P.G. shops look for support
A “sustainable” Pacific Grove isn’t just about the environment; it’s economics too, City Councilwoman Vicki Stilwell told her colleagues at Wednesday’s council meeting.
In her case, the economics of the city didn’t sustain her and her husband’s business, the Woodenickel gift shop at 529 Central Ave., which is holding its final closeout sale today.
“We’ve had a wonderful five years,” Stilwell said, “but I don’t know if it’s the recession, the price of gas, the mortgage crisis.”
Business just hasn’t been good enough.
Her voice nearly breaking, she said that “sustainable” means more than “having a reservoir or solar panels or the best compost heap in your backyard.” It includes supporting local businesses by buying their goods and services, which, in turn, provide revenue to keep the community solvent, she said.
Mayor Dan Cort has touted a “green” direction for the city — establishing a pedestrian mall downtown, refurbishing California American Water’s defunct David Avenue Reservoir as a recycled-water storage site, and encouraging water recycling and tree planting.
He announced at the meeting that the city’s Economic Advisory Committee has been talking up the pedestrian mall, though any decision by the panel would be “a recommendation, not an action.”
Cort also said that Trees for P.G. — a group in which his wife, Elizabeth Cort, is an active member — plans to distribute free pine trees at George Washington Park during the city’s
51st annual Good Old Days celebration, which begins next week and culminates with a downtown street fair April 12 and 13. The group will also plant trees at George Washington Park and around the city on Arbor Day, April 25.
He added that “the most important contribution we can make to sustainability is to shop locally.”
