Guest Columnist

By John Hibble, of the Aptos History Museum One of the many gems that make Aptos different than anywhere else is Redwood Village, hidden in a redwood grove across Highway One from Deer Park Shopping Center. Today it is a small commercial center but...

The Friends of the Aptos Library have started a new program called Our Community Reads, which asks everyone to read the same book, and then a series of special events are planned to enrich the experience for those people who did read the book. The Friends also hold book sales and fundraisers to make our library a better place for all of us. But, what if there were no Aptos Library? Our story begins with the very first “friend” who started the library.

The Board of Supervisors recently received an overview of the condition of local roads, including a scoring measure called the Pavement Condition Index (PCI). The PCI is a score from 0-100 that gives you a sense of the condition of local roads

Over the last four years the Board of Supervisors has been working on policies around the dispensing and cultivation of medical cannabis. While work around cannabis in general will be evolving for quite some time, the Board is poised to adopt a commercial cultivation ordinance in early May. Creating a framework for medicinal sales (through local dispensaries) was the first thing addressed by the ordinance a few years ago. While there have been updates to that ordinance, overall the framework for medicinal sales has been established. Creating a framework for commercial cultivation — both on the medicinal side and now, through state law change, the recreational side, has proved more difficult.

Where did the word "museum" come from? The word is from ancient Greece and describes a building or temple dedicated to the Muses. OK, who were the Muses? In mythology, they were the daughters of Zeus, the king of the many gods and goddesses, and Mnemosyne (nee-moss-ih-nee), the goddess of memory. The nine Muses were goddesses of the literary arts, music, visual arts, culture and science. The Muse, Clio, was the goddess of history. The Muses spark creativity in mortal people. Museums collect, preserve, interpret and display items of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance for the education of the public and for future generations. Above all, museums are storehouses of knowledge.

My parents are ready to buy a home, but my mother wants to buy the land and build their home. Are there programs that can help buy her land to build her home? Is there a possibility for a first time home buyer to buy land to build or is it easier just to buy a home that is already built? 

The recent market volatility at the end of 2018 reminded us that markets don’t always behave as we would like. We’re sure that many people probably fell out of their chair after they opened up their Dec. 31 account statements.

Over the last year, in response to significant declines in transportation funding, the state legislature proposed a number of bills to stabilize funding. Ultimately, in April, the state passed Senate Bill 1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act. The bill focused on providing a steady stream of transportation funding to address the backlog of state and local transportation projects. The legislation combined new diesel and gasoline taxes with vehicle fees and Caltrans efficiencies to fund local and state roadway repairs (including storm damage local matches), public transportation, congested corridors, bike and pedestrian improvements and more. The bill also allows for cities and counties with their own local tax measure (such as our recently passed Measure D) to apply for additional funds.

The oldest baby boomers (those born in the year 1946) began turning age 70.5 in summer of 2016 and have begun taking required minimum distributions (“RMDs”) under IRS guidelines for at least one if not two tax years now (2016 and 2017). The rules surrounding RMDs can be confusing and mistakes can be costly. Below are a few tips to keep in mind when managing your RMDs.

Karen Hibble is co-executive director of the Aptos Chamber of Commerce.