OUT WITH A BANG… Squid recently saw Sex and the City: The Movie, which made Squid’s beady eyes tear up in nostalgia for the Weekly’s own Sex and the County, and the fashion, the farmers and the fights. Squid misses Monterey County’s eight-years-in-the-making General Plan Update. Sniff.

Good news: The final general plan policy language in GPU5 is slated to come before county supervisors for approval in August. It makes Squid wonder, what will appointed Supe Ila Mettee-McCutchon do? By now, it’s clear Jane Parker bested Mettee-McCutchon in the June 3 election. Some results are still trickling in, but Parker’s lead continues to grow (she was ahead by 370 votes at press time), and Mettee-McCutchon has as much as admitted defeat.

During the campaign, rumors swirled that pro-development interests, including realtors, the Farm Bureau and vintners and growers– many of them Mettee-McCutchon supporters and campaign donors– were hoping to convince the supes to scrap GPU5’s “compromise growth language” and draft a new, go-go growth land-use document. At the time, Mettee-McCutchon told the Weekly, “In general, I agree with [GPU5]. I have nothing in mind now that I would lead an effort to change.” But that was back before voters gave Mettee-McCutchon the boot. The next episode’s starting soon.

CAN’T FOOL SECRET AGENT SUE… Squid can’t put a tentacle on it– but there’s something about Carmel-by-the-Sea Mayor Sue McCloud that makes Squid feel like she’s got everybody’s number. Maybe it’s her 31 years with the CIA.

McCloud busted out her secret agent chops June 3, when the City Council considered an ordinance to enforce the Styrofoam ban the city has had on the books for nearly 20 years. She took on the plastic plague like a security threat: “It makes a mockery of our beautiful paradise because it doesn’t degrade.”

Three local power-hitters hurrahed the ban. Then two unfamiliar faces stood up to vouch for the taboo foam. The woman said the pair was appearing on behalf of local restaurants.

McCloud propped her chin on her fist. “So are you with the American Chemistry Council?”

The pair admitted they were.

“Are you the ones that circulated the petitions?”

They admitted they did.

McCloud noted that of the 34 signatures on the anti-ban letters, only three were from restaurant owners. “So it isn’t very representative,” she said.

The hucksters slunk to their seats. Spinstress Kristina Wyatt of Armanasco Public Relations (on duty for the ACC) did damage control, saying restaurant owners who didn’t sign the petition “fear retribution from the environmental community.”

McCloud declared “green is something that will sell business.” The ordinance passed unanimously.