Everything is Rigged…Ever since Donald Trump told Squid—and the entire American public—he would hold them in suspense until after Election Day as to whether he would concede, Squid can barely sleep. And Nov. 8 is still 15 days away.
So Squid started looking for election drama closer to home with conclusions that Squid doesn’t have to wait for. On the night of Oct. 20, there was Salinas Mayor Joe Gunter in a debate against challenger Amit Pandya, when Gunter decided to leave voters in suspense.
Toward the very end of an hour-long debate, Gunter and Pandya told the audience who they were supporting in various other elections, and agreed on most: Jimmy Panetta for Congress, Anna Caballero for Assembly. Pandya said he’s voting for Hillary Clinton for president, but Gunter introduced another round of suspense as far as his presidential vote: “I haven’t made that decision yet,” he said.
(Squid’s no pro at cracking codes, but has a bead on this one: For elected officials with heavily Democratic, heavily Latino constituencies, it’s too embarrassing to admit you’re voting for Trump; an easy cop-out at this stage is “undecided.”)
Another candidate for mayor, medical marijuana advocate Kevin Saunders of Marina, was in the audience. Predictably unpredictable, Saunders delivered his own read on Gunter’s undecided status. “Anyone that supports Trump is not fit to be Salinas mayor,” he shouted, into an otherwise calm room. Then Saunders stood up, and did something that might as well have come straight from Trump’s own playbook: He yelled, “Fuck you, Gunter!” and stormed out, followed by his partner/campaign manager Kitty Merchant. The regular debate then resumed.
Another predictably unpredictable candidate is Salinas City Councilman Jose Castañeda, who’s seeking re-election for District 1 in East Salinas, against four challengers. Sunday night, Salinas police were called to Frank’s Auto Sales to break up a dispute including, you guessed it, Casteñeda. There was no arrest, but it’s just the latest in a long string of kerfuffles—some minor, some serious—involving the councilman, who’s seeking his second term.
In further search of suspenseful things that could end with a nice tidy denouement before Nov. 8, Squid decided to tackle a math problem. Or rather, Monterey Bay Partisan blogger Royal Calkins decided to tackle a math problem: “Subtract $3 million from $8 million and what do you get? Nothing,” reads an ALL-CAPS intro to an Oct. 23 post.
Calkins’ math goes like this: The industry-funded No on Measure Z campaign has bandied about the $8 million a year figure everywhere they can, with the insinuation that any pressure on the oil industry is going to mean massive shutdowns for schools and fire departments and all kinds of public services everywhere.
Calkins called Monterey County Assessor Steve Vagnini for the latest numbers on what the oil industry pays in property tax to the county, and this year’s figure will be under $5 million, based on the price of oil; $8 million was last year, when a barrel fetched more on average. (As the Weekly reported in a Sept. 29 cover story, that number fluctuates with oil prices. Squid’s no math whiz, but knows that lower oil prices mean lower tax revenue.)
“Unfortunately for voters and other truth seekers, my little scoop has been ignored by the titans of the local press corps,” Calkins wrote in his follow-up post, the one about how $8 million-$3 million equals silence.
Squid feels honored to be considered a “titan”—Squid gets a shout-out in the post—but mostly, Squid’s already-wide eyes widen even more at another set of numbers. Aera Energy and Chevron have so far come up with the $5 million-plus—$1.3 million of that donated in just the past week alone—to fund the No on Z campaign.
Instead of that extra property tax revenue, Monterey County gets whatever little economic boost comes from employing film crews to make No on Z commercials.