the town dandy / By Hank Sims

Watch Them Fight

(Aug. 13, 2009)  Occasionally you hear someone raise a stodgy moral objection to The Media’s “horserace coverage” of politics. Let’s briefly acknowledge that these grumpy scolds do indeed have a point — not everything should be fun — before brutally sending them back to their caves.

We posit that the human brain is hard-wired to revel before the spectacle of battle. People want their dramas to end with the winners and losers clearly delineated. It’s a welcome respite from the messiness of real life. That said, doesn’t the commonweal benefit when people choose to follow democracy like a sport? I mean, instead of following … like, sports?

So step right up, fans! We’ve got a hot playbill for you this week.

First up: Yes, it’s almost a year out yet, but the races for the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors are undoubtedly the top ticket in our corner of the world — money, power, screaming, dirt — and so it’s never too early to bring the advance intel on the next go-round’s fight card. This week’s news comes from the Fifth District, the vast, sprawling territory encompassing the northern part of the county, including McKinleyville and everything north and east.

Scoop: Two-term incumbent Jill Duffy (formerly Geist)will not seek reelection in 2010! “When I ran the first time, and when I ran the last time, I said I felt that two terms was long enough to be in this position,” Duffy told the Journal Monday.

The news will undoubtedly thrill one of the two big teams on the field — the progressives. They worked hard to get her elected in 2002, but have since deemed that she has shown insufficient fealty to the cause, and have long been scouting around for a challenger. As in 2002, the big political issue is land use — specifically, the long-delayed, terminally postponed Humboldt County General Plan Update, which was just around the corner during Duffy’s first campaign and is still just around the corner today. Roughly speaking, the progs and the paleocons, each with their grab bag of allies and defectors, are fighting it out over what sort of development to inflict upon Humboldt County in the next 20 years. In a sort of inversion of the English language, the “progressives” want to mandate slow, controlled growth and the “conservatives” are pushing more toward a laissez faire free-for-all.

With Duffy removing herself from the field of battle, the progs have a better shot at capturing the seat. But which horse will they choose? At this point, one has to assume that they will throw their weight behind the new frontrunner: the many-hatted Patrick Cleary, who enters the arena from center left. Name ring a bell? It should: Cleary is, in rough order of importance, the owner of the Lost Coast Communications radio empire (KHUM, KSLG, “The Point); the chair of the Board of the Directors of the Headwaters Fund, the county’s economic development pot o’ cash; the head of the Humboldt Folklife Society; the interim general manager of public radio station KHSU; a former Wall Street investment banker; and a mean guitar picker. Stellar credentials, in other words.

But wait a minute — is he even going to run for the seat? “There are a lot of people who have asked me to consider it, and I am contemplating it,” Cleary told the Journal Monday. Decoded: Yes, he is going to run for the seat. If you need further proof, he was quick with a quote about the qualities he would bring to the Board.

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