Thursday, June 7, 2012
SUMMER READING… While Squid’s colleagues were putting the finishing touches on the Weekly’s summer reading guide, it set Squid to wondering: What are local race-runners reading this week? Byrl Smith’s campaign manager Rick Taylor (who tells the Weekly that Smith’s campaign party took place in an empty office shell because “Jane [Parker] hasn’t been able to create jobs”) was re-reading All the President’s Men. (He thinks it’s an instructional manual.) Smith is making her way through Fracking Details: Enjoying the Glamor of Politics Without All That Annoying Research. Supervisor candidate Marc Del Piero was toting around a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People (to compete with Supervisor Dave Potter’s bedside reading, Secretariat, Sea Biscuit and The Horse Whisperer). In District 1, Sergio Sanchez was working on a piece of Star Wars-inspired fan fiction: A young padawan learns the force (of unions) and rises up against his father-figure (a thinly disguised Fernando Armenta) while backed by a lovable wookie (fellow Salinas councilman Tony Barrera). With MDP and Dave facing off come November, and Fernando and Tony doing the same, there are undoubtedly sequels to come.
GIFT OF THE MAGI… Sometimes Squid becomes so engrossed in a novel – particularly classics about about power and greed – Squid loses track of reality. Dave Potter seems to share that proclivity for the fanciful, selectively blocking out some of the inconvenient truths of, say, California Fair Political Practices Commission investigations.
FPPC’s enforcement chief Gary Winuk confirms Potter’s under investigation on two counts, one related to the Steve Collins desal disaster, plus “a gift issue.” Potter says he’s unaware he’s the subject of any investigation, even though Winuk puts it thusly: “He should be.”
“I’d be shocked if they came up with anything to do with me related to Steve Collins,” Potter says. “I have absolutely no connection to him whatsoever. Marc Del Piero has a bigger connection.”
By bigger connection, Potter means Del Piero hired Collins in 1988 as an accountant for his campaign. As Del Piero is fond of saying, those are days when dinosaurs roamed the earth. But a fossil analysis reveals backroom dealing and cozy developer ties in each camp. Rumor has it the FPPC investigation is finally winding down. Before going public, the watchdog gives everyone a shot at negotiating a settlement – an unlikely bet considering Potter and compadre Lou Calcagno claim ignorance. Who knows: Maybe they’ll take a cue from Treasure Island and wave the white flag.
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Comments
Katherine_Lauritsen says...
If Squid doth speaketh, then Potter doth protest too much. When is everyone going to wake up to Potter's M.O.? When the manure piles up too heavily on him, he likes to take it and throw it on to someone else to make himself look better. Who wants to do the horse track development, who was backed by the realtors and contruction unions, who is currently under investigation for his dealings with Collins, who flip flops on his votes when he knows there is a majority vote, just to make himself look good (think Whispering Oaks, Corral de Tierra and the Jacks Peak Zip Line). Mr. Potter there is a huge difference between a signature on the bottom of a political financial disclosure 24 years ago (which in political years is the fossil age) and the backroom political wheeling and dealings you have done within your tenure as supervisor.
Posted 7 June 2012, 12:50 p.m. Suggest removal
Ruby_Flores says...
Dave Potter's statements in this week's Squidfry exemplify just how loathsome his conduct as a public official has become. Go look at FPPC Regulation 18360(f)(4). The FPPC is REQUIRED to "send notification of a potential staff-initiated investigation to the subject of the potential investigation[.]" More importantly, the FPPC can't disclose anything about a self-initiated investigation to anyone other than its own staff until "at least 5 business days have passed from the time the subject of the investigation is informed[.]" That means the FPPC couldn't have confirmed for the Weekly that Potter was under investigation unless Dave Potter himself had been notified at least a week beforehand.
Translated into plain English: Dave Potter's statement that he's "unaware he's the subject of any investigation" is a lie.
Not a half-truth. Not spin. A bold-faced lie.
What makes this situation even more disgusting is that Potter has the brass to spread his whopper in the newspaper, where he knew voters would read and believe it. Conduct like this undermines the very foundation of our democracy and must be stopped.
My only question now is: Will the Weekly stand by it's endorsement of a man so morally bankrupt that he lies about his own ethics investigation? And if so, why?
Posted 9 June 2012, 1:33 a.m. Suggest removal
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