SQUIDFRY 03.18.21: Paid Up

PAID UP… Add to the long list of things that are great in theory, but not in practice: tentacle warmers that make it impossible for Squid to swipe and doomscroll; the city of Marina’s campaign finance ordinance.

First-time candidates Kathy Biala and Cristina Medina Dirksen got caught up in violations of the new ordinance last year. (Both won seats on Marina City Council.) Both returned the campaign donations in question as soon as they realized their mistakes (accepting gifts from organizations rather than individuals, and gifts in excess of $200). But that didn’t stop the city from issuing administrative citations on Feb. 22, with $100 fines per violation (in Biala’s case, a total of $200 and in Medina’s, $600) as well as $200 “disgorgement” per count – a legal term for returning ill-gotten gains, even though the campaign contributions were returned long ago.

Those penalties were ordered despite this takeaway in an 11-page citation report by Special Counsel Karen Getman: “We have uncovered no evidence to suggest the violations discussed above were anything other than inadvertent or negligent mistakes.”

Those are some expensive inadvertent mistakes. Normally, a candidate would pay for mistakes like these out of their campaign account. In Marina, however, no can do – the campaign finance ordinance prohibits fundraising between elections. So Medina Dirksen dipped into personal savings to pay the $600 fine, and sent a March 11 letter noting she can’t pay the $1,200 disgorgement penalty: “There are no available funds with which to pay… and it is unlawful for me to fundraise at this time.”

Nothing, however, can stop Squid from holding a bake sale.

LOST IN TRANSLATION… Squid was in Squid’s lair doomscrolling when a bit of good news flashed across the screen: Monterey County was finally entering into the Red Tier March 17, just in time for the one-year anniversary of shelter-in-place. Squid has mostly forgotten how to conduct Squidself in society, and cephalopods are not yet eligible for vaccines, so Squid plans to stay in for now. That means more time for doomscrolling – and pondering Monterey County’s communications strategy.

A year into Covid-19, there is still no designated Spanish translator on staff. Instead, for public announcements and things like shelter-in-place orders, the county’s default is Google Translate or whichever bilingual staffer might be available – free, but imperfect. “There are a lot of things for the county to learn from this year and recognize our role in being a source of trusted information in times of crisis. We have not done as good of a job as we should have,” says Supervisor Wendy Root Askew, chair of the Board of Supervisors.

Doomscrolling is accessible in multiple languages; Squid thinks county communications should be too.