President's Message

A belated Happy New Year’s and I hope all your resolutions, goals and dreams come true for 2006.

This is your MCHA and the Board of Directors and I look forward to making 2006 an outstanding year. This email newsletter is produced to improve communication for all members and future members. Please feel free to forward it along to your associates and friends of the industry and encourage them to join.

As you may know our goals for 2006 are to improve Involvement, Value and increase Membership. So remember to talk up MCHA and bring a new friend to our next luncheon and introduce them to our family.

MCHA has several strong standing committees – Governmental Affairs, Education & Training, Special Events, Finance, and a new power group focusing on increasing future Membership. Please feel free to join in on the fun and attend these groups meeting. If you should want to know when and where they meet just call Bonnie Adams our Executive Director at 626 8636 and inquire.

Cheers and here’s looking to you for 2006 and remember “Fly Monterey”.

Michael Bekker
Cannery Row Company/Sardine Factory

Government Affairs E-news
Bob McKenzie, Government Affairs Director

Hang on to your hats, folks! The June 2006 election is a big one for the hospitality industry. Several measures will appear on the June ballot that are of critical importance to our industry and to county residents.

A General Plan Initiative
A group calling itself the Community General Plan Committee has filed an initiative to adopt a County General Plan; they seem to have plenty of signatures to qualify their General Plan Initiative for the June ballot. The government affairs committee and Board of Directors have studied the initiative and are opposed to the initiative for several key reasons. The initiative would put in place extremely burdensome and restrictive policies on housing development – and the problem lack of housing causes is the biggest employee retention and recruitment problem facing our industry and all employers in Monterey County. All in all, the initiative is too restrictive and worse, it would require a vote of the entire county to handle any policy changes necessary to accomplish local community development goals. The sponsors may have good intentions, but the initiative is simply flawed. MCHA will actively oppose this measure.

Transportation self-help sales tax measure
The Transportation Agency for Monterey County has placed its transportation projects self-help sales tax measure on the June 2006 ballot. The measure would increase the county sales tax one half cent for fourteen years to fund a list of priority transportation projects MCHA representatives helped develop in a collaborative effort with other community organizations and individuals. One important project included on the list is the widening of Highway 156, the main route to the Peninsula for travelers from our core visitor markets. As it stands right now, visitors who travel by car to our area are faced with parking lot congestion at peak travel times both coming and going so widening Highway 156 is our industry’s top transportation priority. MCHA strongly supports the TAMC measure. Strong support from out members is an absolute necessity because the measure needs a two thirds majority of voters to pass!

Butterfly Village referendum
The same group that filed a successful referendum on the county’s approval of the Rancho San Juan have filed a referendum on the county’s approval of the smaller portion of Rancho San Juan known as Butterfly Village. The referendum will be on the June ballot, also. The Butterfly Village project, which is on approximately 20% of the Rancho San Juan area, would produce much-needed housing and also a hotel and golf course along with resident-serving commercial areas. MCHA will study this issue and make a recommendation. One thing to keep in mind is that the owner of Butterfly Village already has a judgment against the county arising from the one and a half decade delay in processing the specific plan for the area required by the county’s 1982 General Plan. County Counsel and the county’s special counsel for this issue have both warned that because of the existing judgment if the referendum succeeds in stopping this project the county could lose a damage judgment as high as $100 million dollars. So far the group sponsoring the referendum has ignored this stark reality.

Elections of Two Supervisors
Two elections for County Supervisor will take place in June. District Two Supervisor Lou Calcagno has announced he will seek reelection. District Two includes the north county areas of Prunedale, Moss Landing and Castroville and a small slice of the City of Salinas. MCHA has supported Supervisor Calcagno both times he ran in the past. Calcagno is expected to draw strong opposition, likely from the group sponsoring the Butterfly Village referendum and supporting the General Plan Initiative.

The third district supervisorial seat is also up for election in June. District three includes all of south county and a small slice of the southeast side of the City of Salinas. Incumbent Supervisor Butch Lindley, supported by MCHA when he ran in 2002, has not decided whether to seek reelection. Former supervisor and current Assemblymember Simon Salinas has announced his candidacy for this seat (he’s termed out of the Assembly this year); Soledad Mayor Richard Ortiz, Alejandro Chavez, aide to Supervisor Fernando Armenta, and Hartnell College Trustee Juan Martinez have also declared their candidacy and have vowed to stay in the race despite the entry of Simon Salinas. This will be a hot election; if no candidate gets a majority in June, the top two finishers will run off in November.

MCHA Education and Training
2006 Resolutions

Our committee (William Martin, Betty Hutchins, Bob Buescher, Charlie Hayes, Bonnie Adams, Mary Nelson, Harry Skerritt…..) is giving you some New Year resolution ideas...ready? To not miss one MCHA Seminar! Get ready for some great customer service seminars, compliance seminars, wine tasting seminars, legal updates, safety training, etc.

Our first seminar of the year “Impacting the Bottom Line Through Emotional Intelligence” with Catharine Hambley, PhD was a great success! Don’t miss our next seminar on February 15th where you will learn about Why sustainable and organic means business to you and much more from our experts at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Seafood Watch! And on March 21 MCHA in partnership with the Monterey County Vintners and Growers will present the Monterey County Wine Trade Tasting event at the beautiful Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa!

Here’s to a year of great Education and Training!

News

At our December 13th Annual Christmas Lunch, Mia McKee was honored as the first recipient of the MCHA HOSPY Award for our Volunteer of the Year.

Mia has been a member of MCHA since 1995. She joined our Board of Directors in 1998 and has been a member of the Executive Committee since 2000.

Mia has chaired our Annual Dinner beginning with President Claire Sherwood in 1998 and has made it a fun, successful and must attend event of the year.

Mia helped create and chair the Community & Business Relations committee where she facilitated the revamping of our newsletter and began our annual Hospitality Fun For All mixer, among other things.

Mia has served on various Task Force Committees and has always enthusiastically given of her time and talent whenever asked. She is creative and offers many great ideas to increase member benefits.

Mia brings fun and a can do attitude to all she does. She is a pleasure to work with and we are proud to honor her with “The Hospy”.

Nomination for the Volunteer of the Year award is based on being a Member in good standing; Dedication and tireless effort in supporting the mission of MCHA; and Enthusiastically supporting the events, functions and committees of MCHA.

Other nominees were Amy Baker, Bob Lippi, Gerard Mattimoe and Rolf Trautsch.

Events

We’d also like to congratulate the winning team of Swenson & Silacci who scored a 56 and won 1st Place Gross. The team of La Playa Hotel won 1st Place Net and the Hotel Competition, followed by the 2nd Place Net team of Lombardo & Gilles and the 3rd Place Net team was the Cannery Row Company.

Also a big thanks to the tournament chairs Amy Baker, KION/KCBA and Tim McGregor, Monterey Plaza Hotel and Spa along with their awesome committee of Gary Cursio, Marci Bracco, Mike Oprish, Baird Pittman, Tish Rogers, Ken Lofink and Marietta Bain.

General Membership Lunch:
Join us for a special Valentines Day Lunch on February 14th at the Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa. Bring a guest, co-worker or a special friend!

Mark Your Calendars for the MCHA Annual Dinner: The Lost Treasures of Cannery Row on March 24th at the Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa. More information will be coming soon!

Employee Appreciation Day:
Start getting your teams ready for this fun filled day of friendly competition on June 6th at the Monterey Fairgrounds. More information to come!

Hospitality Recognition Lunch:
Mark Your Calendars for the largest Employee Recognition Event of the Year! Join us October 31st at the Monterey Conference Center as we recognize those special employees from 2006!

Calendar of Events

Also, don’t forget to check our Website for information about upcoming events! www.mcha.net