Central Coast Chat

After not being able to host their event last year, the California Rodeo Salinas is back this year. The event, which typically brings in around 50,000 people over the four day period, includes many events and fundraises for local charities. For this week's episode we spoke with the Marketing Manger Mandy Linquist.

Our final episode features an interview with local farmworker Francisco Naranjo. It's in Spanish and the highlights are translated on our website.

Tuesday was another Election Day in California as Governor Gavin Newsom was up for a recall election. The recall was voted down by a large margin, securing Newsom's governorship for at least the next year, until he's up for re-election. On this week's episode, we spoke with Gina Martinez, the Registrar of Voters in Monterey County, about how the election turned out on a local level.

We've spoken with someone who wanted to show their appreciation for farmworkers and someone who works for the farmworkers' union. Now we get the point of view of someone from an agriculture company- Marisa Gutierrez, the Head of HR for the Foodservice division at Taylor Farms.

Amor Salinas, a new initiative to clean up trash and beautify Salinas, launched this week. To get more information on how the program got started and where it's headed, we spoke with two members of the team for this week's episode of Central Coast Chat. If you want to get involved with the program, here are some ways to do so:

Many people worked to show their appreciation for essential workers during the pandemic. But, some felt that farmworkers, also essential, were left out of this thanking process. So they decided to do something about it. Listen on to this week's episode of An Account of Agriculture to hear how Ruby Vasquez and others started a caravan to spread both appreciation and information.

We're introducing a new limited series podcast about farmworkers, agriculture, the pandemic and how these three things intersect. On our first episode, we interviewed Lauro Barajas of the United Farm Workers union. He takes us through strikes from the past and how he'd rather have a farmworker than a doctor, even during a pandemic. Listen to the end to hear why.

Recently, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors issued a vaccine mandate for all county employees. Employees must either get vaccinated or get weekly tests starting; the deadline for compliance with this mandate is September 30th. To discuss this mandate and other efforts the county is taking to combat the pandemic, we brought on Supervisor Wendy Root Askew to the podcast this week.

Monterey Car Week is a staple of summers in this area and many are happy to have had it come back this year. We spoke with Drew Alcazar, the auction president, this episode about everything from what the scene was like this past weekend and how to get started buying vintage cars.

Ahead of Governor Gavin Newsom's recall election next month, we spoke with Mindy Romero, the founder and director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC, for information about what the polls indicate and what to expect on the ballot.