief Sidney Reade, the speaker at the January CRA meeting, divides her time between the Carmel Valley Fire Protection District and the Carmel Fire Department.

CRA Meeting -- Be prepared to help in a crisis -- learn to use a defibrillator!

President's Message
We need a spirit of cooperation

by Larry Rodocker

The state is not the only governmental body having "big-time" economic problems. Reviewing the financial strength of Carmel for the upcoming year, it appears that the village is also in dire straits. In the Dec. 19, 2003, Pine Cone, City Administrator Rich Guillen stated, "having already dipped into reserves for $1,059,640 to balance its 2003-04 budget, the city is facing a projected $1.7 million deficit next year if cuts aren't made or revenues increased." In addition to the reserve funds used to balance the 2003-04 budget, approximately $100,000 more has been drawn from reserves this past year to cover additional expenditures.

The city administration shouldn't be surprised by this sad state of economic affairs because it has been in the making since May, 2001 when Carmel residents voiced concern during budget hearings. Revenues were decreasing even then, while expenditures were on the increase even though capital improvement projects were being deferred by the city administration. Last year the city brought three new revenue sources before the residents and city businesses for review and all were turned or voted down. While this was happening, the public brought three other more doable revenue proposals, which would have generated $2.5 to $3 million in new revenue, to the attention of the city administration but they were totally ignored. When the 2003-04 budget could not be balanced and $1,059,640 was used from the reserves, an alternate balanced budget proposal was presented by the public without drawing from reserves and without staff reduction. This proposal was also ignored by the city administration, which seems not to want any input from the public sector.

All capital improvement projects have been placed on hold until fiscal year 2006-07, so our infrastructure continues to suffer and will suffer in the foreseeable future. Possibly some grants could be used, but the two individuals responsible for over 95% of the grant ideas retired as of Dec., 2003. With the recent earthquake, one wonders where the funds for retrofitting the firehouse will be found. Also the crown jewel, Sunset Center, will require larger budget considerations. From where will this money come?

Yes, the city administrator sees the writing on the wall for massive deficits next year, but are the mayor, council and city administrator really aware or are they going to collectively ignore the situation until we have exhausted what was once over $9 million in reserves? It is even more frightening that Carmel residents and businesses have little idea of what is happening because the city administrator does not routinely present budget reports to the council at public meetings, where the information would be picked up by the press and seen on the television rebroadcast.

As the new year begins, let us all work together to resolve these problems with a spirit of cooperation and openness.

CRA PROFILES
by Kay Ambro

This month we are turning the tables on our regular profiler Walter Gourlay and doing a profile on him. Kay Ambro, who wrote CRA News profiles until she took a job at Harrison Memorial Library, agreed to write about Walter.

Walter Gourlay--a man bitten by the writer's bug

Walter E. Gourlay was bitten by the writer's bug at a very young age. As a child, growing up on Long Island, New York, he hand-printed his own newspaper, writing about anything that popped into his head. Being able to voice opinions in his own newspaper probably laid the foundation for his later activism. In high school he was a member of the Debating Club, and in his senior year won the annual Extemporaneous Speaking Contest.

After graduating from high school in 1938, he went to work as a lathe operator for the Sperry Gyroscope Corporation at Flushing Meadows, Long Island. He was active in organizing the workers in the plant into a CIO union, and became a shop steward in the local.

Soon afterward, he was drafted into the Army. During World War II, his tour of duty took him first to North Africa and then to Italy. He earned two battle stars during the Mediterranean campaign. After his discharge in 1946, Walter stayed on in Italy for another year, working as a civilian for the Army Air Communications Service in Naples and then in Rome in the Graves Registration Service, helping to identify soldiers missing in action.

After returning to New York in 1947, he received a B.A. from Queens College and then won a scholarship to Harvard. His M.A. thesis, The Chinese Communist Cadre, was later published by M.I.T. After receiving his M.A., Walter was sidetracked into the "Beat" Generation and spent several years in the Village, honing his writing skills in men's pulp and adventure magazines and being an editor of one of them. For a while, he was house manager at the "92nd Street Y," a noted concert venue in Manhattan, and for a time worked in public relations for an international consulting firm. He also attended the N.Y.U. Law School for one year.

He decided to return to Harvard to earn a Ph.D. in Modern Chinese History, and received a Fulbright Research Grant which enabled him to travel doing research in London, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

He taught Asian and world history at Michigan State University for twenty years until his retirement in 1988.

Walter's wife, Adele (who passed away eighteen months ago), was born in San Francisco and always wanted to return to California, so they packed up and moved to Pacific Grove, where they resided for ten years. Walter has taught part time at Cabrillo College, the Monterey Institute of International Studies, the Naval Postgraduate School, and two summers at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. He and Adele moved to Carmel-by-the-Sea five years ago. Walter particularly likes the climate and small town atmosphere of Carmel, but admits he still misses the excitement of New York City.

Now that Walter is in full retirement, he doesn't let any moss grow under his feet. He's a founding member and past president of the Monterey Dunes Natural History Association, an environmental organization working in cooperation with the State Parks Department to protect the dunes, and runs a lecture series to educate the public. He's on the board of the Carmel Residents Association and writes the monthly Profiles for the CRA's Newsletter. He's active in the local chapter of Veterans For Peace. Walter is program director for the Central Coast Writers, a branch of the California Writers Club, and serves on the steering committee of the local unit of the National Writers' Union. In his spare time he has authored several short stories published in Monterey Shorts by the Fiction Writers of the Monterey Peninsula and The Barmaid, The Bean Counter and the Bungee Jumper and Pebbles, both published by the Pebbles Writers Group. He is currently working on his wartime memoirs as well as an historical novel.

Yes, Walter is a man of many talents and an asset to the Carmel Residents Association Board.

A surprised and clearly-moved Barbara Livingston holds the Roger Fremier photograph presented to her at the Holiday Gala at La Playa Hotel. The plaque on the photograph reads, “Barbara Livingston, You keep the spirit of Carmel alive! With gratitude and great admiration, The Board of Directors of the Carmel Residents Association”.

Barbara Livingston honored at Holiday Gala

After twelve years on Carmel's City Council, Barbara Livingston has said she will not run for reelection in April. In honor of her long service to the city, the Carmel Residents Association's Board of Directors surprised her at the annual holiday dinner at La Playa Hotel with a magnificent Roger Fremier photograph of Monterey pines.

Jim Holliday, who made the presentation, said the CRA Board wanted to "herald a dear friend who has been our most loyal, fearless and foresighted representative on the City Council ... What a leader, what a spirit she is."

Holliday praised Livingston for her "courage and her idealism, her informed arguments in defense of Carmel's traditional values..." She reminded him, he said, of what Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes offered as an assessment of life: "The one and only success which it is ours to command is to bring to our work a mighty heart." "And what a mighty heart she has...," Holliday exclaimed. "Now doesn't that describe Barbara Livingston! Think of the years she has served on the City Council: three four-year terms--and most of those have been years when her smile, her courtesy, her dignity survived in an angry arena of controversy ... when in debate after debate Barbara argued her values--our values--and always dared to vote for those values even though hers would be a lone vote."

Well-known photographer and CRA member Roger Fremier made it possible for the board to afford the beautiful framed photograph and when Carmel Engraver Richard Peterson was asked the cost of the brass plaque he had made for the presentation he replied with a look of shock, "Oh, I could never charge for Barbara!"

Winter Safety
by Carmel Fire Department Captain Mitch Kastros

Winter is here and the use of heat producing fixtures and appliances is at its peak. Chimneys, furnaces and portable space heaters, when serviced and used properly, make for cozy comfort. Please use them only for what they are designed, not as clothes dryers or other makeshift devices. Furnace and water-heater rooms need to be checked to assure that no combustibles are within dangerous proximity to heat and flame. It is a good idea to maintain a minimum three feet of clearance adjacent to furnaces, water heaters, fireplaces, space heaters and other similar objects. Licensed chimney sweeps (Chimney and Fireplace Cleaning) and furnace service specialists (Furnaces-Heating) can be found in the yellow pages of the phone book. Chimneys that are used regularly should be cleaned annually, and furnaces should not go longer than two years without being serviced, with their filters being changed or cleaned at least twice a year.

A growing problem in our area is the significant increase in dead and dying trees, especially pines. Not only are they a tremendous fire hazard, they are also more likely to fall. Check the trees in your immediate vicinity for leaning, root exposure, creaking noises and breaking of the soil around the base of the tree. Report these discoveries to the forestry department or public works and be careful when outside because trees with these symptoms can fall.

The recent earthquake is a reminder for all of us to check our emergency and disaster preparedness. Remember, in times of disaster we need to be able to take care of ourselves because emergency services will be overwhelmed. If our situation is not considered a major priority, we are on our own for a minimum of three days.

We have a variety of disaster potentials in this area. To learn more about what you can do to prepare and protect yourself, home and loved ones, call 620-2030 and ask about our Citizens' Emergency Response Training class. The schedule for the winter session is:
   Thursday, January 29, 6-9 p.m.
   Saturday, February 7, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
   Thursday, February 12, 6-9 p.m.
   Thursday, February 19, 6-9 p.m.
   Thursday, February 26, 6-9 p.m.

Also remember that during storms which could cause flooding, the city will have sandbags, sand and shovels available in the Vista Lobos parking lot.

OLD CARMEL
by Connie Wright

William Ritschel:
"Live, breathe, eat and paint"

William Ritschel, the son of a government official, was born in Nuremberg, Bavaria, on July 11, 1864. He spent his early years as a sailor, and his marine sketches attracted the attention of a sea captain, who arranged for his admission at the age of 18 to the Royal Academy in Munich. He studied under Friedrich August von Kaulbach and Karl Raupp, academic impressionists. After six years of intensive study, Ritschel lived for a time in France and Italy and visited Holland, Norway, Spain and Portugal. He exhibited in Paris, Berlin and Munich.

In 1895 he emigrated to New York and became an American citizen. Within a few years he was winning awards in competition with such artists as Childe Hassam and Paul Dougherty. In 1910 he was elected an associate member of the National Academy of Design, and in 1914 he received the Gold Medal of the Academy and was elected a National Academician, the highest honor awarded an American artist.

Ritschel moved to California some time after 1909, but continued to maintain a New York studio and to exhibit throughout the United States and Europe, most unusual for a California artist of the period. He won numerous awards in California for his paintings including a gold medal at the Pan Pacific International Exposition in 1915. In 1917 he married his second wife and a year later they moved into his castle, "Castel a Mare," on a bluff overlooking the ocean in Carmel Highlands. California was experiencing booming development, in San Francisco and particularly in Los Angeles. Ritschel avoided both of these places. Carmel had passed from its Bohemian period, and the artist's shack had been replaced by the bungalows of the wealthy. Tourists were thick on the ground.

Ritschel avoided all that, too, in his castle. He designed and built this extraordinary structure himself. Made of stone, it consists of one huge 30' x 40' room, part studio, part living room. At one end of the room is a stone fireplace, at the other a great north artist's window. The ceiling is 18' and the walls 4" thick. From here Ritschel watched the ocean until he made himself "master of a marine color magic ..." It was the sea, struggling against itself, or against the rocks of the Carmel coast, or calm in the reflected light of the sun or the moon, that engaged his attention and that he principally depicted.

He loved to travel. In 1921 he spent a year living in Moorea, French Polynesia; he returned with a number of wonderful paintings and a colorful sarong. Tourists in the Highlands were startled to see Ritschel striding over the rocks at the shore, wearing only his sarong.

In 1929 Ritschel became the third president of the Carmel Art Association. Because the members of the Association desperately needed a gallery in which to show their works, he asked the City Council to have an art gallery incorporated in the new City Hall. He was rebuffed. In 1931, a show was given to aid the Art Association at the Denny-Watrous Gallery by the area's four National Academicians: Armin Hansen, Arthur Hill Gilbert, Paul Dougherty and Ritschel himself. Although the show made only $9.53, it seems to have had a desired effect since public support of the association and membership both increased.

In 1930 he divorced his second wife and married Elenora Havel. A sculptor, she designed and installed the exotic garden around the castle. The marriage was very successful.

Ritschel was justifiably called "The Dean of American Marine Painters." He hated snobbery, phonies and opportunists. His motto was, "Live, breathe, eat, and paint." He died at the Castle on March 11, 1949. It is not possible here to mention all the awards which he won or all the museums in which his paintings are hung, but as a measure of the man, during World War II he had all of the gold medals he had received melted down and gave the proceeds to the American Red Cross.

The Monterey Museum of Art has fourteen of his art works in its permanent collection.

The Sirens are here!

CRA member Ali McDaniel, a.k.a Ali Miner, is co-owner of an innovative, new "local art collective," Sirens, which celebrated its grand opening in early December. Ali's partner in this venture is Lauryn Taylor, an abstract painter with a background in graphic design. The gallery features Miner's mystical "fantasyscapes" and Taylor's acrylics.

Sirens is a gallery in the early Bohemian tradition of Carmel--owned and operated by local artists--where visitors can watch art being created and see it exhibited on location. Go take a look. It will be a feast for all your senses.

You can find the gallery in the courtyard on San Carlos between Ocean and Seventh, behind Perspectacles. It is open from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and on Sunday by appointment.

Sink your teeth into this new book by Alex Vardamis

Dingus Dreaming is a laugh-filled novella about a highly-literate dog by CRA member Alex Vardamis. Equally appropriate for Carmel as the scholarly tomes Alex has written about Robinson Jeffers, this book is a study of canine literacy. Dingus, a normal pup who suffers a blow to the head from the New York Times, is suddenly transformed from illiterate to literate. He struggles to understand the nature of good and evil and learns what it means to be a dog, especially one who likes to read Steinbeck. You can find the paperback at the Thunderbird Bookshop in the Barnyard.

Easy AT&T Shuttle

The Carmel Chamber of Commerce and Carmel Innkeepers Association will once again be running shuttle buses from downtown Carmel to the AT&T Pro-Am Tournament. There will be four buses operating from 6:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m., Thursday through Sunday. (February 5-8) Passes, allowing unlimited rides for a day, are $5 per person per day if purchased ahead of time and $6 per day if purchased after February 4.

Free parking is available at the Vista Lobos parking lot on 3rd & Junipero. Paid parking is also available at the Sunset Center lot on 8th between Mission & San Carlos and the Carmel Plaza, Mission between Ocean & 7th.

Shuttle Passes may be purchased beforehand from the Carmel Chamber of Commerce on San Carlos between 5th & 6th or same day at the bus stop in front of the Carmel Plaza.

Contact Monta Potter, Executive Director of the Carmel Chamber of Commerce, at 624-2522 with any questions about this program.

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