Happy 28th anniversary to NOAA's Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary! Photo credit: Brian DeLorme - it includes the 2001 bronze Sanctuary sculpture at San Carlos Beach Park with the backdrop of our marine sanctuary. The fountain is a bronze sphere of kelp by artists Michael Duffy, Tibor Hijagos and John Random. This park is the entrance to one of California’s most popular and scenic dive sites. MBNMS protects 276 miles of shoreline and supports one of the world’s most diverse marine ecosystems. Thank you for doing your part to keep it clean and pristine.

The Monterey Fire Department serves the communities of Monterey, Pacific Grove, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Sand City, Presidio of Monterey, Naval Postgraduate School, La Mesa Village and Monterey Regional Airport. They remain fully staffed to help locally as usual, and during this unprecedented fire season, currently have 16 personnel deployed to California fires as follows:

All personnel are doing well. Our thoughts and hearts are with all first responders fighting these fires as well as the communities involved.

This week is National Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Week (in association with September as National Preparedness Month) - The City of Monterey and Monterey Fire Department are happy to support a strong local CERT program, and we are proud of all they do. Our CERT teams were critical in helping us with the recent Red Flag fire warnings, and they help our community throughout the year with many types of emergencies and alerts. We encourage anyone interested to get involved. There are 400+ CERT programs in California and 2,800+ CERT programs nationwide. See the short video below to learn more and visit monterey.org/fire/Preparedness/Join-CERT

Let's celebrate sea otters during their special week! Join the Monterey Bay Aquarium each weekday from September 21 to 25 on their live Sea Otter Cam to watch some otter-ly paw-some events. FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Did you know the Community Development Department's Sustainability Division plays a major role in helping our community be at the forefront of environmental stewardship? As an example, in partnership with the Monterey City Disposal Service, here's a useful flyer on Recycling Best Practices. Over the last few years, there have been global and local recycling policy shifts, particularly involving plastic. Not all items with the "recycling symbol" are acceptable. Only materials that are marketable are currently recyclable.

Find out more at montereyrecycles.org

The City of Monterey is working to provide local resources and support every day to help us get past the pandemic. Here's a look at the past six months: MONTEREY RESPONDS

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