Maybe it’ll bring the TED conference back to the Peninsula, or give Central Coast soccer players a complex of their own. It could turn East Seaside into a mini green Silicon Valley, or draw thrifty musicians up from SoCal. Or all of the above.

Seaside officials have high hopes for the redevelopment of more than 500 acres east of General Jim Moore Boulevard, from the Coe Avenue intersection to the Del Rey Oaks boundary – now mostly dirt roads and chaparral on the former Fort Ord...

In July the city convened the East Seaside Conceptual Master Plan Task Force, made up of a dozen community members, city and Cal Am staff, and Cal Am-funded consultants.

"The coolest part is, [East Seaside] can be anything that the community wants and that the traffic will bear," says task force member and Monterey County Business Council President Mary Ann Leffel. "It’s like a blank slate."

It's probably not a winning sales pitch for high-tech gadgetry, but the new tablet computer is proving a good fit for local government.

The county Board of Supervisors is using Hewlett-Packard's Elitebook tablet PCs. The Watsonville City Council this week received Apple iPads. And city leaders in Santa Cruz have begun mulling the sleek touchscreen devices as their peers in government offer positive reviews.

"I think I'll be able to do everything I did with paper," said Supervisor Ellen Pirie, who stopped lugging her notoriously bulky meeting agenda around with her when she received her Elitebook earlier this month and could download all the necessary materials to it...

The main goal in getting tablet computers, say government administrators, is to save time and money, particularly when it comes to duplicating paper documents.

County leaders Thursday told state regulators they would do all they could to halt the installation of PG&E's SmartMeter until public concerns about the technology's safety and accuracy are addressed.

The pledge, which comes despite the county's questionable authority over the energy giant, was made during an uncommon and contentious meeting between local officials and a representative of the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates state utilities. The PUC requested the meeting after the county decided earlier this week to pursue a moratorium on SmartMeters without state consent.

As the final days of the 2010 legislative session wind down in Sacramento, a Silicon Valley lawmaker is pushing to give California the most far-reaching mandate for renewable energy in the United States.

But there's more to it than putting up some wind turbines and solar farms. The lofty goal is struggling through a complex tangle of utilities, labor unions, environmental groups and green energy companies -- each concerned about everything from the price of your monthly PG&E bill to the number of jobs the measure might, or might not, create.

"It is an extraordinarily complex task," said State Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, "both in respect to the issue itself and the politics surrounding it."

The showdown over Simitian's bill, SB 722, could come to a vote early next week. The bill would require California's utilities to produce 33 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

Cruise ships and other large commercial vessels cannot dump sewage within three miles of the California coast under a new federal rule, environmental regulators were scheduled to announce Wednesday.

The new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule will take effect early next year, and adds teeth to existing state law, which already bans ships from dumping runoff from their showers or sinks, oil or other hazardous substances.

Government leaders from across the Monterey Bay region committed this week to reducing per-capita greenhouse gas emissions of passenger vehicles by 5 percent over the next 25 years.

The commitment by the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments, expected to be fulfilled through responsible transportation and growth policies, comes as state regulators seek to implement California's ambitious greenhouse gas regulations.

The California Air Resources Board is expected to decide next month whether the region's new targets are acceptable. The state board had initially suggested that the three-county Monterey Bay Area could increase its output of greenhouse gases, but local leaders wanted to show greater environmental responsibility.