Squidfry 04.07.22: No Problem

NO PROBLEM… In the pre-vaccine and booster days, without theaters and no submarine broadband connection, Squid was forced to rely on Squid’s own DVD collection, which meant a lot of reruns of Jim Carrey’s 2008 comedy, Yes Man, in which his character says yes to every proposition made to him. Squid was reminded of this ridiculous storyline while perusing endorsements in the District 2 supervisor’s race. Eric Tynan, general manager of the Castroville Community Services District has apparently said yes to endorsing Steve Snodgrass, Grant Leonard and Kimbley Craig in the race.

Tynan tells Squid’s colleague that he initially said yes to Snodgrass before Leonard entered the race. After Leonard entered, he offered his endorsement, without telling Snodgrass his loyalties had shifted. After Craig entered the race, she apparently approached Tynan, to whom he also said yes, without telling Leonard or Snodgrass that he was tying his boat to what he considers a more resourceful ship. As of April 5, Tynan was listed on all three candidates’ endorsement pages, and had not cleared this up with any of the candidates.

The overcommitment does not end there. Mary Ann Leffel, who is now the target of a recall effort over her vote to stymie the public takeover of Cal Am, shows up on Snodgrass and Craig’s endorsement list. Who needs a movie theater when we have all this political drama in town square?

WET BLANKET… Squid tries to be precise with Squid’s words – Squid doesn’t squirt out ink indiscriminately – so Squid was struck by a comment local chambers of commerce advocate Kevin Dayton made on Twitter April 5, in light of the lawsuit the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District filed against the Local Agency Formation Commission of Monterey County. That lawsuit was in response to the LAFCO board voting – three times! – against allowing MPWMD to buy out Cal Am’s local system on the Monterey Peninsula. It’s a buyout that, in November 2018, close to 56-percent of Peninsula voters approved.

The lawsuit argues the LAFCO board’s decision was biased, and not grounded in the evidence presented, and Dayton’s response to it was, “The quest continues for a hostile government takeover of the region’s privately-owned water supply system.”

Hostile? The process, up until the LAFCO vote, was a democratic one (though that concept seems to be losing popularity among many Americans). When asked what he meant by “hostile”, Dayton told Squid’s colleague, “it’s hostile… to Cal Am.”

Last Squid checked, there’s nothing hostile about democracy – quite the opposite, in fact – but that view seems increasingly unpopular in this country among some people who don’t like the results.