Gallegos was accused of gang affiliation at Pelican Bay?

I'm not sure what to make of this article, but it's got a couple of interesting references to Gallegos time (defending prisoners) at Pelican Bay... There were rumors of double billing and being kicked out of Del Norte County, none of which can be verified at this time because as soon as the media made some inquiries, those who were talking stopped... plus the allegations of passing notes between prisoners and illegally taping guard/inmate conversations and having his tape recorder and tapes bagged into evidence right in front of him. That, at least is documented.

Then there's these two references from the article below that give another glimpse into what happened:

"...Other lawyers tell similar stories of beating the prosecution too many times and then finding themselves with fewer defense appointments. "Now the judges go all the way down to Humbolt to find incompetent, pony-tailed fuck-ups who alienate juries and can’t win cases," says de Solenni..."

..."I am convinced that they went after Easton because he filed suits on behalf of prisoners," say defense attorney Paul Gallegos, who has been accused of gang affiliation by the DA. "That accusation was patently absurd. The DA didn’t even realize he was, by implication, accusing the judge who appointed me to the case..."

So - Gallegos was accused of gang affiliation? What's the real story?

Rural Prison as Colonial Master
rsklnkv | 02 October, 2006 19:13

In 1964 a tsunami swept over Crescent City, California completely destroying the downtown. Only nine people died, but the town—nestled just below the Oregon border—never recovered. It was rebuilt as a shabby imitation of Southern California’s worst planning examples; empty parking spaces and box-like buildings dominate the landscape.

In 1989 another tsunami hit—this time the tidal wave was political. The California Department of Corrections (CDC) rolled in, and with little opposition, built the sprawling, $277.5 million Pelican Bay State Prison, one of the newest, meanest super-max prisons in the system. Pelican Bay is now an international model of sensory deprivation and isolation; half the inmates are deemed incorrigible and locked in their cells 23 hours-a-day. The prison is also Crescent City and Del Norte county’s largest employer—and, some say, its new colonial master.

The new prison has political and economic clout which is all the more exaggerated due to Crescent City’s extreme isolation and poverty. Only 4 of the area’s 17 sawmills were still in operation when the prison arrived, commercial salmon fishing was dead, and during the mid-1980s, 164 businesses had gone under. By the time the CDC came scouting for a new prison site, unemployment had reached 20 percent. Del Norte County, with Crescent City at its heart, was in a seemingly terminal economic torpor—the prison was its only hope.

It is a situation that has been replicated a dozen times in recent years—from Bowling Green, Missouri to rural Florida to Dannemora, New York—economically battered small towns are rolling over for new prisons. In fact, punishment is such a big industry in the American countryside, that, according to the National Criminal Justice Commission, 5 percent of the growth in rural population between 1980 and 1990 is accounted for by prisoners.

But the story of the rural prison boom is not all rosy economic statistics, critics say prisons bring an array of political costs. "We’re a penal colony, plain and simple. This is California’s Siberia or Guyana," says John Levy, a Crescent City lawyer, who used to make his living defending Pelican Bay prisoners charged with committing crimes in prison. Levy says that, at least in Crescent City, the CDC’s power extends far beyond the prison gate and prison officials use economic leverage and violent intimidation to silence dissent. Several other persecuted defense attorneys, former guards, and community members, tell a similar story.

For the most part, people in Del Norte county don’t agree, they’re just happy to have jobs. Pelican Bay provides 1,500 jobs, an annual payroll of $50 million dollars, and a budget of over $90 million. Indirectly, the prison has created work in everything from construction and pumping gas, to domestic violence counseling. The contract for hauling away the prison’s garbage is worth $130,000 a year—big money in the state’s poorest county. Following the employment boom came almost 6,000 new residents, Del Norte’s population (including 4,000 prisoners) is now 28,000. In the last ten years the average rate of housing starts doubled as has the value of local real estate.

With the building boom came a huge Ace Hardware, a private hospital, and a 90,000 square foot K-Mart. Across from K-Mart is an equally mammoth Safeway. "In 1986 the county collected $73 million in sales tax; last year it was $142 million," says Cochran. On top of that, local government is saving money by using low-security "level-one" prisoners instead of public works crews. Between January 1990 and December 1996, Pelican Bay inmates worked almost 150,000 hours on everything from school grounds to public buildings. According to one report, the prison labor, billed at $7 hour, would have cost the county at least $766,300. "Without the prison we wouldn’t exist," says assessor Cochran.

While the CDC’s economic impact is plain to see, its power in Del Norte County courts is quite opaque but just as real. "From our investigations it seems that the prison, in conjunction with local judges and prosecutors, is using every excuse it can to keep more people locked up for longer," says Leslie DiBenedetto-Skopek of the California Prison Focus (CPF), a human rights group based in San Francisco which investigates conditions in Pelican Bay. CPF investigators, who visited Pelican Bay in late January, say that minor administrative infractions—such as spitting on guards—are often embellished and prosecuted as felonies in the local courts in front of juries stacked with guards and their families. As a result, Pelican Bay inmates are getting new convictions and becoming permanently trapped in prison, regardless of their original conviction.

"For example," says attorney and CPF investigator Rose Braz, "I interviewed this one kid G—-; he’s 21, a white guy from [rural] Trinity County. He got 4 years for robbery, turned 18 in the Corcoran SHU (Security Housing Unity). But due to several fights inside, some of which were staged by guards at Corcoran, this guy is now facing his third strike."

"I am afraid I’ll never get out," said G—- in a taped CPF interview. Just to make sure, the CDC is paying 35 percent of the Del Norte county District Attorneys’ budget. The money covers the costs of convicting prisoners charged with committing new crimes. District Attorney Bill Cornel, says the CDC’s contributions don’t even cover the full cost of handling an annual average of 80 Pelican Bay cases. "It’s clear what this is all about," says CPF investigator Noelle Hanrahan. "These prison convictions are job security for the whole area."

Crescent City criminal defense attorneys say that while the CDC bolsters the local prosecutor’s office, it also uses behind-the-scenes leverage to prevent effective inmate defense. "Hell, all I know is that in 1995 I won four out of five of my Pelican Bay cases and they were almost all three strikes. Then, in 1996 the judge gave me only one case," says criminal defense attorney Mario de Solenni, a self-proclaimed "conservative, redneck pain-in-the-ass." According to de Solenni—who owns and drives a collection of military vehicles—successfully defending prisoners is a no-no: "Let’s just say the system doesn’t seem to like it if the defense wins."

Other lawyers tell similar stories of beating the prosecution too many times and then finding themselves with fewer defense appointments. "Now the judges go all the way down to Humbolt to find incompetent, pony-tailed fuck-ups who alienate juries and can’t win cases," says de Solenni.

Tom Easton—a defense attorney with the slightly euphoric air of someone who’s just survived a major auto wreck—in a modest house overlooking the sea. The National Review and American Spectator> cover his coffee table, but right-wing reading habits haven’t helped endear him to CDC compradors.

"The prison and the DA are trying to destroy my career," says Easton, who was facing felony charges including soliciting perjury from a prisoner. Easton says the charges were nothing more than retaliation for providing defense in criminal cases and handling civil rights suits on behalf of Pelican Bay inmates. In late January, all charges against Easton, save one misdemeanor count of soliciting business, were dropped or ended in hung juries. "But the DA could still try to have me disbarred," says Easton. In the meantime, he has been banned from communicating with the seven Pelican Bay prisoners he represents.

"I am convinced that they went after Easton because he filed suits on behalf of prisoners," say defense attorney Paul Gallegos, who has been accused of gang affiliation by the DA. "That accusation was patently absurd. The DA didn’t even realize he was, by implication, accusing the judge who appointed me to the case."

Absurd or not, DA harassment has a chilling effect. "I can see the writing on the wall," says John Levy. "They just don’t want these prisoners to get defense. The more of ‘em they can pack in, the more money comes down the pipe. I’ve had enough of it. I’m leaving town."

Among Levy’s clients are four prison maintenance workers who testified against administrators in a recent corruption case. "The former head of operations out there made death threats against my clients, the state is still investigating," says Levy, adding that one of his clients has since been forced to leave town after being fired from the local hardware store at the behest of a prison official. "Hey, the prison is the only place that buys in bulk," says Levy.

According to Levy and others, the CDC also has covert investigative units, with classified budgets, that conduct surveillance in the community and keep dossiers on trouble-makers. "Internal Affairs does investigations in the community but I don’t think that’s inappropriate," says Tom Hopper, former Del Norte county sheriff and the current Community Resource Manager at Pelican Bay. CDC officials in Sacramento also confirm that the department’s two undercover police forces—the Special Services Unit (SSU) and the Investigative Services Unit—do at times carry out surveillance off of prison grounds. During recent revelations of officially sponsored violence at Corcoran State Prison, SSU officers were caught trying to intimidate whistle-blowers. They even chased down a guard as he raced to the FBI with scandalous evidence.

John Cox looks like a poster boy for the CDC. But the former Pelican Bay correctional officer (CO) is, instead, a CDC target. Trouble began in 1991 when Cox broke the guards’ code of silence and testified against a fellow officer who had beaten an inmate’s head with the butt of a gas gun, and then framed the victim. Cox refused to go along with yet another set-up. According to findings in Madrid vs. Gomez—a high-profile class action against the CDC—Pelican Bay administrators called Cox a "snitch" and told him to "watch his back."

Even before Cox broke ranks in court he was hated by other guards. As sergeant in charge of the D yard SHU, Cox gave all his officers 100 extra hours of on-the-job training beyond the standard 40. This was seen as treachery by some hard-line CO’s. "They called D-Yard SHU, ‘fluffy SHU,’ because we didn’t hog-tie inmates to toilets or kick them in the face after cell extractions," says Cox. "There was one officer in there who used to take photos of every shooting and decorate his office with them."

Federal court papers are replete with other heinous examples of abuse at Pelican Bay, such as the notorious case of guards and medical staff who boiled an inmate alive. A central element in this slow-motion riot of sadism was the constant framing of prisoners, so that their sentences grew by decades with each year inside. Cox—trying to play by the rules—found it almost impossible to do his job.

"I broke up one fight without assistance, called for back-up but none came, and got a torn rotator cuff," says Cox. "The next day the lieutenant made me climb every guard tower ladder. It was pure harassment." The final straw was a series of death threats and close calls on the job. In one incident Cox found himself alone, surrounded by eight inmates and unable to get back-up. "That was it. If I stayed and tried to do my job I probably would have been killed," says Cox, who is currently suing the CDC.

Things have hardly improved since Cox quit. "Bullets through the window, death threats on my kids, hang-up calls, sugar in the gas tank, slashed tires— you name it," says Cox, recounting the continued harassment he still suffers at the hands of the CDC and its allies. "The DA and the sheriff have refused to even investigate. They told me to talk to the prison."

Other former guards have also had problems, most notably James Carp, who says he was harassed by superiors for pointing out security faults, such as an automatic door system which failed to lock and required a $2 million dollar overhaul.

Officials at Pelican Bay refuse to comment on Cox’s case. But Pelican Bay’s Tom Hopper did say: "The prison saved this community and people are grateful. There are a few disgruntled employees and other fringe elements that complain, but you can’t please everybody." As evidence of CDC bullying mounts this line may become harder to maintain.

"Face it—Crescent City has sold its soul to the devil. They got a few jobs but that’s about it," says CPF investigator and former prisoner, Louis Talamantez. According to the critics, the wreckage from Crescent City’s latest tsunami—rule by the CDC—takes the form, not of fallen buildings, but shattered lives. "Remember, the whole lockdown economy," says Talamantez, "feeds off prisoners, many of whom will never see the world again."

Christian Parenti teaches sociology at the New College of California in San Francisco and is working on a PhD for the London School of Economics.

article is reposted many times on the net including
http://www.pelicanbayprisonproject.org/history.htm

Houston Chron - It seems like Charles Hurwitz just can't catch a break

It seems like Charles Hurwitz just can't catch a break
By LOREN STEFFY
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Jan. 23, 2007, 11:13PM

Victory seems to forever elude Charles Hurwitz.

In 1999, he hammered out an agreement with California and federal officials to preserve old-growth redwood trees while allowing his logging company, Pacific Lumber, to cut enough new-growth trees to make a profit.

The deal, known as the Headwaters Agreement, was supposed to broker peace between Hurwitz and environmental groups that opposed his company's logging operations.

More importantly, it should have been a model for how private industry can work with other groups to preserve the environment.

Last week, Pacific Lumber filed for bankruptcy, strangled by new regulations made outside the agreement.

"We were dealt a hand where we couldn't do anything," Hurwitz told me Monday. "It's a pure breach of contract."

Regional water boards, which weren't included in the Headwaters Agreement and therefore argue they aren't bound by it, ruled that runoff from Palco's logging was affecting rivers and streams in Northern California's scenic Humboldt County.
The boards imposed new restrictions.

Palco's timber harvest has fallen steadily as a result, to 145.5 million board feet in 2005 from 166.3 million in 2003, according to its annual filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

At the same time, the quality of the harvest shifted to lower grades of redwood and Douglas fir, which sell at a lower price.
The company wasn't making enough money to service its debt, part of which was incurred when Palco refurbished its mills for the newer growth trees as specified in the 1999 deal.

Over the years, the battle between Hurwitz and the environmentalists has grown personal. The protesters bristle at the thought of a single tree felled by Hurwitz's hand.

In a news release, Karen Pickett, director of one such group, the Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters, summed up the filing this way:

"The one thing we can look forward to ultimately is a Maxxam-free and Hurwitz-free company."

Unattractive

Then what?

What chance does Palco have for survival? It can't, under the latest environmental restrictions, produce enough lumber to turn a profit, whether it's owned by Hurwitz or someone else.

Bankruptcy may eliminate some of the company's debt, but it won't make Palco attractive to outside buyers. The threat of unending tree sittings and sabotage to logging operations makes Palco an unappealing purchase.

Hurwitz's adversaries spin a heartwarming myth about returning Palco to its days as an ecofriendly, family-run logging company.

But returning Palco to its old style of operations also returns it to the reality that left it vulnerable to Hurwitz's takeover 20 years ago. Palco was a mismanaged operation. Its executives hadn't done an accurate inventory of its timber lands in more than 30 years, and the "family" company's stock — which was traded on the New York Stock Exchange — languished.
In today's lumber industry, the margins have gotten thinner and the competition has increased. A return to Palco's past would promptly be followed by a return to bankruptcy court.

'Root of all evil'

For his part, Hurwitz has paid a hefty price for his ownership of Palco.

"This is the root of all evil for us," he said. "Everything that's bad in my business life has come out of this."

The environmental issues formed the basis for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s decade long legal battle against Hurwitz. The lawsuit involved the failure of United Savings Association of Texas, but documents released as part of a congressional investigation revealed that regulators pursued a flimsy case to extract a settlement that would have included forfeiting Palco's old-growth redwood forest.

Hurwitz won, but the government appealed. With the case headed back to court, the victory is hollow. Palco's bankruptcy represents another eroded triumph, the collapse of the Headwaters Agreement.

The cycle remains unbroken and as vicious as it was before. Hurwitz and his foes in the environmental movement seem locked in perpetual conflict.

In many of these battles, Hurwitz has been right. But as last week's bankruptcy filing shows, you can be right and still lose.

Loren Steffy is the Chronicle's business columnist. His commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Houston Chron - Timber war may live longer than redwoods

Timber war may live longer than redwoods
By LOREN STEFFY
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle June 16, 2005, 9:37PM

SACRAMENTO, CALIF. — The timber wars were supposed to be over.
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The peace accord came in 1999, when the federal government and the state of California bought 7,500 acres of old-growth redwood trees from Pacific Lumber for more than $400 million. The lumber company agreed to new environmental and logging restrictions.

That, Pacific Lumber officials figured, would allow it to make a profit for its parent company, Houston-based Maxxam, and meet its obligations to employees.

"It all made sense in 1999," says Robert Manne, Pacific Lumber's president, sitting in his office in the company-owned town of Scotia. It was a balance among "the environmental, the economic and the social aspects of what we were doing."

These days, it's hard to believe there was a truce. Just this week, Palco, as the company is known, was in court in Eureka, where the district attorney had accused it of fraud. The DA claimed Palco submitted a misleading landslide study to a regional water board. A judge threw out the case on Tuesday.

By Thursday, Manne and other Palco officials were here in the state capital, five hours southeast of Scotia, arguing against state water board restrictions on logging in several key watersheds that Palco claims it has the right to cut under the 1999 agreement.

The water board disagreed. In public filings, Palco has said the restrictions may force it or its subsidiary, Scotia Pacific, into bankruptcy.

Environmentalists, cheering what they see as a significant victory, dismissed that notion.

"They deliberately keep themselves on the brink of bankruptcy," says Paul Mason, a legislative representative with the Sierra Club, which has battled Palco for years. "It's a shell game by very clever financial minds."

There are few things both sides agree on, but one is that the whole battle is probably headed to court. That would have to happen before July 19, which is the deadline for the next debt payments due on Scotia Pacific's publicly traded bonds. Those bonds are backed by the value of the company's timberland. Based on Thursday's ruling, the company can't log enough to make the interest payment, Manne says.

It's the latest twist in a 20-year battle that began when Houston financier Charles Hurwitz bought the company in a 1986 leveraged buyout. The deal made Hurwitz a villain to environmentalists, who portray him as a greedy corporate raider who wants to fell every redwood in the region for a quick buck.

Revisiting agreement

The water boards are, in essence, revisiting the 1999 agreement, which created the federal Headwaters Reserve of old-growth redwoods.

"That duplicative review process is killing us," Manne says. In the past five years, Palco's employment has fallen by half, to 800 from 1,600, and Manne says those declines may continue. The company has closed mills, and Manne says the log decks in Scotia, where the freshly cut trees arrive for processing, are "an embarrassment" because they're so empty.

Under the 1999 agreement with the state, Palco agreed to limit logging to 178 million board feet a year, down from more than 220 board feet before the deal was signed. With the water board restrictions, it's cutting about 100 million.

Mismanagement charged

In its review of Palco's operations, released in April, a member of the water board's staff said Maxxam has mismanaged Palco, burdening the company with debt and logging at unsustainable rates.

"It was almost juvenile in its analysis," Manne says.

Mason, with the Sierra Club, argues that Palco is hiding behind the Headwaters agreement, using it as a blanket exemption from all environmental restrictions.

Hurwitz has never been one to run from a fight, and he may enjoy testing the limits of government regulation. But no one's ever proven that he's broken it, and that is part of what galls his opponents.

As one told me after the hearing, what they find so upsetting about Palco is that everything it's done is legal.

Both sides determined

After years of following the Maxxam-Palco-redwoods saga, one thing is clear: The environmentalists are as determined to stop Palco from cutting trees as Hurwitz is to keep doing it.

The Headwaters agreement was supposed to end the timber wars. The activists came down from the trees. The company sold or set aside most of its old-growth timber and invested $30 million in a new mill here designed to handle younger trees.
It was part of a plan that was supposed to push Palco to forefront of the industry and make it an example of environmental responsibility.

"It never happened," Manne says.

The timber wars never ended. Sometimes, the battle is so divisive that a truce is unattainable.

Loren Steffy is the Chronicle's business columnist. His commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Houston Chron - FDIC made its bed and can lie in it

FDIC made its bed and can lie in it
By LOREN STEFFY
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Aug. 28, 2005, 1:36AM

I don't envy the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Having botched the case against Charles Hurwitz at almost every turn, facing rare and hefty sanctions of as much as $72 million, the FDIC's board must now decide what to do next.

For most of last week, the FDIC has said it will appeal U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes' ruling, issued Tuesday, awarding the sanctions to Hurwitz and Maxxam, the holding company he controls.

I pressed spokesman David Barr on that point. He acknowledged no final decision has been made.

"We're definitely leaning in that direction," he said.

Meaning that the FDIC staff, the same hapless band that has been wrong time after time in this case, now wants to keep it alive.

It leaves the FDIC in a deep hole of its own digging.

It can appeal the verdict and risk that an appeals court will smack down the claims as two judges already have, or it can pay the sanctions and set a dangerous precedent by admitting it overstepped its authority. The sanctions came after more than a decade of legal wrangling with Hurwitz and Maxxam over the collapse of Houston's United Savings, which cost taxpayers about $1.6 billion.

No proof

Even setting aside Hurwitz's claims of a government conspiracy to get redwood trees owned by Maxxam's Pacific Lumber unit — which the FDIC denies — the agency has failed to make its case.

The gist of its claims is that Hurwitz and Maxxam had a requirement to pump additional capital into the thrift. Hurwitz said there was no such requirement, and the FDIC has been unable to prove otherwise in court.

It filed suit in 1995. A congressional investigation later uncovered an internal memo that found the FDIC's own lawyers predicted that there was a 70 percent chance the agency would lose.

Barr says the FDIC can't discuss the issue because the related documents are under seal. At the FDIC's prodding, the Office of Thrift Supervision filed an administrative proceeding. The case went before an administrative law judge, who threw out the claims.

Facing appeal, Hurwitz agreed to settle by paying $200,000 and promising he wouldn't sit on the board of a bank. Barr says the FDIC decided to drop its case because justice had been served.

Scathing findings

It's a loser's revision of logic.

After seven years in court, the FDIC tried to walk away, but Hurwitz wouldn't allow it. He sued the FDIC for sanctions. Last week, Hughes issued his blistering decision. The ruling is startling in its word choice and scathing in its findings. It compares the FDIC to organized crime, and it faults the government for its "betrayal of the public trust" and "its vindictive political assault."

The FDIC wants to dismiss Hughes as something of a crank. He is, after all, known for ruling against government agencies. But Hughes didn't just dash off the opinion over a weekend. He took more than a year to come to his decision, which outlines a systemic abuse of power by the FDIC.

What emanates from the pages is an exasperation, a sense that Hughes believes the case should never have been filed in the first place.

"We strongly disagree with the ruling," Barr says. "It's not supported by the facts of the case." Those facts have been presented twice, before two judges who both found them lacking.

Upholding fairness

Hurwitz, as I've said before, is not a sympathetic victim. He is a wealthy man, a corporate raider whose buying sprees were financed with junk bonds from Michael Milken. He used surpluses from a workers' pension fund to help finance his acquisition of Pacific Lumber and has battled environmental regulations. But there has never been any evidence he committed a crime. Sympathy isn't a prerequisite for justice. Our system rests on fairness and truth.

The FDIC has been unable to prove its claims, and its pursuit of a case it knew from the start it was unlikely to win has now landed it exactly where it predicted: in defeat.

The current FDIC board inherited this case and must now decide what to do. It has become a blood feud of sorts, one that the staff doesn't want to relinquish.

With two strikes already against it, the agency has an unenviable choice: try again and risk further humiliation, or own up to its past sins.

Loren Steffy is the Chronicle's business columnist. His commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Houston Chron - After Hurwitz's ordeal, questions remain for FDIC

After Hurwitz's ordeal, questions remain for FDIC
By LOREN STEFFY
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Aug. 25, 2005, 9:53PM

Was it worth it?

That's the question I put to Charles Hurwitz on Wednesday afternoon as we talked on the phone about the court ruling that awarded the Houston financier and Maxxam, the holding company he controls,$72 million in sanctions against the federal government.

"That's a good question," he said. "Really, it's many questions."

Indeed. My own interest in the Hurwitz case started with a question. A few years ago, I asked why the FDIC would walk away from a case it had spent seven years preparing for and seven years litigating.

The ugly answer is revealed in some 2 million pages of court documents and congressional testimony: It brought the case simply because it could, because Hurwitz had something the government wanted. It walked away when its strong-arm tactics didn't work.

Some questions, though, remain unanswered. Why, for example, did the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. continue to pursue a case its own lawyers predicted, before the case was filed, it probably would lose?

Or why, after getting almost everything they wanted, do environmentalists continue to dog Hurwitz over logging by his Pacific Lumber Co. in Northern California?

The answer, I'm convinced, is Hurwitz himself. He enrages his adversaries with his iron-jawed refusal to accede to their demands. He wouldn't acquiesce to the FDIC. His closest friends told him it wasn't worth it, that fighting the government would ruin him and that it was better to settle and get on with his life.

Meanwhile, environmentalists demonized him for cutting trees that his lumber company owned. He offered to sell his old-growth redwoods to the government, but it didn't want to pay.

So the government tried extortion. It offered to settle the FDIC lawsuit if Hurwitz would surrender the trees, according to documents unearthed during congressional hearings in 2000.

FDIC spokesman David Barr disputes that. He says the agency was never interested in trees, only recovering the $1.6 billion lost in the collapse of Maxxam's United Savings in 1988.

'Never mind'

After keeping Hurwitz in court for seven years, the FDIC tried to walk away from its lawsuit — a billion-dollar twist on Gilda Radner's signature line "never mind."

Barr says this was because a parallel case, pending before an administrative law judge for the Office of Thrift Supervision, had run its course. But the judge in that case essentially found the regulators' claims lacking. Hurwitz agreed to a token settlement, but not the recovery the FDIC wanted.

The old-growth redwoods are now protected in a national forest. The government ultimately paid for the property. Pacific Lumber, in turn, agreed to stringent logging restrictions. The FDIC has been verbally spanked by a federal judge and told to pay Hurwitz $72 million, a sanction that Judge Lynn Hughes noted in his ruling is unprecedented.

It's not over yet

Yet the fight goes on. Environmentalists are trying yet again to restrict Pacific Lumber's logging, this time by claiming that streams are being damaged by erosion from tree cutting. The FDIC intends to appeal Hughes' ruling, Barr says.

The fight goes on because Hurwitz himself goes on, because at every turn he's refused to bow to the incredible pressure brought against him.

Which brings me back to my original question: Was it worth it?

"I'm very gratified with the outcome," Hurwitz said matter-of-factly. "How could I not be?

"If somebody had said 15 years later we'd be here and have spent this kind of money, I probably wouldn't have done it." Then he added: "I always knew we were right."

Opportunities lost

Being right, though, came at a cost. Hurwitz's Maxxam holding company has passed on some potentially lucrative deals. Hughes made reference to the lost opportunities in his ruling.

"He captured the sense of this thing when he talks about taking the entrepreneurial juices away," Hurwitz said. "That's really what happened."

Maxxam has suffered, too. Pacific Lumber recently proposed giving creditors control of its timber operations to reduce debt. Maxxam's shares are trading almost 53 percent below where they were when the FDIC filed its lawsuit 10 years ago. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index has more than doubled during that time.

"This will put us back on a growth path," Hurwitz said. "We'll kind of pick up the pace. We'll divert our energies into other things instead of thinking about the government."

It depends, though, on if the government is done thinking about him.

Hurwitz, of course, says if the FDIC wants to go another round, he will. After all, he says, it's worth it.

Loren Steffy is the Chronicle's business columnist. His commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Congress Should Hold Hearings on FDIC Abuse of Citizens

#267 October 1999

Congress Should Hold Hearings on FDIC Abuse of Citizens
by Amy Ridenour

Innocent until proven guilty, right?

That's what it says in civics textbooks. But in the real world, sometimes government officials want you to be guilty. If that happens, even if you are innocent, you can be in big trouble.

Take the cases of Charles Hurwitz of Texas and Glen Garrett of Missouri.

In Hurwitz's case, the government wanted valuable land owned by Hurwitz's company. Hurwitz was willing to sell, but as the land carried a high fair-market value, it was expensively priced. Rather than buy the land in an honest transaction, the government sued Hurwitz's business over an unrelated regulatory matter under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Essentially, the government said: Give us the land; we'll settle the suit.

In other words, blackmail.

On that day, the Founding Fathers rolled over in their graves.

Internal documents show that the land-confiscation scheme, unconstitutional though it was, had the approval of government officials as high as the White House. On March 21, 1995, then White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, in fact, wrote a letter on White House stationery endorsing this scheme, saying, "Budgetary constraints have made it impractical to acquire such an expensive tract of land through outright federal purchase."1

Even more chillingly, after a federal judge forced the FDIC, over its protests - including an appeal to another court,2 to make public some of the FDIC's internal documents, it became clear that the FDIC knew perfectly well that it had little chance of proving Hurwitz guilty. Although FDIC policy prohibits the agency from pursuing cases unless it is "more than likely to succeed," in its zeal to acquire the land, the FDIC ignored its own policies and proceeded with a suit it knew lacked merit.3

Hurwitz refused to be blackmailed, but he did fully cooperate with investigators4 and he sold the government the land for a price lower than its value. The banking agencies were not grateful. Instead, the FDIC continued its case against Hurwitz in a federal court, where the government is unlikely to win. It also opened a "second front" against Hurwitz by way of an internal government Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) regulatory hearing, paid for by the FDIC, where Hurwitz's rights are limited and where his guilt will be determined by administrators paid by the prosecutors.

According to the journal of the American Bar Association, the proceedings in this chamber are so greatly in the government's favor that one of the administrative judges has never once ruled against the government.5

Reportedly, the government hopes to force Hurwitz to surrender some additional land that was not included in the sale. A federal district judge called the case a "manipulation of the court system."6

So far, Hurwitz and his companies have spent over $20 million in this case7 and taxpayer expenditures are similar.8

The Oxford English Dictionary refers to the infamous "Star Chamber" as a court whose "rules of procedure... rendered it a powerful instrument in the hands of a sovereign or ministry desirous of using it for tyranny."9

We like to think we've come far since the 15th-17th century Star Chamber, but we obviously have not.

The story of small-town Missouri banker Glen Garrett is different, but no less alarming to those who believe that Americans who are innocent of any crime have the right not to be hounded by their government.

Garrett was the subject of an anonymous, ill-founded and false accusation of dishonesty against him made to the state bank examiners, who passed them on to the FDIC. It was later shown that the false charges were made by one of Garrett's business competitors, hardly an objective source.

The FDIC began an exhaustive investigation that would eventually take almost a decade to resolve. Despite finding insufficient evidence of any wrongdoing, the FDIC was undeterred. Worse, an FDIC senior management official demonstrated extreme bias, saying, "Glen Garrett should be castrated."

Rather than find proof of wrongdoing by Garrett, however, the FDIC racked up an impressive list of wrongdoing of its own. Among them:

* An FDIC official asked an officer of Garrett's bank to lie about the investigation. When the officer refused and the bank complained to the FDIC, no action was taken.

* During the investigation, a government official told another banker false derogatory information about Garrett's personal confidential financial affairs. It is a violation of criminal statues for government bank examiners to release personal financial information they learn during a bank examination to another banker. Again, no action was taken.

* The FDIC attempted to incite a U.S. Attorney to bring a criminal indictment against Garrett by sending the U.S. Attorney a written referral which contained numerous false and unsubstantiated allegations against Garrett, which the FDIC labeled as "facts," not "allegations" or "suspicions." The FDIC has conceded that they made false allegations.

* During a hearing Garrett subpoenaed two FDIC officials to testify about their knowledge of the case. In a blatant attempt to subvert Garrett's rights in court, the FDIC responded by sending letters to its own employees threatening them with criminal prosecution if they testified.

In the end, and after Garrett was forced to spend almost $2 million to defend against the false FDIC allegations, the FDIC decided to withdraw and dismiss (with extreme prejudice, which means they can never resurrect the charges again) all charges it made against Garrett, thus totally vindicating him of all wrongdoing. But even here, the FDIC required one last tribute from Garrett: he had to pledge not to sue the FDIC for wrongful prosecution.10

On October 11, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan delivered a major speech to the annual convention of the American Bankers Association on the need for changes in the banking regulation system, but he said not one word about the urgent need to correct abuses like these.11 This was wrong.

One of Thomas Jefferson's complaints about the British government in the Declaration of Independence was that King George III had "depriv[ed] us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury." The Declaration of Independence retains a powerful resonance because it speaks of timeless, universal truths. The regulatory process should never be used as a substitute for objective adjudication by an impartial tribunal.

Our government today needs to reaffirm its commitment to these truths, which remain as important today as they were to our citizenry in 1776. Congress should hold hearings to look into these events, and develop policies to prevent future such abuses.

Footnotes:
1 Bob Sablatura, "Redwoods, Not Red Ink, May Have Motivated FDIC Against Hurwitz; Documents Show Agency May Have Tried to Hide Truth in Pursuing Suit Against Financier," Houston Chronicle, July 19, 1998, p. A1.

2 Sablatura, p. A1.

3 Sablatura, p. A1.

4 Letter of U.S. House of Representatives Majority Whip Tom DeLay to The Honorable Donna A. Tranoue, Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Mr. Gaston L. Gianni, Jr., Inspector General, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, February 3, 1999.

5 Terry Carter, "Banking and Fear," ABA Journal, July 1999.

6 United States District Judge Lynn N. Hughes, "Opinion on Dismissal of The Office of Thrift Supervision," Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Office of Thrift Supervision v. Charles E. Hurwitz, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas, Civil Action H-95-3956, October 23, 1997.

7 Sablatura, p. A1.

8 Quoted in "Charles Hurwitz is No Sap," by Kathryn Jones, Texas Monthly Biz, June 1999, Charles Hurwitz estimates the combined expenditures of Hurwitz and his companies and the government at $50 million.

9 The Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1971.

10 Information about the story of Glen Garrett was obtained from the following sources, among others: Terry Carter, "Banking on Fear," ABA Journal, July 1999; Interviews with Stephens B. Woodrough, legal counsel for Glen Garrett and former FDIC litigator, conducted in September and October 1999; Woodrough, Stephens B., "The Abuse of Regulatory Power - A New and Powerful Antidote," (unpublished); Prepared testimony by Stephens B. Woodrough before the Small Business Administration Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Board, St. Louis, Missouri, June 8, 1998; Testimony of Paul G. Fritts, former FDIC Executive Director of Supervision and Resolutions before the Small Business Administration Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Board, St. Louis, Missouri, June 8, 1998.

11 Prepared text of speech delivered by U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to the American Bankers Association in Phoenix, Arizona, on October 11, 1999.

# # #
Amy Ridenour is president of The National Center for Public Policy Research.

Houston Chron - With Hurwitz, FDIC got more than it bargained for

With Hurwitz, FDIC got more than it bargained for

By LOREN STEFFY

Charles Hurwitz showed up in court Wednesday wearing a tie with a horseshoe pattern because, he said, he was feeling lucky.

He had good reason.

After almost a decade, Hurwitz is on the verge of prevailing in his efforts to extract as much as $61 million in sanctions from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Hurwitz claims he has been the target of a government conspiracy to force him to settle a lawsuit with the FDIC by surrendering a redwood forest his company owns in California. The FDIC's case stemmed from the $1.6 billion collapse of United Savings Association of Texas in 1988, the country's fifth-largest savings and loan failure.

The FDIC, which is used to playing the role of the taxpayers' champion, has found itself with few allies. Judge Lynn Hughes criticized the agency's attorneys for not being careful about the details of their testimony, he implied the FDIC may not have followed proper procedure in voting to sue Hurwitz in 1995 and even suggested one government lawyer may have perjured himself.

The FDIC approaches failed S&L cases with a presumption of guilt for all involved. After all, savings and loan deregulation allowed scores of developers and wheeler-dealers to loan money to themselves under ridiculous terms, all guaranteed by the government. Stories of excess are legion — prostitutes at board meetings, secretaries put up as bets in a $5,000 game of quarters, 12-year-olds given vintage Ferraris.

But the Hurwitz case had none of that. Whatever his business transgressions, Hurwitz didn't lead a flashy lifestyle.

What's truly stunning about the case is the flimsiness of the government's claims. It doesn't accuse Hurwitz of fraud or that he enriched himself by looting United Savings. In fact, as close as it comes is making an argument for what could best be described as "inverse enrichment."

It claims Hurwitz enriched himself not by taking money out of the thrift, but by not putting money in when the S&L was failing.

The government, though, has been unable to prove Hurwitz or his company was required to do so. Hurwitz, being the savvy deal maker he is, put several layers of interlocking companies between Maxxam and the thrift.

Massive investigations and legal proceedings by two government agencies over 15 years at a cost to taxpayers of $13 million, and this is where we end up: Hurwitz enriched himself by not spending money.

In the end, Hurwitz paid about $200,000 and agreed to be banned from the banking industry by the Office of Thrift Supervision, which settled that agency's arm of the case. The payment came after the office's administrative law judge recommended that the case be thrown out. The FDIC, after seven years in court, dropped its proceeding a month later.

With the original cases over, Hurwitz turned around and sued the government.

Hurwitz sat stoically with his wife, Barbara, during most of the proceedings, but his outrage boiled over after one memo from an FDIC attorney said the agency should "cause Hurwitz some pain."

"They want to cause me pain?" he said later. "This is the federal government talking. They should be embarrassed to be here."

Embarrassed? No, the FDIC's people seemed more annoyed. They know the case is going badly. They roll their eyes at Hughes' rulings, which in the past have gone so far as to liken their methods to the Cosa Nostra. Hughes, of course, is no friend of the government, but the FDIC isn't doing itself any favors.

The FDIC says Hurwitz's lawyers have selectively extracted pieces of documents to stitch together a conspiracy theory, but they have produced little evidence that cuts through the tapestry. They bristle at having their tactics turned on them.

A final ruling is weeks away, but Hughes gave a strong indication of his views.

"I think the FDIC is through picking on Mr. Hurwitz," he said Wednesday.

There aren't many people who feel sorry for Charles Hurwitz. A quick Google search on his name reveals how intensely he is disliked, especially among environmentalists. He has a Web site in his honor, www.jailhurwitz.com, that shows a likeness of him behind bars.

His takeover gambits in the 1980s are reminiscent of the Gordon Gekko character in the movie Wall Street. He raided the employee pension plan at Pacific Lumber to fund his takeover. When he increased logging to raise revenues, protesters climbed the ancient redwoods on Pacific Lumber's land and lived there to keep them from being cut down.

Internal memos unearthed in the various investigations show FDIC lawyers knew they had a poor chance of winning, yet the agency filed the case anyway. That decision coincided with pressure from environmental groups on the Clinton administration to get control of the redwoods.

The agency says it didn't bow to political pressure, but the pressure clearly was there, and Hurwitz's track record made him an easy target.

The FDIC, though, didn't expect Hurwitz to fight. Most S&L figures, guilty or not, settled so they could get on with their lives. In Hurwitz, the agency confronted a formidable combination of wealth and stubbornness. As a result, it's been outsmarted and outmaneuvered at every turn.

Before this week's hearings began, one of the FDIC lawyers said I must think they wear the black hats in this case. He's wrong. I think they wear the dunce caps.

Loren Steffy is the Chronicle's business columnist. His commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays
HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Business
July 1, 2004, 11:42PM

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BACH (Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters) spin on that story:
BACH's spin >>>Hurwitz is enriched--once again<<<

A federal judge issued an order for the FDIC to pay Charles Hurwitz up to $72 million, sanctioning the federal agency for its lawsuits against Hurwitz.

If you remember the Debt for Nature campaign, you will recall that federal banking regulators took unprecedented and courageous action to obtain justice in the face of Charles Hurwitz's Maxxam Corp. plundering of public trust resources and his corporate raider banditry.

Based on the crashing of a Texas Savings & Loan that left the U.S. taxpayers holding a $1.6 billion bag in bailout costs, the agency that insures bank funds, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) filed suit, seeking $250 in restitution based on its findings of wrongdoing, followed by a similar suit filed by the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) seeking to recoup $821 million.

Advocates for Headwaters Forest weighed in with a particularly innovative solution that could uniquely serve ecological goals and taxpayer justice: a "debt for nature" swap that would accept critical forest land owned by Maxxam subsidiary Pacific Lumber (PL) to satisfy the federal claims against the parent company, putting valuable assets, if not cash, in the public domain. While this solution attracted significant support in government, public and other circles, it did not come to fruition before the OTS claim was ultimately settled in 2002 by Maxxam's payment of $206,000 and a restriction barring Hurwitz from affiliating with or running banking institutions for three years.

Not only was Hurwitz charged with duping regulators and violating rules governing thrift institutions, it was alleged that his shady dealings including laundering money for Michael Milkin, prosecuted in Wall Street's biggest criminal prosecution every, charged with 98 counts of fraud and racketeering, bringing him a 10 year prison sentence. Milkin helped Hurwitz put together the junk bond financing for the take over of Pacific Lumber.

In light of the long history of blatant violation of hundreds of federal, state and regulatory laws and rules, this decision is a huge disappointment. It is all the more stinging because of the language in the opinion, incredibly portraying the poor corporate raider Hurwitz standing his ground against the "Goliath" of government agencies responsible for protecting the public trust. We can send you the Texas judge's opinion in a pdf document if you request it from us.

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Chron/Tom Abate on The financial wizard behind Pacific Lumber controversy

Note: Tom Abate is the founder of the North Coast Journal. The current owners of bought it from Tom and his wife, Mia,

The financial wizard behind Pacific Lumber controversy
Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, June 12, 2005

In 40 years of doing business, Houston financier Charles Hurwitz has perfected the art of acquiring companies with borrowed money, the most infamous example being the junk-bond-financed takeover of Pacific Lumber in 1986.

That deal made Hurwitz and the Maxxam Corp. he controls anathema to many Northern Californians, who think he turned a company once known for stewardship into one reviled for cutting old-growth redwoods.

But Hurwitz, 65, may end up being judged the victim of one event that followed the buyout.

Several years ago, he sued federal banking regulators. He charged that they tried to blame him for the failure of a Texas savings and loan institution in order to bully him into selling Pacific Lumber's last groves of old growth, including what is now the Headwaters preserve.

That counter-punch lawsuit has already been argued before Houston Federal District Judge Lynn Hughes, who could rule at any time. Hughes once compared the government's prosecution of Hurwitz to mafia-like strong-arm tactics. Court-watchers say he seems favorably disposed toward Hurwitz's contention that the government should repay the $72 million he spent to defend himself against the charges, which have by now either been dropped or settled.

A Texas native who did a two-year stint in the Army after college, Hurwitz began his business career as a stockbroker in 1965, and soon became a pioneer in hedge funds. In 1978, he acquired a 13 percent stake in a now- defunct firm that had -- prior to his involvement -- disassembled the London Bridge and rebuilt it, stone by stone, as the centerpiece of the Lake Havasu City resort in Arizona.

In 1980, Hurwitz assumed control of that company, which, through a subsequent series of transactions ultimately became Maxxam Corp.

Today, Hurwitz owns 74.9 percent of Maxxam's stock. Maxxam owns Pacific Lumber, a handful of real estate ventures and two racetracks, one for greyhounds and the other, Sam Houston Race Park, for horses. Income from Pacific Lumber makes up about 57 percent of Maxxam's revenue, which totaled $361.1 million last year. In its last 29 quarterly financial reports, it has posted losses in 21 quarters and profits in eight.

Maxxam used to be larger by virtue of its 62 percent stake in Kaiser Aluminum, which it bought with $930 million in debt financing in 1988. But Kaiser filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February 2002. Although Maxxam still owns the shares, they are essentially worthless, and it has no operational control over the reorganizing firm.

The Pacific Lumber buyout that thrust Hurwitz into the public eye involved storied names like the now-defunct Drexel Burnham Lambert investment bank and its junk-bond specialist Michael Milken, who paid a $200 million fine and served two years at the minimum security federal prison camp in Dublin in connection with his activities during the 1980s.

The case Hurwitz is pursuing against federal banking regulators grew out of a relationship among the Pacific Lumber deal, Drexel Burnham Lambert and United Savings Association of Texas. United was a financial institution in which Hurwitz held a minority share before it was declared insolvent in 1988.

In a controversy that has led to investigations, court cases and bickering for 17 years, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation suspected that United Savings had invested heavily in junk bonds issued by Drexel in return for Drexel's support of Hurwitz's acquisitions.

Two federal agencies, the FDIC and the Office of Thrift Supervision, ultimately brought charges against Hurwitz and Maxxam, alleging they contributed to the mismanagement that caused United Savings to fail.

By 2002, both federal cases had collapsed, and Hurwitz began turning the tables in a legal action that argues that officials of the Clinton administration, under pressure from environmentalists, encouraged bank regulators to lean on Maxxam to induce it to sell its old-growth redwoods.

Hurwitz's case was heard last June, and a decision on his claim for $72 million in sanctions could come at any time from the same federal judge who, in a ruling critical of the two federal agencies, once wrote: "systematic falsehoods are the tools of Cosa Nostra, not res publica."

EGA discusses how to discredit Wise Use Movement

Environmental Grantmakers Association 1992 Fall Retreat
Session 26: "The Wise Use Movement: Threats and Opportunities"

Judy Donald, Beldon Fund, Washington, D.C.: [tape begins in the middle of a sentence] ...as billed, "Threats and Opportunities," not dwelling too much on the threats, but really looking at what it means for the environmental movement. Deb Callahan and I are leading this, but we really want this to be--turn into a participatory session. We don't think of ourselves necessarily as the experts on this. We both are east coasters, and I'm inside the Beltway--Deb is nearly.

Debra Callahan, [W. Alton Jones Foundation, Charlottesville, Virginia]: Marginally outside the Beltway.

Judy Donald: Well, if you go to that second bypass, you'll be inside the Beltway. So, it's our sense that you folks know a lot about what's going on out there. You've experienced it yourself. Perhaps some of you are already engaged in some very interesting grantmaking, and I think those are the issues we need to start sharing. Our plan here is to begin with Deb, who is going to be talking about some of the information-gathering that's been going on about the Wise Use Movement, the Property Rights Movement from all across the country, just to give us a good grounding, that we're on the same wavelength and to show what's being done in that regard.

And then we'll move into a couple of case studies, a discussion of both the Wise Use Movement and next the property rights movement. That's the plan.

Debra Callahan: And we'll end by 2:15.

Judy Donald: Yeah. And we plan to end by 2:15. Deb, it's all yours.

Debra Callahan: Okay, good. Actually we had thought that this was a small group and we wanted to go around the room, but I don't know. What do you think, Judy?

Judy Donald: Did we all read [indistinct]?

Debra Callahan: I think we'll dispense with formalities. Just very quickly for point of reference, because it is real important when you're engaging in this discussion, sort of, what is the level of knowledge and interaction with Wise Use folks, so just as a point of reference, all of you who know who Ron Arnold is, would you raise your hand for me please?

Judy Donald: Did anybody else beside Deb have a conversation with him when he was in town?

Debra Callahan: The guy with the placards, the white beard and white hair.

Judy Donald: Deb was unique in that regard.

Debra Callahan: Okay, do all of you have a general sense of what Wise Use is? Okay, very briefly, I'll define Wise Use and a couple of terms that we'll be using throughout the session. For a couple of years now there has been a growing movement that you notice particularly in the western United States that really occurs -- we're finding -- all over the United States that is sort of generally referred to as the Wise Use movement. In fact "wise use" is a term that was coined by a figurehead named Ron Arnold who actually showed up here yesterday or the day before with these people who had yellow placards and they were walking around in a circle, and they were saying- - you know -- your grants are taking away our jobs and that sort of thing.

Before I go on any further, I'd like to ask, are any of you associated with wise use groups?

Unidentified male audience member: [Indistinct].

Debra Callahan: Out!

Unidentified male audience member: I attended a meeting.

Debra Callahan: You did?!

Unidentified male audience member: I was trying to form a local chapter of People for the West.

Debra Callahan: [Laughs] Fine. Alright. It's nice we have an exchange program going on here. I tend to actually think of the wise use movements as being more generically the environmental backlash movement, because in fact around the country as you talk to activists on the ground who are dealing with what we think of as wise use -- some of these organizations are formally associated with the wise use movement and Ron Arnold and really the vast majority often are not formally associated with wise use and Ron Arnold. So it's really in some ways sort of a mistake in nomenclature just to refer to this stuff as wise use, but we do it, and so that's how we're going to talk about it.

But this is really -- what I think has really occurred here is the environmental community has sort of adopted this term wise use to mean this growing environmental backlash out there in the country that's really being fueled in large part by a lot of the economic stresses that have been brought to bear through environmental regulations or because people would like to think that they've been brought to bear because of environmental regulations and it's sort of the anti crowd is what we think of as wise use.

Our foundation put together a report about eight months ago that was circulated very widely, which was our initial impressions of wise use, and for those of you haven't read it, I beg your pardon that I'm going to sort of jump off and go a little bit past that report but I'd like to update you a little bit on what we have learned in about the last four months in continued research about the wise use movement that has been conducted that's here in this small book here.

What we're finding is that wise use is really a local movement driven by primarily local concerns and not national issues. We tend -- you know, when you think of Ron Arnold and you think of Wise Use, you know, you think of command and control, top heavy, corporate funded, front groups that are organizing local people to get involved, get out there and attack environmentalists.

And that was the assumption I walked into this whole thing with. And in fact the more we dig into it, having put together a fifty -- really constructed over a number of months a fifty state fairly comprehensive survey of what's going on with respect to wise use organizing activity--we have come to the conclusion that this is pretty much generally a grass roots movement, which is a problem, because it means there's no silver bullets, it means this is, is, you know, something that is going to have to be confronted in states and communities across the country in different ways depending on what the various local issues are that those wise use groups are dealing with and campaigning on.

Ron Arnold and these other figureheads like Grant Gerber and Chuck Cushman and some of these other leaders -- Don Gerdts -- are not creating the movement. They're trying to get out in front of something that is going on, in fact. They're attempting to assert some control over this grass roots movement that's going on. And they're having a certain amount of success.

They're not having success in coordinating the national wise use grass roots community and coalescing it into one movement that has a common agenda, and works together to fight legislation or to pass bills or to defeat certain members of Congress.
What those national figureheads have done extraordinarily well is they have imposed a language and a set of messages into the grass roots community that is extremely effective.

And so what we have here is not an organization, we have a movement. The movement has a lexicon. The lexicon is very effective. And as I'm going to go into in a minute, there are three different sets of messages that the wise use movement employs to three different communities, that is very effective.

The movement is actually growing quickly at the grass roots as it finds its base. What I mean is, the movement is growing quickly around the country, in some states more quickly than others, but again, this is happening in every single state. We think of this as being a western phenomena -- it's not true.

It's in New England. In New England it's about the Adirondack Mountains, it's about private property right movements, it's about the North Eastern forests. In the Southeast it's about coastal zone management and coastal development. It's about shrimpers in Louisiana not liking turtle exclusion devices. In the midwest it's about farmland. In coastal Louisiana and Texas it's about, you know, minerals development; it's about, you know, coal mining in those states.

All over the country it's like a gas, this, this, it's filling -- it's, it's filling the available space, you know, whatever it is in terms of whatever issues exist there.

So the movement is growing quickly as these people at the local level who are angry about the environmental movement find this message and this movement to tap into. So you're going to find, I think, there's a natural threshold to which this movement will grow.

The real question here is, is this movement then going to expand beyond its natural base into mainstream America? All right? Are you going to find that suburbanites are beginning to associate with wise use, because when you poll -- and I'm sure you heard this morning -- and Celinda Lake who was supposed to be here today, who unfortunately was not able to make it to our panel either -- what one of her messages was going to be is, is that what people fundamentally want, what people fundamentally believe about environmental protection is that, no it's not just jobs, and no it's not just environment, why can't we have both?

The high ground here is capturing that message, ok? And in fact the wise use movement is trying to capture that message. What they're saying out there is 'we are the real environmentalists. We are the stewards of the land. We're the farmers who have tilled the land and we know how to manage this land because we've done it here for generations. We're the miners and we're the ones who depend for our livelihood on this land. These guys live in glass towers in New York City. They're not environmentalists, they're elitists. They're part of the problem, and they're aligned with big government and they're out of touch. So we are the real environmentalists.'

And if that's the message that the wise use movement is able to capture, we are suddenly the equivalent of incumbents in this election year. We're really unpopular.

And so that's really what the battle ground is that I want to talk about.

Very quickly, the three messages that we have found through our study that the wise use movement employs are first what you might call a vanguard message. The vanguard message is for the true believers. And this is, this encompasses this really hot rhetoric that we first became familiar with Ron Arnold and some of these other leaders using, things like "Environmentalists are watermelons, they're green on the outside and red on the inside like communists." Things like "Environmentalists are pagan worshipers or cow worshipers." Or things like Don Gerdts in the northeast said, you know, "How do you define private property? Well, private property is anything you own, it's your house, it's your land, it's your wife, it's your dog, it's your kids." You know, there's some pretty outrageous stuff.

That is the vanguard message. That is for these people who are the heads of wise use groups who are really the ideologues. Because we're talking about real ideologues, we're talking about the John Birch Society that organized a rally in Vermont in June, where what they did -- this private property rights organization -- hung twenty public officials in effigy from the ceiling and labelled them, had Patrick Leahy's general election opponent there asking them for their support while Leahy was hanging in effigy, and the governor of the state was hanging in effigy there from the ceiling. And that was organized by the John Birch Society who is involved in this private property rights movement.

So there's this crazy nut case element in this thing, you go, well, main street people aren't going to buy into this, you don't do that in Vermont. And that kind of activity is saved for people who're really attracted to that extremist message.
The second, basically, man's right to exploit nature, no matter what the cost, is the vanguard message. We have a right to dominate the land and we have a right to do whatever we want.

The second kind of message is a conspiracy message. It creates an us-versus-them mentality. The elitist environmental groups are locking up the land, they're pushing people out of their jobs, they're in league with big government. And this message is used to motivate the local groups and the local leaders, but the vanguard message and the conspiracy message are what you call narrow-cast messages in the media business, it's what you use to talk to a narrow group of people to get them motivated and sparked up.

Then you come to the main stream message. And this is the one that really poses the threat to the progress of our community. And what that message says is man and nature can live together in productive harmony. We're the real environmentalists. And it's a persuasive message for the average person.

And for those of you saw Ron Arnold when he was here yesterday or the day before -- I'm really losing track of time -- that's what he was doing. And he had, you know, ten folks who are real people out there, with placards, who've lost their jobs, who live in communities where there's real economic stress because of transition, economic transition, based on resource extracting issues.

And they were saying, and they were lookin' us straight in the eye, and they were saying, hey, because of the work that you've been engaged in, we're hurting, we're losing our jobs and it's not right. And how do you say to somebody, no, I don't want you to have your job.

And when Joe Sixpack hears that message he goes, 'you're right, dammit, people oughta be able to work, and the environment ought to be able to be managed.'

And the minute the wise use people capture that high ground, we almost have not got a winning message left in, in our quiver. So therefore, what I'm going to be advocating, is that we have to develop our own mainstream message. We have to develop case studies where environmental regulation has in fact created jobs, where it's in fact improved people's lives, because we have a lot of these same kind of stories and we're not just getting them out there.

When we're confronted with loss of jobs, with jobs versus owls, we are -- right, we're nodding our heads and say yeah we need to develop that, we need to develop that information about economics and the environment. But we also have to come back, and we also have to have our own stories that talks about how environmental protection is good for the human family.
Just side by side, let me talk to you about a couple of different ways the wise use people, advocates use message to promote their side and to hit us at the same time.

With respect to balance, the wise use advocates in this mainstream message say they're for balance, man and nature in harmony. They're for moderation and compromise about environmentalists. They're not for balance. Only nature is important to these people. Wise Use people say, people come first, jobs are primary, people are primary. Environmentalists: people don't come first, all life is equal. Man is the same value as an amoeba and they tie environmentalists with the animal rights community.

Wise users say they have a Can Do attitude. Technological fixes can solve problems. Environmentalists have a Can't Do attitude. The sky is falling and I can't get up. Wise users say we believe in freedom of choice and individual rights. Environmentalists believe the public comes first and the individual doesn't matter. So what it really comes down to is wise use versus no use.

Ron Arnold says, environmentalism is the last gasp of the old world view of man against nature. He wants to move us into the post environment era, man and nature can live together in productive harmony. So he's saying, we're outa' style, we're outa' sync, were passé, and he's really on the cutting edge.

Whereas in fact their agenda is regressive, but it's not the way that they're cutting it. It's not the way he's making it sound. So, to get to the constructive side of the building blocks that I think our community needs to put together to try and counter this wise use movement, there are four components, or five.

The first is message, and I hit over some of this. First of all, tell the conservation story. Describe the victories, talk about how the environmental movement has improved people's lives. Use human interest. Give -- people perceive environmentalism as being theoretical -- give it a human face, you know, the same thing politicians do. They always tell stories about, you know, Joe Mahoney and his community, you know, blah blah.

We have to redefine the term Federal lands to mean public lands. Federal is government, Federal is bad. Public is all of us, it's a concept that we need to push. These lands that are at stake belong to all of us.

Third, identify our opponents and how they're ripping off America. They are the public interest. A fine example of this is the 1872 mining act where land is getting sold off at $2.50 an acre to these people so they can go extract a lot of value out of it and not giving a lot back to the public purse.

Fourth, we need to side with the main stream. We're not the radicals. And that is probably the most critical message for us to take away from this: We don't want people to be jobless, and we don't believe it has to happen, but we need to work towards that goal. And address environmental economic concerns simultaneously.

We need to engage in coalition building with working people, farmers, sports people, main stream religious denominations -- and that's critical because they are, are in their elitist messages saying that we're not Christian, we're pagans, we're cow worshipers, blah blah blah. And in fact we worked in coalition on toxic spills on the Clean Air Act and a lot of really important legislation with lobbyists side by side from mainstream religious organizations. We need to pull these groups in to help us with this fight on wise use because they are our best defense because in fact religious organizations do support a strong environmental agenda very often.

Third, attack wise use. They're aggressive in our direction and we need to be aggressive back. Now I don't mean constantly engaging in negative campaigning because we have a real knee-jerk reaction to that, and in fact probably rightly so. But we need to find the ideological divisions in the wise use movement and exploit them.

Why are ranchers and miners in a coalition together? They have very different interests. But in the wise use movement they work together. Wise use versus wise use. A lot of these groups hate each other. A lot of these leaders really are fighting for the microphone. The Farm Bureau says they won't have anything to do with Ron Arnold because they believe he's extreme. Grant Gerber thinks that investigators, has actually suggested to certain investigators they should investigate Ron Arnold and he'll give 'em everything he's got to help them with their investigation.

These people don't get along really well in terms of internals. And finally, wise use versus labor. Because if this is a jobs issue, again who's better addressed the jobs issue than the labor community, than the working class, than working people. And wise use, part of its agenda is the dismantlement sometimes -- certain organizations -- of OSHA laws, of worker protection laws.

When you get into the takings issue, part of what's at stake here is industry's regulation for worker safety, so there's some really important hooks that we can talk with these communities about and try and find some wedge issues at least neutralize them if not bring them over to our side.

We need to reveal the extreme positions of the wise use movement, talk about the Wise Use Agenda. We need to expose the links between wise use and other extremists: the Unification Church, the John Birch Society, Lyndon LaRouche.

We need to talk about the foreign influences in the wise use movement. There's a lot of Japanese motorcycle industry money in the wise use movement. And I don't think mid-stream Americans want Honda and Yamasaki to be talking, to be dictating public lands policy. I mean I think that really drives the heart of the sort of nationalism that you're seeing showing up in polls that's popular right now in middle America.

We need to re-invigorate the grass roots, which is critical, and Judy is going to talk more about that and we need to facilitate the communication of information among all of us.

Later on I'll talk about some specific programs that are going on around the country that are pretty exciting, that are addressing wise use issues. And so I'll move off the general presentation and let Judy move on.

Judy Donald, You saw the hook, heh?

Unidentified audience member: Can I ask a question? How much money are we talking about?

Debra Callahan: From who, they have? That's been a really rough question. And there's been-- It varies. If you look at People for the West, they raised over $2 million dollars, 90% of which has come from primarily, mining companies. You can buy a seat on the People for the West Board for -- I believe it's a $25,000 contribution. And actually People for the West was started as a spin off from the Pegasus Gold Company. It started out as a spin off from a mining company and its primarily mining companies that sit on their board.

Judy Donald, And Canadian mining companies.

Debra Callahan: And Canadian mining companies to boot. If you look at some of the original wise use organizing meetings, they were co-sponsored by Exxon and a couple of other oil companies and they were sponsored by, you know, various and sundry resource extractive companies. We don't have a dollar figure. It's very hard. Some of these guys aren't (c)(3)s. A lot of these organizations don't have reporting requirements and its very difficult to determine just how much money are that we're talking about.

Judy Donald, The bottom line is that its more than we have.

Debra Callahan: It's more than we have. Some of these grass roots groups are dirt poor. And some, in fact at the last Wise Use Conference -- while we were down in Rio, at the Earth Summit, they were in Reno having a conference. And there were more environmental spies at that thing I think than there practically were wise use people, I mean they were everywhere [laughter] and there was one person -- and I talked to a bunch of these folks -- and one of these folks said they were sitting down with a wise use person and one of the speakers up there talked with great mirth about how the environmentalists were portraying them as being front groups of corporations and how they were just rolling in money and apparently the room just burst out hysterically laughing. It was about as funny as us hearing them say, oh those guys are corporate backed and they're just rolling in dough, which they're saying about us right now.

Where do you really find the money and the resources are some of these other groups that are based in Washington, that are coalitions of special interest groups, like the Wetlands Coalition, where the American Farm Bureau is a member of it, the Cattlemen's Association, the NRA, some of these existing associations have banded together around particular issues and they're working with the Wise Use grass roots operations. So, who knows, but its more than we've got is the right answer.

Tom ________, audience member: There's another question which I wonder if I could ask now, that is, I wonder if the whole wise use movement is a disinformation campaign in a certain element, that is -- let me just pursue this because I think it's pretty relevant to interface what's happening next door here, with what we're doing here to make this really a productive meeting here. I wonder if the wise use movement allows big corporations to disassociate themselves from the wise use extremism and to take the high ground with the theme of balance that we heard was so important this morning in how it plays in the American public. And I draw your attention to today's newspaper and yesterday's newspaper, Seattle newspaper, full page Weyerhaeuser ads which the theme is balance. Weyerhaeuser is taking the ground, the high ground of balance between people and the environment while never mentioning any of these themes in wise use of private property, admiring the new Forest Practices Act in Washington which allows clearcuts of 240 acres, which is larger than we've ever had for the last twenty years in California in State forest [drives?], as reform. I wonder how much these major -- we saw the same thing in British Columbia where MacMillan Bloedel wrote a letter, the CEO of MacMillan Bloedel wrote a letter explicitly disavowing connections with the Share group and taking exactly the same message, we are into balance between people and the environment. So it allows the major players, the big--here on the west coast--the timber corporations to appear as wonderful people while allowing the local groups to agitate for these themes which support the major corporations. I just wonder what your reaction is to that.

Debra Callahan: I think it might be a byproduct. It's hard to say what goes on inside, Tom, but I don't think its calculated, it might be an upshot. Like someone said a long time ago when John McPhee said in Conversations with the Archdruid, thank god for David Brower because he makes the rest of us look moderate. You know. Somebody's out there, that makes the rest of us look like we're moderates so it has that, whether or not it's intentional, it has that upshot.

Phil [Last name unknown]: That would be corporations that pull up on that and use their PR devices to...

Judy Donald, What I'd like to do now -- sorry to cut you off Phil, that's my job -- is just, I want to get it into an open discussion, but I want to use as a case study Montana. Anybody here work and live in Montana right now--or fund? Good. I can say whatever I want. [Laughter] No, please correct me if I make the, this thumbnail sketch any way inaccurate.

But Montana is a place where you've got a progressive coalition already, with labor and environmentalists working together, and have a history of working together. Although you have an environmental community that's not terribly unified, unfortunately. But you find that everywhere.

Montana is a place where there is a tradition of grass roots organizing on the part of the environmental community, with many groups employing field organizers who really know what they're doing. It's a place where there has been some thinking already, that's been going on about the economic future of how to make the transition from a state that is heavily dependent on resource extractive industries to -- something else. Studies, you know, responsible studies have been done on that. But it is still a heavily resource extractive industry with grazing and timbering and gold mining.

The other pieces of the puzzle is that--I'm sure my boss will like this--it's a pretty hot political context there right now--contest--with the two incumbent Congresspeople--they happen to be men, congressmen--battling it out for the single congressional seat that will remain after redistricting. And those two fellows happen to be polar opposites on most issues. and finally, it's a state that has been very fertile ground for and because of that last point, it's been very fertile ground for wise use organizing. There are some paid field organizers there for at least a year working up the emotions.

So what has been the response by the existing organizations in the state, by national organizations to what's been going on. What are the -- What's been going on, what have funders been doing?

One has been to beef up the amount of grass roots organizing that's already going on. It's kind of a base line concern, to just make sure that we're still, it's neighbor to neighbor, that we're talking to each other, adding additional field organizers on our side.

Getting more information, there have been discreet polls that have been funded to find out if the people's perceptions, or the assumptions of what people think about say the 1872 Mining act are really true, and that's been very useful information in a political sense as well as strategic sense for the environmental community there.

Folks have gone through some media training so that they can better respond to what's been going on and have a maybe more active aggressive strategy on how to deal with media.

There's been one national group, the Wilderness Society, that has set up a mini-grant program that has been able to direct $563 dollars to a particular group for a particular action at the right time and it's much faster response mechanism than I think any of us are able to do, including the Beldon Fund.

And so that's been very helpful. It's helped at least a half a dozen groups there in a very key and quick way. And Montana, because of its location as a progressive state generally, or at least in the past, is beginning to play an important regional networking role. Because as Deb has said, this is not an isolated phenomenon in just a couple of states, it's national, although the issues do vary across the region.

As so the groups in Helena and Bozeman and Missoula are connecting with groups in Wyoming and Idaho and Colorado, and cross fertilizing and exchanging information and that's also a very important function. So there's all kinds of opportunities for funders to be involved at any of those layers. And that's just a single state.

And I think we need to throw it open now to see what thoughts and actions perhaps this room can generate on other responses to the threats that Deb has laid out.

Debra Callahan: Or what kind of projects other people are funding.

Judy Donald, What other opportunities do you see out there that...

[end of Conference Recording Service tape. Short break in tape. Next Conference Recording Service tape spliced here, begins in mid-sentence.]

Unidentified male audience member: ...a major opportunity is on the tactics used in the 27 rural counties in Southern Oregon and Northern California. You have a committee of Wise Use advocates goes to our county board of supervisors and asks for emergency amendments to the County Master Plan to incorporate what Wise Use Agenda as an emergency into it. It's been very difficult given the short time frames that they used and the pressure tactics they've used for the local environmental groups to respond with numbers of people like the usually one or two hearings the boards have held on this. And strategically I think it would be very important to have a rapid response group to fund and assist the local people to respond to these initiatives for emergency, these demands for emergency amendments to the County Master Plan, which basically are [indistinct] you can't do anything to interfere with private property rights.

Judy Donald, I think that's right. I think there's a vast difference, staying with Montana, in what happened last year when there were hearings on the Greater Yellowstone Vision Document, where basically the environmentalists got blown away by opposition, and just vehement opposition. This year there were important hearings on Wolf Reintroduction to Yellowstone where environmentalists blew away the other side, because they were really geared up, they put a lot of emphasis on it. It's, and I mean, their hearings had been called by the right wing just as a opportunistic--to turn out their own side. Well, they were wrong. We were fortunately better organized this time. So it is being prepared for those hot organizing opportunities. I'm sorry, you should go.

Unidentified female audience member: Basically I have questions either for Montana or also more generally, I wonder whether those most active in the wise use movement, whether there's an age range that, you know, whether there's any demographic profile, whether it's men and women or primarily men, to what extent it overlaps with the right wing community that is active on other social issues, and particularly with the fundamentalist community in this country, and also, last question, to what extent it has infiltrated--I think that's too strong a word--but to what extent it has been active within the Republican Party.

Judy Donald: [Laughs] There's a bit of confluence.

Debra Callahan: Yeah. It, it it... Alright. Boy. It's so, this is a, such an, it's a such a difficult movement to track in a lot of ways. First of all, I guess, some of the demographic questions. I would say--this is flying by the seat of my pants, because we haven't commissioned a poll of wise use members about, to find out who they are. It would be great to get a list so you could do that, though.

But generally speaking, you see as many women as men. Again because who this is appealing to is, is families who are associated with the impacts of logging, with the impacts of mining -- miners' families. And so it's not just the people who tend to be men who are directly associated with that activity. And in fact there are groups that are -- Women in Timber is a wise use group. There are some women's organizations.

And so I believe that you're not going to find -- as far as age range -- same thing is true. Some of these groups were started by people who are in their late teens, early twenties. And some of these groups you see are headed by older people. So I don't -- again I think you're getting a cross section. If you're gonna find a demographic it's either gonna be, you know, region and what your economic base is. And also, you know, you don't see rich people aligned with the western wise use movement. In the east, when you're dealing with property rights, it's developers and real estate people. And there you find the money. So it's very different based on what is the issue that you're lumping in as wise use.

With respect to the Republican Party, I'm getting into real deep water here because I'm getting into some conjecture. And I do have an opinion that I'm not going to share, but what I can say is that on the face -- we do know that the head of the Vice President's Council on Competitiveness went to and addressed and received an award at this Reno conference, the most recent wise use conference, organizing conference.

And you have seen figureheads like Ollie North, G. Gordon Liddy, Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson using the same words, and you don't know -- see if I want to talk, it's really easy to get into conspiracy theories here and you gotta get really careful. And you wanta pursue it, but it's very hard. But if you look at the right wing fundamental movement, it was really fueled by the communist threat, all right? And it's been fueled by some other issues of the day like abortion.

Communism in Eastern Europe for all intents and purposes is really not a coalescing issue for that right wing movement any more. The abortion issue is not quite, it appeals to a lot of people like it's somewhere down the road. And the terms that they use, they call us communists, OK? So I think that you can theoretically hypothesize that this movement makes a great next step for the fundamentalist right wing because it's about the same issues. It's about individualism versus the Federal government, it's Federalism, right to regulate. A lot of the same issues here. And you do find the John Birch Society and some of these same groups crossing over. So again, it's not something formal, but you can, your gut level you instinctively sort of say there's a lot of movement. And that's where you draw your membership from. Again that's your base-line I think.
Judy Donald: Anybody want to talk about other thoughts they have on strategies that we need to be pursuing?

Unidentified female audience member: When you call groups a wise use, I mean do they, do you have to join like an EGA of wise use people, or is it just you're applying the term wise use to just whatever groups are out there?

Debra Callahan: I'm using the term wise use very loosely. There is a wise use organization, and that is Ron Arnold's organization, it's the Center for Defense of Free Enterprise. And in fact it's not a hugely big membership organization. They're the folks who convene a lot of these coalition building national meetings. Those folks don't join, but they do work together or talk, or try to work together. I think of it as a confederation. In fact there's some indication that there's the multiple use movement, and the wise use movement. And these two factions hate one another.

And then there's the Farm Bureau and this that and the other thing. So we're using the term loosely, but it -- again the tie that binds is the message, the language, and this anti-Federal regulation, and anti-environmental regulation place that they want to get to, objective.

Judy Donald, Pat?

Pat __________, audience member: Back to strategy again. One observation and then a question. The observation is that it's not just the greenies who are in the opposition at the local level. It's the elk hunter that goes back and finds clearcut all across where his favorite hunting spot was. So there's potential for local coalitions that stretch across what would be traditionally environmentalist tags. My question is this, Deb, if you're right about this being grass roots movement, I don't think hardly any foundation in this room can actually get to the grass roots with grantmaking activities, and that brought up the re-granting possibility. Whether or not those small grants, whether they're $500 or $250, which in some cases can make an extraordinary difference in public education, whether there are vehicles in different states for re-granting, should one be interested in that sort of program.

Debra Callahan: I have a list of things that people who don't do direct grass roots funding might be able to--just some suggestions, and for what to watch out for. But I'm going to preface this with a statement that in fact what I would consider to be some of the, probably the majority of the best wise use organizing being done around the country a) isn't done as like in a vacuum anti-wise use organizing, it's done in the context of an issue campaign, it's done in the context of endangered species protection, it's done in the context of wetlands protection. It's done in the context of other things.

So probably most of you in this room have actually, or many of you in the room, have actually made grants that have supported environmentalists whose adversaries are largely wise users. So in fact you may already be engaged in some of this. And some of the best, you know, most effective organizing that we're seeing done is at the grass roots level, but there is an important role that I believe at every level of this community for activism on this wise use issue. So I'm just going to throw out--I'm new here, and I'm not sure how proper it is to name names and things , so I'm going to do it anyway, because I'm just not sure if that's right or wrong. [laughter]

Judy Donald, Anybody want to tell her? [laughter]

Debra Callahan: First of all, there is in the making right now, a Western Meeting on Wise Use that is going to bring together groups from all over the Western states, together to discuss this and share information. Information sharing is critical so you don't recreate the world constantly.

Greater Yellowstone Coalition and Southern Utah Wilderness Association are gonna be co-sponsoring that meeting and it's not fully funded yet.

Ruth Hennig with the John Merck Fund up in New England has put together -- is in process of putting together a really wonderful program that is again a New England state coalition building effort of organizations that are working on wise use, and that's an effort that's being organized. It's gonna be very strategic and I think it's gonna be really powerful up there, up in New England. They've got some pretty heavy issues up there.

Arnold, Gottlieb and Cushman all just went up to Maine about four weeks ago for a meeting. And they've been up there twice this summer and we know something is percolating up there and we're not exactly sure what it is, but we're getting organized anyway.

Judy Donald, So the funding opportunities for regional networking is --

Debra Callahan: big up in New England --

Judy Donald, We only have two regions covered right now.--

Debra Callahan: So contact Ruth Hennig at the Merck Fund if you're interested.

Judy Donald, In the Southwest, Southeast, Pacific Northwest.

Unidentified male audience member: Pacific Northwest. You have a group here, I'd be happy to give you any help you need.

Debra Callahan: Yeah, there's ga-jillions. Let me keep moving through.

Judy Donald, I'm just letting others think...

Debra Callahan: I'm sorry.

Judy Donald, That's okay.

Debra Callahan: Mostly constituency groups. There's Western Organization of Resource Councils: These guys do interesting kind of work. They have been organizing for a long time with ranchers and miners and resource based people, farmers, who are being fought for by the Wise Use people and what they're doing is getting their members to engage in peer to peer organizing, which is the best way to deal with this, at the grass roots level. If you have a wise use organizer in your community and they're trying to organize miners on this, who better to go talk to them than a bunch of miners to slow down that progress? And environmentalist or another miner? Well, they've been working with these people for years. So the Western Organization of Resource Councils is one multi-constituency group that in a number of states wise use programs.

Judy Donald, Now just do the sub-title: More Grass Roots Organizing.

Debra Callahan: More Grass Roots Organizing. Sorry. [laughter] Another thing that is going on is that there is a national group collaborative effort that is going on right now between Sierra Club, Audubon, and National Wildlife Federation and Wilderness Society, for those of you who only fund national organizations. And that is going to be a grass roots effort, that is going to be funded through those national organizations. The New Voices Wilderness Society campaign -- the Wilderness Society has a pot of money and they're giving out mini-grants to grass roots groups--

Judy Donald, Throughout the west.

Debra Callahan: Throughout the west. Trustees for Alaska, for those of you interested in forestry, has a very interesting battle that they're waging up there right now. there's a forest products company has private land. Alaska Forest Practices Act says you have to leave a hundred foot buffer strip between a clearcut and a stream and so this forest company up there says, "Fine, if you want us to leave up those trees, we want the state to compensate us to the value of those tree that we normally would have cut.

SIDE 2

Debra Callahan: collecting a lot of information. This project has been going on for years and now they're focusing very heavily on this sort of wise use activity. And you'll be seeing over the next year a number of stories in the national press that has been generated by information from the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Those of us who were just up in BC, there's the Share movement up in Canada which is actually founded by Ron Arnold, our buddy down here in the lower 48, and they're very active and very powerful. There're opportunities up there.

Audubon and Environmental Defense Fund put together a coalition of takings. So that's another opportunity for those who don't fund at the local level. I don't know how many rules I just broke here, but--

Unidentified male audience member: I want to mention The Fund for Wild Nature which has a ten year track record as a foundation of funding small groups in the eleven Western states, in the rural counties of those western states and is an excellent, excellent way -- Some of the things they've funded have been counter newspapers where people working in industries could write in anonymous letters to the editor when they found themselves censured in their own company, to express their views. If anyone's interested in the Fund for Wild Nature I'll be happy to give you more information about that after the end of the meeting.

Judy Donald, I just wanted to shift your initial laying out of the issues a little bit. I think it's helpful to look at this, the whole wise use movement, to separate out the parts of it that address real concerns and the parts of it that don't, because our strategies should be different in those two cases.

The way I look at it is there is -- look at it three ways. 1) there is the right wing and its interplay with the wise use movement, and ideologically, the wise use movement provides a vehicle for the far right and that's a concern, a danger, and there are groups that monitor that and try to expose the connections between the right wing, the organized right wing and wise use.

Second, there's the backing, the financial backing which is largely from extraction industries. And there's a need of course to expose that, to make it clear whose movement this is, who's paying for it, in whose interest is it.

But third, there are, as Deb has made clear, ordinary people, grass roots organizations who obviously feel their needs are being addressed by this movement. And I think when we think -- so, leaving the first two aside, for a second -- when we address that third issue, which is I think where we should be thinking, putting most of our thinking, and most of our money. We have to have a strategy that also is addressing those concerns. And that cannot come simply from environmentalists. And that's, I think that's -- it can come just from us. That's the -- I think that's the dilemma here. People it's not simply that they don't get it, it's that they do get it. They're losing their jobs. And in one way or another, environmentalists have to, have to address that issue. And I think if we hold, if we for instance pay for meetings where environmentalists get together to forge a strategy to counter wise use we may be going down the wrong track here. We have to be encouraging meetings where environmentalists and non-environmentalists, you know, and people who are losing their jobs talk about their real, both of their concerns and together come up with a local solution, and of course in the process the connections to the right wing have to be exposed, the connections to the extraction industry have to be exposed, and that probably has to be done on a local basis and you know, it's not that they're -- and it's different in the west than it is on a legal takings issue. I mean all these things are different. Thinking about the west just for a minute, I think we really should be thinking about all the ways in which we can bring those two communities together. Barbara?

Barbara [Dudley?] Executive Director, North Shore Unitarian Universalist, Veatch Program, Plandome, NY]: I just want to add to that and I want to use a different kind of case study, because I think it's important not to just think about what we might fund to counteract this movement, but we need to think about what we shouldn't be funding. And I will give you -- because we have done a lot of funding of the family farm movement and let me tell you they are not fond of environmentalists. And deservedly so. There is a major environmental funder who is very big into sustainable agriculture whose quotation is now being spread throughout the family farm movement and it is: "I don't give a damn if we're left with only one farmer as long as he farms without chemicals."

And that, I can't tell you, from the work we've done with the family farm movement, how many times I have been embarrassed to be associated with environmentalists, and with environmental grantmakers and there are projects like -- I don't know how many of you funded the Beyond Beef campaign, but that project has done more damage to any potential alliance between family farmers or ranchers or cattlemen, and the environmental movement. And that follows from a pretty good alliance being built up around bovine growth hormone and other additives and things like that.

If we don't screen our own funding and think about what, what is this group saying about people's livelihoods and incomes and what are they saying about the jobs. What are these wetlands groups saying, you know? I mean, and how are they projecting themselves? If we see this as a battle, we're gonna loose. And I think that's just another aspect of what Karin was saying, but it's very important that we think about this question in all of our funding. We don't put it over here in this box called 'counter the wise use movement' and we fund something over there to do that. We have to live that notion. And it means we have to face the economy as a question. And what does sustainable development or a sustainable economy really mean, and we have to look at what every piece of the conservation funding might be doing as well.

Barbara Dudley: This is a class issue. There is no question about it. It is true that the environmental movement is, has been, traditionally as someone said over the last three days sitting up at the podium, this has been in the past an upper class conservation, white movement. We have to face that fact. It's true. They're not wrong that we are rich and, you know, they are up against us. We are the enemy as long as we behave in that fashion. And I think that is the portrayal of the national environmental movement but when you get down to the state level you don't have it.

Unidentified woman (?): That's right. You don't need to do it. But we need to watch that we're not undoing the good that we're doing on the one hand with the funding on that we're doing on the other.

Judy Donald, Yeah. Go ahead.

Another female voice, possibly Hispanic: Do you think that adds to our opportunities to fund grass roots movement and social justice, to see that the whole environmental movement has evolved and has become a people-oriented movement. I think that's very fundamental, too.

Judy Donald, Thank you, Arinbe. Frank, you were going to say something.

Frank _________: As Phil _________ said in better words that I could use, but I tend to be a middle of the roader and more mediation oriented, and the guidelines of our foundation. And I guess I'm hearing the us-and-them theme played out among people who I believe need to step back and be objective. So I really appreciate your comments. Because the Wise Use People are not a hundred percent wrong. And the environmentalists are not a hundred percent right. Somewhere in there we have to find a common ground. And I was going to ask the question, given the evolution of just the terms "wise use" and defining how they describe environmentalists, what are the environmentalists and the funders of those organizations doing in effication of those charges. And I think that that again is, stepping back and saying, "What are we funding? Are we funding Anti? Or are we funding Pro-people? Who's down there hurting? What's the need. And what's the ultimate long-term need of this community. And how are we dealing with them? And is all this through the environment?" That I think we tend to get caught up in the fight and lose the battle. And yet we possess the most powerful tool of all, and that's in addition to money, that is objectivity. Of helping in the guidance of how these organizations are operating.

Judy Donald, Perhaps you're always entirely objective, but...

Unidentified male audience member: You know, there's a funding partner here that I think isn't tapped fully, and that's the community foundations in this country. There are 350 of these community foundations. They tend to be pretty broad based. They're viewed in many of their communities as being impartial. And I think there's a great potential there to get to the grass roots using the community foundation system throughout the country.

Judy Donald, Should we shift now to the private property side of things, the takings side of things? Are people ready for another twist of the dial? I don't want to cut anybody off, I really wanted to go forward on --

Unidentified female audience member: I do want to say one thing. I think that some ways in the other meeting that's taking place this afternoon, in spirituality: aspects of the environmental movement, is something and how that gets represented through churches or other kinds of ethnic and cultural expression is a very positive aspect of what can be there to fill some part of peoples' needs. A positive aspect that can stand in contrast to "what are we going to do against them?"

Judy Donald, Bring in the value issues. Why don't you do a quickie on takings.

Debra Callahan: I can't. Okay, takings, conceptually you probably all know what this is about. The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution says that the federal government shall not take private property without just compensation. And originally the interpretations that the Supreme Court handed down said that meant the taking of physical property. In the last couple of decades the courts have determined that that also means a legislative taking of the value of property. Have begun to cut into that area. Therefore, as regulations for example restrict someone's ability to build a home on a piece of coastal property that is now being interpreted to be in some places a taking under the fifth amendment of the Constitution.

And there is an aggressive movement both at the national and the local level to continue to push that takings clause farther and farther and farther. So if you played it out to its very ultimate extent, it would really restrict local, state and federal governments' abilities to impose regulations restricting individuals abilities to, well, they would not be able to regulate individual activities, taken to the farthest extreme. There's a lot of activity around the country.

Judy Donald, Can I just ask how many lawyers are here in the room?

Unidentified audience member: [indistinct.]

Debra Callahan: How'd I do?

Judy Donald, Just checking.

Debra Callahan: Alright. So far 28 states have considered takings legislation in their state legislatures. Just this year three states passed conservative takings bills: Delaware, Arizona, and Washington State.

250 counties around the country, that we have been able to find, have considered takings bills at the county level and over 50 counties thus far have passed.

That's last year. We're coming up on a new legislative year in most states and we know, I mean it's as easy as counting the fingers on your hands, there's going to be a lot of activity with introducing these takings bills in state legislatures and local government level.

In Arizona, the environmental community attempted to place a referendum on the ballot to repeal that takings law which was passed by the legislature and signed by the governor. And I keep hearing it's back and forth, back and forth. A week ago I talked to the woman who was heading up that effort, and she said, "Deb, you know, we don't think we're going to get enough signatures. I looks like we might get just enough and a lot of them are going to get bounced off. And then I heard yesterday from someone that had spoken to her, and they got 15,000 more signatures than they needed to to get the referendum placed on the ballot. That would be historic in Arizona. Only twice before has Arizona had referendums placed on the ballot and both of them had to do with Martin Luther King holidays. So this is really something. you know, it's exciting to have environmentalists really pulling together down there. And they're actually looking to do some focus group work and polling that could be very crucial for these other states where they're battling takings bills both at the state and local levels. So that's one thing that I want to put in front of you. There's also a national effort right now with national groups talking about takings.

The other thing I'll just raise and then stop. There's something that I hadn't heard about previously till we had this report. It's called R.S. 2477. It's something I think we're going to be hearing about a lot pretty soon. It's a pre-Civil War statute that says, quote, the right of way for the construction of highways over public land not reserved for public uses is hereby granted. And this law was repealed in 1976. What it means is that if you can prove that there was a road or a hiking path or a donkey trail that went through what is now public land pre-, if that was there previous to 1976, then it's a right of way. And if you can go out in a proposed wilderness area, show that there was a donkey path or there was a cart road or something, then you can argue that this is not really going to be able to be considered wilderness area. It really going to impact some wilderness fights. And this is something which a lot of--and other kinds of protective actions. So this is something that a lot of these local Western counties and state governments takings advocates are starting to spend a lot of time is trying to track down these old roads and pathways so they can use that in these protection battles.

Did you want Chuck to talk to them about the national trust?

Judy Donald, What? Was that all clear to everybody? No, we'll see if it comes up. And why don't we tackle this one, tackle takings. And what ought to be done about it. Any thoughts out there? Otherwise, I'm going to turn to Chuck.

Unidentified female audience member: I was going to ask to what extent has [indistinct] the takings as regards states rights laws in the environmental area that can be used for environmentally positive things. I mean the other flip side of this.

Debra Callahan: There's a conversation that we should be pushing something called 'givings' where in fact environmental regulations protect the public interest and therefore we should be using those arguments in Supreme Court cases and other cases and it hasn't been developed a lot yet in the briefs that have been filed to the best of my knowledge.

Unidentified female audience member: Like in North Carolina they had a more stringent law passed about the water quality which then was triggered under federal regulation. And that allowed the group to use the [property of?] building a hazardous waste incinerator and so I mean, the same principle, I mean it's sort of the state's rights thing being used to go forward with things we think are environmentally beneficial.

Judy Donald, Chuck, why don't you talk about the national trust?

Chuck _______, National Trust for Historic Preservation: There are essentially two kinds of problems we're facing with takings, and one is far worse than the other. The first is reversible, and that is the legislative finding of a taking. That is, a legislative body, whether it be a county board or the U.S. Congress, saying that from now on something is a taking when in the past it was not. Some form of regulation on the use of land is now a taking. That's a big problem because, as Deb was saying, these kinds of laws, statutes, ordinances are being promoted throughout the country. But another Congress or county board or state legislature could reverse it. The other kind of taking matter that's going on is the further definition of taking through the courts. And all of you have heard about the Lucas case in South Carolina, which Deb was implying at one point and my understanding of the Lucas case is that we neither won nor lost on it, it was not a definitive case in the end. Although it may have been a narrowing of things that was not beneficial, but if, with the Supreme Court that we now have, that the definition of a taking is broadened through time in the case law, there could then be no reversal. It could be far worse than say, the choice issue where there actually is a Congressional fix if the Supreme Court does the wrong thing on Wade v. Roe. We could just be out forever. Or at least for a very long period of time. Were we to have a Supreme Court many years to come that would some way find its way back to redefine it.

Then I just wanted to point out that these are two kinds of things with much the same impact, potentially. But the courts is a far more serious matter in the sense of its potential permanence, where our ability to effectuate very much of what we've tried to do in the environmental arena could be just out the window forever. Or practically forever.

Judy Donald, Want to talk about some of the happening at the national level in the environmental community?

Chuck: Well, I don't quite know what all you want me to say about the national trust, but the National Trust for Historic Preservation has set up an advisory committee that is attempting to bring at least some constituencies together. I'm a member of it. It has invited representatives of the environmental community, parts of the planning community, land trust community. And the idea is to try to form or to identify some common ground, at least among these communities, and work together on this whole variety of wise use questions.

They are most interested in these taking issues as they apply to potentially eliminating their ability to promote regulation for the protection of historic structures or properties.

On the other hand they are certainly, I think, concerned and share the public land kinds of issues that are coming up with the wise use movement.

In any case, there have been several meetings of this group, and it has three subcommittees: Presently, one--and the one that's probably doing the most work and most productively--is a subcommittee of basically a group of lawyers who have been working on first of all trying to track all the court cases nationwide about the takings issue. And they had a number of meetings before the Lucas decision came down about message, and after that interpreting what actually had happened and so forth. And they I think have now received some funding for their ongoing work, and I think they're looking for some more. And I think the National Trust would be a kind of a Secretariat of sorts for a group that includes groups like National Audubon, EDF, National Wildlife Federation and others.

A second subcommittee that is active has been trying to do an inventory of all the activities going on about these legislative taking kinds of bills in state legislatures and the county-local government level. And anyway, they are talking about having, trying to have some kind of ongoing monitoring capacity and some kind of capacity to get the word out to all those who care about this and want to be involved in trying to counteract it. And to actually trying to have some kind of action network of alerting people to where problems are and what they can do about it.

A third committee, which I happen to chair, was set up to try to define the commonality of the communities that are represented on this advisory committee, and to come up with a positive statement that could be used in return of what we stand for versus what the wise users stand for. And a number of people have talked to me and have worked very hard and we have a draft of a statement of principles about that. And our mission has been broadened to try to do some of these things that Deb was talking about at the beginning of her first presentation about the defining message and so on. We have not really gotten to that part. And I'd be happy to talk to anybody individually afterward. And we're looking forward to a whole lot of help because we're going to need it.

But the original concept was to see whether we could form a broad alliance to try to counteract the problem of the wise use movement and their activities. And we have been having some real trouble within our subcommittee and the broader advisory committee in that there are some of us who define the problem more or less the way Deb did at the beginning as for looking at it as a broad environmental backlash movement in general in its broadest sense, which would go to things like protection of health and safety codes in the workplace and etc, etc.

Many on the committee do not really want to go beyond the area of real estate whether it be private or public. And this has gotten to be kind of a big debate and I guess that during the many discussions we've had during this conference, I guess I feel all the more reaffirmed in the position I've been taking there that we ought to be doing this broader and that we ought to be doing it even with a much broader potential coalition that involves certainly the equity questions and broader set of groups with other parts of society and really trying to instead of just talk about why regulation of land or regulation in general is good, really trying to define our vision of sustainability or whatever.

So in any case, at the last meeting, we sort of went round and around and around about all this and we're far from any consensus. And, but it's just one more forum where this debate we were having this morning and yesterday and so and so I'll be pointing out, it seems like every meeting I go to, we end up basically in the same kind of discussion.

Judy Donald, Karen?

Karen: I want to go back to what Ann was asking. Were you saying, were you asking or saying that the takings legal strategy had been used to protect our?

Ann: I was just wondering whether that had been the case. We've had a number of, you know, instances in the past which, where states rights had superseded, you know, federal legislation and the result has been very beneficial. So that states had rights to determine some kind of environmental law and to adjustments, [indistinct long sentence.]

Karen: I guess it would have to be that the government was taking something we had, our environmental well being [laughs]. It was for the preservation of open space which benefits society, or whatever.

Ann: That's the fundamental, that's always been, that's always been the basis of the Supreme Court cases. Historically has been this tug of war between the public interest and individual rights. And, and I guess what you could say is with the Supreme Court composition now being more conservative, this, this is the fundamental, it's going more towards the individual rights side and away from the public interest side where the more liberal courts have gone more towards the public interest side and away from the individual rights side. So it's sort of, that concept is part of the fundamental construct of the argument. And I don't know, you know, about the specific part of using, invoking the states rights or other rights over the federal...

Judy Donald, Barbara?

Barbara: Well, this is sort of off the top of my head, but it seems to me that this takings issue is kind of the ideological soft underbelly for the wise use movement in a way if we use it properly, in that it does -- it doesn't speak to the interests and the needs of the workers who are losing their jobs in whatever fashion. It speaks to the interest and needs and wealth of the owners and I think if we use it properly, as opposed to just going and litigating it quietly in a corner somewhere, if we use it properly and publicize it properly and talk about it in those terms, that you start to -- I think that the fundamental problem for the wise use folks is that there is no real convergence of interest between, if I might be blunt, the ruling class and the working class. [Barbara chuckles] Just in case you were wondering where I came from. [laughter] I mean in the end, the people who own the timber and own the mines are not in the same camp as the people who are working for them and they haven't done them very many favors over the last four centuries. So this temporary convergence against the environmentalists--

Unidentified male audience member: Remember one thing: they're doing a better job.

Barbara: They are doing a better job. That's right. And at lower and lower pay any chance they could get and they've introduced as many technologies as they could to displace as many of them as they possibly could. I mean they don't do it as a favor. So, if in fact we could separate those two parts of the wise use movement, i.e., the owners, who are fighting, you know, the timber companies and the mining companies are fighting the environmentalists, from the people who work for them by saying "Who's going to get this many millions of dollars that the county or state or whoever is going to, or the feds are going to have to pay back, from taxpayer money, i.e., all of us, who's going to get that money. It's not going to be the displaced workers. You can bet on that. No one's talking about dividing that money up and putting it in the pocket of the coal miners who aren't going to be able to mine or the loggers who aren't going to be able to log. So, it really is to me a very divisive issue for the wise use movement and that's how we need to see it. I mean we need to play it that way if -- I mean, we're gonna lose it in the courts, we might as well admit that to ourselves. I mean the Supreme Court's not on our side on this one.

Chuck (NTHP): I think it's an important reason to comment. It would be great if we could pick the battles that get played out to determine whatever the court cases are. If it could be an issue like you were just describing, that would be wonderful. But it may be over some ridiculous zoning statute that even isn't environmental. It may even be anti-environmental, but we would be defending because we have to defend regulation. And I think that's something that our people should be really looking at. Is there a way to play the game here so that the facts of the issue that's before a court, or the examples or case studies that are used in the argument of the legislative part are in fact things that play our way to really broaden the support base for land or property regulation.

Judy Donald, Well, we've hit 3:15. I think that means we're supposed to hit the kayaks next. So, I feel we somewhat scratched the surface, maybe dug a little deeper on some of the issues. But there's lots there and I certainly hope that many more of you will be exploring these issues in your grantmaking and continue networking among ourselves to come up with better ideas. Thank you all for coming.

[Applause]
END OF TAPE

What this is: The Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA) is a coalition of donor foundations that provide many millions in environmental grants each year. The EGA's annual retreats are strategy planning sessions during which grantmakers lay their plans for the coming year.

The classic gathering was in 1992, when key foundation leaders laid out their intentions to hijack the environmental movement with the goal of remaking the world in their own image. Twenty-four sessions of the 1992 annual retreat were taped by a professional recording service.

The Center purchased a copy of all 24 tapes and transcribed 8 selected tapes word for word without editing. These transcriptions reveal the hidden agenda of social control that lays behind the public face of environmentalism. Read the plans of these foundation minions in their own words. How much of what you see happening around you was orchestrated a decade ago by people you never heard of, who are not affected by their own actions, and who care nothing for your well-being?
Opening remarks by David Suzuki: 2000: The Challenge Ahead -
Session 2. North American Forests: Coping With Multiple Use and Abuse
Session 4. Population and the Environment
Session 8. Environmental Education K-12
Session 19. Environmental Legislation: Opportunity for Impact and Change
Session 21. Building an Environmental Majority
Session 23. Media Strategies for Environmental Protection
Session 26. The Wise Use Movement: Threats and Opportunities

(Note: I have reposted it here in an easier to read format - added paragraph breaks, etc. for the purposes of discussion)

RELATED:
W. Alton Jones Foundation helps to fund hundreds of environmental group

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USA Today - JONESTOWN MASSACRE: The Unrevealed Story

Another perspective...

JONESTOWN MASSACRE: The Unrevealed Story
USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Jan, 1999 by Jeff A. Schnepper

The testimony of Rev. Jim Jones' mistress opens a Pandora's box of sex, lies, drugs, politics, and murder.

IN NOVEMBER, 1978, the world was stunned by dramatic pictures and stories about Rev. Jim Jones and the mass suicide of hundreds of people in Jonestown, Guyana. While the deaths were real, the stories were fabrications created to cover up the theft of more than $26,000,000, planned mass murder (not suicide), and the fiscal rape of the treasury of San Francisco by corrupt politicians.

Jones' second in command, Teresa Buford, was a survivor of the massacre. Her confession, revealing the true nature of what happened, details Jones' blueprint for creating his own nation, funded by U.S. taxpayers' dollars stolen as part of San Francisco's corrupt political system. Buford's allegations have been supported by Charles Garry, Jones' first lawyer, eight boxes of notes and correspondence found by The New York Times, and newly unsealed records turned over to the California Historical Society. In my research, all discrepancies between what she alleged and what was reported in 1978 have been resolved by independent documentation supporting her position. I believe Buford. This is her story.

Terri Buford was Jones' mistress and financial manager of the Peoples Temple in California. The daughter of a former naval commander and spy, Buford reveals the mind control and brainwashing techniques used by Jones and his followers to manage the members of the Peoples Temple. That was just the beginning, however. Jones' objective was power. Using the Temple as a base, he manipulated its members to vote for and support local California candidates. Membership in Jones' church reached 20,000 in California by the early 1970s and his church had 13 buses used to transport large groups on short notice to any political rally or demonstration he supported. In the successful 1975 San Francisco mayoral campaign of George Moscone, Temple members went from precinct to precinct, voting over and over. Officials at the polling places never confiscated the voters' yellow registration forms. There were more votes cast than registered voters. When Moscone's opponent, John Barbagelata, complained about voter fraud, Jones sent him a box of candy with a bomb. Though the bomb misfired, Barbagelata muffled his complaints.

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Four hundred voter registration books disappeared and never were recovered, as the entire voting list of the 1975 election vanished without a trace. Timothy Stoen, then Jones' righthand man, was moved from Ukiah, Calif., to San Francisco as Assistant District Attorney and put in charge of the Voter Fraud Unit. In effect, the prosecutors were responsible for investigating themselves. The 1975 fraud resulted in not one conviction.

Those government officials he could not influence with his ballot power, Jones owned through drugs and blackmail. Buford was the head of Jones' "diversions" unit, formed specifically to blackmail politicians whose sexual activity was photographed or tape recorded. Allies were rewarded handsomely with financial and sexual favors. Millions of dollars then were stolen from the government of San Francisco by Jones and the Temple through the scheme of signing up adopted children for government benefits endorsed by politicians elected with phony balloting in rigged elections. These benefits were paid to the Temple by politicians empowered and owned by Jones. The children were put on the streets with $100-a-day quotas to be met by begging or suffer severe beatings for their failure.

Temple staff members were placed in key positions in the government to ensure the continued flood of new money. In Ukiah, Jones-controlled workers served in the Department of Social Services, Juvenile Hall, the Public Health Department, and the Offices of County Government. In effect, the entire local government was on Jones' payroll. In San Francisco, Jones himself was rewarded with the job of heading the city's Housing Authority.

Jones arranged free government housing for his Temple members. Properties that were in tax delinquency as well as repossessed, foreclosed, Veterans Administration, and HUD homes were kept apart from the city's public auction block and diverted to the Peoples Temple's holdings. Through Jones' Housing Authority position, he and his staff amassed a huge fortune in city properties, all considered tax-exempt due to the religious classification the Temple enjoyed. Jones was attempting to create a pseudo-religious empire modeled on the merger of religion and politics.

San Francisco Mayor Moscone and politician Harvey Milk were murdered in 1978, nine days after Jones' death. Temple member Bonnie Malman had been sent by Jones to have sex with Moscone long before he was mayor. She became his secret lover and a spy for Jones. Milk originally had been a Temple supporter who had been involved with Buford in the many sordid sex schemes involving California politicians. He saw Guyana as an experiment that "didn't work." Milk disassociated himself from the Temple and believed that Jonestown political forces were plotting his death to silence him. He was right.

Crying crocodile tears...

---- Mark Lovelace wrote:
February 23, 2007

Free Public Workshop Offered:

Bankruptcy 101:
Understanding the Palco Chapter 11 Case

Friday, March 2nd, 6pm to 8pm
Fortuna River Lodge

A coalition of environmental, labor, and forestry organizations are presenting a free public workshop to help the community understand the Pacific Lumber Company's bankruptcy. The workshop will be held at the Fortuna River Lodge on Friday evening, March 2nd, from 6 to 8 pm. The event is being sponsored by the Humboldt Watershed Council, the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment, and other partners.

The purpose of this workshop is to help the public understand what Chapter 11 is, how the reorganization process works, the specifics of the Palco case, and some of the possible outcomes. The event will feature a presentation by Peter Clapp, an attorney with many years' experience in corporate bankruptcy law. Mr. Clapp will explain the details of the process, what's at stake, who the parties are, and some of the significant issues which have emerged so far.

This educational workshop is designed to be useful to anyone with either a financial stake or an interest in the Palco bankruptcy, including workers, retirees, contractors, and community members. The presentation will be followed by a facilitated question-and-answer session to allow attendees to further explore the Chapter 11 process and specific relevant issues.

For more information, please contact:

Mark Lovelace, President
Humboldt Watershed Council
(707) 822-1166
sheds@humboldt1.com

ER - Dioxin listing a done deal

Despite the fact that the Water Board admitted they had violated thier process, they stood by thier flawed decision. No surprise. This is what bureaucracy does. If they make a mistake, staff compiles a cover argument that will protect them and they stand by the decision rather than risk getting sued themselves. Now everyone in Humbodt County - and the State will be paying the price for Baykeeper's self-motivated ploy.

Harbor District Chief Executive Officer David Hull runs through a presentation to the State Water Board, Tuesday afternoon detailing why the state should reconsider its October 2006 decision to list Humboldt Bay as impaired for dioxin under section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act. Nathan Rushton/The Eureka Reporter

Dioxin listing a done deal
by Nathan Rushton, 2/21/2007

Disappointment, but not surprise.

That is how an official from one of the primary agencies described the unsuccessful last-ditch effort by several area government agencies to pressure the state into reconsidering its decision to list Humboldt Bay as impaired for dioxin.

The listing matter was discussed during a State Water Resources Control Board meeting in Sacramento Tuesday.

Since Humboldt Bay was added to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s nationwide list of impaired waterways during the State Water Board Oct. 25, 2006, meeting, numerous agencies, including the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District, Humboldt County, the city of Arcata and several bay oyster producers, have been vocal and have lobbied the State Water Board to reconsider its decision on a variety of grounds.

Agencies have claimed the listing was a “failed process” that surprised nearly every bay stakeholder group and agency because the State Water Board approved its staff’s last-minute listing recommendation reversal following the review of 14 tissue samples of fish and shellfish that showed dioxin levels that exceeded state criteria, which had been submitted by the environmental advocate group Humboldt Baykeeper.

Improper procedures, inadequate solicitation of data and a lack of thorough review of too little data were also listed as reasons for reconsidering the listing the state and federal governments have called a done deal.

The four-member State Water Board patiently listened to the rehashing of arguments its staff had already rejected and addressed at length in an eight-page response letter to the environmental consultant Geomatrix, which was hired by the Harbor District earlier this month to petition the listing.

Geomatrix Principal Geologist Edward Conti told the board that removing Humboldt Bay from the list would allow a more “technically and procedurally acceptable” process, which he said would instill confidence in the public that it was inclusive and transparent.

State Water Board member Arthur Baggett said he could reconsider the listing if there were any major errors of law or fact.

“I don’t see that,” Baggett said.

An EPA representative confirmed for the State Water Board that the state had complied with the legal requirements for the listing and that the federal agency had already approved the state’s recommendation for the listing in November.

As well as not budging on reconsidering the listing, State Water Board staff told the board that delisting Humboldt Bay as impaired for dioxin would require “a higher level of proof.”

Although the combined 2004-06 listing cycle ended in October, the deadline for submitting data in support of delisting the bay or maintaining its current impaired status ends Feb. 28.

Harbor District legal counsel Russell Gans called the listing process “troubled” and added that the “indiscriminate” listing of the entire bay as impaired was similar to deeming a 16,000-room hotel as contaminated because a pollutant was detected on the shirt sleeve of a few patrons.

Another Geomatrix consultant read into the record a letter signed by 5th District Supervisor Jill Geist, who conveyed by proxy her frustration of the listing she said showed “significant shortcomings” and a “rush to judgment.”

Representatives from Humboldt Baykeeper, as well the California Coastkeeper Alliance, the organization representing several environmental “keeper” groups throughout the state, lined up in support of the listing.

While he commended State Water Board staff for their diligent work, Humboldt Baykeeper Program Director Pete Nichols called the Harbor District’s “show of force” at the meeting disconcerting and evidence of their willingness to waste taxpayer’s dollars on an already proven health issue.

Nichols said he will continue with the group’s efforts to characterize the contaminated sites around Humboldt Bay, but added he will look to work collaboratively with the Harbor District and other stakeholders in the future to get the clean up moving forward.

“We want to do both,” Nichols said. “But it would take a change of attitude on their part.”

At the conclusion of Tuesday’s meeting, Harbor District Chief Executive Officer David Hull said he was disappointed, but that he was shifting energy and directing Geomatrix to prepare for the 2008 listing cycle to meet next week’s deadline.

“I am pretty confident that we are going to have a lot of information in the record this time — something that they didn’t have when they made this decision,” Hull said.

Although he said it is odd to only have a three-month window to gather the necessary delisting data that the state will take two years to review, Hull said it is indicative of the effort that should have been done for their last decision.

State Water Board staff announced a workshop meeting has been scheduled for staff to discuss with the public the “lessons learned” during the 2004-06 303(d) listing process in preparation of finalizing the 2008 listing cycle.

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

ER - HCAOG DISCUSSION GETS HEATED

"...“It’s an attempt by a mid-level bureaucratic political whore to bitch-slap me in public because he doesn’t like the way I vote,” Rodoni said." (well, ok the i-t-c-h was bleeped out)

HCAOG DISCUSSION GETS HEATED

by Nathan Rushton, 10/4/2006

It was a seemingly innocuous agenda matter scheduled for Tuesday’s meeting of the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors to discuss who should represent the board at the Humboldt County Association of Governments.

Responsible for how state transportation funding is spent in the county, HCAOG’s eight-member board of directors — made up of a representative of each of the incorporated cities and the county — wields considerable power.

But fueled by the contentious issue of the Hoopa Valley tribe’s long-standing, but unsuccessful, efforts to become a member of the HCAOG board of directors, the supervisors’ meeting turned into a political struggle that threatened to disrupt the relative calm of the board, which has generally found agreement on almost every issue.

Board chair John Woolley said he scheduled the matter to seek clarification as to who should represent the board in light of HCAOG’s bylaws, which state it is the board’s chairperson who should fill that position.

What he got from 2nd District Supervisor Roger Rodoni, who has been the board’s delegate for 10 years, was a caustic charge that the matter was arranged by Woolley to get rid of him, which he described as a “low move” that would forever change the atmosphere of the board.

“It’s an attempt by a mid-level bureaucratic political whore to b***h-slap me in public because he doesn’t like the way I vote,” Rodoni said.

Woolley responded by saying that he wasn’t there to criticize Rodoni’s votes.

“I am just saying that this board took a stand and the representative — on the membership (issue) only — is looking at a different position right now,” Woolley said.

In January, the board unanimously approved, with Rodoni absent, to send a letter to HCAOG in support of its directors amending its bylaws to allow the Hoopa Valley tribe to gain a seat on HCAOG.

“I believe the issue of membership is really a board, not an individual, requirement,” Woolley said.

But Woolley said he had no intention of dictating to Rodoni or any other representative on the policies or issues facing the board, and “looking over that shoulder” of how a representative votes is not an effective use of government.

No action was taken to replace Rodoni.

First District Supervisor Jimmy Smith said he didn’t want to see the matter go sideways and asked that a subcommittee of Rodoni and 5th District Supervisor Jill Geist be formed to look at the issues and to come up with answers.

That motion was passed by a unanimous vote.

Smith said he hoped the HCAOG board would look at the matter more comprehensively and develop a strategy for establishing criteria that welcomes new members that meet the test.

Asked by Smith whether he would support the development of those criteria, Rodoni said that if the tribe came to the board as an equal, then it would be different.

“With the way it is right now, I would say no,” Rodoni said. “Those issues have not been addressed and those have not been settled to the point that everyone can agree.”

As sovereign nations, Rodoni said tribes don’t have to play by the same rules as other forms of elected governments.

In an interview following the meeting, HCAOG Executive Director Spencer Clifton said there has always been a political conflict over whether individuals representing a board can vote their conscience or if they should represent their board’s will.

But if each of the eight HCAOG directors had to go back to their respective boards for direction on each vote, Clifton said it would paralyze the agency.

Clifton said that when HCAOG’s charter was drafted, it was with the understanding that the board’s chair changed annually and that it allows the chair the flexibility to be the representative or to appoint a designee.

Although he said he doesn’t play favorites, Clifton said HCAOG has relied on representatives who have the transportation experience and background to make decisions and that the learning curve of bringing on a new member could occupy half of the time they serve.

“That is a significant issue for me,” Clifton said.

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

NCJ - BAYKEEPER LAWSUIT

BAYKEEPER LAWSUIT: Meanwhile, a tad inland from the bay, the environmental watchdog Humboldt Baykeeper has filed the first part of a two-part lawsuit against Union Pacific Railroad Company, accusing it of failing to adequately clean up contaminants from its "Balloon Track" site near Eureka's waterfront.
The Balloon Track was home to a railroad maintenance, switching and freight yard, built in the 1880s and now defunct. It's where Rob and Cherie Arkley, of Security National, propose to build their Marina Center, a mixed-use and retail development featuring a Home Depot as the "anchor" store. The Arkleys' purchase of the site from Union Pacific is pending. In the meantime, they're pursuing zoning changes on the site which would allow building to proceed. Most of the parcels that make up the site are currently zoned for public facilities.
Some people like the Arkleys' plan. Others balk at the proposed zone change, and want the property to be completely cleaned up of old railroad gunk and soaked-in contaminants — a process that could entail extensive excavation and earth removal — and returned to some semblance of the tidal marshland it once was, or at least to open space.

Humboldt Baykeeper's Pete Nichols alleges that cleanup at the site hasn't gone far enough to prevent pollution from seeping into the groundwater and eventually into the bay. And if the zoning is changed from public to commercial, he says, less cleanup will be required: The worst stuff can be cleaned up, and the rest paved over. Whereas, if it were going to be a park, for instance, it would have to be scoured more deeply to make it safe for human contact.

Security National spokesman Brian Morrissey says the company is planning to do more clean-up at the site, and will cap it to prevent leakage into the ground. And, the company plans to take out extra insurance to cover unforeseen costs that might exceed the up to $2.5 million estimated cost of the cleanup. Morrissey said Tuesday afternoon that he didn't think the lawsuit would delay the Arkleys' plans to purchase the property. He also said that, while he hasn't seen the lawsuit, he also hasn't seen "any facts or data to suggest that Union Pacific is not in compliance with the law."

In a Sunday Times-Standard story, North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board senior engineer Tuck Vath was quoted as saying that Union Pacific had done "everything we asked of them, so far."
Nichols disagrees, and says Baykeeper will file the second part of the lawsuit in June.

— Heidi Walters

NCJ - BAYKEEPER WARNS U.P.

BAYKEEPER WARNS U.P.: Local watchdog Humboldt Baykeeper notified the Union Pacific Railroad Company last week it intends to sue unless UP cleans up its "Balloon Track" property in Eureka -- home of the proposed "Marina Center"/Home Depot development that got its first hearing at the Eureka City Council Tuesday night, after the Journal's press time. The property, notes Humboldt Baykeeper in a news release, used to be "an undeveloped tidal marsh" before train tracks were looped through it and a maintenance, switching and freight yard installed in the late 1880s.

Pollution from the operations has been seeping into the tidally influenced groundwater, the bay and nearby slough ever since, says Pete Nichols, program director for Humboldt Baykeeper. UP has been under a clean-up and abatement order since 1998, Nichols says, "and they haven't completed the monitoring or really complied with the order yet."

Nichols says a proposal to change the zoning of the Balloon Track property from public use to commercial use would result in a lesser quality clean-up. "If it's zoned commercial -- if it's not going to be residential -- you don't have to consider the impacts to public health. You can just pave it over. Union Pacific polluted this for a hundred years. It should clean it up. It shouldn't just be limited to commercial use because it's polluted."

A Union Pacific official referred inquiries about the threatened lawsuit to the Association of American Railroads. The only person allowed to talk about it over at AAR, Kirk Marckwald, was out of the office and will be unreachable until he gets back at the end of this week.

Baykeeper and CATs say that they were forced to bring suit

Media Release 07/05/06: Humboldt Baykeeper, Californians For Alternatives to Toxics File Suit over Dioxin "Hot Spot"

Dioxin Levels near Former Simpson Timber Plywood Mill Confirm Systemic Problem Around Bay

--
Map of the PCP and Dioxin Sites (680 kb pdf file)
--

(Eureka, CA) Humboldt Baykeeper and Californians for Alternatives to Toxics (CATs) filed suit in federal court today. They are asking the court to order Simpson Timber Company and Preston Properties to clean up toxic contamination at the old Simpson Plywood mill, currently the site of Flea Mart by the Bay, on Del Norte Street in Eureka.

The site was contaminated with the wood preservative pentachlorophenol (“penta”) more than twenty years ago, when Simpson used penta to treat the marine plywood made at the mill site. Penta – a known carcinogen in its own right – is widely known to be contaminated with the much more toxic dioxin, the same toxic chemical found in Agent Orange.

Baykeeper and CATs say that they were forced to bring suit because dioxin-laden soil was still on site, impacting Humboldt Bay and the Eureka Marsh. Simpson and the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (Regional Board) have been negotiating clean-up of the site for over fifteen years.

Most recently, Simpson has filed a report with the Regional Board requesting no further clean-up of the site. Pete Nichols, Director of Humboldt Baykeeper said, “Simpson recently asked the Regional Board to sign-off on their proposal that no further action be taken to clean-up the site.” Nichols added, “After fifteen years of talk, it is quite clear that the Regional Board is not going to make Simpson find and remove the bulk of the contamination.”

The 2003 report to the Regional Board, produced by SHN Consulting, claimed that SHN had removed contaminated soil along the drainage ditch leading to Humboldt Bay and that, “the primary areas of concern were removed.” But, Nichols noted, “Simpson and SHN never tested the ditch area for dioxin, even though the law requires it.”

In April, Baykeeper consultants sampled mud from the same ditch Simpson and SHN said they had cleaned up. Baykeeper found dioxin at levels tens of thousands times higher than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers safe. The sampling also revealed high levels of dioxin in Bay sediments, where the ditch empties.

According to the EPA, dioxin is one of the most potent carcinogens known and causes a range of birth defects in children who are exposed when they are in the womb, including diabetes, and sexual and behavioral abnormalities. The suit alleges that the parties have created a human health risk from the dioxin contamination around the site and environmental harm to Humboldt Bay, the Eureka Marsh, and groundwater under the site.

Patty Clary of CATs said, “Humboldt Bay is one of the most important mariculture centers on the west coast, and this contaminated site is directly adjacent to the only public fishing pier on the Bay.” CATs has been fighting for years with the Regional Board to require dioxin sampling at all penta-contaminated sites. "Penta remains toxic in the environment for many years, but dioxin is worse in every way, persisting as a hazard for generations unless we clean it up,” Clary stated.

TS -Humboldt Democrats focus on becom ing effective locally

Humboldt Democrats focus on becom ing effective locally
James Faulk The Times-Standard
Article Launched: 02/15/2007 04:13:43 AM PST

EUREKA -- The Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee in this off-year continues its efforts to put into effect the visions and strategies concocted over the past two years to make their party more effective locally.

This year is one that does not feature a major local election, so the central committee chose at a recent meeting to make this time one of planning and improvements. That effort got a dose of discussion at Wednesday's meeting of the committee.

The ventures include four different categories: public relations and activism, framing debates, precinct work and candidate mentoring.

”We have an opportunity where we could just take a rest ... or we could really use the time more effectively,” said committee Secretary Elaine Gray.

A series of work groups met on the four topics on Feb. 3, and developed a list of issues and potential solutions that was presented to the committee.

Discussion centered around how the ideas should be fermented and forwarded, with some concerned with how the work groups would work with the party's existing committee structure. Some, for example, worried that the group focused on framing political debates might be stepping on the toes of the current

Advertisement

Communications and Education Committee.
But CEC Chairman Greg Conners said that lessons on framing messages are not necessarily the exclusive territory of his committee, although the message as put forth by the overall HCDCC should come first through his body.

Roger Smith pointed to the work of conservative partisans in honing their message, and said the discussions about how to frame debates is just about making sure everyone in the committee is equipped to eventually defeat Republicans in upcoming elections.

”There's a much bigger goal,” he said.

In other business, it seemed a good-natured homecoming when Richard Marks, former candidate for 4th District supervisor, was elected again to the HCDCC. Marks expressed frustration during the election when the committee chose to endorse a Republican -- current 4th District Supervisor Bonnie Neely -- over him.

But bygones were bygones, said committee Chairman Patrick Riggs, who ultimately voted to support Marks.

Marks was also asked if he'd exclusively vote to support Democratic candidates, given his recent support of Virginia Bass in the last Eureka mayoral election. Marks then pointed out that Democrats in the room had supported Neely against him. His election was almost unanimously supported.


James Faulk can be reached at 441-0511 or jfaulk@times-standard.com.

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Oh-so-ethical spawn - The Virtual Activist

You think these guys are not at war?

The Virtual Activist
A Training Course

Part 5: Privacy, Security, Copyright, and Censorship
Privacy
Mailing list privacy issues

All mailing lists (also known as listserves) are managed via email - a form of communication that is inherently insecure. Sending mail via the Internet is like sending a postcard through the post office - given the time and resources, anyone who wants to read your mail can do so. So the tips below will not completely ensure secure and private mailing lists.

One way that you can circumvent some security issues is by using Web-based commercial list services like those discussed in Part 2B. These services often provide all the capabilities of commercial mailing list software - mass emailing, easy subscription and unsubscription procedures - with easier management, better security, and extra options like archival abilities. As noted in Part 2B, however, while these services are usually free there are some drawbacks. The companies that provide them attach short advertisements to the top or bottom of all mailings, and most include terms of use that give the service ownership of the content of your lists. You can find a listing of "community groups" at http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/Chats_and_Forums/Mailing_Lists/.

Tips for operating your organization's list:
• Encourage people to use "disposable" email addresses when signing up for your mailing list. (See "Tips for Mailing List Members," #1, below, for information on "disposable" email addresses.) While this policy is impossible to strictly enforce, you can promote it by suggesting it on the mailing list sign-up page of your Web site and other written material that includes information about signing up for your organization's list.

• Hide the list membership when you configure the list. Unless the list administrator explicitly disables the ability for outsiders to view the list membership, anyone on the Internet can view the entire membership of a mailing list with a simple e-mail command.

• If your list is used for announcement purposes rather than open discussion among members, you'll want to configure your list to restrict posting privileges. Allow only staff members or trusted volunteers to post to the list, rather than allowing all subscribers to post. This will help prevent spammers or email harassers from attacking your members.

• If your list is used for open discussion among members, you'll want to configure your list to be moderated (see Part 2B.) Designate a staff member or trusted volunteer to serve as moderator and approve every post before it is sent. This will help prevent spammers or e-mail harassers from attacking your members.

Tips for mailing list members:
• Use a "disposable" e-mail address when signing up for mailing lists. "Disposable" e-mail addresses minimize the risk in the event an unauthorized person gains access to the list membership.

• A good "disposable" e-mail address has two characteristics: strangers cannot easily gain information about the sender merely by looking at the address, and the "disposable" address is separate from a personal or work e-mail address. The e-mail address "audrie@netaction.org ," for example, would not make a good "disposable" address, because strangers can easily decipher that the address belongs to someone at NetAction whose first name is Audrie.

• Good places to obtain "disposable" e-mail addresses are websites that offer free webmail, such as Yahoo! or Hotmail. You can find a listing of free e-mail sources at Yahoo's listing of free e-mail sources.

• Consider using a "screen name," rather than your real name or a combination of your initials and name, when subscribing to mailing lists or posting to newsgroups.

World Wide Web privacy issues

The Internet allows users separated by thousands of miles to communicate instantaneously, and the physical distance between users can lead to a false sense of security. In reality, the World Wide Web is highly insecure. If you want to see exactly how much information can be obtained about you and your computer when you visit a Web site, take the test at http://www.privacy.net/analyze/.

Cookies
Internet "cookies" are text files that Web sites place on the hard drive of your computer when you visit the site. Some people don't like having their online movements tracked, and view cookies as a threat to their privacy. Other people aren't troubled by cookies. Whether or not you like having your movements tracked on the Internet, cookies were created for legitimate business purposes. Online shopping sites, for example, use cookies to "remember" which items you have placed in your "shopping cart."

How dangerous are cookies? Cookies are simple text files, so they cannot transmit viruses or cause any other damage to your computer's hard drive or to your data. But there are good reasons to be concerned about your privacy. Both Netscape Communicator and Internet Explorer, the two most popular Web browsers, contain several potential major security holes related to cookies. For example, one privacy monitoring Web site (http://privacy.net/) discovered a bug in both Netscape and Internet Explorer that allows any Web site to download all cookies on a user's computer. Though the bug occurs in only one out of thousand computers, it allows Web sites to obtain e-mail addresses, passwords, and other sensitive information from affected browsers. (For more information on this bug, see http://privacy.net/cookiebug/.

Tips for using cookies:
• Give your Web browser a free upgrade to the latest version, which should include a patch that fixes cookie-related security bugs like the one described above. You can update Netscape at http://home.netscape.com/ and Internet Explorer at http://www.microsoft.com/ie/.

• If you want to know how often Web sites place cookies on your computer, set your Web browser's preferences to alert you when sites are about to place cookies on your computer, and then visit some of your favorite Web sites. Most browsers have three options for cookie notification:

• You may choose to have your browser accept all cookies without first informing you.

• You may have your browser ask you whether a cookie should be accepted every time a Web site tries to place one on your computer.

• You may refuse all cookies.

• In Netscape, you will find these options under Edit --> Preferences --> Advanced. In Internet Explorer, go to Tools --> Internet Options --> Security", click on the button that says Custom Level and scroll down to the section entitled Cookies.
Since many cookies are harmless, and popular websites such as Hotmail and Amazon.com utilize them in many transactions, you may not want to deny all cookies. The second option - asking your browser to inform you when a website presents you with a cookie - affords you the option to deny a cookie from websites that you may not trust.
Cookie information links

• Cookie Central - A nicely designed site that tells you everything you ever wanted to know about cookies, good and bad. Includes bug alerts, ways to disable cookies, and the friendly uses of cookies.

• Junkbuster's How Web Servers' Cookies Threaten Your Privacy - Clear-cut guide on why cookies are bad, and how you can disable cookies.

• EPIC's Cookies Page - Links to articles on problems with cookies, as well as the Internet Engineering Task Force's proposal to fix many of the problems with cookies.
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

SSL is an Internet standard that provides for the safe transfer of personal information, such as a credit card number, over the Internet. It does this through encryption, a process that scrambles the information you type on a Web page into a code that can only be read by someone with the specific key to unlock that code. When directed to a Web page using SSL, your browser will automatically encrypt all information that you submit to the Web site. Any time you are asked to provide sensitive personal information on a Web site - such as your credit card numbers or home address - you should use a secure Web site, as explained below.

Tips for conducting safe online transactions using SSL:

• Your Web browser will automatically encrypt information for you, using its highest level of built-in protection. Older browsers, however, may not utilize 128-bit encryption, the highest level of protection currently available. You can upgrade your browser to use 128-bit encryption for free, by visiting http://home.netscape.com/ for Netscape, or http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ for Internet Explorer.

• Always ensure that your connection uses SSL before conducting business on the Internet. Look at the bottom left corner of your Web browser. If the Web site uses SSL, you will see a closed lock icon in Netscape, or a key icon in Internet Explorer. Also look at the Web address (URL) locator bar in your browser. Transactions using SSL will have addresses that begin with https:// instead of the standard insecure http://.

• Always print a hard copy of online transactions after you fill out the Web page form - and do it before you hit the "Send" or "Submit" button. Keep a printed record of the company's contact information, including the email address, phone number, and URL, in a safe place.

Web site privacy policies

Any Web site that asks you for information should explain its privacy policy and tell you up front what it intends to do with that information. A good privacy policy will tell you exactly what information the Web site collects from visitors, as well as how that information will be used. For example, if the Web site includes a mailing list sign-up form, the policy should disclose whether your address will be shared with other Web site operators without your permission.

Examples of robust privacy policies include:
• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
• Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR)
• People for the American Way (PFAW)

Spam

When not referring to the canned pinkish meat, "spam" refers to the mass mailing of unsolicited e-mail. ("Spam" also refers to the unsolicited or junk e-mail itself.) Like traditional junk mail sent through the post office, spam is annoying and wasteful, and at times deceitful or offensive. Examples of spam include e-mail advertisements for consumer products, pornographic material, and get-rich-quick scams. Internet hoaxes, the virtual equivalent of urban legends, are another form of spam, as is unsolicited political e-mail.

Spam is wasteful for several reasons. E-mail users across the world waste time downloading, reading, and deleting unwanted e-mail. Furthermore, spammers (the people who send spam) usually target large groups of e-mail users, adding significant stress to mail servers, the computers operated by Internet service providers to send and deliver their customers' e-mail. In the worst cases, spam can completely overwhelm a mail server, causing it to shut down and preventing the ISP's customers from sending or receiving any e-mail.

Sometimes it can be hard to determine whether a particular email message is spam or is useful, wanted information posted to a mailing list for outreach purposes. If you manage a mailing list for your organization or your own personal activism, use the tips below to make sure that you don't alienate your subscribers by sending them spam.
How to avoid becoming a spammer

• Don't send out unsolicited mass e-mailings, or subscribe people to mailing lists without their permission.
•
• Never post action alerts to email discussion lists or news groups on unrelated issues. If your action alert is about clean air, you're likely to get flamed if you send it to a discussion list focused on free speech.

•
• If you want to create your own mailing list, start by sending a message to appropriate discussion lists and newsgroups, announcing the new list and inviting people to subscribe. "Appropriate" means the topic of the discussion list or news group is related to the issue you address in your message. Be as specific as possible about the topic and how the list will operate. Will it be an unmoderated discussion list, or a moderated announcement list? Will there be several postings daily, or one posting every few weeks?
•
• As explained in Part 2B, avoid using the "To" and "Cc" fields when sending messages. Put your own e-mail address in the "To:" field and use the "Bcc" field for all the other addresses.

• How to fight spam that you receive in your mailbox
• When you receive spam, do NOT reply to the sender and ask to be taken off of the list - even if the mailing instructs you to do so. Often spammers will take the e-mail address of the people who reply to spam mailings and add them to other spam lists.

• Use a "disposable" e-mail address when registering with websites. (See the section on mailing list privacy issues for more information on "disposable" e-mail addresses.)

Further steps to combating spam include reporting spammers to their ISPs, who will often take action against them by shutting down their accounts. Visit the Network Abuse Clearinghouse for more information on how to report spammers.
Links to more information about spam

• Boycott Internet Spam! - A thorough introduction to spam, why it's bad and ways to combat it.
• EFF's Spamming, Cybersquatting, Net Abuse, and Online Responsibility Archive - Press releases, letters to Congress, and articles by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group dealing with Internet and technology issues.
• EPIC's Spam Page - Includes information on anti-spam bills under consideration in Congress, in addition to links to articles on spam.
• Junk Email Resource - The resource center for information on the fight against spam. Includes links to spam-related lawsuits, a step-by-step form to report fraud conducted through spam, and other resources.
• SpamCop - After you register with SpamCop, you can copy and paste your spam e-mails into a text box and SpamCop will automatically report the offender to his or her ISP.
Security
As information technology has become increasingly important to the mission of many nonprofit organizations, so too has the need for computer security. Although the focus of computer security concerns has primarily been on the potential threat to corporate and government computer systems, computers are no less critical to the operations of nonprofit organizations devoted to serving the public interest. Moreover, many nonprofit organizations lack sufficient financial resources to recover from a cyber attack.Some risks are obvious:
• Without daily backups, an organization may lose important data when a hard drive crashes.
• Without regular updates, anti-virus software cannot protect an organization's computers from newly released viruses and worms.
• Without a firewall, malicious hackers can use an organization's server as a spam relay or a launch pad for a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack against a corporation or government agency.
Other risks may not be as obvious:
• Without adequate password protection a disgruntled employee could retrieve addresses from an organization's database and send threatening letters to donors.
• Without encryption, a nosy volunteer could access an organization's personnel records or confidential files.
• Without off-site storage of backups and a data recovery plan, electronic records could be permanently lost if an organization's computers were destroyed in a fire or other disaster.
In the winder of 2001-2002, NetAction conducted an online survey of security practices in nonprofit organizations to find out what nonprofit organizations are doing to prevent cyber attacks.We published the survey results in January 2002. Our checklist of cyber security practices can help you assess and improve your organization's computer security practices.
Copyrighted Material on the World Wide Web
Copyright laws apply to material published on the World Wide Web just as with books, articles, CDs, and videos. But many Web pages lack explicit copyright notices that inform visitors of what may or may not be downloaded or posted elsewhere, for public or private use.
When creating a Web site containing original material, it's a good idea to post a copyright policy in an easily noticeable spot. An example of an extensive copyright policy can be found at http://www.mlanet.org/copyright.html.
The "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" was enacted in October 1998 specifically to address Internet copyright issues. For more information on the DMCA, please visit the Association of Research Libraries' analysis of the bill at http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/dmca.html.
What Web material is copyrighted?
Unless explicitly stated otherwise, all original content on a Web site is copyrighted to the creator or owner of that Web site. If you would like to use content, text, or graphics from someone else's website, both common courtesy and the law dictate that you must first obtain that author's permission.
Web page addresses are merely links and cannot be copyrighted. However, a collection of links that an author compiled may be copyrightable, since it would be the author's original collection.
Because of the nature of the Web, it is not always easy to determine exactly what content on a Web site is subject to copyright laws. For some practical tips for dealing with copyrights on the Web, visit The Copyright Website: The WWW, at http://www.benedict.com/digital/www/webiss.htm.
For more information on copyrights and the World Wide Web, see the following sites:
• Intellectual Property on the Web - This site addresses several problematic questions having to do with copyrighted material on the Internet.
• Copyright and the World Wide Web - The Information Architecture division of the Los Alamos National Laboratory has written this short article on copyrights and the World Wide Web.
Censorship
Censorship is a complicated issue that divides some progressive groups that generally agree on other issues. Free speech advocates like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) have opposed any limitations on Internet speech, but other organizations worry that acts of violence may be promoted if there are no restrictions at all on hate speech. Planned Parenthood, for example, won a $109 million judgment against the authors of the "Nuremberg Files" Web site, arguing that the site incited visitors to conduct acts of violence against individual abortion providers. (See Planned Parenthood's press release and an alternative view on free speech.
Filtering software
The proliferation of pornography, hate speech, and other offensive content, as well as the potential threat of Internet predators, raises concerns among parents about what their children view online. Some parents use filtering software such as NetNanny and CyberSitter to block access to Web sites they consider inappropriate for their children, or simply offensive.
But filtering software can also inadvertently block useful Web sites. Most filtering software look for "keywords" when blocking specific Web pages. Yet Web sites that support breast cancer research, for example, may be blocked because they contain the word "breast."
For more information on the capabilities of filtering software and reviews of the most popular brands, visit PC Magazine's 1998 Utility Guide: Parental Filtering Utilities. For more information on the problems with filtering software, visit Peacefire.
Free speech resources
• Peacefire.org.
• Center for Democracy and Technology: Free Speech Online - A thorough, well-defined Web site on all things related to Internet censorship, including original publications, news on legislation and court cases, and resources for parents.
• EFF's Censorship & Free Expression Archive - A long list of articles, files, and links documenting Internet censorship.
• Free Expression Network: Internet Issues - The Free Expression Network is a coalition of free speech groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, People for the American Way, and EPIC. This site contains current news on Internet censorship issues.
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ETS - Dioxin listing for bay legit, says state

So, they admitted they used the wrong guidelines to determine toxicity - in a previous article in the Eureka Reporter, they even questioned why they were reversing their earlier decisions. It seems they don't understand they are dealing with a biased party who stands to make hundreds of thousands of dollars (maybe more) off influencing their decision.


Dioxin listing for bay legit, says state
John Driscoll/The Times-Standard Article Launched: 02/14/2007 09:57:46 AM PST

Water board staff: More samples confirm decision to site collision

State water quality staff are defending their recommendation that resulted in the listing of Humboldt Bay as dioxin-polluted.

A consultant hired by the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District last month claimed that the State Water Resources Control Board didn't look at all available information, used some bad information, and used the wrong toxicity guidelines in analyzing whether the bay should be on its impaired list for the potent carcinogen.

But the water board staff responded to the letter by Geomatrix Consultants, saying that the board's action was proper.

They admitted they used the wrong guidelines to determine toxicity -- but when that was adjusted, more samples from fish exceeded the guidelines than in the original analysis. Additional data, which should have been included, didn't change the staff's recommendation, the letter reads.

In September 2006, Humboldt Bay was left off the Federal Clean Water Act list. Humboldt Baykeeper, a Eureka environmental group, urged board staff to reconsider, as did the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The new information swayed board staff, and the board approved the change late last year. The EPA then approved the list.
In December, Humboldt County's Board of Supervisors, the Harbor District and the city of Arcata lodged a complaint over the listing, claiming it would have adverse economic effects in the area.

The bay is already considered impaired by sediment and PCBs. Several areas around the bay are contaminated by a now-banned wood preservative that has dioxin as a byproduct, though few sites have been specifically tested for dioxins.

”The Harbor District should be behind this,” said Humboldt Baykeeper's Pete Nichols with. “They should be wanting to address this issue.”

Harbor District Executive Officer Dave Hull said he's not satisfied with the board staff's reply. The contention remains that the staff did a last-minute, incomplete analysis with an inappropriate data set, Hull said, which as a result unfairly stigmatizes the bay as a whole.

”It looks like there's still an incomplete analysis,” Hull said.

The water board will hold an informational meeting on the matter on Feb. 20 in Sacramento. Hull said the goal at the meeting is to convince the board to put the issue on its March agenda for reconsideration.

Based on new public comments, the board could hear the issue again, said board spokeswoman Liz Kanter.

”At this point we aren't delisting it,” Kanter said. “However, as the board sees fit to make a change, they will do that.”

John Driscoll can be reached at 441-0504 or jdriscoll@times-standard.com.

Really interesting perspective

Private virtue, public vice
David Brooks/For The Times-Standard Article Launched: 02/13/2007 04:13:30 AM PST

Deep in the bowels of Washington, hidden from public scrutiny and prying cameras, there is an illicit underworld where people are subtle, reasonable and interesting. I have occasionally been admitted to this place, the land of RIP (Reasonable in Private).

I have been in the Senate dining room and heard senators, in whispers and with furtive glances, acknowledge the weaknesses in their own arguments and admit the justice of some of the other side's points. I have seen politicians fess up to their own evasions and acknowledge the trade-offs inevitable in tough decisions.

I have always felt honored when politicians admit me into the realm of RIP, because if it ever got out that these pols were sensible and independent, it would ruin their careers. If it ever got out that they could think for themselves or often had subversive and honest thoughts, they would be branded traitors to their party and uncertain champions for their cause.

For politicians are not permitted to ply their trade in the land of RIP. In our democracy, all public business must be done in the land of SIPB (Self-Important Pathetic Blowhards).

In our democracy, everybody has to line up in party formation for each week's mighty clash,

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no matter how stupid they think the exercise may be.
In our democracy, lawmakers are compelled to spend their days maneuvering for trivial advantages that nobody will remember by dinnertime.

In our democracy, presidential aspirants spend a few months fighting a general election but two years positioning themselves for the primaries. That means they spend the bulk of their time in transcontinental cattle calls, competing to most assiduously flatter the prejudices of their most febrile supporters. They traffic in pre-approved bromides while searching with their hyperattenuated antennas for their party's maximum sweet spot of approval, love and applause.

In our democracy, top officials lead frantic, overscheduled lives, with almost no time alone and with major decisions made by instinct during rushed limo rides from one forgettable event to another. They spend their days talking, and pretty soon they become human jukeboxes -- their snippets of conversation are just chunks of oft-repeated material they have retrieved from the stump speech audio collection in their heads.

In short, our democracy, at least as it has evolved, takes individuals who are reasonable in private and it churns them through a public process that is almost tailor-made to undermine their virtues. The process of perpetually kissing up to the voters destroys the leadership qualities the voters are looking for in the first place: tranquillity of spirit, independence of mind and a sensitivity to the contours and complexity of reality.

The best politicians try to build a fortress around their private lives to protect themselves from the ravages of the process all around them. They try to separate their real belief from their public spin. They stage little rebellions against members of their political base, who would otherwise be their slavemasters. They try not to let the bloated public persona smother the little voice within.

But this week it has become clear what an uphill struggle that is. This week, everyone senses that we have reached a crucial juncture in the Iraq war debate. This week, in private, everyone acknowledges how complex the choices are. Everyone senses that the policy being promoted possibly won't work and could have ruinous consequences. This week, the mood -- in private -- is sober and anxious.

And yet the politicians have completely failed to institutionalize that sense of sobriety in the public sphere. Instead of having a serious debate, the Senate disgraced itself with mind-bendingly petty partisanship. Meanwhile, the Democratic presidential candidates engaged in an unholy bidding war to get out of Iraq soonest, which had nothing to do with realities in Iraq and everything to do with applause lines in Iowa.

In a week when the private mood was grave, the public action was partisan and shortsighted. Instead of trying to educate public opinion by stressing the realities described in the National Intelligence Estimate, the political class, by and large, publicly ignored those findings. The Republicans maintained near lock-step solidarity even though privately, Republican opinions are all over the place. The Democrats ignored the intelligence community's warning about withdrawal after spending three years blasting the Bush administration for ignoring intelligence.

In private, we have a decent leadership class. In public, it's rotten.

TS - Complaint demands formal apology

Complaint demands formal apology
The Times-Standard Article Launched: 02/13/2007 04:13:40 AM PST

FERNDALE -- At least one resident believes the city owes Sean Marsh an apology, right away.

In an e-mail to the Times-Standard, resident Jere Bob Bowden reported Monday that he had filed a formal complaint with the city manager regarding Police Chief Lonnie Lawson's handling of the case surrounding former resident Sean Marsh.

Lawson arrested Marsh, a former Ferndale business owner, in May 2006 on charges of child endangerment and interfering with the duties of a police officer. The charges had to do with Marsh's 2-year-old son, who Lawson alleged was allowed to wander into Main Street.

Marsh was subsequently handcuffed and taken to Humboldt County Correctional Facility. He was acquitted of all charges last week.

Bowden, who attended last week's trial, defends Marsh and has a few choice words for the Victorian Village's top law enforcement officer.

”Mr. Marsh was acting responsibly as a parent and as a citizen,” Bowden said. “His child was not endangered, willfully or otherwise, and he was under no legal obligation to produce physical identification on demand. The chief misperceived a situation and reacted inappropriately. His unreasonable behavior displayed poor judgment, a misreading of the law, and an alarming lack of professional emotional restraint.”

Bowden, who said he planned to read his two-page letter at Monday's City Council meeting, further requested that his complaint be included in the chief's personnel file immediately.

Bowden also asked that both the city formally apologize to Marsh and that the City Council direct the police chief “to personally apologize in public and in writing to Mr. Marsh.”

Given that the threat of litigation may preclude the city from addressing the matter, Bowden promised to return following the resolution of any such litigation and again request full apologies to the Marsh family.

TS - Words of wisdom -- but not my own

The only one in the world who doesn't see anything wrong with Gallegos lifting 17 passages from one author's works, and swiping quotes from JFK for his own "My Word"s published in this very paper, the Times Standard of Eureka, California. Oh, you meant it as a j-o-k-e....


Words of wisdom -- but not my own
Bully Pulpit by James Faulk
Article Launched: 09/12/2006 04:31:48 AM PDT

In light of recent revelations that the county's beloved surfing DA has apparently been skimming the Internet waters looking for words of someone else's wisdom, I have decided to from now on always quote my sources.

It's just the right thing to do (Pythagoras). For one, I'll certainly feel better about myself (Plato), and gosh darn it, my thoughts aren't that bad (Hulk Hogan).

While four score and seven years ago (Lincoln) I wasn't even a twinkle in Great Great Great Granddad's eye (my mother), I do live and let die (Ian Fleming) so let's get together and feel all right (Bob Marley).

I'm hard pressed to figure out how this kind of thing happens (John Driscoll, referring to the recent unexpected killing of a cormorant) but obviously Gallegos -- a man trained to make arguments before one of our most important institutions, the judicial system -- wanted to seem like a Kennedy, as well as some other guy.

But frankly, Paul Gallegos, I knew Robert Kennedy ... and you are no Marilyn Monroe (Lloyd Bentsen, sort of).

It's that time again

The masses are lining up to seek seats on the Arcata City Council, including incumbents and a few familiar faces. It's always entertaining to watch thegrab-bag personalities wrestle for the reins of power in that fair city. Let's not forget this is the town that has given us candidates Nick Bravo and Dex Anderson, who wanted to build a city-owned Tesla Coil, as well as long-time Mayor Bob Ornelas, he of the outspoken tongue.

This year's election season again promises to have some surprises, and again a crowded field of incumbents and challengers. As one election observer recently put it, at least we have Alex Stillman running on the “Adult Supervision” ticket.

TS - Fired deputy DA named 'Prosecutor of Year'

Fired deputy DA named 'Prosecutor of Year'
Chris Durant/The Times-Standard
Article Launched: 09/21/2006 04:20:08 AM PDT

EUREKA -- Worth Dikeman, who was fired from the Humboldt County District Attorney's Office last week, has won the “Prosecutor of the Year Award” for Region Eight of the California Narcotic Officer's Association.

”I'm very flattered to have been chosen for this award,” Dikeman said Wednesday.

Dikeman said his last assignment was to be the office's narcotics deputy.

”Worth's reputation with local, state and federal narcotics officers/agents has always been that he is a hard-working, enormously knowledgeable and tough but fair prosecutor,” said an association press release. “He has repeatedly made himself available to law enforcement officers after hours and on weekends.”

His former boss, District Attorney Paul Gallegos, said, “I am grateful for their acknowledgment of his service to this community and am happy that he received such a kind acknowledgment from them.”

Dikeman said he's going to “examine all of the options” as far as his next career move.

An outspoken critic and two-time political foe of his boss, Dikeman was released from his job Friday after two decades with the District Attorney's Office.

This week, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Dikeman had rejected potential jurors in a murder trial “on the basis of their race, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.” He has denied the charge.

TS - A question of ethics (w/letter from Paul Gallegos re: plagiarism)

A question of ethics
The Times-Standard
Article Launched: 09/09/2006 04:31:56 AM PDT

On this page, for decades, we have printed the criticism, praise and other commentary of community leaders and our readers kind enough and concerned enough to share their thoughts -- your thoughts -- with us.

Also, for years, we have noted that writers have to be responsible for their own words. We have urged all authors of letters, guest editorials and other submissions to state their own thoughts -- not copy those of others or submit items under false names. This and every other newspaper faces the same challenge in publishing readers' comments.

At times, we've had to tag someone for not following those basic rules. This is one of those times.

District Attorney Paul Gallegos turned in a My Word guest editorial to us, which ran last Saturday, that -- as reported by The Eureka Reporter -- contained some plagiarized views on the subject of vigilantism. There are also questions about at least one earlier guest editorial.

We've endorsed the DA on this page, and we've also been critical of some of his past actions -- as now.

As many of us were taught in college, it's not plagiarism if you cite your source, which is just doing your homework -- in a legal case or anywhere else.

We don't expect perfection from elected leaders. But if a mistake is made, it should be quickly noted and corrected. After two days of questions, the DA finally did respond in full, and that response appears below.

The district attorney is supposed to uphold the law, and the spirit of the law, and above all be an upstanding community example of the law.

Our DA should shine the light on wrongdoing, including theft, and not lift passages from someone else's work.

Gallegos ran and won on a platform of fairness, honesty and integrity, and he should be held to that standard.



Dear Editor:

Thank you for your patience and understanding in this matter. As you know, I am in trial and the early parts of a trial, most especially a murder trial, are a little time consuming. So you know, I was very embarrassed to learn that I had inadvertently quoted Robert Felix, professor emeritus, without attribution. At my earliest opportunity, I telephoned him to apologize and he graciously accepted. Great teachers like the professor and great leaders like I believe Robert Kennedy would have been are and have been a constant source of inspiration to me. I take their words, their thoughts and their deeds to heart. In the future, I will certainly strive to be much more careful when writing. I provided a similar statement to Heather Muller of the Eureka Reporter so she too will know of both my embarrassment, my regret, my apology to the professor and my commitment to work to prevent such an embarrassing moment again.

Paul Gallegos

District Attorney

ER - Moore shooting headed for Grand Jury?

link
by Heather Muller , 5/25/2006

Each of the two candidates for Humboldt County District Attorney dropped a bombshell Thursday afternoon relating to the investigation into the Eureka Police Department’s fatal shooting of Cheri Moore.

Deputy District Attorney Worth Dikeman went first, calling in pointed terms for incumbent DA Paul Gallegos to hand off the investigation to the California Attorney General’s office, and accusing Gallegos of making “political hay” by prolonging the investigation.

Gallegos shot back, calling Dikeman’s remarks “an unadulterated lie that follows many, many other lies. I’m outraged. Completely outraged.”

Gallegos insisted that key documents in the case had not yet been received by his office, including a report from the California Department of Justice and the coroner’s report.

“When this is over,” Gallegos said, “you’ll understand how important the coroner’s report is to this investigation. I cannot possibly emphasize enough how important the coroner’s report is to this investigation.”

But Dikeman suggested there were other reasons for the pace of the investigation.

“(Gallegos) has a history of rewarding his allies and punishing those who oppose him,” Dikeman said, an apparent reference to the Eureka Police Officers Association, which, along with other local law enforcement union groups, has backed Dikeman’s campaign.

“I do not believe that the Attorney General’s office should routinely be involved in a case simply because the person being investigated is a police officer,” Dikeman said. “However, (Gallegos’) history of questionable practices, his failure to expeditiously resolve this matter and his strained relationship with the rest of the law enforcement community, including the Eureka Police Officer’s Association, make this an appropriate case for the Attorney General to exercise his discretion under the government code and take full charge of the investigation.”

Gallegos replied, “I’m outraged. Completely outraged. It’s one thing to tell lies about me, but it’s another to tell lies that could undermine the public’s confidence in the integrity of this investigation, of this office and of the Eureka Police Department.”

In a more measured response, Gallegos stated in a news release that he had asked Humboldt County Coroner Frank Jager to hold an open Coroner’s Inquest, adding that he expected Jager would comply with that request.

When asked about the timing of his request, Gallegos said that he had informally asked Jager for an inquest weeks ago, but on Thursday, following Dikeman’s news conference, he “reconfirmed the request.”

The Gallegos release stated, “The District Attorney’s Office is continuing its investigation into the shooting death of Ms. Cheri Moore. At the conclusion of the investigation, we will determine if there is a need to present the case to the Humboldt County Criminal Grand Jury. If the matter proceeds in that manner, we will request, and I am confident will receive, a public session of the Grand Jury.”

But Dikeman said that the officers involved in Moore’s shooting had already been cleared and returned to duty. He said that he believed there should be sufficient information by now to make a decision as to whether the officers would face any criminal charges.

“On April 14th, shortly after Ms. Moore was shot, the Critical Incident Response Team was called out. CIRT is a multi-agency investigative unit of which the head is the District Attorney’s office,” Dikeman said, reading from prepared remarks.

“Thirteen days after Ms. Moore’s death, on April 27th, (EPD) Chief (David) Douglas held a press conference, discussed the investigation and announced that the shooting was tragic but justified,” according to Dikeman.

But Gallegos, Dikeman continued, had not yet responded to repeated requests for his decision regarding any charges that might stem from the incident — “40 days after the incident and 27 days after Chief Douglas’s press conference,” Dikeman said.

Gallegos said the investigation would not be completed until after all of the information related to the shooting had been received. “Our commitment here is to the community and to conducting a full and fair investigation. Worth is playing a game with this case, and it’s not a game we have any interest in.”

Gallegos added, “He has worked to compromise other cases, but nothing, nothing like this.”

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

ER Toxicology reports show Moore only had Aleve in body at death

Toxicology reports show Moore only had Aleve in body at death
by Christine Bensen-Messinger, 5/5/2006

Approximately three weeks after the fatal shooting of Eureka resident Cheri Moore, Humboldt County Coroner Frank Jager said her toxicology reports show that she had no traces of illegal or prescribed drugs in her body.

“The only thing they found in her system was (Aleve),” he said, adding that it is an over-the-counter pain-relief medication.

Moore, 48, was shot and killed by Eureka police officers after brandishing a flare gun during a standoff that lasted approximately two and a half hours.

Friends said Moore suffered from mental illness and had run out of her medicine on the day of the incident.

“She was prescribed a number of different psychotropic medications which (were) supposed to keep her in balance … and it appears that she was not taking them at all because they were not in her system at all,” Jager said.

Her actions on the day of the incident were consistent with someone who was not taking her medication, he said.

While some community residents have expressed outrage about the police response, Eureka Police Chief Dave Douglas said in a news conference April 27 that preliminary investigation results that have been released so far appear to show that the officers who shot Moore were justified in their actions and acted legally and lawfully.

The incident is being investigated by the county’s Critical Incident Response Team, which consists of representatives from the Eureka Police Department, Fortuna Police Department, Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and the state Department of Justice.

(Christine Bensen-Messinger can be reached at cbensen@eurekareporter.com.)
Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

ER - Meeting about police review coalition turns to discussions of April 14 shooting

Meeting about police review coalition turns to discussions of April 14 shooting
by Christine Bensen-Messinger, 4/28/2006

Approximately 50 people gathered at the meeting of the Police Review Coalition Thursday night. Discussion at the meeting, which was held to discuss the formation of a Police Review Coalition in Eureka, quickly turned to the April 14 police-involved shooting which left Eureka resident Cheri Moore dead.

Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos and Eureka City Councilman Jeff Leonard attended the meeting and Gallegos ended up answering the questions of many concerned attendees.

Gallegos said the incident is still under investigation and he asked people to reserve judgment until the facts were all in.

Many attendees voiced concern that police would not be held accountable for what they called a “murder.”

“Unfortunately what happened to Cheri Moore is not isolated,” said Eureka resident Kim Starr.

Eureka resident Patricia Powell, who said she was one of the approximately 100 spectators standing outside of Moore’s apartment when the shooting occurred, said Moore just wanted some cigarettes and her mental health doctor.

She said it appeared that police were “punishing” her by not honoring her requests.

“To me the time for reason and logic was that Friday afternoon,” she said.

“We are fully looking into (the shooting),” Gallegos said.

He said in addition to the actual incident, the decision-making process that led to Moore’s shooting is also being looked into.

Gallegos said it was important not to act on impulse.

“All I’m asking is that we let the investigation go forward,” he said.

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

ER - Reserve judgment on shooting; question about timing lingers

Reserve judgment on shooting; question about timing lingers
by Glenn Franco Simmons, 4/23/2006

Given the professionalism of the Eureka Police Department’s SWAT members and the extraordinary training they receive, I believe team members acted in response to what could have been lethal force used against them.

Whatever Cheri Moore had in her possession had to have been interpreted as potentially lethal by SWAT members, thereby causing a member or members to shoot and kill her.

Now, before you write angry and accusatory letters to me, let me say this: I have a lingering question regarding the shooting. Did enough time transpire before SWAT members entered her apartment?
I have more questions: Did they enter the apartment in that short time frame because Moore was threatening to burn down the building? Could a flare gun be used to start a fire? Could firefighters be protected had she started a fire and remained armed?

Answers to those and other questions will be provided by the interdisciplinary team investigating the shooting. I have complete faith in that team’s objectivity. We will soon know what transpired, and it is at that point that we can then make educated judgments about this tragic event.

For several days, we’ve had some people ask us if we would have purchased a flare gun to demonstrate its lethality.

The answer is no, and that’s not just because the Times-Standard thought of it — we didn’t, and it never occurred to us to take part in such an amateurish “investigation” in that manner.

The Times-Standard’s experiment lacked many things — including body armor and a shield that may have been used by SWAT members — that I’m sure forensics experts could have a field day with.

We have also been asked if we would have printed excerpts from what is reportedly Moore’s diary. We didn’t face that choice because the Times-Standard had an exclusive on it, but the consensus among Eureka Reporter staff is that it was inappropriate to publish such excerpts. Staff feels such publication is more like tabloid journalism that you are assaulted by at the grocery store’s checkout stand.

With regard to Thursday’s Eureka Reporter editorial on supporting gay marriage, we received some community support and some community opposition.

The editorial board consists of the publisher, managing editor and assistant managing editor. As a board, they determine what the newspaper’s editorial will be. Editorial topics are presented to the board for consideration from a variety of sources, including board members themselves.

Once a subject is approved by the entire board or a board majority, it becomes the newspaper’s official position.

Any editorial board member may choose to oppose the majority’s decision and write a commentary expressing a different view.

With regard to the use of “alleged” in rape cases, The Eureka Reporter recently received some e-mails and phone calls regarding such use. In recent stories regarding alleged rapes at HSU and Whitethorn, The Eureka Reporter has referred to the alleged rapes as alleged, the victims as alleged and the suspects (in the Whitethorn case) as alleged perpetrators.

The Eureka Reporter’s policy is to use alleged rape, alleged rapist and alleged victim until a jury or judge determine that a crime has indeed occurred. This is an ethical decision and it is partly based on the advice of our legal counsel.

We once ran into a situation where a local teenager was referred to as a rape victim. We referred to her as such, but it turned out she fabricated the story. In that story, a perpetrator had not been identified, but had he been identified, the newspaper would have been negligent had he been vindicated.

We learned our lesson; however, that said, I believe most charges of rape are later substantiated and it’s a sad reflection on society that many rapes go unreported.

(Glenn Franco Simmons is the managing editor of The Eureka Reporter.)
Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

ER - Dispatch logs of fatal shooting made public

Dispatch logs of fatal shooting made public
by Heather Muller , 4/21/2006

Excerpts from the Eureka Police Department’s dispatch logs for April 14 provide insight into the EPD’s fatal shooting of Cheri Moore in her G Street apartment after a standoff with police.

The entries, which contain a rough timeline of the standoff and shooting as noted by dispatchers on duty at the time, were found Friday in media logs that are available for public viewing at the EPD’s C Street headquarters.

It is important to note that the dispatch log is not a transcript of radio communications between police officers. It does, however, provide a description of key events as they are reported to have occurred.

Some details of the incident had been blacked out by the EPD, such as in the first entry, at 9:56 a.m.

“??? has told mental health that she has purchased a 12 (gauge) flare gun and will kill everyone in her (building) on Mother’s Day, is despondent over the death of her son 27 (years) ago. (Subject) also told mental health that she is being … harassed by her landlord ??? … . (The reporting party) received call from the (subject) less than 15 (minutes) ago and she advised she would be extremely hostile to law enforcement if they contact her.”

At 10:13 a.m., Moore’s apartment was first entered by police. A police officer called a Code 33, or emergency situation, saying that she was “brandishing a weapon (possibly) (a) flare gun.”

Within minutes, G Street was blocked at Fifth and Sixth streets. Two entries were made regarding the possibility that the subject was in possession of a “38,” possibly referring to a .38 caliber handgun.

One officer reported trying to get a shotgun. Another requested a ballistics shield.

At 10:19 a.m., two officers confirmed that the weapon was an “orange flare pistol.”

At 10:32 a.m., dispatchers noted that Moore “called mental health stating she was in pain and wanted medication. Doesn’t believe (officers) are police (officers).”

Two minutes later, the SWAT team was paged.

The fire department was called to stand by “for fire hazard” at Sixth and G streets, and at 10:41 a.m. Moore was reported throwing items out of her window.

Two minutes later, crisis negotiators were paged.

By 10:55 a.m., a police officer was on the roof across from Moore’s third-floor window being asked if he had a clear view of her apartment.

At 11:07 a.m., an officer reported that a “(subject) has (suspect) on the phone on scene here.” Fifteen minutes later, another officer requested “Deny origination on phone, they are working on this will call back in 15 (minutes).”

Members of the SWAT team reported they were en route at 11:29 a.m. Dispatch notes at 11:30 a.m. stated, “(Subject) has Crohn’s Disease, inflammatory bowel syndrome.” It was noted that Moore was wearing a neck brace.

At 11:32 a.m., SWAT team members were at the scene. “Deny is complete. Phone inside is ???.” The officer on the roof said Moore was pointing the flare gun at her chest and threatening to discharge it in the apartment.

At 11:43 a.m., dispatch reported, “(Subject) called him for pack of cigarettes and will come down peacefully if he can deliver cigarettes, referred to hostage negotiators.”

One minute later, an ambulance was staged at Sixth and G streets.

At 11:47 a.m., this entry was made: “??? is (en route) (with) cigarettes will contact T56. (Suspect) phoned a friend (unknown) name who then phoned ??? who phoned 911. Initial call from (suspect) to her friend (occurred) approximately 20 (minutes) ago.”

A minute after noon, SWAT team members were in place, but reported poor visibility of the apartment. The officer on the roof reported Moore was brandishing a baseball bat.

The SWAT team entered the building at 12:15 p.m. Crisis negotiators were on and off the phone with Moore twice over the next 12 minutes. Negotiators were “unable to communicate due to the loud music.”

At 12:26 p.m., this entry: “She was just at the window with the gun in her right hand.” Also at that time, “light and sound” were authorized at the threshold, an apparent reference to flash-bangs.

Two minutes later, a SWAT team member reportedly said, “If you see her at the window empty handed let me know.”

A second entry for 12:28 p.m. stated crisis negotiators “holding off calling.”

At 12:31 p.m. an officer reported, “She is at the center of the room at this time.”

A SWAT team member said “The go signal should be she’s at the window empty handed.”

The officer said again that she was in the middle of the room.

At 12:33 p.m. and 0 seconds, the officer on the roof across the street said, “She is at the north window (and) her hands are empty,” according to the log.

Also recorded at 12:33 p.m. and 0 seconds was the last word of the standoff: “Go.”

Twenty-seconds later, dispatch reported “Shots fired (suspect) down,” and medical assistance was called into Moore’s apartment.

It arrived within a minute. Moore was pronounced dead at the scene.

(Megan McCulloch contributed to this report.)
Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

ER - Group gathers to remember Cheri Moore

Desiree McBride looks at a sign held by Eureka resident Anna Virgina at Tuesday’s vigil for Cheri Moore, who was the victim of a recent police shooting. Tyson Ritter/The Eureka Reporter

linkGroup gathers to remember Cheri Moore
by Christine Bensen-Messinger, 4/19/2006

Less than a week after Eureka resident Cheri Moore was shot and killed by police, more than 50 people gathered in front of Eureka City Hall Tuesday night, with many wanting to discuss the injustice they perceive in her death.

“I think Eureka has to have a civilian review board for the police,” said Eureka resident Pam Service.

The results of an investigation where police investigate themselves does not give community residents confidence in the investigation’s results, she claimed.

“This is a perfect example of what may end up being very inappropriate action by the police,” Service said.

Deborah Harrison, who said she had been friends with Moore for the past year, said the loss of Moore was upsetting to her whole family.

“She was a sweet, outgoing, happy-go-lucky person,” Harrison said. “I did not feel threatened by her, ever.”

Moore, 48, was shot and killed Friday by Eureka police officers after brandishing a flare gun during a standoff that lasted approximately two and a half hours.
Harrison said she believes the police action was “cold-blooded,” and said there were other ways the incident could have ended, such as police using tear gas, a Taser or a tranquilizer to calm down Moore.

“To me it’s a police homicide,” she said.

“Nobody deserves to die like that,” said Anita McBride, a Eureka resident and longtime friend of Moore’s. “I’ve known Cheri for years; she was an angel. She always had the most positive things to say.”

Friends said Moore suffered from mental illness and had run out of her medicine on the day of the incident.

McBride, the mother of four, said Moore was manic-depressive and bipolar. McBride also said the shooting makes her concerned for her own safety.

“I don’t even feel safe; it makes me think, ‘What would they have done if it was me?’” she said.

Justina Vining, who had been friends with Moore for the past three and a half years, said she spent a lot of time with Moore at St. Vincent de Paul’s Free Dining Facility — a place she said police knew Moore spent time at.

“The cops knew her, we all knew her, but they didn’t come get any of us to try and get her down,” she said.

Vining, who said she is homeless and also suffers from mental illness, said she is now fearful of what could happen to her.

“If it was my son’s birthday who was dead, it might have been me who was shot,” she said through tears.

Other people, who did not know Moore, said they have the same concerns for themselves or members of their families.

Eureka resident Patricia Powell said she has a 30-year-old daughter who is autistic.

“When she’s upset, she yells at people,” Powell said. “What if that was my daughter?”

Powell said she does not know why a mental health professional was not called in to talk with Moore.

“I’m really concerned that the police force (is) not trained (to deal with mental illness),” she said. Greg Allen is chairman of the local Green Party, a member of the American Civil Liberties Union and a group advocating for a police review coalition. He said Friday’s incident shows why such a review board is necessary.

“It’s not rational to expect anyone to investigate themselves, their colleagues or their friends,” he said. “If you have a problem with your taxes, does the IRS ask you to do your own audit?”

Allen said a police review board made up of community residents is necessary to review incidents such as this one.

An investigation into the incident is under way by the Humboldt County Critical Incident Response Team, which is made of local law-enforcement agencies and the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office.

Humboldt County Coroner Frank Jager said preliminary reports from an autopsy performed on Moore’s body Monday show that she died of multiple gunshot wounds to her upper body.

It is also evident from X-rays of Moore’s body that she was shot by different weapons because different caliber bullets were seen in her body, he said.Toxicology reports are expected to be back soon, Jager said.

For now, community residents are waiting until more questions can be answered and friends continue to reminisce about someone they said made them smile.

“She would make my day,” Vining said, through tears. “She was just a blessing to a lot of people.”

“The city police just took away a very special friend of ours,” said Eureka resident Justin Harrison. “I’m very sad, hurt and crushed at what the police … did.”

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

ER - In aftermath of shooting, many questions remain

In aftermath of shooting, many questions remain
by Heather Muller , 4/17/2006

In the day following the Eureka Police Department’s release of details of the shooting that left 48-year-old Eureka resident Cheri Moore dead, many questions remain unanswered.

Moore was shot and killed by police after brandishing a flare gun during a standoff that lasted an estimated two and a half hours.
Moore’s older brother, Gary Holt, wants to know if the shooting was justified.

A real estate developer from Medford, Ore., Holt said, “I’m an open-minded person, but I don’t agree with what I’m seeing so far.”

He said he plans to discuss the matter with the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office today.

“If they’re justified, then OK,” Holt said, “but what I’m seeing now puts up some flags.”

Marcus Smith’s question is even simpler.

“I just want to know why,” said Smith, a local business owner who had been a friend of Moore for approximately eight years.

“Why couldn’t they have tranquilized her? Why couldn’t they use bean bags or flash-bangs or something? Why did they have to shoot her? Why did she have to die?” he said.

Smith described Moore as “a real sweet lady who just was full of life. She was a joy to be around, but she got depressed when she didn’t have her medication.”

Smith talked to Moore twice by phone during the standoff. The first time, “She was frantically trying to explain to me what was going on,” he said.

The second time was different. “She knew they were going to shoot her. She said she didn’t want to die, but she thought maybe it was her time to go,” Smith said.

He said Moore told him she needed to see a doctor. “She said, ‘I need my doctor from mental health to come see me right now and bring me my medication, because I need it real bad.’”

Smith said she also talked about her landlord. Over the past several months, he said she had repeatedly accused her landlord of harassing her. Smith said he didn’t think the accusations were true.

“She had something wrong with her, and when she didn’t take her medication she didn’t act right, and she knew it,” he said.

Smith said Moore had told him she was suing the landlord, and that she said she had called police herself the morning she was killed because she believed the landlord had tried to break down her door.

It is unclear whether the “building owner” who police said let officers into Moore’s apartment for a welfare check around 10 a.m. is the same person Moore was afraid of.

The EPD stated in an official announcement Saturday that Moore was “pointing a handgun at the officers” when they entered. Moore was later seen waving an orange flare gun at the window of her apartment.

The EPD stated that attempts by crisis negotiation personnel to speak with Moore were unsuccessful. A couple of hours later, Moore’s door opened again, and she was shot multiple times by police.

“I don’t know how things work in California,” Holt said, “but there are protocols up here police have to follow. Maybe there were other avenues they could have taken.”

Holt said he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen his sister. “We were not a close family, but that doesn’t matter.”

He said he lost two family members on the same day. The father of Holt and Moore died in his sleep Friday night.

Still, Holt said, he wasn’t going to draw any conclusions before the facts of the case were made known.

“As far as I’m concerned, this is a police homicide. But I’m not going to pass judgment, because I don’t have enough information. I’m not going to run on a short fuse. We’re going to look at everything.”

He added, “If it’s right, it’s right, and if it’s not there’s going to be a problem.”

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

ER - Police respond to fatal shooting of Eureka woman

Police respond to fatal shooting of Eureka woman
by Heather Muller , 4/16/2006

The Eureka Police Department provided preliminary information Saturday about Friday’s fatal shooting of Cheri Moore, a woman who brandished an orange flare gun at the window of her G Street apartment during a two-and-a-half-hour standoff with police.

EPD Public Information Officer Suzie Owsley sent local news organizations a press release early Saturday evening. It is reprinted here in its entirety.


Details in Shooting Incident Released

On Friday, April 14, at 9:52 a.m., the Eureka Police Department Dispatch was contacted by an employee of Humboldt County Mental Health. The staff person requested that police officers be sent to 516 G Street to check the welfare of a female who was off her medication and making threatening statements.

The employee advised Eureka Police that the female would be extremely hostile to law enforcement if they contacted her. The uniformed officers who responded could hear very loud music and yelling in the apartment but could not get an answer at the door or by phone.

Eureka Police officers were assisted by the building owner in obtaining a key to the apartment. As the door to the apartment swung open, a female, partially shielded by a wall, was yelling and pointing a handgun at the officers. The officers took cover. The door to the apartment was slammed shut and locked by someone inside the apartment. Additional assistance was summoned at this time.

Attempts by the Crisis Negotiation personnel to speak with the female or anyone else in the apartment were unsuccessful.

Ambulance and fire personnel were staged nearby as the female had made threats to set fire to the building and to shoot people outside.

A decision was made to have the SWAT team enter the apartment if police observers, positioned across the street, believed the female had put the weapon down and they knew her location in the room. When this occurred, the SWAT team entered.

Upon the SWAT team’s entry, the suspect was in possession of a weapon. The suspect was shot.

Medical aid was administered at the scene, but the suspect died. It was determined no other persons were in the room.

At the direction of EPD Chief David Douglas, the Humboldt County Critical Incident Response Team was requested to conduct the investigation. The California Department of Justice assisted in the evidence collection at the scene and is conducting further forensic examinations.

The Humboldt County Coroner took custody of the deceased woman and is handling the notifications and name release.


When Owsley was asked about the word “handgun” used to describe the flare gun Moore possessed, she responded that interviews with SWAT team members were continuing. “Until we finish the interviews, we won’t know what they know. At this point, it’s a handgun.”

In scanned radio communications between police officers before Moore was killed, the weapon was consistently described as a flare gun. Owsley was asked if these communications had been recorded, and she said she believed they had been and would be used in the investigation.

From photographs taken at the scene before Moore was shot by police, she appeared to be in her 50s and was wearing a neck brace. Friends and neighbors described the woman as mentally ill.

As for what happens next in the investigation, Owsley said it was in the hands of the Critical Incident Response Team. “It’s up to them now. As they provide us with information, we’ll release it.”

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

ER - Investigation launched into police involved shooting

Investigation launched into police involved shooting
by Christine Bensen-Messinger, 4/15/2006

In the hours after a police-involved shooting Friday afternoon, Eureka police officers and volunteers kept G Street between Fifth and Sixth streets blocked off as an investigation into the incident continued.

Eureka Police Chief Dave Douglas, Detectives Ron Harpham and Dave Parris, Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos, Sheriff’s Detective Ben Nord and at least one EPD evidence technician were present at the scene.

The incident — which led to the shooting death of Eureka resident Cheri Moore — started Friday morning.

“At about 9:52 this morning, we received a call into the dispatch center for a welfare check,” said EPD Public Information Officer Suzie Owsley, adding that the subject was reported to possibly be suicidal.Officers arrived at the apartment located in the upstairs of 516 G St. soon after the call. Shortly after 12:30 p.m. the department’s Special Weapons and Tactics team entered the apartment.

“We did make entry with our SWAT team in the early afternoon and one person is deceased,” Owsley said, adding that she could not confirm the person’s identity.

“All we’re saying is one person’s deceased inside the apartment … (it’s) all I have been told to release at this time, but more information should be released (today),” she said.

Owsley said she is not sure how many officers and other people from the department were present when the incident occurred.

Owsley said the apartments surrounding Moore’s as well as the stores underneath and across the street were not evacuated.

“It was contained to one of the apartments, so we didn’t feel they needed to be evacuated,” she said.

As for the store across the street, Owsley said customers and employees were asked to stand away from the window.

“We had our SWAT team, plus there were several officers and we also used Eureka Volunteer Patrol,” she said, adding that civilian employees were also called in to help.

Witnesses claim to have seen a sniper on the roof across the street from the apartment where the incident occurred, but Owsley said she cannot confirm that information or whether Moore had a weapon.

As is standard procedure in an officer-involved shooting, the incident is being investigated by Eureka police and other law enforcement agencies in the county.

The last officer-involved shooting in Eureka took place in September. After a two-week long investigation the officer was cleared to go back to work.

The investigation was conducted by the Humboldt County Multidisciplinary Team, made up of representatives from various local law enforcement agencies and the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office.
“The review team that (does) the review doesn’t answer to the department,” Douglas said in a previous interview with The Eureka Reporter. “It’s an independent investigation.”

Although she said she thinks there is a written policy in the department regarding when an officer is authorized to use deadly force, Owsley said she could not comment on what it is.

Michael DiMiceli, assistant executive director of the California Commission of Peace Officer Standards and Training, said there is no specific statewide protocol on when an officer is authorized to use deadly force.

“State law sets essentially the standards for the use of firearms and that is further refined by agency policy; the training is built in large part around what the law says or requires,” he said.

Whether an officer has to go through a series of steps or what the decision making process is, is determined by a combination of state policy and agency policy, DiMiceli said.

“POST is not in the position to dictate a policy statewide,” he said.

More information regarding the incident may be available as soon as today.

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

ER - Music, shots, then silence

Music, shots, then silence
by Heather Muller , 4/15/2006

A woman’s standoff with officers from the Eureka Police Department came to a deadly end Friday when she was shot and killed by police in her G Street apartment above Heuer’s Florist in Eureka.

Cheri Moore was pronounced dead at the scene with multiple gunshot wounds to her chest and pelvis, after repeatedly brandishing an orange flare gun out the window of her third-floor apartment over a period of two and a half hours.

An estimated 100 spectators lined Fifth and Sixth streets while Moore blared stereo music out the windows during the standoff, which began shortly after 10 a.m.

“She’s got her iPod on shuffle or something,” said Darwin Mazur, who ran across the spectacle on his way home from work. “She went from ‘Freeze Frame’ to Diana Ross, and then it was like West Indian pan flute music or something.”

The atmosphere was almost festive as Moore repeatedly leaned out the window, yelling at the crowd.

“My friend wants to come up here,” she yelled, “so why don’t you all just go home and take care of your children.”

The friend in question was Marcus Smith, who spoke to Moore on his cell phone during the ordeal. Smith said Moore was “off her medication” and was having problems with her landlord. He said Moore had told him earlier that the landlord was trying to kick her door in, so she took out her flare gun to protect herself.

“She didn’t sound good at all,” he said.

While Smith was talking to the woman on the phone, he said, “Cheri, there are a lot of cops with a lot of guns out here, and all they know is they think you have a gun up there. You don’t want to get shot. Listen. You do not want to get shot.”

A few minutes later, Smith said a police sergeant asked him to stop talking to the woman, which frustrated him. “I could go up there and talk her down, guaranteed,” he said, shaking his head.

“They’re going to shoot her,” he said. “They’re going to shoot her. Wait and see.”

And so the crowd waited. While G Street was cordoned off and traffic awkwardly rerouted, the Special Weapons and Tactics Team arrived, and a sniper took up a position on the roof of the Dan Marc Building across the street.

EPD officers with M-16s stood at the corners, occasionally ducking behind police vehicles as Moore yelled and threw things out of the window. Papers, clothing and a bicycle helmet were thrown to the ground. A hostage negotiator was called in.

As the standoff trudged into its second hour, other residents of the apartment complex gazed out the windows, occasionally waving at people below in the crowd.

During this time, the sniper on the roof was reporting details of Moore’s behavior to other police, even timing the intervals between her appearances at the window.

Another officer said over the radio, “Just advise when HNT (or hostage negotiations team) is not an option, and then we can resolve it.”

But the “resolution” that followed seemed to take everyone in the crowd by surprise.

At approximately 12:30 p.m., a series of shots sounded — five, maybe six — and seconds later police reported the woman was down. Fire and ambulance personnel, staged nearby, were immediately called in.

It wasn’t until emergency personnel came out of the building without a patient that onlookers began to realize the woman was dead.

Gary Adrian Raines, who identified himself as Moore’s caretaker, slumped onto a bench at Fifth and G streets when he heard the news.

He said Moore had told him she suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and took a variety of prescription medications for the condition. Raines said he knew Moore had a flare gun — “but I didn’t think it would come to this,” he said.

“Just yesterday I got in an argument with her, and I left. I was just going to go see her when I saw all this,” Raines said.

Neighbor Brenda Bernier said Moore had two cats, named Wally and Zenith, and she wondered who would care for them now.

“She was really nice to me,” Bernier said, although she acknowledged that Moore had experienced problems with her medication during the four or more years they both lived in the apartment complex.

Bystanders who had watched the standoff said they were shocked at its fatal conclusion.

“This is not at all what I thought would happen,” Mazur said, who had witnessed the incident from the beginning.

Eureka resident Patricia Powell saw only the end. “It’s tragic,” she said. “It’s beyond tragic.”

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

ER - Omholt to face trial in 3rd case

Omholt to face trial in 3rd case
by Kara D. Machado, 2/10/2007

Jason Ryan Omholt was bound over for trial Friday for the third of four cases in which he is currently involved.

On Friday — the second day of Omholt’s preliminary hearing — Superior Court Judge Dale A. Reinholtsen ruled there was sufficient evidence to bind Omholt over on three of the four counts charged against him in the third case: robbery, with a special allegation that he committed the crime with a gun; being an ex-felon in possession of a firearm; and felony evasion.

Reinholtsen did not find enough evidence for Omholt, 28, of Eureka, to answer to a fourth count, the use of tear gas.

Friday’s proceedings began at about 8:45 a.m. and ended at about noon. However, when Humboldt County Deputy District Attorney Arnie Klein attempted to add additional charges — based on preliminary hearing testimonies — the proceedings were continued to 4 p.m. Friday.

Reinholtsen ultimately told Klein to file the additional charges at another time.

On Jan. 29, Omholt was bound over on two other cases: one that stems from an Oct. 23, 2006, incident in which he allegedly assaulted a man with a deadly weapon, and the second stemming from an Aug. 20, 2006, incident in which Omholt allegedly made threats to a man at a Eureka motel and Eureka gas station.

The fourth case — to be addressed at a future preliminary hearing — stems from the Dec. 22, 2006, attempted murder of Humboldt County Sheriff’s Deputy Justin Braud, a peace officer.

Omholt faces at least 25 years in prison if convicted of all the charges in the three cases currently against him, Klein said.

“If convicted of the attempted murder of Deputy Braud,” Klein said, “Mr. Omholt faces life with the possibility of parole.”

Humboldt County Chief Conflict Counsel Glenn Brown, Omholt’s attorney, said Omholt has pleaded not guilty to all the charges filed against him.

Two witnesses testified Friday: Mandi Denise Jackson, 30, of Eureka, and HCSO Deputy Bryan Maus.

Jackson was noticeably emotional during most of her testimony.

Jackson testified that she spent about a week, off and on, with Omholt and his stepbrother — Zachary Cruz Cooke, then 17 — up to the Nov. 15, 2006, robbery of Roger’s Market.

Omholt and Cooke robbed Roger’s Market — located in the 700 block of School Road in McKinleyville — Jackson testified.

On the night of the robbery, Jackson said Omholt was driving, Cooke sat in the front passenger’s seat and Jackson sat behind Cooke.

During a pursuit involving Maus after the robbery, Jackson testified that she saw Omholt pass something over to Cooke before telling him, “in a stern voice,” to shoot the officer.

Cooke leaned to his right, Jackson testified, and put a gun out the window, but the gun didn’t go off.

When Brown questioned Jackson, she became more emotional, sobbing at times with her shirt pulled up to her eyes.

Brown questioned Jackson about conflicting statements she gave to HCSO Detective Marvin Kirkpatrick the night of the robbery, the day after the robbery and in regard to her testimony Friday.

Jackson repeatedly told Brown she couldn’t remember things she had said because the night of the robbery was so “traumatic” for her.

Jackson said she initially lied to the HCSO detective so no one else would get in trouble. And, Jackson maintained she was being truthful Friday.

During Jackson’s testimony, it was put on the record that she would be given immunity. However, during the first portion of her testimony, Jackson said she would pay for her involvement, she just wanted “protection.”

Maus testified about his pursuit of the suspect vehicle on the evening of Nov. 15, 2006, and about his interview with one of the two Roger’s Market clerks who were robbed.

Maus said he was responding to the robbery at about 8:09 p.m. when he saw a vehicle matching the description of the suspected robbers’ vehicle.

The suspect vehicle pulled over at one point and Maus said he began to initiate a traffic stop.

However, the vehicle pulled away, turned around toward him and passed him, Maus testified.

The pursuit ended on a portion of Thiel Avenue, where the suspect vehicle jumped the curb and came to rest on a pile of gravel, Maus testified.

That is when Maus said he saw one person flee the vehicle on foot after exiting from the driver’s side door. The passenger door of the suspect vehicle was not opened, Maus said, until Jackson opened it from inside.

Maus testified that he found a pistol inside the vehicle and a black wallet — with a Roger’s Market clerk’s identification inside it — on the ground.

Maus also testified to finding an unspecified amount of money, mostly outside the vehicle.

Of the Roger’s Market clerk interview, Maus said the clerk told him he was helping his mother out on the night of the robbery when he saw one robber come into the store, wearing a ski mask and holding a black pistol.

When the clerk was ordered to the ground, he remembered hearing the voice of another robber, the sound of spraying and his mother screaming, Maus testified.

The clerk told Maus his wallet was taken prior to him being pepper sprayed.

Omholt has been incarcerated since his Jan. 3 arrest, which occurred after a three-hour standoff in Eureka.

Cooke, 18, was fatally shot on Jan. 4 in Eureka after, police have said, he fired at members of a collaborative law enforcement task force.

The additional charges Klein spoke of on Friday include a second count of robbery — pertaining to the Roger’s Market clerk — and second-degree burglary with a special allegation that it was done with a firearm.

“We are contemplating adding the attempted murder of a peace officer and assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer,” Klein said, “both pertaining to Deputy Maus.”

Omholt is scheduled to return to Humboldt County Superior Court Judge W. Bruce Watson’s courtroom on Wednesday to be arraigned on the three cases for which he has currently been bound over.

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

FE - Sean Marsh NOT GUILTY - A cartoon, an editorial, an article and letters to the editor.

Includes a letter to the editor from Sean Marsh, setting the record straight, from his perspective.

From my perspective, it's not just that this case should never have gone to trial, it's that it went to trial when so many much more serious cases have not. When there has been little to no prosecution of REAL child abusers and molesters in the past year under Paul Gallegos (one as of last April, according to the statistics at the time). Yet he chooses to prosecute this man whose kid got a few feet ahead of him while walking down Main Street in the quiet town of Ferndale.

Many questions remain. Not the least of which is how this case came to be pulled out of the "Rejected cases" file and reactivated to the point that Gallegos himself participated in the investigation.

From the Ferndale Enterprise:

Editorial: Justice... but at what cost?

Incredulous.

That's the word to describe our reaction to the events that unfolded last week and the early part of this week at the Humboldt County Courthouse.

As we watched the trial of Sean Marsh, it was hard to believe that it was real and not some big joke, like many thought the arrest of Marsh was some eight months ago.

The prosecution was weak. No, strike that. The prosecution was embarrassing. Embarrassing to the rookie deputy district attorney who had no evidence and whose cross-examination of Marsh left Ferndalers in the audience shaking their heads.

Yes, the system worked. A jury, thank goodness, used some common sense and ruled in less than 20 minutes that Marsh did nothing wrong (perhaps even shorter than that if you take into consideration the time it takes to pick a foreperson and fill out the judgement forms.)

Who's to blame for this mess and the exorbitant amount of money spent on investigating, prosecuting, and defending Marsh? There's plenty to go around. Of course, Chief Lawson is to blame. But he's not alone. Former City Manager Michael Powers, now in King City, is also involved in this mess. Remember former Councilman Carlos Benneman and Mayor James Moore stating that it would be an "unmitigated disaster" if Powers left? Excuse us? We're still cleaning up the mess he left behind and now the city will most certainly face a lawsuit from Marsh.

As we've pondered why this case was picked up by the DA's office and prosecuted, we look back on those emails from the city manager to this paper. Many of his comments were "off the record." However, it was clear that the complaint filed against the chief by merchant Polly Stemwedel prompted the city manager to stand firmly behind the chief and push strongly for a Marsh conviction. Powers and his supporters boasted about his "fending off" a major lawsuit against the city. He never named the lawsuit publicly, but we can't help but wonder if it involved this case. Can you say backfire? Emails this week to Powers in King City were not answered.

As for Marsh, he'll survive. Worst injustices have occurred. But the damage is done. When future employers "google" his name, the words child endangerment will forever come up. His name has been not only in this paper but others, who we must say have hurt him even worse. (His name was in the Times Standard police blotter when he was arrested... we've yet to see a story about his acquittal.)

The Eureka Reporter massacred its story on Saturday on the Marsh trial. (See the Marsh letter on this page.) It irresponsibly and unfairly gave six paragraphs to a resident's phoned in opinion about the chief. Evelyn Harrison, who did not attend the trial and hear the testimony, is the mother of one-time city council candidate Rachel Harrison - a staunch police department cheerleader, no matter who is in charge. The ER's reporter was in town Friday for lunch at Curley's and was seen taking pictures with her cell phone of the "busy intersection" and Brown and Main. Why, we ask, didn't she do her job and interview a selection of residents instead of taking a phone call at her desk from a resident with a known bias?

It seems like a regular thing now for us to email the editor of that paper to point out mistakes in their coverage of Ferndale. Is it self serving to do so? You betcha. Journalists have a lousy reputation and unless responsible reporting is sought, we'll continue to be in the same column as prosecuting district attorneys are this week. Two days later, a small correction, buried on the bottom of the second page was run. Four days later, after we hounded them again, another correction, excuse me, "clarification," was run. (Coincidentally, Marsh outside of court Tuesday was explaining to the ER reporter the mistakes in her story, and how they could have affected his case, while owner Rob Arkley, a juror in an adjacent courtroom, chatted on his cell phone during a break. Too bad he didn't hear about yet another Ferndale story inaccurately reported.)

Can we as a city move on from this story? Eventually. Now, the city council will have to decide what to do with Marsh's formal complaint. And outside investigation, done after Stemwedels's complaint, has already been completed by the Fortuna Police Department into the chief's actions. It found nothing wrong with the chief's actions.

Marsh, however, deserves a public apology - from the chief, the city and the DA. Many argue he deserves a year's worth of lost wages. (He was let go fro mhis job after being a "no show" at a bank training seminar he was to lead, scheduled at 8 am the morning after his night in jail.)

Life does go on, but this soty is not over.

The system worked, as the DA's office likes to point out. But we ask... at what cost?
###


Marsh acquitted
Jury finds former Main Street business owner Sean Marsh not guilty of child endangerment or interfering with duties of police officer
Feb. 8, 2007
It took a jury of six men and six women less than 20 minutes Tuesday morning to return to Courtroom Seven at the Humboldt County Courthouse and acquit former main Street business owner Sean Marsh, 38, on charges of child endangerment and interfering with the duties of a police officer.

Eight months after he was arrested on a Wednesday afternoon in Ferndale, while shopping with his eight-month pregnant wife, the former Village baking and catering owner hugged friends outside the courtroom moments after hearing the not guilty judgements.

Ferndale Police Chief Lonnie Lawson, who arrested and charged Marsh, did not wait for the verdict after testifying again on Tuesday.

Several Ferndalers, not necessarily close with the couple, traveled to Eureka to listen to the final day of testimony in a trial that lasted over a week. Some said, after reading news reports, they wanted to see first hand what was going on.

Marsh was charged with child endangerment - likely to produce great bodily harm or death - for allegedly allowing his two-year old son Everett to step off a curb 18 inches into the crosswalk at Main and Brown. He was arrested by Lawson who said he saw the child "running full speed: in front of Lentz Department store on the sidewalk. Marsh could have faced two years in jail. He has denied all along that his son was ever in any danger, and that he was right behind the youngster watching him carefully. He testified that the two had just smelled the flowers in front of the old Nilsen building and that he was on one knee, just getting up, when the chief, who was driving down Main, spotted the toddler.

Chief Lawson pulled into the intersection and parked his car at an angle to protect the child. Marsh, however, says the child was in fact shaken by Lawson's actions and that he was right behind his son to "scoop him up."

Both men differed in their testimony in court last week on what happened next. The chief claims Marsh "brushed him off" after admonishing him to keep a better watch on his child. Marsh testified that he raised his hand as to say, "I got it."

Lawson then pulled his car into a parking place near Lentz's, got out and approached Marsh. he claims Marsh was uncooperative and that he had to grab his shoulder. Marsh however, testified he was always cooperative and answered Lawson's questions.

He did not, however, produce written identification when asked by Lawson.

"I'm not required to by law," Marsh said after his acquittal Tuesday. "I gave the chief my name and birthdate."

That law was critical during judge Timothy Cissna's instructions to the jury Tuesday. He explained to the jury that one is not required to produce written identification when approached on the street by an officer.

Lawson took the stand twice in the course of the trial and had only one witness. Kevin Hamilton, owner of the Wild Blackberry Cafe, testified that he too saw the child on the sidewalk when he was driving down Main Street and exercised caution while making a U-turn.

Lawson took the stand for a second time Tuesday morning for last-minute questioning by prosecutor Jose Mendez, who attempted to prove that Lawson was not "angry" that day, as several witnesses to the arrest testified, but rather in "a very good mood."

Lawson said he had just received word that someone had donated $3,000 to the police department to purchase new body armor. He was on his way to tell former City Manager Michael Powers the news when he noticed the toddler running down the sidewalk.

Lentz's owner Polly Stemwedel filed a complaint with the city several weeks after the arrest, stating that she saw the chief during the arrest and was shocked by the angry look on his face.

On Tuesday, prosecutor Mendez discredited Stemwedel's testimony by stating that she had admitted to having a "prior beef" with the chief and often "complained to her husband" about him. He asked Lawson on the stand "if during the whole process, did he notice Mrs. Stemwedel?"

"I never saw her." replied Lawson.

"Did you make eye contact with her?" asked Mendez.

"I might have, but I don't recall seeing her there. I can't say one way or another."

During his closing arguments, Mendez repeated a theme of, "What's a police officer supposed to do?" He also called the defense a "Blame Chief Lawson defense."

"What would you do if you saw a kid on the sidewalk...walking to an intersection?" he asked jurors. "We pay money to them to investigate, put their noses in there, make sure things are okay. It would have been almost a dereliction of duties if he hadn't."

Mendez then stated that Lawson "put a hand" on Marsh's shoulder "to get him to stop." Marsh however testified that at no time did he not stop for Lawson.

"He became confrontational on certain levels." continued Mendez, describing Marsh's attitude. Witnesses on the defense side, however, such as Marilyn Benneman, Abraxas Shoe Store owner Brett Boynton, and real estate agent Jake Drake, all testified that Marsh just stood there and was not saying a word.

"Everyone else saw things after the major crux of the case," argued Mendez. "They saw someone being arrested. He has the right to ask for written identification."

Mendez continued describing a picture of Marsh attempting "to leave," although that allegation hadn't come up in previous testimony.

"I'm asking you to hold him accountable for his responsibilities," he concluded, referring to Marsh.

Public Defender Angela Fitzsimmons quickly summed up her closing arguments.

"Mr. Marsh was arrested not because he was engaged in any criminal conduct, but because he flunked the attitude test." she stated.

Fitzsimmons described Marsh as a loving and attentive father, proving that by his own testimony detailing his trip up Main Street with his son.

"Not only was he watching, but interacting," she said

She noted that the prosecution's only witness testified that he never saw the toddler enter the street.

"The evidence shows the little boy reached the end of the curb," she said, "that's it."

By convicting Marsh, Fitzsimmons told the jury, the DA would be "setting a standard" for child endangerment that would "snare innocent parents."

"That standard is ludicrous," she said while describing everyday events that occur when parents are taking care of children. "I'm sure the DA has the resources to pursue the real endangerment cases, since this week those resources were used to pursue this case."

As far as Marsh not showing written identification, Fitzsimmons explained that the law allows you to "turn away.:

"It may be rude, but it's not illegal," she said. "Officer Lawson, however, didn't like that."

Fitzsimmons then said that Lawson shoed "little or no concern" for the child, noting that he ordered Marsh to hand the child to Jake Drake, who was inside the store helping Marsh's wife Allison, shop for shoes. Drake, upon seeing the arrest outside, thought the situation was a joke and when asked by Lawson if the toddler was her child, joked back by pinching Marsh's cheek and stating, "No, this is my child."

The defender noted that the chief never contacted Allison to check on the child, or made no effort to make sure the child was in the hands of a caretaker.

She also noted the speed of the whole incident.

"Did you notice, this was the fastest investigation in the world? It all happened in minutes. How possibly, using a professional method, can you investigate child endangerment in about five minutes? In 20 minutes he had completed his report."

Fitzsimmons then noticed those in the audience and those that had testified in Marsh's defense.

"These are respectable business owners," she said. "They make up the backbone of the Ferndale business community. These are not anarchists."

Finally Fitzsimmons questioned why the DA charged Marsh.

"Did he hear Mrs. Stemwedel filed a complaint? Did he think it would be heard in the press? We can only surmise that the complaint against Officer Lawson was the reason that this case was brought to trial."

After the jury was excused, several told The Enterprise that "there just wasn't enough proof" and that "anyone who has a child knows that they can run away from you."

"there wasn't much to it," said juror Kenneth Willhoite about the case.

While defense attorney Fitzsimmons kept her usual practice of not talking to the media, prosecutor Mendez stated in an email later to The Enterprise that "we believe in the jury system... and respect it."

"I am obviously evaluating the case to see what I think worked and what didn't, though this process may take days or weeks."

Marsh, visibly relieved to have the case behind him after eight months, reiterated that the chief misperceived the situation from the beginning.

As for not showing his identification, Marsh said he was "standing up for his rights."

He also said he has thought about the case every day for eight months and that the effects of his ordeal are long term.

"Every article has involved the words child endangerment," he said. "Fifty people during jury selection saw that I'm the guy arrested for child endangerment. It's absolutely the most ludicrous thing. My wife almost died giving birth to my son. Nothing could be further from the truth."

Marsh said he wants a public apology from the chief.

"He wronged our family and wronged the entire community."

Reached later, Lawson had no comment.
###

Letters to the editor:

Questions about the Marsh case
Dear Editor:

We, along with other residents of Ferndale, have followed with interest the proceedings involving Sean Marsh. We have appreciated the coverage that you have given this series of events. Several questions, however, have arisen in our minds.
1. How much has this prosecution, including the arrest and incarceration of the defendant and the investigation of the "scene of the crime" by the district attorney and his staff, the jury trial, the entire proceeding cost the taxpayers of Ferndale and Humboldt County, and more importantly, cost the accused?
2. More important questions arise:
--a. Why was the defendant arrested rather than cited?
--b. Why was he taken to jail and required to post $50,000 bail?
--c. Why did the district attorney's office decide to proceed with prosecution after reportedly rejecting the case ("pending more investigation:)?
We are privileged to live in Ferndale, a law-abiding, gentle and kind community. However, we are troubled than an event which could have been treated as a minor incident blossomed into what it has become.
Yours truly,
Patricia Hofstetter
Sally Tanner
Ferndale

Charged responds to reporting inaccuracies
(Ed.'s note: The following letter was submitted to the Eureka Reporter in response to several factual errors in an article published Saturday regarding the Sean Marsh case.)
Dear Editor:

The article submitted by Kara D. Machado on February 3, 2007 (Eureka Reporter) regarding the proceedings against Sean Marsh is inaccurate and contains elements more suited to the opinion page.

First, Machado asserts facts about Marsh's testimony that are false and libelous. Second, in an article purporting to be an accurate representation of facts involved in a trial, fully one third of the article is devoted to opinions from a person neither involved with the trial nor present at the proceedings. These opinions are misrepresentative of the issues being brought up at trial and are not indicative of the Ferndale community.

Machado's statement, "Marsh admitted he did not first stop for Lawson," is factually incorrect. The facts, as stated by Marsh in his testimony, are that Lawson did not order or request Marsh to stop. Rather, Lawson said, "You need to hold his hand (referring to Marsh's son)," Marsh acknowledged Lawson's statement by raising his hand, picked up his son, and turned around to walk back up the sidewalk. Shortly thereafter, Lawson pulled his cruiser to the curb, exited the vehicle and walked toward Marsh. Marsh having heard a door slam, turned to see Lawson behind him. Marsh stopped and turned to face Lawson. The encounter that followed is at the heart of this trial.

Not only did Marsh not "admit that he did not first stop for Lawson." but Marsh did in fact stop for Lawson as soon as it became apparent that the officer wanted to speak with him.

Machado's inaccurate statement is not a fair and true report of Marsh's testimony and fails to capture the substance of that testimony. Her reporting creates an inaccurate effect on the reader.

Furthermore, Machado did not arrive at the courtroom in time to hear Marsh's testimony. Having missed the bulk of the proceeding, Machado tried to get Marsh to speak with her "on the record" outside the courtroom. Marsh declined as instructed by his legal counsel.

Machado had an exchange with a member of the public defender's office where she defended her reputation for fair and accurate reporting. Having missed the actual testimony, it's curious how Machado acquired her version of the facts.

Depending on her source, Machado may be guilty of actual malice for her reckless disregard for the falsity of her statements.

Regarding the "opinion piece" encapsulated in Machado's report, this is a fine example fo irresponsible reporting. The opinions put forth by Evelyn Harrison are certainly not relevant to Marsh's testimony, and are not representative of the Ferndale community.

Harrison opines that the intersection of Brown and Main is 'hub' of Ferndale. really? This is simply a misrepresentation of fact. Brown is two blocks long. It has a "T" intersection with Main at one end, and the residential street of Craig on the other.

Brown is a wonderful street, but it snot utilized to get anywhere. In the Main Street business district, Brown in undeniably the least traveled street. the other streets intersecting Main within the business district, Ocean, Shaw and Washington each are used to access the outlying areas of Ferndale and other communities.

In fact, the only time Brown could be considered a "highly congested traffic area" is when there is a fire, because it is then utilized by all of the volunteer firemen and the fire department equipment. During such an event, the siren is blaring, and all are aware that the intersection will soon be active. Literally, at all other times, a dog could take a leisurely nap in the middle of Brown and scarcely be bothered. Just to drive this point home, Main at Brown is the single most common place in Ferndale for Main Street drivers to make a U-turn. This is a resounding indictment; that drivers would rather risk an illegal maneuver in the middle of Main than trouble themselves with turning down Brown. It just doesn't go anywhere.

Harrison next expounds on the virtues of Officer Lawson. She states that Lawson is and "outstanding citizen and a wonderfully caring man. He's not the hothead police officer he's been portrayed to be. He is a gentleman."

One can deduce that Harrison knows Lawson socially. How Lawson acts in his social circles, however is irrelevant to the trial at hand. Harrison was not present at the incident involved in this trial. I assume she doesn't ride with Lawson during his shifts as police officer either. So her assertion that Lawson is not a "hothead police officer" is not based on any relevant observation.

It reminds me of the statements we hear from people who live next door to serial killers. They always say, "I'm shocked, he was such a nice quiet man."

So rather than the unfounded musings of a misguided friend to Lawson, why didn't Machado report on the testimony of the five defense witnesses who observed Lawson's interaction with Marsh?

Independently, these five witnesses described Lawson as "yelling" at Marsh, "pointing his finger in his face." "clearly agitated," :out of control," "staring with eyes so full of anger and hatred." The witnesses also described Marsh as "calm," "quiet," "just standing there holding his son."

Lawson in his testimony, stated "I never get emotional," and later added "I never get angry." According to the witnesses, Lawson's statements are incorrect.

Just for fun, let's look at another statement Lawson gave during his testimony. Lawson stated that he originally saw Marsh 200 feet from his child who was about to run into the street.

In a time span that Lawson estimated at 2 or 3 seconds, he pulled his car into the intersection, looked up and Marsh was picking up his son. Marsh had somehow covered 200 feet in two or three seconds? The world record for the 100 yard dash without starting blocks was set by Frank Wykoff in 1930 in a time of 9.4 seconds. At that pace, Wykoff could have covered 200 feet in about 6.1 seconds.

Lawson's testimony has Marsh covering that same distance twice, if not three times, as fast as the world record pace. Either Lawson is again incorrect, or Marsh should be pursuing a career as an elite runner.

Finally, Harrison does make one statement of opinion that is relevant to this case. She states of Lawson, "I would trust him with my life and the lives of any of my family members," Well, that's good, because as a police officer of Ferndale, our entire community has trust in officer Lawson. The entire community trusts that Lawson will uphold the laws of our village, state and country. We further trust that Lawson will respect the constitution and protect the civil rights and liberties of every citizen in our community.

And this brings up the relevance to this case. Marsh also trusted Lawson. It appears from the testimony at trial, that Lawson violated that trust. According to the testimony, Lawson acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner when arresting Marsh. Lawson was not acting in a lawful course in his duties to detain Marsh, and had questionable constitutional authority to demand Marsh produce an identification document after Marsh had identified himself verbally.

Furthermore, there was testimony that Lawson twisted Marsh's handcuffs as a punitive measure. This technique was denounced by our current administration when it was discovered that twisting handcuffs of prisoners at Abu Ghraib had become a common form of torture.

Whether Marsh or Lawson are "gentlemen" is irrelevant to this case, and therefore should not be the subject of an article reporting on the testimony in the case.

The testimony is that Lawson perceived a situation incorrectly. Lawson then confronted Marsh in an aggressive and confrontational manner. Marsh attempted to walk away from the confrontation and Lawson detained Marsh without cause. Lawson ordered Marsh, a pedestrian, to produce identification documents. Marsh immediately identified himself verbally. Marsh asserted that Lawson's demand for physical documentation of identity constituted an illegal search.

Unable to admit his mistake in perceiving the situation, and unwilling to acquiesce that marsh had identified himself within the scope of the constitution, Lawson arrested Marsh.

Machado has served this community unjustly with her inaccurate and irresponsible article. She has defamed Sean Marsh by not verifying the truth or falsity of her reported "facts." Further, she has confused the public by publishing narrowly held opinions in an article representing itself as factual reporting. Please print an equally conspicuous retraction to the original article, or print this letter in response to the original article.

Sean and Allison Marsh
Eureka

ER - Omholt preliminary hearing begins

Omholt preliminary hearing begins
by Kara D. Machado, 2/9/2007

Jason Ryan Omholt appeared in court Thursday to begin preliminary hearing proceedings in regard to a November 2006 armed robbery case.

As of Thursday, Omholt, 28, of Eureka, has been charged with robbery, being a felon in possession of a gun, evading police, the use of tear gas and a special strike allegation, said Humboldt County Deputy District Attorney Arnie Klein.

The strike allegation was added because of Omholt’s Oct. 28, 1997, conviction stemming from an incident in which he “stabbed a person in the eye over a gang conflict,” Klein has said.

“That constitutes a strike and would double any sentence Mr. Omholt is convicted of,” Klein said.

Humboldt County Chief Conflict Counsel Glenn Brown, Omholt’s attorney, said Omholt has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

Thursday’s preliminary hearing — after which a judge will determine if there is sufficient evidence to warrant a trial — stems from incidents that occurred on Nov. 15, 2006, Klein said.

Bobbie Grant was the only witness to take the stand Thursday.

Grant, 61, testified that she was working at Roger’s Market — located in the 700 block of School Road in McKinleyville — with her adult son during the robbery.

Grant said she was sitting behind the U-shaped counter at the market on the evening of Nov. 15, 2006, when the robbery occurred.

At first, Grant said she didn’t see anyone suspicious, but then saw one robber pass the counter, come back behind it and say, “Open the register,” in a “very mean voice.”

Grant said she opened the register and stood there until the robber told her to sit down.

“He took the money out of the register and under the drawer,” Grant said. “Then, he came up behind me.”

The robber then pulled back Grant’s head by her hair and sprayed her with what she described as pepper spray.

“He sprayed down and up and up and down on my face,” Grant said. “(The spray went in) my eyes, in my nose and in my mouth ...”

Grant said she wasn’t “really all that afraid” when the robber took the money because she was robbed a couple years ago.

She was, however, “shocked” when the robber sprayed her with pepper spray.

“I didn’t expect it,” Grant said, “because he already had the money. It was a total shock.”

Grant said she believed there was a second robber in the store, that her son was on the floor on the opposite side of the counter during the robbery and described the robber who pepper sprayed her as wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a mask.

Although Grant said she believed Omholt to be the robber she encountered Nov. 15, 2006, she said all she could see were the robber’s eyes and that Omholt’s “squinty eyes” were similar to those belonging to the robber.

Grant also testified that she believed the robber had a gun.

“I feel I (saw a gun),” Grant said. “I am very certain I felt threatened by a gun because when (the robber) pulled the back of my head, I thought I was going to be shot (in the head).”

Since the robbery, Grant said she no longer works at the market and has neck and anxiety problems stemming from her encounter with the robber.

Throughout Thursday’s proceedings — which were interrupted when Grant had to take a break because she was “really stressed out” — Omholt sat by Brown and would occasionally look back to smile at two family members and a friend in the spectator seating, write on paper or look at various court officials.

According to archives, a Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office news release stated that after the Nov. 15, 2006, robbery, a deputy began following a vehicle described as the robbery suspect vehicle.

The suspect vehicle sped up and spun around, driving “directly towards the deputy’s vehicle, causing the deputy to have to move to avoid being hit,” archives indicate.

The pursuit continued to Thiel Avenue, where the suspect vehicle jumped the curb and came to rest on a pile of gravel.

That is when the deputy saw a person leave the vehicle and run.

Inside the vehicle, a 30-year-old woman was found — she was arrested but not charged, Klein said. Also in the vehicle was a loaded 9-mm handgun, archives indicate.

Omholt and his stepbrother Zachary Cruz Cooke, then 17, were identified as alleged suspects in the robbery within a couple days of the robbery.

Thursday’s preliminary hearing dealt with one of four cases against Omholt.

On Jan. 29, Omholt was bound over for trial on two other cases: one that stems from an Oct. 23, 2006, incident in which he allegedly assaulted a man with a deadly weapon, and the second stemming from an Aug. 20, 2006, incident in which Omholt allegedly made threats to a man at a Eureka motel and Eureka gas station.

The fourth case — to be addressed at a future preliminary hearing — stems from the Dec. 22, 2006, attempted murder of HCSO Deputy Justin Braud, a peace officer.

Omholt was arrested Jan. 3 after a three-hour standoff in Eureka.

Omholt, Cooke and Waymond Hiat Kelly, 24, had been linked to a spree of armed robberies in Eureka, Arcata and McKinleyville that date back to October, archives indicate.

Cooke, 18, was fatally shot on Jan. 4 in Eureka by members of a collaborative law enforcement task force formed to investigate the robberies.

Kelly was arrested Jan. 5 after a 100-mile-per-hour chase along U.S. Highway 101 and State Highway 20 and later arraigned in Mendocino County for joyriding, receiving stolen property and having a prison prior.

In regard to Omholt’s alleged connection to the other robberies, Klein said, “There is an ongoing investigation and, as the evidence develops, we’ll file the appropriate charges against Mr. Omholt.”

Omholt is scheduled to return to Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Dale A. Reinholtsen’s courtroom today at 8:45 a.m. to continue his preliminary hearing proceedings.

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

ER - Cox leaves EPD for DA's Office

Eureka Police Traffic Officer Wayne Cox starts work as an investigator with the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office Tuesday. Submitted photo

EPD loses another officer
by Christine Bensen-Messinger, 2/9/2007

Almost a month after Eureka Police Traffic Sgt. Mike Hislop left the department to take a job with the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office, EPD is losing another traffic officer, Wayne Cox.

Eureka interim Police Chief Murl Harpham said he is happy for Cox, who is leaving to take a job as an investigator with the DA’s Office, but it will be another loss to the department, which is now seven officers down.

“Every time we lose somebody it affects the department and he’s been our mainstay in traffic for many years; he’s got a wealth of experience,” Harpham said. “It’s going to be a big loss. He coordinated a lot of our DUI checkpoints; he was basically the person in charge of those.”

He said Officer Greg Hill, who was previously assigned to the traffic division, but had been working regular patrol because there were not enough officers to do so, will be starting in the traffic division soon, so that the department can fulfill the requirements for its $380,000 Office of Traffic Safety grant.

“Now we’re kind of forced to put him in there,” Harpham said.

Although recruitment efforts are ongoing, with seven officers down, Harpham said the department is starting a new method of recruiting.

“Now we’re going to search for them prior to going to the academy and pay their way into the academy,” he said. “That means it will take a little longer to put them on the streets.”

But, Harpham said, it gives the department a new pool of people to recruit from.

Right now in California, he said, there are approximately 8,500 openings for police officers. This new recruiting effort will give EPD a more competitive edge.

Not only will the EPD pay for the academy tuition, he said, it will also pay the officer a small salary while he or she is in school, giving people who may want to change careers, but have a family or other restraints, the opportunity to do so.

“(It) allows people to move to a new job if (they) want to (and) those people are very attractive to us (because) they are usually a little older, more mature and have some life experience,” he said. “We need good, honest, drug-free people, and those people are difficult to find nowadays … and we refuse to lower our standards.”

With the use of overtime, Harpham said, the department is making it work, but not having enough staff makes it difficult to be proactive.

“Right now, we are basically responders; we respond to the calls that come to us,” he said. “We’d love to get back to community-oriented policing. We’d like to go out and stop stuff before it happens.”

Cox, who has been with the department for a total of 15 years and spent two years with the Department of Justice in the Bay Area, said he is looking forward to his new job.

“It’s basically 17 years in the trenches and I am looking forward to a little more standardized schedule and sanity,” he said.

Cox, who spent many years doing undercover work, said he is looking forward to getting back into it.

And, although he is leaving EPD, Cox said the legal street drag program that he started will not be leaving with him.

“Just because I am leaving, that doesn’t mean the EPD street drags (program) is going to end. … Traffic Officers Gary Whitmer and Hill will continue the street drags program that I started (and) I will serve as an adviser. I have too much personal time and effort invested to give it up.”

Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos could not be reached for comment by deadline.

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved

ER - Sean Marsh not guilty on all counts, jury decides Tuesday

Sean Marsh not guilty on all counts, jury decides Tuesday
by Kara D. Machado, 2/7/2007

Sean Marsh hugged his wife Allison Marsh outside of Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Timothy Cissna’s courtroom Tuesday after a jury returned with not guilty verdicts on two counts and a lesser included charge — alleging Sean Marsh endangered the life of his 2-year-old son on March 31.

The not guilty verdicts were reached in a little less than half an hour of jury deliberation Tuesday.

After Tuesday’s court proceedings, Marsh said, “I’m happy that it’s over.”

Sean Marsh, 39, faced a maximum of two years in the Humboldt County Correctional Facility had he been convicted of the two counts the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office charged him with, Deputy DA Jose Mendez has said: misdemeanor child endangerment likely to produce great bodily harm or death and the resisting/obstructing/delaying of Ferndale Police Chief Lonnie Lawson in the performance of his duties.

The case stemmed from an incident that occurred near the intersection of Main and Brown streets in Ferndale at about 3:30 p.m. on March 31, 2006, after Marsh and his son went outside Abraxas Shoes and Leather, located on Main Street, while Marsh’s wife shopped for shoes inside.

Lawson maintained Marsh was negligent in allegedly allowing his toddler to go 18 inches into the intersection at Main and Brown streets and alleged that Marsh delayed his investigation into the incident when Marsh allegedly failed to comply with Lawson’s orders.

Marsh maintained his child only got to the curb of the intersection, that he did stop for Lawson and that he was open to Lawson’s questions until Lawson allegedly became “confrontational” with him.

In her closing argument Tuesday, Humboldt County Public Defender Angela Fitzsimons, Marsh’s attorney, described the case against Marsh as not one of child endangerment nor one of delaying an officer in the performance of his duties.

Rather, Fitzsimons said, the case went to trial because Lawson thought Marsh “flunked the attitude test” because Lawson thought Marsh “brushed him off” when he attempted to make contact with him.

Fitzsimons — who described Marsh as a “loving, devoted dad” — told jurors there were several people who saw Marsh with his son on the sidewalk late afternoon March 31 and testimony revealed that Marsh was “diligently” watching his son.

Marsh “was not only watching his son, but interacting with him,” Fitzsimons said, “(and) exploring the world with him.”

Fitzsimons told jurors the child ran off at one point and, as Marsh was getting off of one knee — after looking at a store window display with his son — the child was, at most, 15 feet away from him.

However, Fitzsimons told jurors, “testimony shows the little boy stopped at the curb”; that Marsh had called out, “careful,” to his son as his son ran off; and that Marsh had scooped up his son by the time Lawson had gotten out of his patrol unit at the intersection.

And, Fitzsimons told jurors that it was not against the law when Marsh first walked away from Lawson and it was “good enough under the law” to verbally tell Lawson who he is rather than comply with Lawson’s demands for tangible identification.

During Mendez’s closing argument, he told jurors that Lawson stopped at the intersection of Main and Brown streets on March 31 because Lawson believed the Marsh toddler to be in danger.

Mendez told jurors if Lawson had not stopped and the child would have been seriously injured or killed, the case would have been an entirely different matter.

“What is a police officer supposed to do?” Mendez asked jurors more than once. “What would you do?

“What would a reasonable person do under these circumstances?”

With regard to the delaying an officer charge, Mendez told jurors Marsh was “rather dismissive” throughout the whole incident and that Lawson said he had to walk about 85 feet and put his hand on Marsh to get Marsh to stop for him.

After court proceedings Tuesday, Fitzsimons declined to comment on the verdict.

Mendez said he respects the jurors’ verdicts in the case.

“While we obviously wish the decision was otherwise, we respect their judgment in this matter,” Mendez said. “They sat through (the trial), heard testimony, went over the jury instructions and took time to evaluate (the case) and we’re confident the system worked.”

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

RELATED:
Ferndale Enterprise Sean Marsh NOT GUILTY - A cartoon, an editorial, an article and letters to the editor
ACQUITTED ER - Sean Marsh not guilty on all counts, jury decides Tuesday
Ferndale Enterprise - DA explains Marsh "child endangerment" prosecution
ER - Sean Marsh testifies on his own behalf in child endangerment trial
ER - Marsh denies letting 2-year-old toddler walk unattended in road
Word to the Wise:
Don't Cop an Attitude in Ferndale

ER - Marsh denies letting 2-year-old toddler walk unattended in road

Marsh denies letting 2-year-old toddler walk unattended in road
by Kara D. Machado, 2/2/2007

Ferndale Police Chief Lonnie Lawson alleges Sean Marsh failed to keep his toddler from danger when Marsh allegedly let his child walk off the curb of Main Street and 18 inches into the roadway at the intersection with Brown Street.

Marsh, however, has stated in media reports that he was calling his 2-year-old son Everett to come back to him — as Marsh walked about 15 feet behind the toddler — and that Everett got only as far as the curb of the intersection.

Thursday was Marsh’s second day of jury trial.

Marsh, 38, has been charged with two misdemeanor counts — child endangerment and delaying a peace officer in the performance of his duties — stemming from the incident, which occurred at about 3:30 p.m. on March 31, 2006, Humboldt County Deputy District Attorney Jose Mendez said.

If convicted, Mendez said Marsh could face a maximum of two years in the Humboldt County Correctional Facility.

Marsh has pleaded not guilty to both counts.

Lawson was the first witness on the stand Thursday, after whose testimony Mendez rested the prosecution’s case.

Following Lawson’s testimony, the defense called the first four of its witnesses: Polly Stemwedel, owner of Lentz Department Store in Ferndale; Marilyn Benemann, a book dealer; Brett Boynton, the manager of Abraxas Shoes and Leather; and Marsh’s wife, Allison Marsh — who held the couple’s 6-month-old daughter while she testified.

Marsh is being represented by Humboldt County Public Defender Angela Fitzsimons, who declined to comment on the case.

According to the police report, Mendez said, Lawson saw the Marsh toddler slightly going into the roadway at the intersection of Main and Brown streets, so he stopped his patrol unit. That is when Sean Marsh — who Lawson claims was out of the vicinity of the child’s presence — walked up, picked up the child and walked away.

When Lawson tried to investigate why the child was out in the street “without supervision,” he felt he couldn’t properly do so because Marsh continued to walk away despite Lawson’s attempts to contact him.

Marsh, Lawson claims, then became uncooperative when Marsh failed to submit his identification upon Lawson’s command.

In court Thursday, Mendez asked Lawson if — in all of Lawson’s 30 years of experience as an officer — he’s ever dealt with someone as uncooperative as Marsh. Lawson said he hadn’t.

“I can never remember anyone just brushing me off, just walking off,” Lawson said, “(without) some contact.”

Lawson testified that he did not see the Marsh child fall down or get injured before, during or after the incident.

The chief also testified that he does not get emotional — he will, however, “change his (tone of) voice” at times — and does not get angry, but frustrated, while dealing with people on the job.

Stemwedel testified that she was in her store, behind the counter near the door, when she heard a car racing up to the curb at about 3:30 p.m. on March 31.

Outside, Stemwedel said she saw that the first car was a police car and was followed by another unit.

Stemwedel said she then saw Marsh being handcuffed as he held his son.

Lawson, Stemwedel said, was about 3 feet away from her, looking at her with “such hatred” and anger that it scared her.

“I got the impression from him not to say anything,” Stemwedel said.

Stemwedel testified that she did not see what happened prior to the incident.

Sometime after the incident, Stemwedel said, she filed a complaint to the Ferndale City Council because she “totally felt (Lawson) overreacted and didn’t feel he should go on without being reprimanded” for his behavior.

Benemann testified that as she was walking back from the post office on Main Street March 31, she came upon Lawson, Marsh and Marsh’s toddler.

Benemann, who said she was on the same side of the street, testified that she heard Lawson tell Marsh in a “severe” voice, “Do you understand me?” before poking his finger into Marsh’s shoulder. And, at one point, Lawson told Marsh he was under arrest.

Marsh asked what he should do with his child, Benemann testified, and woman named Jake Drake took the child.

Boynton testified that Marsh’s then-eight-month-pregnant wife was shoe shopping at his store when Marsh and Everett went outside.

Boynton said he, himself, walked in and out of the store to chat with Marsh.

Marsh’s wife had worked at the shoe store previously, Boynton testified, and Boynton said he had known the couple both through having Marsh’s wife as a prior employee and as friends.

It was about a five- to 10-minute time frame, Boynton testified, from the time the Marshes entered the store to the time Sean Marsh was arrested.

“(Marsh) was definitely following his child” at the time of the incident, Boynton testified. “He was always consciously aware of what his child was doing, in my opinion.”

Boynton said he was inside the shoe store when the incident between Marsh and Lawson happened, but Boynton said he saw Marsh being handcuffed and described the scene as “chaotic.”

The day after Marsh was taken to jail, Boynton said he sought Lawson to discuss the incident.

Boynton found Lawson at Papa Joe’s restaurant having breakfast.

Boynton said he asked why the incident happened and that Lawson replied, “(Marsh’s) body language said ‘F you.’ What else was I supposed to do?”

Sarcastically, Boynton said back to Lawson, “I don’t know, arrest him?”

Allison Marsh testified that she didn’t know what was going on at the time her husband was being arrested until she heard the words “whose kid is this?”

She then went outside, picked up Everett and took him back into the shoe store because the toddler kept putting up his arms up, saying, “Dad? Dad?”

No one asked Allison Marsh if she was Everett’s mother, she testified.

Sean Marsh is scheduled to testify today in Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Timothy Cissna’s courtroom.

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

RELATED:
Ferndale Enterprise Sean Marsh NOT GUILTY - A cartoon, an editorial, an article and letters to the editor
ACQUITTED ER - Sean Marsh not guilty on all counts, jury decides Tuesday
Ferndale Enterprise - DA explains Marsh "child endangerment" prosecution
ER - Sean Marsh testifies on his own behalf in child endangerment trial
ER - Marsh denies letting 2-year-old toddler walk unattended in road
Word to the Wise:
Don't Cop an Attitude in Ferndale

Ferndale Enterprise - DA explains Marsh "child endangerment" prosecution

Source: Eureka Reporter - Lives documented

The Ferndale Enterprise Quote of the Week: "This is not the crime of the century. I'll concede that entirely." Humboldt County DA Paul Gallegos on the Sean Marsh case.

Interesting statement given the facts revealed in the Enterprise's story. Why - did you know that Gallegos visited the scene of the crime - the corner where Sean Marsh's son stepped a foot off the curb? Seems like he's taking it very seriously indeed.

The rest of the story reveals a common pattern of behavior between this and other Gallegos coverups. The initial denial, then the admission, following a public records act demand - the talking about a case, and then saying ooops, he really shouldn't be talking and clamming up - the frustrated Deputy District Attorney who is never supposed to have to talk to the press because that is the DA's job copping a an attitude in an attempt to get them to go away.

What's more, it looks like a case that should never have gone to trial because of a "lack of evidence" was inexplicably resurrected and made a top priority by a DA whose priorities are so skewed it defies imagination.

DA explains Marsh "child endangerment" prosecution

subhead - Paul Gallegos paid a visit to Brown and Main for a first-hand look at intersection where toddler allegedly entered into crosswalk 18 inches.

"When is it appropriate? After the child is run over?"

That was the answer Tuesday afternoon from Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos after he was asked by The Enterprise if it was appropriate for his office to be prosecuting Sean Marsh.

Marsh, a former Main Street business owner, is on trial this week on two misdemeanor charges - child endangerment and interfering with the duties of a police officer. the former Village Baking & Catering owner allegedly allowed his toddler son to enter the crosswalk a distance of 18 inches at Brown and Main without supervision.

Ferndale Police Chief Lonnie Lawson, who happened to be in the area at the time Marsh's son allegedly headed into the crosswalk, pulled over to talk to Marsh after witnessing the alleged incident. Marsh, states the Chief in his report, was asked for his identification several times but refused to show his license. Instead, Marsh identified himself by name only.

Marsh has contended that his son was under his watchful eye the entire time he was visiting with fellow merchants on Main Street and did not enter the intersection, and in fact could have been hurt by the chief's action of pulling into the crosswalk.

The chief, apparently frustrated with Marsh's attitude, instructed him to turn over his young son to Ferndale Real Estate's Jake Drake, while he handcuffed Marsh after calling for backup, and put him in his patrol car. Drake has stated that she was a stranger to the chief and was concerned about him turning over the child. (Drake, along with several other Ferndalers, is scheduled to testify at the trial.)

Marsh's nine-months pregnant wife eventually emerged from inside Abraxas Shoes where she had been shopping to learn of her husband's situation.

Marsh was then taken to the Humboldt County Jail, where he spent the night on $50,000 bail. He was released in the morning. More than six weeks later the case was reopened and Marsh was arraigned.

Originally the DA's office told The Enterprise the case was "rejected" due to further investigation needed. However, Gallegos on Tuesday said, according to the file, a complaint request was received June 1 and filed on June 5.

"It was not originally rejected," he stated.

However further clarification with the criminal desk at the DA's office shows that a "statement of probable cause" from the FPD was filed on June 5 and not a complaint. "The case was declined on June 1 "due to further investigation needed." And it was not until July 18 that the case was reopened - after Main Street merchant Polly Stemwedel filed a complaint against the chief.

An investigation done by the Fortuna Police Department cleared the chief of any wrong doing.

Meanwhile the detention slip from the jail provided to The Enterprise states that Marsh was released from jail because "there was insufficient grounds for making a criminal complaint."

Marsh, the evening after his arrest, attended a Ferndale City Council meeting and asked for a public apology from the chief. The request was ignored.

Gallegos, meanwhile, said Tuesday that he and deputy Jose Mendez paid a lunchtime visit to the brown and main intersection three weeks ago to see exactly where the alleged incident took place.

"I think every attorney, if you're going to trial, should go and look at the site." said Gallegos, adding that it's the state's duty to enforce the laws.

"We have an obligation as parents to try and take reasonable steps to protect out children," he said. "When a parent fails to do that, the state has to step in and do that."

Gallegos commented on the fact that he has children as well and knows that "kids do run off."

"It certainly is a fine line," he said. "Is it the most egregious conduct in the world? No. But there is, quite frankly, not necessarily egregious conduct and we have to prosecute. Those are the laws. we then give it to a jury and let them decide what they think about it."

Gallegos denied any link between merchant Stemwedel's complaint against the chief and the reopening of the case.

Gallegos continued in a lengthy interview on the case, stating that while he "would not weigh in on the parent's intent," he didn't think that Marsh "lacked love or a desire to take care of the kid."

"The facts, however, as we understand, show that it wasn't the safest thing for the kid," said Gallegos.

Marsh's trial began on Monday in Judge Timothy Cissna's courtroom in Humboldt County Superior Court. Jury selection took up most of the morning on Tuesday and Deputy DA Mendez predicted the case would take up five mornings.

Several motions were filed by Mendez on Monday to apparently exclude the testimony of several witnesses.

The case file was unavailable for review and Mendez, when asked via email for clarification of the motions, stated, "I understand the desire to know everything about a case involving people in your community (especially for a reporter). However, I do not wish to subvert (or even be seen as attempting to subvert) the court process by putting this trial in a newspaper. At this point, the court file is a matter of public record and can be viewed by anyone who comes to the courthouse and makes the request. I also do not wish to go into why certain motions were made (or not) by one side or the other. As to plea offers, there is a certain amount of confidentiality that can be expected in negotiations. For the sake of all parties involved, I will not go into what was contemplated in negotiations by either side to resolve the case."

However, when Gallegos was asked by The Enterprise about the motions, he put the phone on hold and fetched the file.

Upon returning, he explained three motions had been filed with the first to exclude the testimony of Marilyn Benemann, the wife of former City Councilman Carlos Benemann, a witness to the event.

Gallegos then stopped reading the motions, stating he was not sure whether it was appropriate to be revealing the information in them.

"I'm not trying to conceal information from the public," he stated, "I'm just not sure what the court is going to do."

Gallegos, however was later asked by The Enterprise to make the motions public, per the California Public Records Act. Just before press time, Gallegos emailed The Enterprise and said Mendez would make the motions available. They were not available by press time.

Meanwhile in his earlier interview, the district attorney conceded that the Marsh case was "not the crime of the century."

"I'll concede that entirely," he said. "if the case should have been dismissed, we would have dismissed it. We always try to evaluate cases fairly...sometimes we're wrong."

Calls and emails, meanwhile to Marsh's public defender Angela Fitzsimmons were not returned.
###

In addition to the story, The Enterprise masterful cartoonist Jack Mays depicts a mock newspaper with an illustration of hte arrest and the banner headline "Gallegos gets tough on Toddler Wandering - Leash Law now applies to all Ferndale Children.

Mock front page stories "Crime running rampant in Humboldt County - children found in locked car - police discovered two children locked in a car at the Bayshore Mall. The temperature was 120 degrees... Toddlers exposed to toxic fumes at Eureka Meth Lab... Eureka Police shoot "fleeing juvenile"... a twelve year old juvenile was shot sixty four times by Eureka Police Officers. the victim was trying to climb the new fence surrounding the Balloon Track. The reasons for the shooting were unclear at press time. According to a spokesperson for the District Attorney's office there were no investigators available at this time, the entire staff is currently investigating the wandering juvenile case in Ferndale....Crime in Humboldt County cited as reason for Tourism decline... Irate business owners, city governments, tourism board and film commission are all up in arms over the County District Attorney's Office. The General Complaint is that Gallegos is pre-occupied with child wandering cases and he doesn't have time for felony cases.... Gallegos was quoted as saying "No child will be let behind, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Funny stuff.

RELATED:
Ferndale Enterprise Sean Marsh NOT GUILTY - A cartoon, an editorial, an article and letters to the editor
ACQUITTED ER - Sean Marsh not guilty on all counts, jury decides Tuesday
Ferndale Enterprise - DA explains Marsh "child endangerment" prosecution
ER - Sean Marsh testifies on his own behalf in child endangerment trial
ER - Marsh denies letting 2-year-old toddler walk unattended in road
Word to the Wise:
Don't Cop an Attitude in Ferndale

ER - DA's Office yet to respond to request for child abuse records

DA's Office yet to respond to request for child abuse records
by Glenn Franco Simmons, 5/19/2006

The Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office still has not provided documentation requested by The Eureka Reporter regarding the number of child abuse cases that it has dealt with, broken out by year, since the mid-1990s.

As a result, The Eureka Reporter will file a Public Records Act request that requests information about the Child Abuse Services Team’s performance.

Some critics have spoken to The Eureka Reporter and maintain that District Attorney Paul Gallegos has lost touch with CAST and that he is ignoring a significant trend in his department that points to fewer cases being filed.

According to former deputy district attorney Gillian Wadsworth, who has submitted an as yet unpublished letter to the editor at The Eureka Reporter, after 2002 when Gallegos took office, rejection of cases submitted to the DA’s Office increased from 28 percent in 2002 to 45 percent in 2005.

She also said that in 1997-1998, 65-70 percent of the cases submitted to the DA were filed on. In 2005, Wadsworth said, 48 percent were filed on.

Adding to the controversy, Gallegos has also been criticized for plea bargains.

“In 2005, 80 percent of cases were resolved with plea convictions — that’s the highest percent since the program opened,” Wadsworth said. “Plea bargains can be the best thing in a sexual abuse case, or they can effectively ‘let someone off the hook.’ This number needs to be explored and explained.”

Wadsworth also disputed Gallegos’ claim about the historical number of prosecutors assigned to CAST. Gallegos claims CAST never had two full-time attorneys working CAST.

“There were two attorneys whose primary case load was child sexual/physical abuse and one additional attorney who took on the role of director,” she said. “That is nearly 2.5 FTE’s, and those attorneys were busy. The attorneys attended the interviews, worked with the investigators, and when appropriate, prosecuted the case.

They knew the child and the family from the beginning, and the child and family knew their attorney. That was vertical prosecution.”

Gallegos vehemently disagrees with such assessments.

“I can tell you ... CAST has never paid for two full-time attorneys, nor have we had two full-time attorneys assigned to (CAST),” Gallegos said. “We currently have Maggie Flemming assigned to CAST with Andrew Isaac as her backup attorney for CAST cases.”

“All we need to ask ourselves is how Paul Gallegos manages to staff CAST and maintain vertical prosecution when he has one attorney whose job is mostly child abuse but other things as well,” Wadsworth said. “Why did he put one person in a role that took at least two and a half? We can see the number of cases being investigated isn’t dropping, so we know the workload hasn’t reduced. Is this in the best interest of our community, our children and families, or for the team?”

Deputy District Attorney Maggie Fleming said she has done extensive CAST interviews this year.
“Since January 2006, I’ve reviewed 22 sexual or physical abuse cases,” Fleming said. “During that same time, there were actually 45 CAST interviews. Many of those stopped after the CAST interview, perhaps because there was no disclosure. Sometimes, it is because a person either can’t or is unwilling to identify the perpetrator. Law enforcement will proceed with an investigation, but at that point, we do not have anything to file on, so there isn’t a referral initially (to the DA’s Office).

“Traditionally, historically, a number of people don’t disclose at CAST. And I saw from some of the numbers that were sent to (The Eureka Reporter) last week, that are from Jan. 1, 2002 to May 11, 2006 (Gallegos’ tenure), there were 767 interviews done at the CAST office. Of those, in 635 there was an allegation of sexual abuse, meaning they came to the CAST office because someone either heard or saw something or believed that a child had been sexually abused. Of those 635, where that was alleged, 377 resulted in some form of disclosure. So statistically, you can see it’s right around 60 percent who said (during the CAST interview) that something had happened.”

“Even when there is a nondisclosure — meaning that even when during the CAST interview, the child interviewed says nothing happened — those cases are sometimes referred to the DA’s Office,” Fleming continued. “And that can be because there happens to be physical evidence that supports the allegation. Or, sometimes it’s because a family member or somebody else is adamant that something happened and they want us to look at it.”

However, Fleming said, sometimes in those cases, the DA’s Office cannot prosecute because it doesn’t have enough evidence, and with a non-disclosure, it does not find itself in a position to prosecute.

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

Read:
ER - Former deputy DA speaks out
Be sure to look at the statistics chart
ER - Candidates spar over child abuse team
ER - DA's Office yet to respond to request for child abuse records
ER - CAST established with child victims in mind
ER - CAST needs support Gallegos is not providing

ER - Former deputy DA speaks out

Former deputy DA speaks out
by Glenn Franco Simmons, 5/12/2006

A former deputy district attorney terminated by Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos claims the DA is mismanaging the Child Abuse Services Team.

CAST is a multidisciplinary team that investigates child abuse cases. If child abuse is determined to have occurred, CAST refers the cases to the District Attorney’s Office for prosecution.

Allison Jackson, who is supporting Worth Dikeman in the June 6 election for district attorney, called Gallegos’ management style “appalling.”

Decline In Cases

“The decline in (child abuse) cases filed can be attributed to Paul’s lack of leadership and expertise,” Jackson said. “This is not the attorneys; this is Paul. It is Paul’s utter lack of vision.”

In a Thursday e-mail to The Eureka Reporter, Gallegos made one thing clear: “If there are any stones to throw, which there should not be, they are to be thrown at me. The people in my office work far too hard to be involved in politics as well.”

Based upon documentation obtained by The Eureka Reporter, the number of cases being referred to CAST from law enforcement agencies has not dramatically dropped off, but the number of cases accepted by the DA’s Office and the number of cases filed by the office have seen dramatic declines.

For example, based upon the documents’ first-quarter figures for 2006, there were four cases accepted by the DA’s Office — gleaned from 40 CAST interviews. Of those four cases, one was filed, two cases were rejected and one case has been received and was pending a filing decision at the end of the first quarter.

For the year previous, according to the documents, there were 155 CAST interviews of children. Cases received by the DA’s Office numbered 35 with 17 cases filed.

In 2000, for comparison, the documentation said there were 194 CAST interviews of children with 66 cases accepted by the DA’s Office and 48 cases filed.

Maggie Flemming

Deputy District Attorney Maggie Flemming — who is the main person at the DA’s Office who prosecutes persons accused of child abuse — said the numbers The Eureka Reporter obtained did not reflect the work she has done so far this year.

However, because of The Eureka Reporter’s deadline and her schedule, she was unable to provide current information by press deadline.

Jackson and Wes Keat of the District Attorney’s Office praised Flemming for her hard work and commitment. Jackson said her criticism of Gallegos should in no way reflect on Flemming.

“I believe that you will find that Maggie’s work, her skill and dedication, is universally acknowledged as being beyond reproach,” Keat said. “She has 20 years of successful experience as a prosecutor, including a substantial background in sexual assault, not to mention homicides. Maggie is simply the best.”

“I can tell you there is no other attorney I admire more in the world than Maggie Flemming,” Jackson said.

CAST Breakdown

Keat submitted a breakdown of cases going back into the 1990s, but they were not all broken down into years as requested by The Eureka Reporter. Keat sent the total numbers for 2002-2006. The program has been in existence since the 1990s.

When asked about declining prosecution rates earlier this week, Gallegos said, “As for a decline in prosecutions, if there are declining prosecutions, that’s because there are declining cases. If there are declining cases, we have certainly looked into that.

“... Now some will say it’s law enforcement, that law enforcement doesn’t think you are going to do anything with it, which is perverse to me, because here you have a child victim and they are saying they are not going to bring it (the case to the DA’s Office)? That’s crazy, but that’s the sort of stuff you will hear.”

Gallegos has his own explanation for the decreasing totals.

“... We broke it down and looked at the numbers and saw that where the decrease has been is in the stranger offenders,” he said. “So the next question is why, and we don’t have a good answer for that yet. The theory in my head, even though we don’t have enough data yet, but it’s probably public education and education of parents.

“It may have a certain amount to do with Jessica’s Law, to do with notification. A certain amount is probably the general neurosis or fear in society about law officers because they get so much air time because people are less certain about the safety of their kids these days.

“My suspicion,” he continued, “even though we don’t have enough data, is that there is self-policing activity on the part of individuals that is probably reducing the stranger (cases). Most of your repeat offenders are your stranger offenders. … The data that we get, that we see is that most familiar offenders — those are the people less likely to re-offend — there is a whole dynamic involved in that, but it’s the stranger (on child) that is the most recidivistic. … Some people, and this may sound sick to you or I, but some people actually molest out of different feelings, some times out of feelings of love.”

Gallegos said most child molestations are perpetrated by people a child knows.

“It’s family or friends of family, extended family,” he said. “It is an unfortunate reality.”

Jackson said there are different dynamics at issue.

“Something is happening at the center and something is happening in the DA’s Office,” she said. “There is a huge problem here. This looks like an utter system breakdown — irrespective of the fact that you have great people, and they are some of the most fantastic people I’ve ever met who work in this field.”

“When you have 40 interviews going in (through the first three months of this year), and you extrapolate that out for the year, you are looking at about the same number of cases (being brought in by law enforcement), but you sure don’t have the same number coming out and the same number filed. Paul runs the program and he runs that office in name only.

“This all comes back to priorities. It’s not just incompetence, but it’s also an utter lack of priorities. These statistics are directly attributable solely and absolutely to Paul Gallegos. They are not attributable to anyone else. … This program used to work. ... These children aren’t slipping through the cracks. These children have been marched up to the Grand Canyon and kicked off. There is a huge difference when you only have one case that is prosecutable (through the first three months of this year).”

Gallegos issued a rebuttal to Jackson’s charges.

“We are absolutely committed to the success of CAST and the discovery and prosecution of child abusers,” he said in an e-mail to The Eureka Reporter, Thursday. “To claim otherwise is an outrage, as it is first of all false, second, (it) creates false fear in our community, third, (it) creates false fear in the victims and witnesses in our current cases, and fourth, (it) creates the impression in the community — which includes potential offenders — that they may have the opportunity to offend in this community.

“No one (who) is committed to children and their families would act with such disregard for the truth, the interests of victims, the interests of the office and the interests of the community.”

Jackson said she has a solution to what she said is a broken system:

“You need a DA in there who is committed to put CAST back together and make that a priority,” she said. “You need to bring back the physical abuse and neglect cases as opposed to cutting them out of the process there. You need someone who is fully committed to looking at these things every month. You need to look at the entire system again, because it is broken, and it’s going to take a lot of work and a lot of commitment. These things don’t run on their own. They just don’t. Somebody needs to pick up the ball and administer these programs.”

Jackson said she doesn’t understand how Gallegos’ supporters “can remotely think this is OK, that this change in philosophy is OK. I don’t see that with these numbers. How can anyone buy this any longer? Those figures are not (campaign) rhetoric.”

(Editor’s note: This is the first part of a two-part series.)
Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

Read:
ER - Former deputy DA speaks out
Be sure to look at the statistics chart
ER - Candidates spar over child abuse team
ER - DA's Office yet to respond to request for child abuse records
ER - CAST established with child victims in mind
ER - CAST needs support Gallegos is not providing

ER - Sean Marsh testifies

A sidewalk on Main Street in Ferndale that leads up to the intersection with Brown Street, the scene of the March 31, 2006, alleged child endangerment. Kara D. Machado/The Eureka Reporter

Sean Marsh testifies on his own behalf in child endangerment trial
by Kara D. Machado, 2/3/2007

Sean Marsh, 39, took the witness stand Friday, defending himself against a child endangerment charge regarding his 2-year-old son Everett.

The case stems from an incident that occurred near the intersection of Main and Brown streets in Ferndale at about 3:30 p.m. on March 31, 2006.

Ferndale Police Chief Lonnie Lawson alleges Marsh failed to keep his toddler safe from danger when Marsh allegedly let the child walk off the curb of Main Street and 18 inches into the intersection with Brown Street.

Marsh maintains that he and his toddler were playing outside while his wife, Allison, was shoe shopping at Abraxas Shoes and Leather, located on Main Street.

The child toddled about and the two walked by a nearby flower shop — no longer in business — where Marsh knelt down so he and Everett could look at the flowers.

Everett continued to toddle away at one point and Marsh called to him.

Marsh maintains Everett got only as far as the curb of the Main and Brown streets intersection when he caught up to his son and Lawson had pulled up in his patrol unit.

Marsh admitted he did not first stop for Lawson nor did he hand over his identification when ordered by Lawson to do so, but said he verbally told Lawson his name and date of birth.

The whole incident, from the time Everett walked to the curb to the point Marsh was arrested, lasted between two to four minutes, Marsh testified.

Marsh said he had no prior contact with Lawson before his arrest in March.

In addition to misdemeanor child endangerment, Marsh has been charged with the misdemeanor of delaying Lawson in the performance of his duties, Humboldt County Deputy District Attorney Jose Mendez said.

If convicted of the charges against him, Mendez said Marsh could face a maximum of two years in the Humboldt County Correctional Facility.

A few hours after court ended for the day Friday, Evelyn Harrison, 58, a resident of Ferndale, called The Eureka Reporter to talk about the intersection and defend Lawson’s character.

Harrison described the intersection as the hub of Ferndale, where, nearby, the fire department, a bank and — at the time of the incident — a feed store once generated a lot of traffic.

“It’s a highly congested traffic area going into Main Street there,” Harrison said. “We take care of a 9-year-old girl named Hannah and whenever we get about 25 yards from the intersection with Brown Street, I always say, ‘take my hand,’ because it gets really busy there.”


Of Lawson, Harrison described the Ferndale police chief as an “outstanding citizen and a wonderfully caring man.”

“We need to be thankful (in Ferndale) that we have such a wonderful overseer, I think,” Harrison said. “I would trust him with my life and the lives of any of my family members.

“He’s not the hothead police officer he’s been portrayed to be. He’s a gentleman.”

Marsh’s attorney, Humboldt County Public Defender Angela Fitzsimons, has adamantly refused to make comments to the press about the case. Fitzsimons has advised Marsh that he not talk to the press as well.

Thursday was Marsh’s third day of trial. On Monday, the bulk of the witnesses testified.

Marsh’s trial proceedings are not scheduled to resume until 8:30 a.m. Tuesday in order for another defense witness to take the stand.

Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Timothy Cissna estimated jurors could begin deliberating the case most likely Tuesday, if not Wednesday.

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

RELATED:
ACQUITTED ER - Sean Marsh not guilty on all counts, jury decides Tuesday
Ferndale Enterprise - DA explains Marsh "child endangerment" prosecution
ER - Sean Marsh testifies on his own behalf in child endangerment trial
ER - Marsh denies letting 2-year-old toddler walk unattended in road
Word to the Wise:
Don't Cop an Attitude in Ferndale