Right around the sixth time I’d watched the now infamous Measure X sign theft video, I stopped feeling sorry for the dipshit doing the stealing and started feeling sorry for myself.
If you’re not familiar with the case, go back to April 7, when the Pacific Grove Chamber of Commerce sent out a press release saying they had video of two men sneaking up to the chamber building and wresting “Yes on Measure X” signs from the property.
In one video, a grey sedan slides up to the curb and the door comically opens as the car slow-rolls to a stop so the passenger can leap out. And leap he does, his face visible to the camera, his hair pinned up in a man bun. He then struggles to yank a Yes on X sign from a planter in front of the building, and then struggles more to put a No on X sign in its place. His task accomplished, he heads back to the car – and then back to the sign again after it falls over. In the end, he gives up on planting the sign in the dirt and just leans it against something.
And that’s why I felt sorry for him. If stealing political signs and replacing them with signs from the opposition is this guy’s enterprise, he’s really bad at it.
The chamber is offering a $1,000 reward leading to the identity of the man with the bun. Once they identify him, I’m not sure what they’re going to do with him. It’s P.G. They may sit down with him over a kombucha and give him a stern talking to.
In the other instance, the guy doing the sign wresting is Luke Coletti, a P.G. resident who admits he went to the chamber, removed two signs and placed them on the ground. Coletti’s reasoning goes like this: The chamber rents its building from the city for $1 a year. According to the rental agreement, they are required to obey all city ordinances and one ordinance says that political signage is not allowed on public property.
“I challenged them on that, [the city] agreed with me and someone from the city went and removed two signs Moe had up,” Coletti says, referring to Chamber President Moe Ammar.
But over the weekend, P.G. Interim City Manager Ben Harvey asked City Attorney Dave Laredo for a second opinion, and Laredo’s opinion was that the chamber can use the property as it sees fit. The signs went back up and Coletti took them down. The cops talked to Coletti and it seems that’s where it ends.
The Weekly’s editorial board recommended yes on Measure X. It’s a rezoning measure and merely the first step in the hundreds of steps that will need to be taken if a luxury eco-hotel is to be built on the property in question, the current site of the American Tin Cannery.
As for the sign shenanigans and the reward, that’s where I start feeling sorry for myself. It’s 2016, and while the national political debate has taken on a World Wrestling Federation match tone, I’d like to think Peninsula voters were more civilized than this.
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Apoplectic: an adjective meaning overcome with anger, extremely indignant. For example: Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Salinas, was apoplectic at a progressive consortium’s report card that gave him an “F” rating as a legislator, calling out how he votes and who donates to his campaigns. And he was apoplectic that the Weekly’s Squid column took a run at it as well.
From the text messages he sent: “I have a proud record of standing up for the residents of my district. From increasing minimum wage, to drivers licences for immigrants, to my five bills signed last year to hold polluters more accountable. I’ve been a champion for environmental justice, labor and civil rights.”
I’ll give him props: He kept a questionable waste-to-energy pilot program from launching in South County, he’s battled for nurses at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital and he’s pressed King City to account for a police-led towing scandal that targeted immigrants.
He also takes contributions from Big Pharma (Genentech), Big Ag (Monsanto) and Big Vice (i.e., gaming interests.)
Years ago, I told Alejo if he didn’t want donations tied to his votes, he shouldn’t take the money. In his text messages, he said the money doesn’t impact how he votes. “I vote for what’s in the best interest of my district,” he writes. “I have impacted my district effectively.”
So noted.