INTO THE LIGHT… Squid was floating in the deep, meditating where it’s too dark to see much of anything. So Squid was surprised when a tentacle brushed Fort Ord Reuse Authority attorney David Balch. Though public agencies have all kinds of rules about transparency, FORA seems far more comfortable hidden from public view. So comfortable that the FORA board is finally planning to discuss its secret document retention policy – in secret. 


Or so Balch wrote in a May 4 letter to attorney Michael Stamp, who’s representing Keep Fort Ord Wild. The mountain-biking aficionados sued FORA for failing to turn over records pertaining to how it’s spent a $99.3 million grant from the U.S. Army. 


FORA’s response? Ask the contractor, Arcadis U.S. When Arcadis pulled the confidentiality card, FORA held up its hands, then cross-sued Arcadis. 


Now that everyone’s suing everyone, Balch is promising the FORA board will “re-review” its unwritten records retention policy – in closed session. “Talking about secrecy only in secret makes no sense,” Stamp wrote back. 


Squid’s standing by to see just what clean-up crews have been doing every day. If it’s not high-tech bomb residue remediation, Squid’s secretly hoping there’s a Pulitzer waiting. After all, Stamp wrote, “If the city of Bell had operated the way that FORA operates, the criminal acts of that city would not have been discovered.”


TRIKE TRAUMA… Squid always bikes on the sidewalk when Squid’s had a little too much sea sauce. But apparently even the sidewalks are unsafe, judging by the swift reaction to a new public threat: seniors on tricycles. 


A Seaside police officer stopped Thomas Carroll on April 19 on the sidewalk along Del Monte Boulevard, cuffed him behind his back and hauled him to jail. He was cited for driving the wrong way on the roadway and not complying with an officer.


Carroll, a 61-year-old vet, has suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and two strokes and can’t walk. His trike is his only way to get around – and he rides it slowly, with a handicap placard on the front. A couple of guys at Sports Center Bicycles, who’d sold Carroll his trike and witnessed the arrest, were appalled. “They were treating him as if he was a drunk,” shop owner Mark Roth says.


Police Commander Judy Stradan says Carroll barrelled toward the officer. When the officer tried to talk to him, Carroll got sassy. “He’s nowhere frail,” she says. Carroll fighting the charges, with help from Legal Services for Seniors. Squid’s advice for Seaside police, in observance of both Bike Week and the Weekly’s Senior Guide: Back off, and take some sensitivity training.