Scape Goats

Scape Goats… Squid is not a very social creature. Squid prefers to keep tabs on others from behind the scenes, such as sending public records requests to see what juicy emails local government officials are writing. Walker Williams, the development manager of Scannell Properties, which plans to construct a five-story, nearly 3-million-square-foot Amazon warehouse in Salinas, turned the tables and wants to know who’s checking up on his project. On Aug. 12, Williams filed a request with the City of Salinas, asking for the names of all the people (and cephalopods) who have submitted public records seeking information about the proposal. Codenamed Project GOAT, work on the project has been underway for more than two years, out of the public eye.

The city obliged, as required by law, and sent Williams the list of six people who have filed requests since July 2023 (including one of Squid’s colleagues at the Weekly). The records themselves mostly consist of emails (nearly 300 pages) and a one-sentence “operational statement” that essentially describes what a warehouse is.

City officials at last publicly acknowledged the Amazon project on Aug. 26, announcing that work would begin soon on the site along Abbott Street and Harris Road. As Williams found out, when you’re building one of the largest Amazon warehouses in the country in someone’s city, the locals surely want to know about it.

Late Penalty… Squid likens watching Monterey’s County Housing and Community Development Department at work to watching a pot of water boil – it takes a while for any results to bubble up. That was the case with the county’s draft housing plan, called a housing element, required of counties and cities to plan for increased housing units over an eight-year period, currently 2023-2031.

MCHCD planners blew through deadlines in December and April with a tenuous promise to finish this summer (must be nice!). The Monterey County Board of Supervisors weighed in on a draft in June, requesting changes and directing it to come back to them by Aug. 20 – before it would be sent to the state.

On Aug. 12, county planners announced a lightning-quick seven-day public review of the latest draft, with the intention of sending it to the state on Aug. 19. Hold on, local housing advocates said, can’t we discuss it on Aug. 20 first? What’s a few more days?

Apparently, the state got tired of watching the county’s pot simmer and was demanding results. Enforcement officials from the California Department of Housing and Community Development had been in touch, MCHCD Director Craig Spencer told the supervisors on Aug. 20. State officials have the power to turn up the heat, and impose sanctions. County planners had no choice but to get cooking, and fast.