www.montereycountynow.com august 15-21, 2024 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 15 Danny Contreras is not ashamed of who he is, and he is a lot of things. He’s a father, a husband, a government worker who manages a treatment program for substance abuse disorders in Santa Cruz County. He’s also a formerly convicted felon who paroled out of prison in 2011 after serving 12 years for voluntary manslaughter, the result of a plea agreement he accepted after involvement in a murder in Paso Robles when he was 17. The now-43-year-old is not shy about telling his whole story, because he thinks it can be a source of power to teens of today. He regularly shares his story—of redemption, of faith, of self-awareness—with youth groups, church groups and more. “I try to show them they don’t have to live a life of crime or drugs,” Contreras says. “Somebody like them, who they can relate to, has made it out of all that. Drugs and gangs and crime are not going to lead them anywhere other than to more drugs and crime, and death.” After prison, Contreras returned home to Salinas and bought a house down the street from his grandpa. Passionate about football, he got involved starting in 2019 as a football coach for the Alisal Eagles, which his two older children, 8 and 10, play for. (The youngest, at 3, will be able to play starting next year.) “It keeps them healthy and active,” Contreras says. “You can learn a lot of things through football—discipline, life lessons. It’s more than winning games.” It has all the markings of another positive arc in the narrative of Contreras’ story. However, it’s become a mess. In Contreras’ telling, the trouble began when he started asking questions about the Eagles’ financials, and why it was so expensive to join the team. (Registration plus required fundraisers for last year’s season totaled $1,105. Compare that to $315 for the Seaside Raiders or $500 for the Toro Bulls, two of the other teams in the 12-team Monterey Bay Youth Football League.) Each team and the league itself are nonprofits, or they should be. Contreras discovered the Eagles were not registered as a 501(c)(3). Reluctantly, he ran for the team board and last fall was elected as president. His first order of business was to get the team registered as a nonprofit, which the IRS confirmed in January. Contreras realizes that asking questions and challenging leadership is not a way to make friends. But on July 1, when he was informed by members of the MBYFL board he would have to resign from the Eagles board and from coaching, he smelled retaliation. California law now requires youth leaders to undergo a Livescan background check, and his showed the criminal record he speaks openly and publicly about, with no history of child abuse. He sees his removal as an act of retaliation for past whistle-blowing. He wrote to the MBYFL that in the July 1 meeting, board members told him, “They could choose to not have someone like me with my background represent the league.” Someone like me. This is not even coded language to suggest that someone with a past like Contreras’ is not fit to lead kids, even though he is fit to run a drug treatment program, and fit to share the story of his past in hopes that he can guide teens today to make different choices. Members of the MBYFL board did not respond to requests for an interview, but parents associated with other teams spoke to the Weekly on the condition of anonymity, for they too fear retaliation. “Once the [MBYFL board] gets a chip on their shoulder about you, they don’t stop,” one parent says. “It borders the line with harassment and retaliation.” While they are unfamiliar with the details of the Alisal Eagles saga, they say it’s consistent with a pattern of bullying; perhaps questions about fitness to lead should also include questions about bullying behaviors. Football season goes on; practice began July 29. After Contreras was pushed out, his wife, Claudia Sandoval, previously a vice president, became president. They and other parents are exploring the possibility of creating an entirely separate league. “I don’t think MBYFL will correct itself,” Contreras says. “If they won’t, I’m [going to] start a new league and treat people right.” Treating people right is a good baseline for any youth sports league. Sara Rubin is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@montereycountynow.com. Off Sides A controversy within a youth football league is about much bigger issues. By Sara Rubin Funny Money…Squid has been oozing around local governments long enough to know that city managers come and go. Way back in 2023 when Squid reported on a romance and some diamonds featuring then-Salinas City Manager Steve Carrigan, it seemed to Squid like he might stay forever, if his bosses—that would be Salinas City Council—would keep him. Just a few months later, City Council voted unanimously to fire him. The termination came right after Carrigan announced he was a finalist for a job as city manager of San Bernardino. After that fell apart, Carrigan sued that city seeking $1.5 million in damages, claiming that illegal leaks about the hiring process had not only cost him the San Bernardino job, but also his job in Salinas. Fast forward to Wednesday, Aug. 7, when the San Bernardino City Council made one fleeting announcement about a vote taken behind closed doors regarding litigation. They had voted 5-1 to settle Carrigan’s case and would pay him $800,000. Salinas has since moved on, landing former Gonzales and Watsonville city manager René Mendez as its top staffer in March. While San Bernardino’s check comes without an apology, Squid can read between the lines of all those zeroes, an amount that would’ve covered more than three years of Carrigan’s Salinas job: “We screwed up, royally.” Mis-Place Something?…One of Squid’s pet peeves has to do with inane travel blog posts about Squid’s lair and thereabouts. If Squid sees one more trite post about Carmel being a “quaint village” where Clint Eastwood once served as mayor Squid’s head will explode…oh wait, it just exploded. The World Atlas website posted an article on Aug. 8, “8 Towns in California With the Best Downtowns,” which includes Carmel and the opening line that it’s “renowned for the fact that none other than Clint Eastwood served as its mayor from 1986 to 1988…” The worst of the article was reserved for Pacific Grove. If that’s one of the best downtowns in California, Squid is a sunfish. It’s not terrible, but it has a ways to go. Thankfully Hops and Fog brewpub just opened, joining the new Pop and Hiss to pump more life into the district. Maybe some vacant storefronts will fill up with businesses other than real estate offices, thrift stores and antique shops. In the adding-injury-to-insult department, the post talks little of downtown and opens with the fact that P.G. is known as “Butterfly Town, USA.” It mentions the monarch sanctuary, which is almost a mile away from downtown. The coups de grâce came with the accompanying photo: Instead of the P.G. sanctuary, it depicts Pismo State Beach Monarch Butterfly Grove. Oof. the local spin SQUID FRY THE MISSION OF MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY IS TO INSPIRE INDEPENDENT THINKING AND CONSCIOUS ACTION, ETC. “They could choose to not have someone like me.” Send Squid a tip: squid@montereycountynow.com
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