FEELING ANXIOUS… There are times, Squid admits, that Squid’s Facebook feed causes Squid to briefly consider squidicide. Like when one of Squid’s friends checks in at an airport to fly off to a deadline-free paradise (Squid, meanwhile, remains chained to a keyboard). Or when Squid struggles to distinguish reality from The Onion, which is often.
Squid is not seriously considering harming Squidself, but Monterey City Councilwoman Libby Downey? She’s worried about Squid. After city staff recommended adopting a social media policy at a March 17 council meeting, Downey pulled the item to talk it over with staff. “There have been suicides because of Facebook,” Downey said. “Help me with feeling OK about the city and Facebook.”
Monterey Communications Manager Anne McGrath accepted the challenge, saying the city’s posts are mostly scenic shots around town and updates on projects. She said most of the comments were in the vein of “I love the city” or “I miss the city.”
Downey was unswayed. “That’s wonderful. I’m worried about the exception to that rule, and if you can assure that we are OK, and nobody’s going to be personally damaged,” she said. “I go back to suicides happen because of Facebook. Can you assure me that’s not going to be an issue?” This time, City Attorney Christine Davi spoke up. “No, not really.”
Squid saw the city’s most recent post while chained to a keyboard: “It’s another beautiful spring day in Monterey!” Squid has too many deadlines to get outside. Squid is depressed.
DETAILS, DETAILS… Squid’s the kind of mollusk that makes good use of postscripts, footnotes and appendices. It’s the fine print, after all, that tends to contain the best nuggets of information; you just have to hunt for it. So Squid got a little tingle while reading the legal notices in this week’s Weekly: There, under the city of Seaside seahorse logo (note to city officials: more tentacles would be better), was a notice that the draft environmental impact report for Monterey Downs is finally set to go public next Tuesday, March 31.
P.S. The draft EIR was first supposed to come out in October 2013. If it really drops this Tuesday – and Squid applies the “fool me once” rule here – it’ll be a mere 17 months behind schedule.
P.P.S. Among the project’s “significant and unavoidable” impacts, according to the notice: the chopping of coast live oak trees, greenhouse gas emissions and traffic. Each bullet point is summarized, except for one, which stands alone: “water supply.” Yeah, nothing else to say about that.
P.P.P.S. There is no water supply.