Name Calling

NAME CALLING… Leading up to Election Day, Squid couldn’t keep Squid’s tentacles off social media. The anticipation was everywhere, with politicians and voters weighing in, voicing their endorsements – and, sometimes, calling each other names.

The Salinas Valley Democratic Club endorsed two out of three candidates for Salinas mayor, Dennis Donohue and Ernesto González García. Affordable housing advocate Matt Huerta jumped on the dual endorsement, posting on Facebook: “Looks a lot like trying to intentionally split the LatinX vote?! Prove to me I’m wrong?” He got an answer, but perhaps not the answer he was expecting. County Supervisor Luis Alejo, a member of the SVDC, responded: “Maybe because both are club members, burro! Both are good candidates too!! Why you worried?!!”

Squid double-checked Squid’s Spanish-English dictionary to confirm yes, burro means donkey – it’s also Mexican slang to call someone dumb, similar to “jackass.” Alejo wasn’t done. “Instead of whining, go walk for your candidates. Stop making silly excuses! You sound like Trump and sounds like you’re scurred too.”

Squid’s all for vigorous debate, IRL and on social media, but calling people animal names is definitely not in Squid’s etiquette book.

FIRED UP… There are also odd things arriving in Squid’s snail-mailbox during election season. Amid that heap, one recent mailer sent out to thousands of Seaside residents caught Squid’s attention. It advocated for a “yes” vote on Seaside’s Measure CC, which would ban the sale of so-called “safe and sane” fireworks. Problem is, there’s no registered number from the state Fair Political Practices Commission on the mailer, which just reads “Paid for by Seaside Residents.” Squid’s colleague found out who was behind the mailer, Seaside resident Tim Duran, who says he’s spent around $10,000, maybe more, in the past year in an effort to battle the illegal fireworks. That included a series of mailers, hiring a private investigator on July 4, and contributing to the official Yes on CC campaign committee. After moving here with his wife in 2012, Duran, a Vietnam veteran, says about the fireworks going off year-round by his house in the middle of the night, “It’s driving my wife crazy, it’s driving me crazy.” He believes some sort of organized crime is involved with smuggling illegal fireworks into the city, even though they merely need to be driven across the stateline from Nevada, where they are legal.

As to whether Duran’s mailers are legal, Squid’s pretty sure they are not – any independent committee expenditures of more than $1,000 related to a ballot measure (in this case, by “Seaside Residents”) must be reported to the FPPC. Squid will have popcorn ready to see how it all shakes out.