SQUIDFRY 09.15.16: Fool Me Once…

FOOL ME ONCE… In order to understand what’s happening in Seaside right now, Squid spent the better part of the weekend reading The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion’s wrenching 2005 memoir. In it, Didion recounts her yearlong, irrational belief that her dead husband would come back to life.

Magical thinking has been at the top of Squid’s mind of late, because with respect to Monterey Downs, Seaside leadership has it in spades. Along with the key thing the proposed project does not have – an adequate water supply – let’s consider some things it does have. It has an environmental impact report, bigger than a phone book, that many view as fatally flawed, and which drew an angry Aug. 30 letter from Caltrans because the analysis “artificially lowered” the project’s traffic impacts. Furthermore, it reads, “the document could be at risk of legal challenge.”

The project also has political support, in some circles, and Seaside city staff appear determined to push it through the approval process before the November election. Perhaps that’s why, in their report to the Seaside Planning Commission before a Sept. 7 meeting, staff included a magical map on page 15 titled “Base Reuse Plan Land Use Concept” that purported to show zoning in the area. Thing is though, the map is nowhere in Fort Ord’s Base Reuse Plan.

You can’t make this stuff up.

THE Z-TEAM… In what some are calling the “Year of the Woman” in both local and national politics, Squid was surprised to hear anybody who wants in on the airwaves in these pre-election days would give the brush-off to the League of Women Voters of Monterey County – a non-partisan organization that seeks to inspire greater engagement in government.

When the group met for a Sept. 14 forum about Measure Z – which would ban fracking and wastewater injection in Monterey County – the No on Z folks planned to be a no-show. The noon luncheon happened after the Weekly went to press, but George Riley, one of the event’s organizers, was confident no one would show on the No team’s behalf, so much so that he was preparing to lay out their arguments himself. Which is kind of a weird position to be in, given that he’s already endorsed the measure.

Initially, Riley says, someone from Armanasco Public Relations was supposed to represent Team No. When Riley learned that wasn’t going to happen, he reached out to oil industry consultant Maureen Wruck, who also couldn’t make it. Then he reached out to County Supervisor John Phillips, who voted against a fracking moratorium and has expressed concerns about the measure; again, no. “We thought we could get a ‘No’ candidate to put a lot energy into it,” Riley says. “I’ll put some limited energy into it.”