June 30, 2005
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On Dikeman
by HANK SIMS
It rarely pays for a newspaper
to argue with its readers, and that's doubly true when those
readers are thoughtful souls who take the time to write letters
intended for publication. But this week's letter from Terry L.
Clark, who critiques Deputy District Attorney Worth Dikeman's
decision to run against DA Paul Gallegos in next year's election,
is perhaps representative of a gathering school of thought that
strikes us as wrongheaded.
First things first: One benefit
of Dikeman's announcement last week is that by election time,
one year hence, local headline writers will have long since exhausted
their boilerplate stock of goofs on his given name. Last week
brought us "Worth the wait?" and "Dikeman says
he's worthy," two variations on a shopworn theme. Let the
wordsmiths move on to tortuous invocations of Dutch boys and
leaky dams, then let's be done with it. (Though it's hard to
argue with Sean Borhman's memorable Lumberjack column
last year -- "Worth Dikeman" is indeed a "great
f--ing name").
So much for our correspondent's
claim that Dikeman's early entry into the race serves no useful
purpose. His more substantial error is that he assumes -- or
wishes to assume -- that Dikeman's campaign will be a repeat
of last season's divisive, dirty and ultimately failed attempt
to recall Gallegos. Anything can happen in a year, but there
is no indication that this will be the case.
To recap, timber industry supporters
started the recall just weeks after Gallegos took office and
filed the recently dismissed suit against the Pacific Lumber
Co. Timber money -- specifically, Pacific Lumber money -- then
bankrolled the recall every step of the way: from the last-minute
signature drive, in which the company paid out-of-towners $8
per name the weekend before petitions were due, to the glossy
mailers and spookily lit TV ads put out by a Sacramento consultant,
who turned out to be working out of Scotia. At every turn, Pacific
Lumber denied its involvement until it was no longer possible
to do so.
But Dikeman has never been about
timber. He is a law enforcement candidate, with 20 years of experience
in the District Attorney's Office -- the top law enforcement
agency in the county. And he has serious concerns about how the
office has been run since Gallegos took over.
Many talented senior prosecutors
with years of experience -- including Rob Wade and Nandor Vadas
-- have left the office for other jobs since Gallegos became
DA. Allison Jackson, a specialist in prosecuting child abuse,
was fired, apparently for political reasons. As we reported earlier
this year ("One year later," March 3), the loss of
Jackson was an "incredible, monumental" blow to the
county, in the words of a manager at the North Coast Rape Crisis
Team. Unlike in previous days, the District Attorney's Office
has no prosecutor permanently assigned to domestic violence cases,
and only a part-time liaison to the county's multi-agency Child
Abuse Services Team, according to Dikeman.
These charges were given added
weight Tuesday, with the release of a grand jury report sharply
critical of Gallegos (see "Weekly Wrap," p. 8). They
are charges that can't be answered with a sneer about "Maxxam"
or a "good old boys network," and Gallegos supporters
would be well advised not to try that dodge. It won't fly.
Humboldt County's "progressive"
population took great satisfaction in the decisive, 60-40 defeat
of the recall. Some of them took it to mean that the county's
political winds had turned their way -- that they now had a perhaps
permanent 60 percent majority at the polls for any left-leaning
candidate or initiative up for countywide vote.
They will soon be disabused
of that notion. A great many county voters -- it is impossible
to know how many, exactly -- voted "no" on the recall
solely because they considered Pacific Lumber's tactics an insult
to democracy. These voters are not diehard Gallegos supporters,
and it's likely that many of them have reservations about his
tenure as district attorney.
Dikeman, too, will have to answer
some hard questions in the coming months. Last time around, when
he ran as a replacement candidate in the recall, some faulted
him for what they considered an overly zealous attitude toward
prosecuting non-violent, relatively minor marijuana possession
cases. In the coming months, details of those cases and others
will surface, and they will help the county pick a district attorney
who best reflects its idea of effective, appropriate law enforcement.
In any case, Mr. Clark -- dear
reader, valued correspondent -- we are far from omniscient, but
we heartily believe it isn't going to be about Maxxam this time.
Not unless Maxxam makes it so.
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