SQUIDFRY 02.28.19: Beige Vibrations

BEIGE VIBRATIONS… A few years ago, after the city of Monterey bought a Portland Loo – an easy-to-clean public bathroom created in Portland, Oregon – Squid couldn’t help but note the city requested it be painted beige. This came after Monterey was leaning toward a beige palette for the Conference Center, and Squid became briefly obsessed with “Monterey beige,” which is an actual color of a rug you can buy at Home Depot.

Now, Squid is obsessed with the “Monterey Vibe.” What, exactly, is the “Monterey Vibe,” you may ask? It remains unclear to Squid, even after reading a lengthy “Broad Based Asset Inventory” report the city solicited, in 2016, for $35,000, which was completed in April 2018. The report was intended to be an internal planning document, but a member of the Monterey City Councilrequested it be presented to the council, which city staff did on Feb. 19. According to the report, which was compiled by staff and students at CSU Monterey Bay and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, the “distinct ‘Monterey Vibe’… represents a qualitative feeling of pride of place, desire to contribute and participate in the life and culture of the city, love of the region’s beauty and environmental capital,” etc., etc.

Not to be the bearer of bad vibes, but that doesn’t sound very “distinct” to Squid, but rather, like a beige way of saying: People like living here.

BIG DIRT… Squid isn’t a huge fan of harbor seals – the big-eyed dopes always get better press than cephalopods – but Squid breathed a sigh of relief at hearing yet another threat from humans to the fuzzy little monsters had been obliterated. That threat is one James Lucero, a Carmel resident involved in the lucrative world of waste management. Lucero is a self-described dirt broker, which meant he charged a fee to contractors and trucking companies in exchange for providing open space to dump material, including construction debris. Great, right? It’s gotta go somewhere. But in Lucero’s case, he caused 1,800 industrial-sized truckloads of construction debris to be dumped on private property containing federally protected wetlands next to harbor seal breeding grounds, and he did it without obtaining permits from theEnvironmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers or permission of the East Bay landowner. And, whoopsie, it wasn’t the first time he got caught doing dirt with dirt. This last round of bad acts occurred while he was awaiting sentencing in Santa Clara County for conspiracy and bribing county landfill managers to intentionally misclassify waste, to the tune of $13 million. On Feb. 25, U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam sentenced Lucero to 30 months in federal prison.

Restitution has yet to be determined, but here’s hoping it’s enough for Squid’s aquatic brethren to fix their lair.