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STORY | CALENDAR
June 5, 2003
Recall
drive picks up steam
But is it based on a sound
assessment of the DA's performance?
by
ANDREW EDWARDS
TO STEP INTO V & N BURGER
BAR ON SAMOA Boulevard in Arcata is to step into a world that,
beyond a panhandler in the parking lot, seems far removed from
the liberal politics and dreadlocked youth of this iconically
liberal town. Old men in flannel, blue jeans, suspenders and
baseball caps chat about cars over meaty handfuls of hamburger
and wavy-cut french fries. The young waitress knows their names.
And next to the counter window
stands a sign proclaiming in large red letters: "Gallegos
Recall Petition Here." In smaller print, the sign says:
"We need a DA who's tough on drugs and violent crime. Instead,
we've got Paul Gallegos."
"We've been getting a really
good response," said manager Terra Smith, displaying a sheaf
of filled-out petition forms with 20 signatures each.
In the burger joints, in the
supermarkets, in the auto parts stores, in the gun shops, "the
silent majority" of Humboldt, as they refer to themselves,
is restless, and the signatures, according to recall proponents,
are pouring in.
"A lot of people have come
to us and said `where are the petitions?'" said Fortuna
Mayor Mel Berti, speaking from work at Hoby's Market in Scotia.
"It's going very well. It's not like we have to go out and
beat on doors."
Reacting to PL suit
The recall was forged in the
firestorm surrounding the DA's filing of a fraud lawsuit against
Pacific Lumber Co. in late February.
Chuck Giannini, the owner of
the Napa Auto Parts in the Valley West area of Arcata, said Gallegos
had finally revealed his true colors as an environmental advocate.
"I think that was his whole
thing all along," Giannini said.
After kicking off on May 17,
the petition campaign against Gallegos has proceeded in impressive
fashion. Those leading the recall effort must gather the
signatures of 15 percent of registered voters in Humboldt County,
just over 11,000 people, by October to get a recall on the ballot.
In southern Humboldt a well-organized
operation is sending people door-to-door. Volunteers are also
manning tables (they'll be at Safeway in Fortuna this weekend),
and displaying petitions in friendly businesses. In northern
Humboldt, according to Robin Arkley Sr. of Arcata, the effort
is not particularly organized, but is still doing much better
than expected.
Last week the recall received
a huge boost when the Humboldt Deputy Sheriff's Organization,
primarily a labor organization that represents sheriff's deputies,
probation officers, deputy coroners, welfare fraud investigators
and the DA's own investigators, made a surprise announcement
in support of the recall, and immediately followed it up with
advertisements in the Times-Standard.
"We decided to come out
publicly [because] we thought it would be important," HDSO
President David Morey said. "Sometimes it sways people who
would have sat on the fence."
The Eureka Police Department's
employees union, which has been critical of Gallegos's performance
in the last four months, is also expected to back the recall
drive, perhaps as early as this week.
Recall supporters are aiming
to have all their signatures in by July so the recall can be
on the ballot at the scheduled election this fall. If they don't
make it until the October deadline, the recall won't be voted
on until next year.
According to Morey, HDSO's executive
board had been thinking of supporting the recall effort when
it was approached by leaders of the recall.
Rick Brazeau, an Arcata political
consultant and one of the key political strategists behind the
recall effort, strenuously denied that any such interaction took
place.
"We didn't approach [Morey],"
Brazeau said. "I didn't approach them to take a position
on this, no way. [But] I'm glad they did."
One way or the other, after
being asked for its opinion, the board decided to take the matter
to the membership, many of whom had already expressed an interest.
So, on the evening of Monday,
May 19, the board called an emergency meeting in its Eureka office.
It went on for two-and-a-half hours as members hashed things
out and weighed pros and cons. Still, according to Morey, the
discussion was fairly one-sided.
"There wasn't anyone who
stood up and said we're not giving [Gallegos] a fair shake,"
Morey said.
Probation officers were reportedly
angry at their increased case load (more people on probation
equals fewer people in jail equals a DA soft on crime, they argued).
Deputies were reportedly angry about Gallegos's new marijuana
policy, what they saw as excessive plea bargaining
(a charge that in the past had been leveled against former
DA Terry Farmer), and statements by Gallegos to the effect that
he didn't need to be "chummy" with police.
In the end, by Morey's estimate,
70 percent of the organization voted to support the recall. Many
voted by proxy.
Investigators cry foul
It was decided at the meeting
that the organization would present a unified front to the public.
But that quickly unraveled.
Angered at the implication that
they were in support of recalling their boss, and that details
of the vote had been released, the DA's nine investigators issued
a press release stating they, at least, did not support the recall
effort.
"Numbers [like the percentage
of the internal vote] should not be thrown out like that. That's
one of the things we're most pissed off about," said investigator
Chris Andrews. Andrews, who said he was speaking for all the
other investigators, declined to comment further.
Morey said that fear of retribution
may have motivated investigators' dissent.
"Right now [the DA] is
sitting down and massaging layoff figures," he said. (Of
course, so is the head of every other county department due to
the state budget crisis; the DA's office is facing a 25 percent
cut in funding next year, about $500,000).
Gallegos angrily denied any
sort of intimidation.
"Now [Morey's] saying that
[the investigators] are not saying what they want and they're
cowards. That really pissed me off," he said. "It's
one thing to say that about me, but to say they would lie out
of fear is a fantastic insult."
He also attacked Morey's tough-on-crime
stance. He said Morey had recently failed to show up to testify
in a case he had worked on.
But Gallegos acknowledged that
he may have failed to connect with the rank-and-file in the Sheriff's
Department.
"To the extent that I've
made them feel that we're not a part of a team, that would clearly
be a failure on my part," Gallegos said, adding that before
the vote he had thought that their relationship was going well.
He referred to the rest of their
charges against him as "freakin' lies."
So, are they?
No clear pattern
The recall may have been born
out of the anger, fear and disillusionment generated by Gallegos's
lawsuit against PL, but it has since moved on to more standardized
complaints against any DA: he's a liberal, he's weak on crime
-- essentially the same general complaints leveled by the sheriff's
organization.
The new marijuana policy, one
of Gallegos' campaign issues, caused resentment from the start,
with law enforcement criticizing it as too liberal.
"In the sheriff's office
we honor the laws of California whether I agree or disagree,
[but] I do think [Gallegos' policy is] too liberal," said
Sgt. Wayne Hanson, head of the Sheriff Department's drug enforcement
unit.
It is certainly at the liberal
end of the spectrum, but it is not alone. Del Norte and Sonoma
counties both have 99 plant limits, like Humboldt. Mendocino
has a limit of 25. Shasta puts its foot down at two.
Hanson also criticized the guidelines,
which depend on a combination of garden canopy size and plant
limits, as "extremely convoluted." The limit under
Terry Farmer was 10 plants.
The rate of plea bargains, which
account for between 90 percent of convictions nationally, hasn't
significantly increased either, according to Superior Court Judge
Dale Reinholtzen, at least not in his court.
"I have not personally
observed any increase in plea bargains entered now than in the
previous administration," Reinholtzen said. "But then
again, I'm just one judge."
Sentences haven't come down
either, according to Reinholtzen, with the possible exception
of the plea bargain agreement reached in the Eureka drive-by
shooting case. The two shooters were each offered seven years
in state prison, a decision EPD criticized heavily. So far the
sentences haven't been made final.
Probation officers' complaints
of a rising case load, a major concern according to Morey, may
just be a statistical blip, according to the head of the county's
probation department, Bill Burke.
"Even if we saw a blip
on the screen with increased numbers, that wouldn't necessarily
reflect a change in policy. To draw conclusions after four months
time is hasty and unscientific," Burke said. "A conversation
in a hallway between two people who may or may not have information
becomes part of a belief system. A few conversations down the
line, it takes on a life of its own."
Burke said the average case
load under Farmer was 70 to 80 cases a month. That was up significantly
in January and February to around 90, but settled back down in
March and April, only to shoot up to 108 in May.
Gallegos said that the increase
in referrals to the probation department was due to an increase
in felonies: The DA's office's felony filings are up 20 percent.
Bottom line: this early on,
there doesn't seem to be anything but anecdotal evidence against
him. As Burke pointed out, four months is a short amount of time
to see a pattern.
Fiber
optic deadlock broken
SBC will complete Eureka-to-Ukiah
line by the fall
by
BOB DORAN
THE INFAMOUS FIBER OPTIC GAP
THAT HAS DENIED THE HUMBOLDT Bay region high-speed Internet access
will soon be bridged thanks to an agreement announced Monday
by the California Department of Transportation and SBC, formerly
Pacific Bell.
The pact ends a two-year impasse
between the state agency and the telecommunications giant that
had held up construction of 21 miles of fiber optic cable between
Redway and Scotia, the only uncompleted portion of a line linking
Eureka with Ukiah. But it does not end their legal dispute, which
began when SBC sued Caltrans last year, maintaining that the
right-of-way fees the state agency was demanding were illegal.
That issue will have to be resolved
in court. The good news for Humboldt is that Monday's accord,
in which SBC agreed to place $1.4 million in disputed fees in
an escrow account, will allow the long-awaited construction project
to move forward. SBC spokesman John Britton predicted that the
job would be done by early fall.
Humboldt County's business and
education leaders, who had been exasperated by the construction
suspension, expressed satisfaction at the deal. One education
official told the press that local schools will not only have
faster Internet access once the line is completed, they will
also have improved videoconferencing capabilities.
U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson said
the line "will help to overcome the barriers of distance,
not only for local businesses and individuals, but also for public
schools and college students."
The escrow concept was floated
by SBC last October, but the agreement signed this week is different.
It involves less money -- $1.4 million instead of $2.1 million.
And, in a concession by SBC, it does not include the issue that
was the sticking point last year: a requirement that Caltrans
"waive federal and state sovereign immunity defenses."
The smaller escrow account is
due to the fact that SBC is scaling back the project. Instead
of laying three lines, or "interducts," at a cost of
$6.40 per linear foot, the company will lay only two.
The core issue in SBC's lawsuit,
though, remains unresolved: Can Caltrans demand right-of-way
fees along a freeway?
"We've been laying telecommunications
infrastructure in this state since 1878, before there were even
highways. Never before has Caltrans tried to hold us up for millions
of dollars," said Britton, the SBC spokesman.
"We don't allow anything
along the freeway unless we absolutely have to," countered
Caltrans official Rick Knapp. "It would be unprecedented
if they were allowed to put [cable] in for free. All other communications
providers who have placed fiber optics in a freeway have done
so with a permit and an agreement to pay access fees. That's
what they're trying to get away from doing."
In the event SCB loses, Britton
warned that ratepayers might be penalized. "If we have to
pay millions for rights of way, what do you think that's going
to do to people's costs? Eventually people in your area are going
to face higher telecommunications costs because the millions
that Caltrans wants to pocket will have to be paid by somebody."
Cutbacks
at KEET
Under financial pressure because
of a federal requirement to go digital, Humboldt's only public
television station announced some belt-tightening measures this
week.
By July, the staff of KEET-TV
Channel 13 will have one less employee, decreased work hours
for two full-timers, a 3 percent pay reduction and fewer employee
benefits.
"These budget cuts are
difficult for staff, but they would rather take a cut in pay
than reduce the level of service the station provides to the
community," KEET's Executive Director, Ron Schoenherr, said
in a prepared statement.
The $3.6 million cost of the
digital conversion -- mandated by the Federal Communications
Commission -- has been halfway met. However, an additional $207,000
must be raised by the end of September in order to match grants
recently awarded to the station.
KEET is not the only public
television station facing the digital mandate. Similar stations
across the country have been given the ultimatum to make the
switch or lose their broadcast license.
Preston
guilty
Dianna Mae Preston, the Trinidad
woman charged in the shooting death of her granddaughter's father,
was found guilty of first-degree murder with a special allegation
of lying in wait.
The three-man, nine-woman Napa
jury convicted Preston on May 28 of killing Kevin LaPorta, 47,
after ambushing him in the parking lot of his Eureka acupuncture
office on July 19.
Preston told police she shot
LaPorta because she believed he was molesting the toddler, though
semen found on the child was not his.
The jury heard testimony this
week on whether Preston, 59, is insane. If found insane, she
will be held in a psychiatric facility. No death penalty is being
sought in the case.
Bush's
fire plan
Calling it an effort to "expedite"
forest health projects, the Bush administration announced last
week that it is dropping a requirement for environmental studies
before logging or burning trees to prevent forest fires.
The new rules, which have drawn
the ire of environmentalists, affect 190 million acres of federal
land considered at risk for catastrophic wildfires (including
Six Rivers National Forest in Humboldt and nearby counties).
Thumb
reward
Local radio station KHUM and
Arcata Mayor Bob Ornelas have offered rewards for the safe return
of William McKinley's thumb.
The bronze digit was broken
off the statue of the 25th president, which has stood guard over
the Arcata Plaza since 1906, some time last month.
Ornelas has offered $500 for
the thumb's return. KHUM has said it will give a stack of CDs
as tall as the person who returns the thumb or leads authorities
to its capture. The station has temporarily changed one of its
slogans from "Keeping the Hum in Humboldt County" to
"Keeping the Thumb in Humboldt County."
Anyone with information is urged
to call the Arcata police at 822-2428 or (put "Thumb" in the subject line).
Leg
studied
A human leg found on the coast
off Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park may have belonged to a
Humboldt County resident.
"We're working on a possible
match out of the Humboldt County area, a missing person case,"
said Detective Gene McManus of the Del Norte County Sheriff's
Department.
A rock climber from McKinleyville,
Rebecca Kimber, found the leg May 15, with its boot still attached.
McManus said the portion of
leg, which included the area from below the knee to the foot,
probably belonged to a male and had been in the water for more
than 60 days. The boot was larger than a size 10, he said.
A sample of the leg was sent
to the state Department of Justice lab in Berkeley for DNA testing.
Cell
tower meeting
The Northcoast Environmental
Center in Arcata is hosting a public meeting June 9 on the potential
hazards of radiation from cell phone towers.
The meeting, which begins at
7 p.m., will feature Susan Clarke of the Institute of Media Research,
based in Cambridge, Mass. Clarke is a public health researcher.
On May 15, the Humboldt County
Planning Commission tentatively endorsed a 50-foot tower proposed
for the Arcata Bottoms by Cal-North Wireless. The approval was
given despite concerns raised by county staff and Arcata officials
that the tower, slated to be disguised as a wooden pole, would
be inconsistent with the area's rural character.
A final vote will be taken June
19.
NASA
over Humboldt
A DC-8 aircraft was circling
the sky above the Humboldt Bay region earlier in the week to
test the calibration of instruments used to measure aerosols,
particles floating in the atmosphere.
Data from the mission will be
used to better understand the contribution that particles --
such as sea salt, dust and pollution -- have on the global climate.
The 1960s model DC-8, based
at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., looks
like a typical commercial aircraft aside from its NASA markings.
La
Mont funeral
Funeral services will be held
this week for Capt. Andrew La Mont, 32, the U.S. Marine from
Eureka who was killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq on May 19.
A rosary is scheduled for 7
p.m. on Friday, June 6, at Sander's Funeral Home in Eureka. A
mass will take place at St. Bernard Catholic Church in Eureka
at 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 7, followed by burial at St. Bernard
Cemetery.
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