SQUIDFRY 05.20.21: Governor v. Beast

GOVERNOR V. BEAST… Squid has been soaking up what seem to be the final days before California reopens by maximizing Squid’s time in the lair, binging on soap operas. But sometimes Squid finds even more predictable scripts in real life. Cue Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is traveling the state in a please-do-not-recall-me tour. Luckily for Newsom, the state is suddenly flush with $76 billion in surplus money, so he is proposing quite a spending spree, including direct stimulus payments.

Of course, there’s also a campaign to recall Newsom, driven by frustration over the state’s pandemic response. Squid is guessing that as much as Newsom is stumping for his budget, he doesn’t want to end up like former Gov. Gray Davis, who was recalled in 2003 and replaced with Arnold Schwarzenegger, aka The Governator. Republican contender John Cox, who lost in a landslide against Newsom in 2018, is also on the campaign trail and spinning a fairytale story of his own, with the addition of a 1,000-pound grizzly bear to his campaign team. The theme is beauty (that would be “pretty boy” Gavin) and the beast (that would be… Cox? or his furry companion?). Squid’s seen this movie before, but it won’t have a happy ending for at least for one of them.

PAPER TRAIL… When Squid finally emerges from the lair, Squid thinks it would be fun to go to a Friday night football game at Monterey High School. That is, if they get their proposed lights approved, over NIMBY opposition.

Some of those neighbors, such as Taxpayers for MPUSD Accountability, have long been seeking public records in connection to the project. When they didn’t get them, they sued Monterey Peninsula Unified School District to comply with the California Public Records Act, and their case was scheduled for trial on May 19, after Squid’s deadline. As their trial date approached, Squid was curious about whether MPUSD’s attorneys, at the firm Lozano Smith, would comply and hand over documents. They produced a 275-page color-coded spreadsheet listing the hundreds of documents they still do not intend to release. Squid read the list, and it was a big yawn – same old stuff, with one new column for comments that explains nothing. “Kristi advises that visual expert needs something that shows typical elevation change and distance between rows of bleacher seats,” one reads.

Then Lozano Smith attorney Sloan Simmons realized he’d released that version of the spreadsheet inadvertently. Those boring notes? Apparently, they’re confidential! (Why, Squid has no idea. Maybe they’re trying to patent this stuff as a sleep aid?) Simmons emailed to request the Weekly delete the document. But Squid had already napped Squid’s way through all 275 pages. If only those were billable hours.