PLEASE, NO MOORE… Squid had a classmate in high school who flicked wads of paper at Squid’s head in math class. Squid ignored him for most of the school year and then, one foggy morning, ate him.


Apparently the city of Pacific Grove has likewise reached a snapping point with its own annoying gadfly, Pacific Grove Taxpayers Association President John Moore, who routinely writes typo-riddled email blasts railing against City Manager Tom Frutchey, city attorney Dave Laredo and City Council members for the defending the city’s “3 percent at 50” pensions for police and firefighters.


“Mr. Moore has been lambasting City Councils, past and present, as well as the City Manager and City Attorney, for actions taken and not taken with respect to the CalPERS matter,” Frutchey wrote in a recent update. “Mr. Moore is entitled to his opinion; Mr. Moore’s assertions, however, need to be accurate to facts, the law, and the city’s options.”


Rather than chomp the septuagenarian Moore, the City Council had its lawyers at Liebert Cassidy Whitmore review his rants and write him a letter, asking him to take back the mean things he’s said.


Squid is afraid to ask how much that letter cost the city, but it sure didn’t shut Moore up. “There are so many errors in [the letter], that I will just list a few,” Moore’s rambling response began. 


Seems the City Council lacks Squid’s appetite.


BUDGET NOMMING… Speaking of appetites, those crazy kids over at Marina Coast Water District, one of the partners in the plot to remove salt from water (also known as the Regional Desalination Project), find themselves again with more money than common sense. 


The latest in the quest to blow through as many ratepayer dollars as possible (nearly $2.8 million in attorney’s fees in the past 24 months?!) sees the district looking for a contractor to coordinate agreements and contracts – and to help respond to Public Records Act requests, those pesky requests members of the public can make of a public agency. Examples of PRAs Squid plans to make: determining where board member Ken Nishi spent his sabbatical… err, that month he quit then sheepishly returned, and querying why there aren’t yet any invoices from Remy Thomas Moose & Manley, a Sacramento-based law firm that specializes in the California Environmental Quality Act. 


The Marina Coast board authorized hiring Moose (as Squid affectionately calls the firm) on Sept. 13, but so far, not a single check has been written. Marina Coast isn’t known for its foresight, but seeing as Monterey County Superior Court Judge Lydia Villarreal ruled they’ve got to scrap their CEQA docs and start over, the Moose hire might’ve been a prescient move.