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War
games
by KEITH EASTHOUSE
One thing can be said about
the effort to drive District Attorney Paul Gallegos from office.
It's been transparent from the beginning.
As far as we're aware, "Recall
the DA" signs were first brandished publicly on the day
Gallegos went before the Board of Supervisors with his request
for outside legal assistance in his fraud suit against the Pacific
Lumber Co., which he had filed two weeks previous. The chambers
that day 11 months ago were packed, largely with PL managers
and workers. Outside, logging trucks lined the streets in front
of the courthouse. It was here that the signs first appeared.
It didn't take a genius to make the connection: Those calling
for Gallegos' recall were doing so because they were angry about
the PL suit.
But it wasn't long before leaders
of the fledgling recall movement offered a different reason:
Gallegos, they said, deserves to be recalled because he's soft
on crime. It was an absurd claim -- Gallegos had only been on
the job three months, if that. But it made sense politically.
To be successful in ousting the new DA, recall proponents knew
they'd have to have a broader base of support than the timber
industry and its supporters.
The distancing from the suit
was soon taken up by officials with Pacific Lumber, who repeatedly
told the press over the spring and summer that the company would
not get involved in the recall drive.
By the fall it was becoming
clear that another strategy shift was needed. The signature gathering
drive was faltering, and if it failed there wouldn't be any recall
at all.
In stepped the main beneficiary
of a change in leadership at the DA's office -- Pacific Lumber.
CEO Robert Manne, in an Oct. 24 letter to employees, made it
crystal clear that the company was involved in the recall
effort -- to the tune of $40,000. "When the new DA launches
a baseless and politically motivated lawsuit against one of the
largest timber companies in the country, are we to sit back and
allow that to happen?" Manne asked.
Forget about the earlier pledge
to stay above the fray; the goal now was signatures. Out-of-state
signature collectors were brought in and the necessary amount
of John and Jane Hancocks was obtained at the 11th hour. Success,
and it was all due to Pacific Lumber, which directly paid US
Petitions, the firm that led the drive.
But the fact that the defendant
in a fraud suit -- Texas financier Charles Hurwitz, in this case
-- is bankrolling the effort to unseat the district attorney
who is suing him doesn't look good; particularly since Hurwitz
is a controversial figure at best. And so last week another shift:
Manne's declaration that PL "wants its day in court."
In a Jan. 29 letter to the three
replacement candidates, Manne said, "I want to assure you
that our company has no desire to have the next District Attorney
drop this case without a ruling from the Humboldt County Superior
Court." Of course, the ruling Manne wants is for Judge Christopher
Wilson to throw out the case, something PL requested in a formal
motion months ago. That's the day in court he's talking about,
not a full-blown trial.
It's no accident that Manne
only came forward after weeks of polling by a Los Angeles firm,
polling paid for by The Committee to Recall Paul Gallegos, which
of course is being financially supported by PL. While we don't
know the results, we suspect they reveal that people aren't comfortable
with PL's heavy-handed involvement in the recall.
There's another dimension to
all this. Pacific Lumber is undoubtedly bankrolling the recall
because doing so is cheaper than paying attorneys to defend the
company in court. That's true even if the expected television
advertising blitz of the next few weeks pushes the company's
financial stake in the recall as high as $100,000 or even $200,000.
Big money to you and me, but
a small price for Hurwitz if it means Gallegos -- and the lawsuit
-- go away.
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