LAWYERS NEED JOBS TOO... Squid wonders: When Fort Ord closed and local leaders were wondering how to offset the jobs lost, did they consider balancing the lost wages with attorney fees? Carmel Valley lawyer RICHARD ROSENTHAL has certainly been kept busy suing Marina for its jumbled developments on the former Army base.

Rosenthal, who represents different citizen’s groups, sued the city last year for its 1,050-home Marina Heights project, as well as the 1,200-home University Village development. Now the attorney is speaking for the SAVE OUR PENINSULA COMMITTEE in a suit that alleges Marina didn’t prepare an adequate environmental impact report for Cypress Knolls, a senior housing development.

Marina City Manager ANTHONY ALTFELD is tired of Rosenthal’s bickering about traffic and water impacts. Altfeld wrote in a Dec. 7 letter that the attorney’s “objections are wholly without merit.” Altfeld also said that neither Rosenthal nor his clients bothered to submit comments on the draft EIR or attend a public hearing on the project.

Squid wouldn’t get involved in the public process either if Squid had an easy target like Marina to sue. Squid can guess the next brief Rosenthal will write. It will probably be filed a few weeks after the City Council approves Marina Station, a development planned north of the city. Of course, Marina city officials could better plan the development this time, but that wouldn’t create as much work to do.

SQUID SHERIFF LOG... Squid knows Monterey County gets its share of big city crime. But Squid is more spooked by lawlessness that pervades the rural fringes of the county. Forget East Salinas—there the crime at least follows a criminal logic. Squid is more terrified of Prunedale, where misdeeds are more mystifying.

At about 11am on Sunday, Jan. 7, Sheriff’s deputies were called to San Miguel Canyon Road in North County, where a man was cited for not taking his pet to the vet after his dog was hurt in a fight. “He used a fishing line to suture the animal’s wounds,” DEPUTY DAVIS reported. Squid prays Squid is never wounded in Prunetucky, where a tackle box doubles for a med kit.

Later that day, a thief took off with about 50 Brussels-sprout stalks he nabbed from a field on Springfield Road in Moss Landing. Why not something tastier? Squid wonders. Has this criminal figured out how to cook these green, miniature cabbages without releasing the smell? Investigation ongoing.

And at about 5:30pm, a Sheriff’s deputy responded to a possible trespassing violation at a residence on Paso Venado in Carmel. The deputy found “two delusional people [who] reported trespassers, who only they could see, hiding in the trees on their property.” The deputy “suspended” the case.