Mendocino County politics: Fourth District election and Measure B

As some of you may know, I live in northern Mendocino County, although I work for a Southern Humboldt newspaper and most of the stories I write concern SoHum. We’re in the lost zone, the corner of the county few elected officials – or for that matter, media – concern themselves with. For this reason, on the rare occasion that I get to cover a Northern Mendocino story, I will probably post it here. Heaven knows, the Second District election antics in Humboldt County already saturate the blogosphere, so I probably won’t have anything valuable to add to those discussions.

I had the pleasure of traveling out to the coast a couple of weeks ago – a trip I love, but don’t make often enough – to interview Paula Deeter, who’s running for Fourth District Supervisor against incumbent Kendall Smith (I keep wanting to type “Kendall Jackson”). I had an illuminating conversation with her, especially about the controversy surrounding Measure B. And while I doubt that there are a whole lot of people in Leggett, Piercy, and Whale Gulch who frequent this blog, I hope those who do will find the following article informative.

Deeter’s campaign and Measure B have both been covered heavily in the Mendocino County press; personally, I found this exchange, between Pebbles Trippet and Bruce Anderson, quite interesting. And of course, frequenters of Eric’s blog (if you’re here, you probably came from there) will recall this fiasco.

I have added other links that may be of interest to the end of the post.

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In Mendocino County, A Challenger For 4th District Supervisor
While Measure B Battle Rages, Deeter Looks to Unseat Smith

A county planner and medical-marijuana dispensary co-owner is waging an aggressive campaign to unseat Mendocino County’s Fourth District Supervisor.

The district, in the county’s northwest, includes the inland communities of Leggett, Piercy and Whale Gulch, and coastal communities from Westport down to Caspar – including Fort Bragg, where both current supervisor Kendall Smith and her challenger, Paula Deeter, live. Deeter, a county land-use planner, is also the co-owner of Herban Legend, the only medical-marijuana dispensary in Mendocino County. While she doesn’t use marijuana herself, she is a caregiver for her husband, a commercial drag net fisherman who sustained a severe shoulder injury several years ago.

Deeter has been meeting with constituents all over the Fourth District, including a small group at the Peg House, north of Leggett, on May 4. In a May 14 interview with The Independent, she praised the can-do spirit of the rural residents who make up a sizable percentage of the district’s voters, including the fire commissioners present at the Leggett meeting: “These are people who really know how to take care of themselves and of their land, in the absence of many government services – you couldn’t ask for a better scenario if there is some sort of natural disaster.”

In a further effort to reach out to Northern Mendocino voters, Deeter has also taken out paid advertisements in both Southern Humboldt newspapers, outlining seven “platform points” that include a commitment to holding town-hall meetings, encouraging green building and energy, taking a balanced view of medical marijuana, and taking a closer look at the concerns of the youth, senior, and Hispanic constituencies.

Deeter said some potential voters have warned her that advocating for the Hispanic population might land her in hot water: a lengthening string of arrests of Mexican nationals at industrial-marijuana growing scenes has caused concerns among both law-enforcement officials, who contend that Mexican drug cartels are responsible for much of the marijuana activity on public lands and timberlands, and some North Coast residents who, in that light, take a negative view of the influx of Mexican immigrants.

“There’s a large Hispanic population in the Fort Bragg and Caspar areas,” Deeter said. “You have to differentiate between hardworking families and workers on grows. A lot of that’s driven by cultural ignorance, when the reality is, there are certain things we all need to learn from each other.”

Born and raised in San Francisco, Deeter moved to Fort Bragg on her 19th birthday, and has now lived there for 28 years. From a starting position as secretary in the county planning office, she worked her way up to planning technician, and then to planner – a post from which she has taken a two-month unpaid leave while she campaigns. If elected, she will return to work and train a replacement until she’s seated in January 2009.

The mother of two daughters – one 18, the other 20 – Deeter has also been a 4-H leader for the last 14 years, and a steward for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Her work as union steward was what first piqued her interest in politics: “I would represent people in different county agencies, and I would see this appalling pattern. We tend to MacGyver things – you know, do it with a rubber band and some chewing gum. There’s money going into county coffers, but things being cut that really shouldn’t be – and when that happens, the coast and outlying communities are the first to suffer, before the inland ones.”

As an example, Deeter said that the Bookmobile no longer travels to Westport – even though, as the most remote community on the coast, it’s the one that needs the service the most. Likewise, looking to Leggett and Piercy, she said residents have expressed frustrations about “really simple, basic things, like not being able to get the Ukiah Daily Journal at the Leggett store, even though they get the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat... and the local papers used to print the names and photos of the Leggett graduates, but they no longer do. They feel like no one cares about them.”

Deeter criticized the Board of Supervisors for not holding special meetings outside of Ukiah, which is a prohibitively long distance for many people, such as seniors, to travel. On the other end of the age spectrum, she doesn’t think enough is being done to encourage young people to stay in Mendocino County: “When I ask them about their plans, the almost universal response is: ‘I want to get the hell out of here, because there’s nothing here for me.’” Deeter didn’t think having an aging population here is what voters really want: “I don’t think the majority of people in the Fourth District want this to become a bedroom community,” she said.

What would she change? “I would re-channel their passion into something that’s going to work for them,” Deeter responded. “You can’t just selectively jettison some people out of the community.” She would also look at ways to develop employment opportunities in the district: for example, at the Georgia-Pacific mill site in Fort Bragg, “there’s a rush to rezone as residential, when there’s no industrial zoning left,” she said. “Is there a doable industrial use that would bring good jobs into the area, instead of gentrifying Mendocino County into Sea Ranch North?”

Measure B Debate Roils County

The greatest roadblock to Deeter’s election may be her opposition to Measure B, the controversial initiative that would overturn Measure G. Passed in 2000, Measure G essentially decriminalized possession of up to 25 marijuana plants; while its passage codified county voters’ libertarian views about “mom-and-pop” gardens, the explosion of industrial-sized operations in the last decade has resulted in growing concerns and increased public debate about how best to deal with large-scale growers – and the large-scale destruction they leave in their wake.

Measure B would decrease the number of plants allowed from 25 to six, which is the standard adopted by most California counties that have decriminalized marijuana possession for personal or medical use. Proponents argue that Measure B will help scale back abuses of Proposition 215, which have resulted, in some cases, in people collecting a large number of 215 cards in order to maintain industrial-scale operations for non-medical-use-related profits.

Measure B opponents, such as Deeter, maintain that it will only further criminalize small-time growers, while law enforcement continues to battle, undermanned and underfunded, against industrial operations. The “No on Measure B” campaign suffered a blow on May 12, when Sheriff Tom Allman – who is perceived as being lenient on small-time growers, preferring to concentrate his efforts on methamphetamine and industrial marijuana – issued a press release urging passage of Measure B.

Allman wasn’t expected to take a public stance on the issue, but he was infuriated by a campaign mailer that used a photograph of him, without his permission, accompanied by a quote that he said was “attributed to [him] out of context.” “Because of this misrepresentation, I can no longer remain neutral,” Allman wrote in the release. “As your Sheriff, I will abide by the decision the voters will make on June 3. As a resident of Mendocino County, I cannot allow any misrepresentation of my personal position on an issue as important as Measure B to continue.

“The investigation of violent crimes, the eradication of large commercial marijuana gardens and combating methamphetamine will remain top priorities for the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office. Today, I lend my name and full support to the passage of Measure B.”

The same day Allman issued the press release, the County of Mendocino Marijuana Eradication Team (COMMET) arrested 46-year-old Felicinao Firias Soto, a native of Michoacán, Mexico, after he was found tending a 15,020-plant marijuana operation. The multiple-garden site was on Hawthorne Campbell Timber property near Sherwood Peak, southwest of Laytonville.

“The ultimate goals shared by the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ people are the same,” Deeter said on May 14, “against violence and environmental degradation. But Measure B goes sideways from there, because it doesn’t do anything to give law enforcement and the District Attorney increased power to enforce the existing laws. It just lowers the threshold.”

Rather than fight about what they don’t have in common, Deeter believes the measure’s proponents and opponents should instead “start with what they do have in common, and work backwards from there. The people who accumulate cards and recommendations are making it hard for everyone.” One potential solution? Tackle the problem from a planning perspective, Deeter said, as well as a law-enforcement one – by taking a close look at the different nuts and bolts of an operation, such as plumbing, electrical, and sewage, and prosecuting people for violating building and environmental codes.

“We need to enforce the current laws that we have, not go and make new ones that will only criminalize more people,” Deeter asserted. “When large grows are using exemptions – ‘I’m growing for 100 people,’ or whatever – the D.A. needs to be much more strident.” And the small scenes? “I think a lot of people might think, hey, if I’m going to get in trouble for having seven plants, I might as well grow 70,” she said. “It’ll create an even bigger problem than we already have” – because the people who now have more than six, but less than 25, plants might stop going through the proper channels.

Deeter supports high penalties for people whose operations result in environmental damage, but decried the fact that often, in the case of large operations, multiple agencies are involved – Fish & Game, Environmental Health, the Sheriff’s Office – but none takes the lead. “There are already laws on the books that prohibit this sort of thing, but then there are all these added layers because it’s marijuana... and the officials themselves are often confused about what falls under what law.”

Goals Include Less Management, More Representation

Deeter characterized the current Board of Supervisors as “a fiefdom of five people, making decisions for the whole county, dictated from afar.” If elected, her top priority would be an overhaul of the budget: “Rather than eliminate the lowest-paid positions and the hardest-working people, we need to look at middle and upper management,” she said. “Mendocino County has one of the highest ratios in the state of administration to employees... I have found that county workers out on the coast, who aren’t as micromanaged, are more efficient, have a stronger camaraderie with their co-workers, and relate to the public much better. It’s a little frosty when you go inland.”

Deeter’s other priority would be to represent the district better than it has been, in her opinion: “Kendall has great ideas for committees, but no follow-through,” she opined. “We need a larger representation of the community – by altering days, times, whatever – for board meetings, especially when there are issues on the agenda with a potential for conflict. And we need to have more localized, town-hall meetings so we can gather and take our issues back to Ukiah.”

For more information about Deeter, go to www.deeter4thdistrict.com.

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Paula Deeter’s campaign site.
Kendall Smith’s campaign site.

Mike Thompson’s House page.
Mitch Clogg’s campaign site.

Yes on Measure B.
No on Measure B.

Marijuana-leaf graphic source.