POKER HAND… Squid thinks eight-legged creatures should qualify as a full jury. On another legal note: As alleged victims of sex abuse by former Salinas High School counselor Gilbert Olivares start seeking compensation for their woes, it’s possible their cases will never see the light of day. Salinas attorney John Bailey has taken on one anonymous client so far – the mother of one teenage victim – and says he hopes Salinas Union High School District pays up in private, before the matter goes to court. 


“My client is not litigious and wants to give others the opportunity to do the right thing voluntarily,” Bailey tells Squid. His firm, Alternative Dispute Resolution, doesn’t litigate, but Squid’s guess is that the school district, along with Sunrise House and Olivares himself, should start tabulating the value of a kid’s innocence. 


BAYSIDE CHATS… Just when Squid was waxing nostalgic for the warm fuzzies of FDR’s fireside chats, County Supervisor Dave Potter came along with the modern-day equivalent: Discussions with Dave. Too bad it smacks of electioneering. 


After 16 years in office – with three months to go until a heated election against Marc Del Piero – Potter’s figured out that constituents want access to elected officials. You too can now sign up for 15 minutes on Monday mornings to share “concerns about local and private issues.” 


BLACKMAIL-BY-THE-SEA… Squid was lolling about Carmel the other day when Squid had the sensation of being watched. Considering how big Squid’s eyes are, it takes a few tricks of the trade to keep Squid in sight without Squid noticing. But if anyone has the prowess to pull it off, it’s ex-mayor and ex-CIA agent Sue McCloud. 


As she was leaving office in April, she took one sneaky last chance to suppress Chris Fitz, who’d directed hordes of Unite Here Local 483 supporters to a City Council meeting where they urged an intervention in the La Playa Hotel layoffs. (No dice: La Playa declined to give out jobs like candy, and got boycott threats and protests on its Aug. 1 reopening.) 


Fitz had just taken a job at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at Monterey Institute for International Studies when former MIIS board member and regular donor McCloud threatened to pull her support for MIIS if its peaceniks could crash her meetings. (She later backed off.)


The new La Playa’s gone for a “trickle” approach to publicity rather than a grand opening. That smells to Squid like a union pressure cooker.


Squid thinks Fitz should be grateful mighty McCloud only threatened to withhold funds from his employer. If she called upon her clandestine service past, he might find himself in Guantanamo Bay.