the town dandy / By Hank Sims

Roger and out

(Jan. 11, 2007)  Supervisor Roger Rodoni was creaky and hoarse when he made his last stand at the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday morning - at least that’s the way he appeared on television - but flu or not, the old cowboy did manage to unleash a customarily acerbic defense while his colleagues held his head under the water.

The issue on the table was the board’s representation in the Humboldt County Association of Governments (HCOAG), an agency consisting of local governments, concerned primarily with transportation issues. Rodoni had served as county’s representative on that board since he first took office. In fact, Rodoni said, the HCOAG appointment has traditionally been held by the supervisor from Second District - it had been thus for 30 years, he said.

But that was all before last year’s smackdown over the issue of whether the Hoopa Valley Tribe should be given a place at the HCOAG table. Rodoni, along with representatives for the three south county cities - Ferndale, Fortuna and Rio Dell - voted that they should not. Trinidad, Blue Lake, Arcata and Eureka voted that they should. Then the Board of Supervisors as a whole passed a resolution supporting Hoopa’s right to join the agency. But Rodoni continued to buck the trend, and when Supervisor Bonnie Neely assumed the chairmanship of the board, she moved to strip Rodoni of his seat on the board and instead assume it herself. That’s what was set to go down Tuesday.

Rodoni wouldn’t go without a fight. He opposed Hoopa’s ascension to the HCOAG board, he said, because a tribe is not a government like other governments. It is not subject to state law. “I think the one looming argument on the opponents’ side - that’s the one I sit on, along with three other votes - the primary argument is that tribes … tribes are for-profit, private corporations, and they are able to do things in the best interest of that private, for-profit corporation,” he said.

His main concern in this regard - or, at least, the only he saw fit to mention this time around - was that tribes can give campaign contributions to candidates for office. “Supervisor Neely, I’m sure, is well aware that $25,000 can get a politician’s ear,” he said, an unveiled jab at the Blue Lake Rancheria’s donation of that amount to her recent reelection campaign.

When it came up for debate, though, Neely - a bit disingenuously, perhaps - tried to bar discussion of Hoopa membership, saying that the issue at hand was simply one of the county’s representation at HCOAG. This drew some jeers from the crowd.

“This is a real sad process, guys,” said McKinleyville’s Dennis Mayo when he took the podium to offer a defense. “What’s so important about making this change? Why now, and not before?” Mayo cited the case of Eureka Mayor Virginia Bass’ recent appointment to the Eureka City Council, praising it for being open and non-partisan, above-board. The cases were not unlike, he said, but the Supes were doing it the opposite way.

Both Mayo and Penny Elsebusch - one-half of the tag-team Elsebusch gadfly operation - brought up another point, independent of the Hoopa issue: Rodoni also serves as HCOAG’s representative to the state association of similar agencies, and therefore holds some clout in state transportation issues.

1 2 3 NEXT PAGE >SHARE