www.montereycountynow.com FEBRUARY 27-MARCH 5, 2025 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 13 If you participate in local government, odds are pretty good you’ve met Joe Cubbage. He regularly attends meetings and speaks up during public comment periods. He is unafraid to tell elected officials exactly what he thinks of them—sometimes politely, sometimes critically. He is also, depending on the thread of the story, a hero or a victim. Many of Cubbage’s fantastical claims are impossible to corroborate. He says he’s a former FBI agent; that he’s been to the front lines of the war in Ukraine. He also says a motorcycle collision gave him a lasting brain injury, which may or may not contribute to some of his more grandiose thinking. I first got to know Cubbage years ago, when he was appealing what he thought was an unfair elder abuse and grand theft case against him for stealing money from his aging parents. In 2012, he pleaded no contest and spent five years on felony probation; his sister pushed for a conservatorship to safely manage family finances, but Cubbage saw himself as the victim—not just of his family, but a corrupt scheme involving judges and others. I find Cubbage’s credibility tenuous, even if he is affable. Others describe a more violent demeanor at times. “His behavior has increasingly become more alarming in the last several months. I felt a shift,” Seaside Police Chief Nick Borges says. “I have had quite a few community members tell me his persistence in trying to meet was scaring people.” On Monday morning, Feb. 24, things took a darker turn. Police say Cubbage cornered his ex-wife, with whom he shares a home in Seaside, and demanded that she produce information about U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta and former Carmel mayor Steve Dallas. If she didn’t do so by the end of the day, he would kill all three of them. An hourslong standoff with police ensued. Eventually, around 7:30pm, as SWAT team members were preparing to enter his home, Cubbage surrendered peacefully; he was not armed. The 55-year-old is being held in Monterey County Jail on $1 million bail. Of course, outspokenness and critique of government are not a crime, even if they make people uncomfortable. But there is a line, even if it can be fuzzy. “We don’t want to be in a position where we look back and say, ‘Gosh, Joe was a really friendly guy with a good heart—but he hurt people,’” Borges says. This time, police say, Cubbage crossed the line. But he and an associate, Brian Baughn, have at least toed it in the past. Last year, Cubbage was mentioned in an unrelated case filed by Salinas businessman Mike Hackett, who sought a restraining order against Baughn. Hackett was freaked out by Baughn’s social media posts about him and his family, and what Hackett described as hostile run-ins around town, including in Hackett’s front yard. “If he wants to call us names, drug dealers, whatever—it’s free speech. This is about him terrorizing my family,” Hackett said during a court hearing in July. But most of the in-person conduct Hackett described was about Cubbage, not Baughn. His wife described Cubbage entering their restaurant Casa Sorrento, and issuing a threat seeking to get her to drop the case. “It frightened me,” she said. There was, however, no pending case against Cubbage. The Hacketts wanted a restraining order against Baughn, who similarly communicates regularly with public officials, including law enforcement officers, offering up theories about how to root out corruption. Judge Julie Culver was unpersuaded that Baughn’s conduct, even if uncomfortable, posed a threat. “I don’t control the internet; there’s nothing I can do to prevent people from posting. I believe in free speech,” she said. She declined to issue a restraining order, although back in March 2024, she had signed a temporary one, which requires a lower legal threshold. The line between free speech and dangerous speech is increasingly fuzzy. “Too many people in our community are angry, fearful and anxious for the future and see politics and public servants as outlets for their frustrations and fears,” Panetta said in an emailed statement. “Each of us has a responsibility to lower the temperature of public debate.” Public debate should be vigorous, but it should also be safe for everyone. Sara Rubin is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@montereycountynow.com. Safety First Sometimes, the line between protected speech and violence grows thin. By Sara Rubin SHADES OF GREEN…Squid knows that often, to get the juicy part of any public meeting, patience is key. But not on Tuesday, Feb. 25, when right away, Salinas City Council members were asked to disclose relevant financial contributions before heading into a closed session. One topic on the closed-session agenda was a real estate negotiation between the city and Taylor Fresh Foods, a familiar agribiz giant that donated $5,500 each to the campaigns of the five newly elected councilmembers: Jose Luis Barajas, Gloria De La Rosa, Aurelio Salazar Jr., Margaret D’Arrigo and Mayor Dennis Donohue. D’Arrigo also recently worked for the company so recused herself. Meanwhile, Barajas and De La Rosa said they have returned the money, while Salazar and Donohue said they were in the process of doing so. CEO Bruce Taylor has described his unprecedented political contributions to last year’s Salinas City Council elections an “investment.” The rate of return will be even better than he imagined if the candidates send the cash back after it helped them get to victory—and will they or won’t they feel indebted to lean in favor? Squid will be checking the receipts to make sure the councilmembers come through on their promise to return the money. THIRST TRAP…Whiskey is for drinking and water for fighting, they say. To Squid, it looked like straight-up warfare when the Shandon-San Juan Water District, based east of Paso Robles a little south of the Monterey County line, filed an application for water rights with the State Water Resources Control Board. The district wants water for agriculture, and would pipe in 12,000 acre-feet from Lake Nacimiento, which is owned and operated by the Monterey County Water Resources Agency. Easy peasy. Not so fast, came the argument from, well, pretty much everyone. In October, the Grower-Shipper Association wrote to the state board: “To put it bluntly, we’re shocked…a ‘scorched-earth’ squatter-like attempt to deliberately inflict harm onto one region for the benefit of another must be flat-out rejected.” A similar letter followed from the Salinas Valley Water Coalition. The cities of Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo chimed in with letters to the water district. So did the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, writing, essentially: Come at me, bro. (More technically, the board will “vigorously protect its interests in all appropriate administrative and judicial forums.”) The hatemail keeps coming. On Feb. 27, the Nacimiento Project Commission is set to vote on a letter of opposition. There is no timeline on a decision from the state, so Squid will keep watching to see which runs out first, water or ink. THE LOCAL SPIN SQUID FRY THE MISSION OF MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY IS TO INSPIRE INDEPENDENT THINKING AND CONSCIOUS ACTION, ETC. “If he wants to call us names, it’s free speech.” SEND SQUID A TIP: squid@montereycountynow.com
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjAzNjQ1NQ==