Herald Boo-Boo Watch part 42

I'll give the Herald credit for making fewer boo-boos compared to this time last year, but careless errors are still more frequent than when our local daily still had a local editor.

On Monday, May 11th, the Herald had a front page story about efforts to stabilize the finances of Museum of Monterey. The article contained this bizarre statement attributed to a Pacific Grove filmmaker named Bob Pacelli:

"Pacelli, who’s known about the museum struggles for decades, describes the museum as an incredible asset that never recovered from the ill-will that developed after the city built the tunnel to divert traffic to the aquarium."

This statement is wrong in so many ways! For starters, the tunnel was built in 1967, at least a decade before the aquarium was even a concept, and about 17 years before the aquarium first opened. The aquarium is not the reason for the tunnel's existence. The tunnel also predates the Stanton Center, which houses the museum, by a good quarter century. So in no way, shape, or form could the tunnel be responsible for the museum's financial woes by diverting traffic away from the museum.

Had this been presented as Mr. Pacelli's opinion I could have overlooked this obvious historical inaccuracy. Unfortunately, the reporter implies that Pacelli is an authority on the subject and presents it as historical fact. I find this particularly troubling because the reporter is a seasoned veteran who ought to know the city's basic history better than that.