Squidfry 02.24.22: Grab Bag

GRAB BAG… Squid loves a good fundraiser. Yes, you pay to enter, but it’s for a good cause, and then the stuff you get inside – food, drink, etc. – feels like it’s free. A fundraising dinner on Saturday, March 5 at the Salinas Police Activities League to support the Salinas Police Department’s K-9 unit? While unfortunately Squid’s beloved bulldog and aspiring K-9 Rosco P. Coltrane (Squid’s working on training out Rosco’s lazy habits) is not invited, Squid was certainly interested in buying a $75 ticket. Squid likes supporting cute, smart, highly trained police pups, and the efforts of PAL to do outreach with Salinas youth.

Squid’s ticket would come with the standard-issue stuff: dinner, games, an auction. But then there was something else that made Squid squirm. A table package ($1,800 – a discount for this $2,200 value!) comes with not just eight dinner tickets, but also a handgun – specifically a Glock or a Springfield XD.

Maybe Squid shouldn’t be surprised. The event is co-hosted by the Fresno-based nonprofit Patriots of Freedom Foundation, which says its mission encompasses funding sportsman’s groups, hunter safety education and firearm safety.

Firearm safety sounds great. Keeping guns off the streets in a city with a notorious gun violence record also sounds great. Distributing deadly weapons at a dinner to support your public safety professionals? Not great.

Squid and Rosco will not be attending, but if you go, be careful – don’t touch the centerpieces.

BAD SUIT… Whether or not Squid enjoys it, Squid ends up reading a lot of legal documents – it’s a key contributor to the shrimp-flavored popcorn budget – and the most recent is the resolution of the case Paul Petrovich, the would-be developer of the now-dormant Main Gate project, brought against the city of Seaside last year in federal court.

A little backstory: In September 2020, Petrovich pulled out of an $8.3 million purchase agreement with the city on the last day of the deadline to buy the 56-acre property – north of Lightfighter Drive and along Highway 1 – seeking better terms, which the city rejected. Last year, he filed a $2 million claim with the city to recover sunk costs for his development proposal, which the city also rejected. Petrovich then sued Seaside in federal court last October, and the city argued, through its attorneys: Nope, if you want to sue us, you must do it locally. Days later, Petrovich sued Seaside in Monterey County Superior Court. Then, two weeks ago, on Feb. 9, the Northern District of California dismissed his federal case, agreeing with Seaside that the matter should be heard locally.

Perhaps Petrovich has a case to make, but it can’t be a good look to start a new round of litigation by kicking the ball into your own goal.