TS - Good Ol’ Boys: Power they wield and service they offer

Good Ol’ Boys: Power they wield and service they offer
James Faulk The Times-Standard

EUREKA -- Local legend has it that the Good Old Boy Network sat in the hallowed halls of the Ingomar Club and decided in the 1960s that the days of the Humboldt Bay ferry had come and gone.

A short time later, work began on the Samoa Bridge.

This story would point to some small cadre of local power brokers, businessmen and politicians who allegedly make the real decisions about how things are done locally. Whether such a group exists or is some figment of a collective and rather paranoid imagination is a question that people have pondered for decades.

To those that ask such questions, it seems the network would operate in dark board rooms with long cigars and tumblers full of fine bourbon.

For others, though, the Good Old Boys are just good old boys and girls who can be called upon to get something done. It is a sort of down-home service club rather than a secret organization dedicated to wielding and keeping power.
The truth may well reside somewhere in the middle, with members of one version not necessarily holding the reins in the other.

Putting the good in “Good Old Boy”?

Fortuna Mayor Mel Berti -- the longest serving councilman in any of the area’s seven incorporated cities -- takes pride in the Good Old Boy label.

”A good old boy is the guy you go to when you got to get something done,” Berti said recently.

He dismissed the negative connotations that pollute the phrase -- the shadowy board rooms and top hats -- and said that locally there is no such network.

”I don’t believe that one iota,” he said.

As a member of a council that in the past has been known for extraordinary efficiency, Berti said he takes great care to include people in decisions that may affect them. The real good old boys are the ones who get things done in the community, he said; they range from members of the fire department and the chambers of commerce to Rotary and Kiwanis clubs.
”You just get a group of people that work hard to get things accomplished -- they’re the good old boys,” Berti said.

Chief Frank Hizer of the Fortuna Volunteer Fire Department was a fellow good old boy named by Berti.

”I guess it’s kind of a compliment,” he said. “ I agree that when you need something done, there is a certain handful that you solicit to get the job done, someone that shows up when you need them.”

Hizer said it’s a category that includes both men and women, and rejected the idea that good old boys were somehow shady or nefarious.

”That is a long ways from my description of a good old boy,” he said.

The negative definition of good old boy belongs more in Washington, D.C. , than in Friendly Fortuna of Humboldt County, he said.

Here, the network is inclusive and always trying to bring people in.

”We’re always looking for people to lend a helping hand,” he said.

Selfish acts and personal favors

Local political stalwart Richard Salzman, most known for helping Paul Gallegos navigate through an attempted recall, says Good Old Boys are just the opposite of what Berti defined.

Good Old Boys act in their own self-interest, but there isn’t what you’d call a conspiracy, he said.

”There aren’t a bunch of people who get together and confer with each other,” he said. “There are winks and nods and preferences dealt to people who run in certain circles.”

In the past, he said it would have meant people in the extraction industries and law enforcement.

”It seems to me there is a new good old boy network today,” Salzman said -- one that revolves around real estate and land speculation, but without an organized membership or stated agenda.

”I don’t believe there’s 15 guys who have membership in a club,” he said. “I don’t believe they all hang out around a table in the Ingomar.”

As a card-carrying member of the political left, Salzman balked when asked if liberals could be as guilty of monopolizing power and giving favor to friends as conservatives.

As a whole, people on the left act for the good of the community as a whole, Salzman opined. Therefore, they’re less likely to abuse the system for self-interest, he said.

Issue networks?

JeDon Emenhiser, a political science professor at Humboldt State University, steered away from the idea of conspiratorial meetings between big-wigs but said certain people do tend to get plugged in and powerful in their respective areas of expertise.

”If you’re looking for clique or a cabal, you’ll probably find one,” he said. “What I think the best research has discovered is issue networks -- that there are influential people who are powerful in certain subject matter areas.”

Those areas can range from housing and transportation to education and religion.

These people would have a network and be powerful within that domain, but there’s likely not one governing elite that tweaks the puppet strings on local government, he said.

Human nature

Fifth District Supervisor Jill Geist said the term good old boy is an easy one to toss around, but one that applies only in a select set of circumstances -- where the board or committee operates in relative secrecy to benefit friends without much discussion or public input.

One thing that can lead to such actions are political isolation, she said, where you surround yourself with people who only affirm what you already believe.

For Geist, that aspect is particularly on point. She was recently criticized by Salzman -- a former ally -- for what he perceived as an alliance with a stated enemy of District Attorney Paul Gallegos: Allison Jackson. Geist said at the time that she doesn’t base her friendships on political party affiliation.

”I think it’s really important to have a variety of individuals (around) who say I agree, I disagree -- all of theses things,” she said. “That makes you a stronger person as a representative.”

It’s also true that a lack of concern for public input can happen if a representative takes what he hears from the public personally, she said. A good representative has to be able to divorce the message from a constituent from the manner of their delivery, she said.

Taking such things to heart is human nature, but must be avoided, she said, because it can lead to a callousness toward what the public feels.

She also said that working on the same board with the same people over a number of years can lead to a certain favoritism to one’s friends and associates.

”Sometimes it becomes very difficult to say no to your friends,” she said. “That too is human nature and these are things that we need to forever be aware of.”

Getting things done

Cindy Denbow, a long-time local and niece of Richard Denbow for whom a span of the Samoa Bridge is named, said the reality of the supposed Good Old Boy Network lays somewhere between that of power broker and service club.

”I certainly grew up thinking that the good old boy network was alive and well and very healthy and involved in a lot of civic projects,” she said.

While she never recalled any specific cloak-and-dagger type meetings, such a thing wouldn’t be a surprise to her. Still, her memories indicate a network of men who worked to get things done in private.

”Through their many contacts, they were able to get funding, and able to get things done,” she said. “I suspect it was a pretty closed network and I think it was just boys.”

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