on the cover / By Hank Sims

Supervising the Second

A region in flux prepares to pick a new face

(Oct. 16, 2008)  At noon last Monday, the members of the Fortuna Chamber of Commerce packed the Monday Club for the final debate between their candidates for the Humboldt County Board of Supervisor. This would be their last chance to get a glimpse and gauge the politics of the three candidates, one of whom would become the first new face in county politics since 1996. Around 70 members and guests were in attendance. The lunch was burritos and salad, with Diet Coke, Tazo Iced Tea and Perrier as a choice of beverage.

The members of the Chamber of Commerce seemed representative of Fortuna at large. They possessed the same startling, anachronistic politeness and charm so often found in the Eel River Valley. It is the land that time forgot — the very last bit of Humboldt County as it was 50 years ago. It is the capital of a small red state sitting at the heart of today’s Humboldt County, and the capital of what candidate Estelle Fennell was soon to aptly call “the red-headed stepchild” of county politics: The Second District. Because in truth, everyone not from there considers the Second District a little bit strange. Sometimes it depends on whether you’re talking about Fortuna and environs or the hippie-dominated hills to the south: Just about everyone thinks one or the other or both are somehow not quite right in the head.

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Since the last election four years ago, there has been great change in the Second District — much more so than in the county at large. Once the undisputed home of the county’s timber industry, mills in the area have closed left and right at a devastating pace. Today, only the ex-Pacific Lumber (now Humboldt Redwoods) mill in Scotia is still operational, and with a much reduced crew. Fortuna may not be able to hold off the outside world much longer. The members of the Chamber of Commerce seemed very eager to hear what the candidates had to say.

After nearly a year of campaigning, the race for Second District Supervisor is finally drawing to a close. It’s probably been the strangest political contest in the county for some time, all told, marked most dramatically by death of Roger Rodoni, the three-term incumbent, in a terrible car accident just six weeks before the June primary. For most of the last decade, Rodoni had been thought of as the only man who could square the circle between the conservative northern part of the district and the sparely populated southern end, dominated by lefty back-to-the-landers. He was for the legalization of marijuana and also for the timber and gravel industries. He had little trouble making friends.

His sudden death threw the race into a political and legal turmoil from which it has not quite recovered. November is supposed to be the county’s run-off election, and yet there are three contenders for the seat rather than two. It’s a state of affairs that required a good deal of legal analysis, and it’s probably unprecedented in county history.

First, there’s Johanna Rodoni, 60, cattlewoman, appointed to the board by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger after her husband’s death. She’s currently running as a write-in candidate, as it was her deceased husband’s name on the June primary ballot, not hers. A stately and confident woman, Rodoni has inherited a good deal of her husband’s swagger and his cowboy appeal, as well as his libertarian-tinged politics.

There’s Clif Clendenen, 55, scion of the famous Fortuna apple-growing family. Lanky and bespectacled, Clendenen is the living embodiment of the mild-mannered man. He surprised most everyone by running nearly even with Roger Rodoni’s shadow in the first round of voting. Rodoni seemed politically untouchable in life; many thought his name would be equally so afterwards. Clendenen proved them wrong.

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