MAYBE SQUID’S CRAZY…Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. That’s SQUIDADDY’s favorite saying, and an important lesson he taught Squid early on in life. It’s also the top quote on Squidaddy’s MYSPACE homepage. (Squidaddy has his own MySpace?! How cool is that?)

Being congenitally paranoid, Squid has seen the following played out repeatedly at MONTEREY COUNTY meetings: County officials have to release an important document, or schedule a meeting on a huge subdivision, and it happens to appear over the holidays, or at the same time as several other monster projects.

The slow-growthers accuse the County of doing this intentionally to avoid scrutiny, knowing that watchdogs may find time to review one five-ton EIR between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but not three. The County replies that said watchdogs are crazy. Paranoid.

Squid’s no medical doctor, but it looks like the County officials are the crazy ones—crazy like a pack of foxes.

In August, a judge ruled that Monterey County must release about 2,000 pages of public documents concerning SEPTEMBER RANCH, the controversial project in Carmel Valley. (On Nov. 14, by a 4-1 vote, County Supes approved the contention project—again—with Supervisor DAVE POTTER dissenting, as Squid predicted.)

Two pages in particular caught Squid’s beady eyes. The first, a Oct. 1, 2004 e-mail from lead project planner ALANA KNASTER, says, about September Ranch, “I understand the schedule issues. I just want to get this out so it coincides with EAST GARRISON and PEBBLE BEACH.”

Hit the public with three huge projects at once. That means lots of meetings to attend and lots of reports to review simultaneously. In another e-mail Knaster writes: “Can I presume the [September Ranch] EIR will be out this week? I want the 45 days to start before Thanksgiving and end right after New Year’s.”

Maybe it’s not to forestall citizen participation. Maybe Squid’s just paranoid.

ADIOS, OCTOPUSSY…Some readers noticed an imposter in this space over the past several months. A sketch that was supposed to capture SQUID in all of Squid’s cephalopodinous pulchritude somehow contained the image of what looked like an octopus.

It is possible that the imposter, a fictional creature known as OCTOPUSSY, also invaded the text of the column itself, sneaking in nicey-nice comments in place of Squid’s sharp-beaked analysis.

As you can see, Squid is now in Squid’s rightful place, zoologically-correct and ready to spew ink.