ZIP SLIP… The proposed zipline course at Jacks Peak Park has become one of those gripping green-on-green debates, with some arguing Ziptrek Ecotours would spoil the Monterey Pine forest, and others saying ziplines are a low-impact way of inspiring people to care about the rare ecosystem.


County staff, of course, are supposed to maintain a Swiss neutrality, aside from processing the paperwork and making a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors. So Squid is intrigued by a mysterious comment on Mari Lynch Dehmler’s BicyclingMonterey.com blog under the handle, “Friends of Jacks Peak Zip Lines.”


“Check out the Jacks Peak Zip Line Facebook page,” the comment reads. “Please keep in mind that a majority of zip lines that are in ‘special places’ like Jacks Peak Park have ecology and environmental education in mind.” Dehmler says a WhoIs search of the comment shows it originated from county IT offices: the first floor of 1590 Moffett Street in Salinas. So Squid clicked over to the Facebook page, which on the morning of Dec. 6 had 50-odd friends, pics of charismatic wildlife and arguments in favor of the zip line. What it didn’t have: info on the source. So Squid sent a message, asking the administrator to please give Squid a jingle. Within a few hours, the page was gone.


Squid’s undecided about the zipline proposal. But if county staff are using taxpayer resources to sneakily campaign for ZipTrek – hypothetically speaking, of course – the ethical breach is pretty clear cut.


THE BREAK UP… Like peanut butter and jelly, Statler and Waldorf, and Captain and Tennille, Lombardo and Gilles have been a duo for what seems to be forever. Jeff Gilles, the smooth-haired, impeccably suited, silver-tongued charmer of a Monterey County land use attorney, and Tony Lombardo, the smooth-haired, impeccably suited… wait, how does Squid tell them apart again? Figuring out who’s who got much easier last week, with the news that the Glimmer Twins were breaking up. 


The pair, who represented everyone from Clint Eastwood to Jim Morgens since teaming up in 1998, quietly dissolved their eponymous firm on Dec. 5. In a statement, Gilles says he bought out Lombardo’s interest in 2006 as they planned for Lombardo’s retirement. But that retirement is apparently no longer happening. Lombardo is opening his own firm, specializing in (wait for it) real estate; Gilles, meanwhile, gets to keep the “L” – his firm’s new name is L&G LLP. 


News of the breakup was greeted with befuddlement in some corners of the county’s business-law community. One fellow land-use attorney quipped: “Which one of them gets to keep the house?”