AEB Shellenberger/national PR

http://lists.topica.com/lists/aeb_humboldt/read/message.html?mid=1714921760


SD Trib Piece
Michael Shellenberger

Oct 19, 2003 20:39 PDT 


This is a truly beautiful, lyrical article about Paul. It shows his power to
consistently touch people's heart. Is there some way to reprint this --
perhaps as a clip with the full SD Tribune masthead -- and distribute it
widely? It's really incredible.

Michael   

Michael Twombly said:






From the Alliance for Ethical Business (AEB) List serve:
BILL AINSWORTH-San Diego Union Tribune
Oct 5, 2003

EUREKA -- As he sat on the shore with his leg bleeding profusely from a
surfing accident, Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos wasn't
sure whether the tourniquet he tied would save his life.

But even in what he thought might be his last moments, the huge fraud
suit he filed against Pacific Lumber Co., often called PALCO, wasn't far
from his mind.

"I was lying on the beach thinking I was going to die," said Gallegos.
"I thought about my family. I thought about my friends. I thought
about the PALCO suit, and I thought, 'Damn, I may not see how this thing
plays out.'"

Within minutes, Gallegos was rescued by the Coast Guard from the rocky
shores of the coast north of Eureka. Since then he's made a full
recovery.

But no one knows whether his political career will survive his decision
to seek $250 million from Pacific Lumber, the economically strapped
county's largest employer.

Soon after taking office in January, Gallegos filed a fraud suit against
Pacific Lumber Co., accusing the company of misleading the government on
the role of logging in causing landslides.

The suit opened a fissure in sharply divided Humboldt County.

A former timber executive, fed up with what he considers an unfair
attack on industry, launched a recall campaign against Gallegos, putting
him in the dubious company of Gov. Gray Davis as a target of voter
discontent.

In response to this "other recall," environmentalists and many newcomers
to the area have come to Gallegos' defense, applauding him for his
courage in taking on a powerful economic force.

Now the Southern California surfer who moved to Humboldt after falling
in love with its rugged coast has become a symbol for the fierce
political struggles in redwood country between environmentalists and
loggers.

"I've become a metaphor," Gallegos said. "It's a weird position to be
in."

For more than a decade, the fights have taken many forms -- from tree
sittings to hotly contested political campaigns.

But the lawsuit represents a dramatic political shift.

In the past, much of the opposition to Pacific Lumber's aggressive
cutting policies came from protesters from other areas.

This is the first time a member of the local political establishment,
which has generally backed logging companies, has launched a
high-profile enforcement action against a timber company.

"Humboldt County is almost like a small West Virginia coal town, where
the company runs roughshod over the environment. We want to see a level
playing field," said Richard Salzman, an ardent Gallegos supporter who
moved his talent agency to the county a few years ago.

But Robin Arkley Sr., the retired timber executive and self-described
"good old boy" who helped launch the recall campaign, said he is fed up
with the retired hippies and environmentalists who have flocked to the
county and changed its politics.

"My bottom line is Pacific Lumber Co. has 800 employees. Our county
depends on that employment. If we don't have that base, it will be
devastating," he said.

A soft-spoken, philosophical 41-year-old, Gallegos doesn't look or act
like a maverick or even a polished politician.

His conversation is marked with long pauses, and he frequently invokes
analogies and metaphors to describe his political and personal battles.

"There's a peacefulness, a calm and a determination about him that's
pretty unusual," said Bill Bertain, a Eureka attorney who has also sued
Pacific Lumber Co.

Gallegos' political journey took a series of improbable turns. A
graduate of La Verne University Law School near Los Angeles, he set up a
general practice in Claremont. Then, he and his wife, Joan, also an
attorney, took a vacation to Eureka and instantly fell in love with the
mountains and forests that back right up to the uncrowded beaches.

Humboldt, 90 miles south of the Oregon border, is a county slowly
changing from a resource to a service economy. Though it has a
population of 128,000, 80 percent of its land is covered by forests.
The county includes 100 miles of rocky, foggy coastline and interior
forests so remote that they spawned the legend of Bigfoot, the
gorilla-like creature who shies away from human contact.

They hung out their shingle in the city's historic old town in 1994,
moved into an apartment upstairs and began doing civil litigation,
family law and criminal defense work.

With his practice prospering, Gallegos said he remembered his mother's
frequent admonition. "She always said, 'You've been blessed. You've
got to give something back.' "

Two years ago, he decided to run for district attorney. His prospects
were not good. He was new to the area, had never held public office and
had spent his short career defending, rather than prosecuting criminals.


Further, he faced a 20-year veteran incumbent, Terry Farmer, a moderate
Democrat whose politics seemed to suit the county.

Gallegos spent $25,000 of his own money and won. "We were all a little
bit shocked by it," Salzman said.

Gallegos moved quickly on his reform platform.

His first significant act was lifting the limit for medical marijuana
from 10 plants to up to 99 plants as long as they cover only 100 square
feet of vegetation. His new guidelines, he said, are meant to allow
patients using medical marijuana to cultivate up to three pounds a year.

Humboldt County's damp forests are home to a thriving illicit trade in
marijuana, perhaps the county's leading cash crop. Local support for
California's Proposition 215, the 1996 measure that legalized medical
marijuana, is also strong, especially in Arcata, the home of Humboldt
State.

Gallegos has no affection for the measure. "It's too open-ended," he
said.

Still, Gallegos said he felt an urgency to recommend new guidelines to
help law enforcement and residents. But now, he admits, he moved too
fast and failed to consult local law-enforcement officials, many of whom
now support the recall against him.

Gallegos also sparked criticism when he hired as his top assistant a
long-time career prosecutor from neighboring Mendocino County, Timothy
Stoen.

Stoen immediately provoked controversy because he once served as cult
leader Jim Jones' legal adviser, but later had a falling out with Jones
and ended up losing his 7-year-old son in the 1978 massacre-mass suicide
in Guyana.

"I've acknowledged the fact that I made a big mistake, but I also paid a
big price," he said.

Soon after being hired, Stoen, a fraud specialist, heard allegations
from environmentalists that now form the basis of the lawsuit.


The once locally owned Pacific Lumber Co. won a reputation as an
environmentally friendly timber company that carefully harvested its
forests. But then it was bought by Texas financier Charles Hurwitz in
the corporate takeover frenzy of the 1980s.

To pay back its huge debt, Pacific Lumber dramatically increased its
timber harvest, sparking numerous protests.

In the late 1990s, the company entered negotiations with the state with
two goals: selling its last old growth forest, the Headwaters, south of
Eureka, and winning permission to log the rest of its land.

As part of its negotiations with the state, Pacific Lumber filed
numerous reports on the impact of logging on the environment. One of
those has become the crux of the battle.

In the lawsuit, Stoen charges Pacific Lumber with misrepresenting the
role of aggressive logging practices in causing landslides. "Every tree
that's been cut since then has been unlawfully cut because it's based on
a fraudulent environmental impact report," said Stoen.

The company acknowledged a mistake but said that it corrected the
report. Jim Branham, spokesman for Pacific Lumber Co., said the error
didn't have any impact on its permits to log because the company ended
up with more restrictions as the deal progressed.

Branham believes the lawsuit is a new form of protest. "The
environmentalists have chosen from the beginning to attack and attack
and attack, and now they've found a new champion in this district
attorney," he said.

Many company employees are joining the counterattack.

Mel Berti, who has worked for Pacific Lumber Co. for 41 years, is one of
them. Berti is the manager of the meat department of Hoby's, the
company-owned store in Scotia, a company-owned town.

During last year's election, Berti, the mayor of nearby Fortuna, said he
voted for Gallegos because he said he would call a truce in the timber
wars. Now he believes Gallegos has opened a new battleground. Standing
outside the store in a blue apron, Berti points to a nearby historic
mill the company is closing because of what he says are environmental
restrictions.

Over the years, he said, he has seen the pain caused by lost jobs --
divorces, depressions and forced relocations. He resents the fraud
suit. "They're using taxpayer dollars to take away my job," he said.

Some local law enforcement groups have also joined the recall because
they oppose the marijuana limits. Others believe Gallegos is soft on
crime because he hasn't given tree-sitters big-enough fines or enough
jail time for trespassing.

"There are a number of reasons why people want to see change," said Rick
Brazeau, communications coordinator for the recall. So far, recall
supporters have gathered 12,000 signatures, near the total needed, but
they want to turn in more than 14,000 by the Oct. 22 deadline so they
will be certain to qualify for the March ballot.

The Humboldt effort was aided by that other recall effort: About
3,000 signatures were gathered by the paid petition circulators working
to oust Davis from office. In contrast to Davis, who has been targeted
because he didn't take action soon enough to halt the energy crisis and
reduce the budget deficit, Gallegos is at risk for taking what his
critics say is an overly aggressive step.

Some residents view him as a hero who is finally standing up to the
county's bully, Pacific Lumber, which they blame for causing landslides.

Alan Cook, a chiropractor who lives in the community of Freshwater,
believes that heavy logging has caused so much soil to wash into the Elk
River where he lives that it can no longer handle winter storms.

Every time it rains in the winter, he worries that the bridge providing
the only access to his home will be flooded. Last year, it happened
seven times. Cook is suing Pacific Lumber, blaming the landslides on
its logging practices. "In an era in which so many people have turned
their back on what's so clearly wrong, Gallegos has stood up," Cook
said.

For his part, Gallegos said he knew the lawsuit would cause political
trouble, but he felt he had no choice. "It's like falling off a cliff.
You know you're going to get hurt, you're just not sure about the
details," he said.

He displayed a similar determination after his surfing accident. Though
it nearly killed him, Gallegos didn't hesitate to plunge back into the
waves after recovering. "You can't not live your life out of fear, or
else you'd just stay home," he said.



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Michael Shellenberger, President, Lumina Strategies

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