Tears of a Clown (Posse)…Squid admits to being a little bit sniffly on election night, wiping tear after tear from Squid’s giant eye as results came in from around the county. A tear of joy for Monterey Peninsula College Professor Alan “Occupy Everything” Haffa and his victory in the Monterey City Council race (the Weekly didn't endorse him, but Squid likes him.) A tear of confusion over the fact that 484 people in Salinas voted for gadfly/activist Margaret Serna Bonetti in that city’s mayoral race, and a tear of mirth that two fewer people voted for one of her opponents, local real estate whatever Rick Phinney. A tear of weary bemusement that Dave Potter prevailed (or did he? because opponent Marc Del Piero, a week later, still isn’t conceding) in the District 5 supervisor’s race, despite slow-growth activists pumping Karl Rove-style bucks into Del P’s coffers.

And a tear of sorrow—wait, make that two tears of sorrow—over the election of Tom Moore and Peter Le in the Marina Coast Water District election, because having a sane board majority makes Squid's life a little less colorful. The two of them winning means that current board member Dan Burns gets the boot. With Burns’ departure, and the retirement (for reals, this time) of board member Ken Nishi, the board known throughout the land as “The Insane Clown Posse” for its breathtakingly bad behavior (with public funds, and toward Jan Shriner, the lone member with any common sense) might stop behaving in clown-like fashion and actually get some work done.

But Squid’s not expecting the Clown Posse to die without a fight. Moore and Le should be sworn in on Dec. 11, or the first meeting following the Dec. 7 certification of the vote by the county Elections Department. But what happens if Nishi, Burns and fellow posse-member Howard Gustafson fail to appear at that meeting, as some are speculating might happen? If they don’t show, there can’t actually be a meeting—until Le and Moore are sworn in. Conversely, Le and Moore can be sworn in without a meeting.

Will Burns, Nishi and Gustafson go out in style, by extending ringmaster/general manager Jim Heitzman's contract at its Nov. 13 meeting? Will there be a last hurrah for the Posse triumverate? Or will sanity prevail and will they just go away quietly? Stay tuned, gentle reader, because when it comes to the Marina Coast Water District, anything can happen—and it usually does.