Inside UDJ by Editor K.C. Meadows

It's always crazy moving up to an election day. The political letters are still streaming in and we will do everything we can to get them all in but it won't be easy. The city contest has been getting pretty nasty. The anti-Phil Baldwin folks are really foaming at the mouth this time. The Employers Council's John Graff was one of the people going door-to-door passing out his anti-Phil brochures which at the forum last week, Baldwin cited as pretty much a complete fabrication. I've seen it and exaggerated and misleading statements are at its core. This year we've also seen some blatant campaign finance shenanigans. And, if you've noticed, the candidates using Muelrath and Associates of Santa Rosa are ones with big colorful slick mailers that say almost nothing about the candidates and the others are handing out self-written issue oriented brochures that really provide good information. Someone suggested to me and I will remember it for the next forums we do, that we should bring the mailers to the forum and ask the candidates questions directly about their mailers and get them to go on record with specifics about what they claim they support.

We also need to rethink the timing of forums and other election information given the number of mail-in voters now on our rolls. (We are planning more on that this week.) Do earlier forums help mail-in voters but provide too much time before an election for things to happen that might change a voter's mind? Or should we concentrate on educating mail-in voters not to send those ballots in right away and wait until all possible information is out there - like financial reports etc.?

So all this hullaballoo about Norm Vorman is a real surprise. I understand that some people in town may have gotten wind of something going on months ago and I believe that maybe a disgruntled former Norm employee and confidante may be at the root of this 'investigation," if that's what you call it. It's really unfortunate that Norm isn't around to a. defend himself and b. give these investigators the Norm treatment, which I would certainly love to watch.

As for Mr. Bateman, I invite you to come to Schat's any Thursday morning at 7 a.m. and meet me in person. Lots of working people - including me - do show up and would no doubt be happy to meet you too. Your rants about the Daily Journal, rude and hysterical as they are, have made me curious to know if you are a real person.

Posted by K.C. at 02:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Someone has wondered if I'll comment on the Garden Brothers. I assume you mean the pot bust in the city of Ukiah last week. I'm all for it. I was a friend of Cherrie Lovett, who died of complications from lupus but worked tirelessly on getting Prop. 215 passed because she smoked pot to give herself an appetite and to avoid taking much stronger meds like morphine, which her doctor would have prescribed her otherwise. I supported and continue to support Prop. 215. In fact, it's not secret that I support simply legalizing marijuana and regulating and taxing it. What I have seen with Prop. 215, however, is an increasing openness by drug dealers to treat the law like a license to simply do their business without fear of reprisal. I don't really care whether the brothers that were arrested on Garden Street were growing pot for medical marijuana patients. Even if that's true, I don't believe Prop. 215 or its supporters meant for its implementation to include large, smelly marijauna gardens in crowded residntial neighborhoods. It's the same reason the city doesn't allow a person to have, say, a pig farm, next door to you in a residential neighborhood.
Further than that, I also have seen Prop. 215 turned into what I consider a huge money making scheme by growers who grow hundreds of pounds of marijuana and then take it down to the Bay Area and sell at street prices to medical marijauna patients. That's indecent as far as I'm concerned. (I'm also convinced a lot of that pot simply ends up in the bedroom drawers of recreational users.) These growers act like they'e doing the world such a service by providing for the sick, but they are only interested in the money they can make doing it. If they were required to simply give the pot away once it was grown, believe me the gardens would dry up.
I would love it if some brave government entity would simply declare itself the provider and regulator of medical marijuana - which under Prop. 215 is perfectly legal - and start a government garden (say, at the jail) and distribute medical marijauna to patients who can't grow it themselves. Anyone else would be considered an illegal grower.

A number of people have asked me what I did to Patrick Bateman to make him so mad.
I have no idea, I don't know him.
It's a shame for the folks in the White House that someone with the email user name "I'm4bush" would be such a nasty person. But, I love it that while he's doing his best to insult me personally and the Daily Journal in general (even with the tired old 'urinal' insult every editor of every newspaper with the name Journal has heard sooner or later from some yahoo) he prefaces his comments with the fact that he reads the Daily Journal "every day."
Go ahead and insult me Patrick, as long as you're reading.

Posted by K.C. at 04:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I notice there's some discussion on the community blog about the DA's race and whether the supes can be trusted to make an appointment. Some of this may be Vroman supporters blogging against Lintott in general but I agree that I don't like the idea that the supervisors would be in a position to make a four-year appointment. I could see appointing someone until the next scheduled election so we could get new candidates on a ballot. I'm sure there's probably some June election coming up for school board or special districts in 2007. If Vroman wins in November, why can't we just have a short term appointment?

Also, I talked to someone yesterday who wrote to the Secretary of State's office about Marsha Wharff's new voting rules and got a blah, blah, response, but it did say that she had the right to make any polling place where less than 250 people voted, into a mail-in area. But why then are places like Covelo and Hopland turning to mail-in districts? Surely more than 250 people vote in these towns?

So Patrick Bateman, please feel free to direct me to your own blog and I will take a lesson. And feel free also not to read this blog if it offends you so.

Posted by K.C. at 07:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was reading the obituary of former Massachusetts congressman Gerry Studds today and remembering one of the most honest and dedicated members of Congress I ever knew. I worked for a time, back in the 1980s, on the minority staff of the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, where Studds was chairman of the subcommittee on the Coast Guard. He was a powerful and active chairman and not being among his staff members, I guess I was a little afraid of him. He was all business but had a biting sense of humor and you had to respect his dedication to his constituents and to the legislation he championed. Among those bills was legislation to fund the cleanup of oil spills by tanker companies - who of course fought to maintain lofty limits of liability for themselves. Year after year those bills would be introduced, fought over, rewritten. Studds' staff members were among the most highly respected on the committee. They were smart, they knew how to get things done and they were intensely loyal to their boss. I often envied them a boss who was undoubtedly not making decisions based on the size of the checks from lobbyists or the pressure from his political party. We all knew he was gay - still a very shocking thing to many members of Congress and their staffs back then although I couldn't see why - but none of us working with him and his staff members really ever thought about it. Clearly his constituents didn't either. Even after the scandal of his having had an affair with a 17-year-old congressional page back in the 1970s surfaced, he was reelected by his constituents again and again. These were, by the way, not largely urban sophisticates. They were largely conservative Portuguese fishermen. But they knew Gerry had their best interests at heart, and could get things dne for them. And he did. I'm sad to hear that he has died.

So while I was back east last week, Katie Mintz and Ben Brown wrote some interesting stories about local election finances. I have to say that the Muelrath clients who are not reporting his help on their financial statements should be in trouble with state elections officials. For Muelrath to say that he doesn't charge anyone unless they win is, to me, a clear invitation to candidates to skirt campaign finance reporting. Candidates know it looks bad to have an outside the county high priced consultant working for you. So, they don't pay him until after the election and avoid reporting the transaction until it's too late for the voters to know about it. But I say even having him working for you, whether you pay him or not needs to be reported at the very least as an in-kind contribution. Also, if Jeannie Metcalf can't figure out how to report her campaign finances on time, will she be able to read and understand a city budget? A planning document?

Another interesting story about doctors in town ... I can attest that when my doctor, Peter Keegan, retired earlier this year - or was it late last year? - anyway, my husband and I would have been out of luck if Keegan hadn't been able to get some doctors from the Ukiah Primary Care Group to take his patients. Having said that, the doctor that agreed to take me, is still something of a phantom. I met with him once when he agreed to take me on as a patient and haven't seen him since. When I "go to the doctor" I only see a nurse practitioner. I happen to like the nurse practitioner I got - although she has now left the practice - but it makes me uncomfortable to have a nurse practitioner writing prescriptions for me and giving me new medications to take that my doctor has not even discussed with me. I assume that's the case for lots of people out there, but I miss the one on one relationship I had with Keegan.

Posted by K.C. at 07:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A reader forwarded the following response to my question about Prop. 89 - clean campaign measure on the ballot - from Gail Jonas, a Healdsburg attorney and clean campaign activist.
What I said: The editor's comment: I have tried to decode to campaign finance reform measure on the state ballot - Prop 89. The only thing that has me worried is that it limits corporate spending but not union spending. I am told that I may be misreading it. What's confusing is that while I'm told the teachers' unions are against it because thety believe it limits them too, the nurses union helped write it. Does anyone know what the facts are about union giving?

Gail's response: I have immersed myself in Prop. 89, and it's not easy to get a handle on it. Corporations are limited to $10,000 donations from their corporate treasuries to ballot measures, but can still, like unions, give to PAC's which are all treated the same regarding donations to ballot measures. If a union is a legitimate non-profit corporation, it is exempt from the $10,000 restriction, so I have to agree with the editor that unions and corporations are not treated the same.
The CTA apparently misunderstands Prop. 89, at least based on the speakers that showed up at the progressive voters gathering in Santa Rosa last night. The CTA website refers people who want to know about its position on Prop. 89 to another website, Californians To Stop Prop. 89, that shows that its sponsors includes Chevron.
No state imposes limits on ballot measures. California is attempting to break new ground here. I understand why: we frequently use the initiative process to make an end run around the legislature. It may well be susceptible to a legal challenge. However, if candidates who are accountable to the voters are elected using clean money, perhaps we wouldn't need too many initiatives. Some states don't even have them.
Corporations, unions, and individuals, are all treated the same regarding donations to candidates who do not elect public funding: $500 per election cycle to individual legislative candidates, $1,000 for statewide offices, and $1,000 to independent expenditure committees.
I believe the CNA imposed limits on corporate donations to ballot measures because it is corporations who have donated inordinately huge amounts of money to oppose or promote ballot measures. So far the insurance industry has donated $1.4M to fight Prop. 89. The CNA has stated that it took on campaign finance reform because it wants to get a single payor health insurance bill in place in California. The Gov. recently vetoed the last one, undoubtedly grateful for the $4.4M contributed by the insurance sector directly to him since he came to office.
I have notes, which unfortunately I can't attribute to a source at the moment, that in California in 2005, pharma contributed $152M to support its position on candidates/ballot measures, and unions contributed $90M for all issues and candidates.
My take on why some organizations, like the Democratic State Committee, which is neutral, and the CTA, which opposes the bill, is that these organizations want to be treated like special interests and be excluded from any restraints on their giving. They fail to realize that corporate contributions and influence outweigh their ability to impact election results. If you go to www.followthemoney.org and go the link to California, it gives the stats on campaign contributions, including the 20 top contributors to candidates in 2004 and so far in 2006. In 2004, the top contributor was the California Democratic Party for a total of $11,400,000, followed by the California Republican Party, which contributed $6,065,000. The CTA donated $723,100, so you can see how outgunned it is by the parties.
In 2004, the top ten industries in descending order: Party Committees: $24,200,000; candidate self-finance: $9M (rounding off);lawyers and lobbyists:$7M; public sector unions: $6M; real estate: $6M, and so on (you can go to the website if you're interested).
While I think that Prop. 89 is complicated and certain provisions may be flawed (there's a severability provision), it is an effort to enact comprehensive campaign finance reform to get the influence of money out of politics. In the hue and cry against Prop. 89, the fact that it sets up a program of public funding for candidates almost gets lost.

On another topic, for those of you who did not get a chance to attend Norm Vroman's wake Saturday, a video of it will air at 3:30 p.m. and again at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday on local cable channel 56.

Posted by K.C. at 05:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The enormous crowd at the wake held Saturday afternoon for Norm Vroman in Hopland was a who's who of Mendocino County politics, law enforcement, the justice system and other movers and shakers. And for all that, it was a moving and fun event, one at which speeches were sincere, sometimes hilarious and no one was there on any agenda but to honor and remember Norm. After all the speakers were done, former Sheriff Tony Craver helped pass out little drams of Irish whiskey (Bushmills, I think) and everyone toasted Norm before getting down to the party portion of the evening. Craver, by the way, had the best speech, I thought. Written in the voice of Norm himself, the short and funny speech caught Norm's attitude and speech patterns and really made you think he'd somehow communicated it to Tony from the great beyond.

Our (new) sports editor Tony Adame is already leaving us, heading back to familiar territory in Kansas. We don't know yet who will replace him, and yours truly will undoubtedly be doing some of the sports pages in the coming weeks so bear with me.

The second edition of Day & Night, our new entertainment and activities section aimed primarily at young people in town will be out soon and looks to be just as well-written and fun-filled as the first. Ben Brown provides another detailed biking tour, Katie Mintz goes bowling and James Arens checks out local pizza. Richard Rosier, our features editor and creator of the section writes about bocce and a pre-teen fiddler, while photographer Isaac Eckel provides stellar art on both covers. Look for it around town, but they go fast.

I will be heading East on Tuesday for a week of family time but I will try to keep in touch while there. I am frankly not looking forward to flying. I am one of those people who tries to pack light and keep my luggage to carry-on but I know I'll have to check bags this time, ugh. Also, flights are so crowded these days six hours shoulder to shoulder (I am inevitably seated in the middle of a three-seat row ) is torture.
Ah well. I usually take JetBlue, which I love for coast to coast trips - yes I CAN watch the Food Channel and HGTV for six hours at a stretch - but this time I am on Delta going and American returning so I'm not sure what to expect.

Posted by K.C. at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)