RINGING ENDORSEMENTS… Between the snapping of mammal jaws and a hectic schedule of personal trainer sessions as Squid tries for a role in an upcoming Lawrence Roeck production, one would be hard-pressed to blame Squid for misplacing a limb. Even so, Squid has a hard time wrapping what limbs remain around the fact that ex-Seaside City Councilman Tom Mancini, campaigning for a seat on the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District board, can’t keep his endorsements straight. Or his webmaster can’t keep the endorsements straight. (Frankly, one of Squid’s colleagues couldn’t get Mancini’s story straight after hearing it from Mancini himself.)

Mancini’s website listed endorsements from the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council, the Carpenter’s Union and the Monterey/Santa Cruz Building and Construction Trades Council. This might have come as a surprise to the organizations, none of which endorsed anyone. When asked about it, Mancini responded, “Damnit, I told him to change that last week!” (“Him” being the webmaster, whose name and state of health remain unknown.)

Days later, a chagrined Mancini handed out his pamphlets at the Monterey County Democratic Central Committee meeting, but also should have handed out a red pen for the on-the-spot redactions recipients would have to make to get the information right. The endorsements were still there. (Brenda Lewis took home the MCDCC endorsement.)

Mancini says he assumed he was getting at least one of those endorsements after talking with Central Labor Council’s Cesar Lara. You know what happens when you assume? You make an ass out of “u” and…

HONORING THE OUSTED… Squid’s fond of award ceremonies for the free booze, but when they double as melodramatic political theater, no drink is necessary. So it was at the Carmel Residents Association’s Citizen of the Year event, where the crowd got rowdy when Councilman Ken Talmage presented Mayor Sue McCloud’s dog-ate-my-homework excuse for her absence: Hosting guests kept her from presenting the annual award. “Yeah, right,” some jeered upon hearing it.

More likely, Squid’s unfailing intuition indicates, it was a feeling of a loosening grip on the throne.

The award went to none other than Greg D’Ambrosio, former city forester and assistant city administrator currently occupied as a “volunteer par excellence.” He’s one of the half-dozen workers driven away by soon-to-be-former City Administrator Rich Guillen, whose most famous casualty, Jane Miller, was also in the crowd. All told, Guillen’s tally of harassment victims cost the city more than $1 million. Even former CIA operatives are advised not to party with the enemy.