Ginny Prior/for Bay Area News Group
J.B. Barton plays on a stage run by pedal power June 16 at this year’s Montclair Beer, Wine & Music Festival.

It’s been two years since folks first raised objections to the sale of the Montclair Women’s Cultural Arts Club to a Spanish-immersion school. Now with the sale complete and renovations underway, neighbors will see, firsthand, if the school is a good fit for the already busy corner of Mountain and Thornhill.

The Kids Speaking Spanish (KSS) immersion school is slated to open in early August if the building and grounds are ready. They’ll start with 49 kids and hope to expand to 60, says KSS President Kurtis Pierce, who adds that they first want to prove that they won’t have a negative impact on traffic. As for the look of the 1926 building, Pierce says the exterior will basically be the same, just cleaned up and partially fenced. “It will still have a lot of the original character.”

Around town: The numbers are in for last weekend’s big Beer, Wine & Music Festival. Some $10,000 was raised for community improvements in Montclair, including the Antioch Court streetscape project. The mild weather helped spur turnout and was a relief for folks riding the stationary bikes that powered the music stage. Rock the Bike even used one of the bikes to power a blender so peddlers could have free smoothies.

Musical note: Speaking of music, it takes more than the loss of two instruments to silence the Montera Middle School music department. The award-winning program now has a Go Fund Me page (www.gofundme.com/bass-clarinet-and-trumpet) that’s on track to raise $10,000 to support the school’s 450 musicians. It was a sour note when a King Trumpet and Normandy Vito Bass Clarinet fell out of the door of a chartered bus last month, but it looks like the fundraiser has struck a chord with readers.

Pinball wizards: Think you were pretty good with the flippers back in the day? You may want to buy your own retro pinball machine. The Pacific Pinball Museum is having a one-day sale in its Alameda warehouse (1680 Viking St.) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 23. The surplus inventory ranges from a 1970 4 Aces ($200 but needs work) to a 1988 Time Machine for $2000. Visit www.pacificpinball.org for details.

Got news? You can reach Ginny Prior at ginnyprior@hotmail.com or www.ginnyprior.com.