How it All Came 2 B
Web posted 4/24/08

by Richard Johnson
    The origins of Measure B go back to last August when Mendocino County supervisors made two decisions. One was when they passed a resolution 3-2 authorizing 25 plants and two pounds as maximum limits for medical marijuana patients under the state Proposition 215 ID card program. The second was when they recommended maximum buildout at the former Masonite plant and Lovers Lane as study options in the Ukiah Valley Area Plan, also by 3-2 with third district supervisor Pinches in the majority both times.
    The first set off a political grassfire on the Republican right, the second on the Liberal left.

Second District Repolarization:
    At hearing after hearing, Ukiah Valley residents decried the stripmallification and commuterization of our once rural community. They demanded supervisors reconsider their decision and order more sustainable and appropriate alternatives, having already rejected a proposal by Ryder Homes a year earlier for an 800 unit housing development between Masonite and the Russian River. The UVAP was supposed to do that, not provide a vehicle for even more radical development. Principle targets of this upsetment were first district supervisor Delbar and more especially second district supervisor Wattenburger who had only gained his seat by 7 votes against the incumbent Shoemaker.
    Jim Wattenburger waved off all criticism of his swing vote, declaring in a newspaper editorial he had not decided to support the DDR Megamall at Masonite (See MC Independent April 1), but only wanted to "study the worst case." He rejected numerous invitations to meet with constituents live and in person under any situation. In March he announced he would not run for re-election.
    But last winter, he was unopposed for re-election, acting like a lifetime incumbent, enjoying de facto immunity for his unpopular pro-development swing vote as Smart Growth bought ads in the Journal urging him to reconsider.
    While Ukiah city councilman John McCowen was planning a run against him, the tall aristocrat demurred when asked to announce his candidacy which would have presented Wattenburger with a political consequence for his actions.  
    Into this political void stepped the young forester Estelle Palley Clifton. Instead of waiting to see what the power brokers and gate keepers of the Democrat Party thought, she took the word of the Voters Union that we would find whatever resources she needed to run for supervisor. Within days of her mid-November announcement, McCowen bumped up his plans and jumped into the race.  Suddenly there  is a contest where before there was none. Her decision transformed the race and led directly to Wattenburger's political retirement.
    Also running in the second district are two more pro-B candidates, Ross Mayfield Jr. and the ever pleasant Ukiah City Councilman Jim Mulheren who has sacrificed conjugal relations with his wife in order to live in the district.
    Despite being wooed by the Democrat based National Women's Political Caucus, Clifton remains an environmentalist and the only second district candidate who will vote NO on Measure B.

Enter Measure B:
    Placed on the June ballot by a 4-1 vote of supervisors in January, with Colfax dissenting, B would repeal the Green Party sponsored Personal Use of Marijuana county ordinance overwhelmingly passed as Measure G eight years ago. It would also lower from 25 to six the maximum number of medial marijuana plants each land parcel could contain.. It would reverse the county's official policy of advocating federal and state decriminalization. It would make prohibition the official county policy and open the door to arrest and prosecution for personal possession: a $100 fine for an ounce or less.
    This was designed as a CIA-style intervention in Mendocino County politics by forces eager to see that Greens, growers and environmentalists NEVER get political power here. The intent was to remove land use as an issue in the election and replace it with revulsion against marijuana excesses, sweeping Delbar and Wattenburger back into power for another four years despite a popular revolt against their pro-development policies.
    Smart Growth strategist Mike Sweeney responded to this by co-opting the Prohibitionist movement, transforming it into a Grand Alliance with Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians, slamming Mendocino County back into the 1950s by repudiating Measure G as Green folly.
    Participating with enthusiasm in this cozy coalition are Delbar and Wattenburger's so called opponents, John McCowen and Carre Brown, both of whom were united with the incumbents at the formative Measure B meeting December 11 in the Merlot Room of the Ukiah Conference Center.  
    Also at that meeting were former and current elected officials from all over the county, the Ukiah Police, the editor of the Ukiah Daily Journal and representatives of the Farm Bureau, the Builders Exchange, the Cannibals'' Club, the Chamber of Commerce, the Banker's Round Table, the Employers Council, Libertarian Millionaires for Low Wages, Real Estate Developers Council for Asphalt, Steel and Concrete, the Foursquare Bible Thumpers for Total Obedience to God's Law on Earth and the Hoo-Hooettes for Total Timber Power.
    By helping to organize resolutions of support for Measure B from city councils in Fort Bragg, Willits and Ukiah, city councilman John McCowen has illustrated the establishment's resolve to smash Green Power and create a perpetual consensus that exclude those who use or grow marijuana from the  political process.
    Although they can frame the argument for this in liberal and even environmental terms, Sweeney and McCowen want us to forget that John Mayfield Jr., the Selzers, Handleys, the Dutras, the agribusiness and development interests went for it in order to lower wages and smash environmentalism as a political force in this county as well.
    The really evil part of this is that Sweeney is simultaneously the main organizer in Smart Growth AND campaign manager for Measure B. Consequently, he can use the resources of those opposed to DDR and Creekbridge to support a ballot measure initiated by local developers, realtors, bankers and exploiters working hand in glove with outside corporations to lay waste to our rural heritage.

First District:
    In the first district, Michael Delbar's three term hold on power eroded sharply two years ago as his traditional support base in Potter Valley and the Farm Bureau tired of his personal excesses and continuing failure to exercise competent leadership on the board. Consequently, they nominated Potter Valley farm wife Carre Brown to take his place.
    Carre is the daughter of the Good Ol; Boys who has provided female grounding to the Men of the Farm Bureau for 20 years as their executive secretary. She has few policy ideas of her own and sees herself as a communicator and facilitator among competing special interests. She also has the support of the Democrat central committee and the Smart Growth machine.  A newcomer to Democracy, she gave a political donation to George W. Bush's presidential campaign in year 2000.
    Unlike Delbar, however, she opposes changing Masonite zoning from industrial to mixed use and wants to keep Lovers Lane in agriculture.
    Into this void stepped Dolly Brown of Redwood Valley, also at the invitation of the Voters Union. Dolly is a lifetime Democrat Party activist, educator and county IHSS worker. She has been a developer and owns part of a Bay Area construction company with her son.
    She is for rolling back the exorbitant supervisor pay raise, restarting the grading ordinance process, providing affordable housing and treating county workers with justice and respect. Unlike Carre Brown, she will vote NO on Measure B.
    Also running is pro-marijuana activist Ukiah Morrison and perennial candidate Jimmy Rickel, author of an ill fated precursor to Measure B.

Strange Times, Strange Decisions:
    On the same day as the Merlot Room meeting, supervisors passed a new medical marijuana cultivation ordinance limiting the number of plants per parcel to 25 regardless of whether multiple patients or caregivers live on or are provided from the same property. For the first time in Mendocino County, this put a numerical limit on the number of patients one caregiver can serve.
    In a strange twist, the December 11 ordinance with 25 plants per parcel was approved by Colfax, Smith and Wattenburger with Pinches and Delbar opposed. Delbar wanted state limits, while Pinches wanted the provision for 2 gardens with 25 plants each, arguing his constituents were depending on their marijuana for income, now that logging was no more.
    The vote to put Measure B on the ballot a month later was 4-1 with Pinches saying he was concerned about his constituents revenue being cut back, but he wanted voters to have the final word.

Why Attack Measure G:
    Proponents' arguments for repealing Measure G are false, silly, and hysterical. There are real reasons the Powers that B want it dead.
    Measure G's provisions are of several kinds. One kind is to order supervisors to use their funding authority to reign in the Sheriff and DA to prevent them from enforcing or prosecuting on any "case" involving 25 or fewer plants being grown for personal use.
    Personal use means there can be no evidence of sales, and no contract growing for other consumers is permitted. Any one "case" would imply any one property or garden with any one grower or group of growers.
    As to this kind of provision, it is very rare for any single case to involve fewer than 25 plants due to the discretion of the Sheriff and DA in concentrating on the plentiful number of larger grows. There have been exceptions, however. But supervisors have never actually obeyed Measure G by holding the Sheriff and DA accountable for this.  
    Another kind of provision of Measure G is that supervisors are ordered to reign in the Sheriff and DA to the extent they make ALL marijuana enforcement, not just that in excess of 25 plants, their lowest priority.
    This prohibits participation in any discretionary program such as COMMET, CAMP or the annual Marijuana Aerial Identification School which have been routinely renewed for seven years by the sheriff, the DA and supervisors in total defiance of Measure G. Despite its cofification as a county ordinance, this law does not exist for them. They have developed pat, cynical responses when reminded of this.
    Finally, and most importantly, in Measure G the people of Mendocino County declare it to be official policy that marijuana should be decriminalized, and that the BOS should order their representatives in Sacramento and Washington to lobby for decriminalization.
    This is the real reason the Power Structure wants to repeal Measure G. To this end, it has mobilized all the institutions of society -- of propaganda, of repression, and political subversion to marginalize, stigmatize, isolate and crush marijuana, the people who grow it and the people who smoke it.
    An insane and insatiable hysteria has been whipped up in the corporate media and is being carried out by self appointed guardians of public order like Dennis "The Menace" Smart who at one BOS meeting threatened vigilante violence against growers in Robinson Creek without a peep of protest from Sheriff Allman who was dozing a few feet away. And it is being carried out week after week in retaliatory selective prosecutions of those who advocate marijuana freedom like the Parker Brothers and Laura Hamburg.

Why Medical Marijuana
    Apart from repealing Measure G in order to make rigid enforcement and if possible the elimination of marijuana from the county, the Ruling Class has actively tried to dismantle medical marijuana.
    Last year alone, the Ukiah City Council banned medical marijuana dispensaries, provided for an enhanced civil abatement procedure to enforce its ban on outdoor growing with fines up to $500 a day, and finally added criminal misdemeanor penalties to that prohibition.
    For its part, the county has limited outdoor growing to 25 plants per parcel and put Measure B on the ballot.     
    The rollback of the per patient medical plant limit from 25 to six as attempted in Measure B is unconstitional, according to my lawsuit Johnson v. Mendocino County. According to SB420, counties may set limits higher than the state default maximum, but this is only in regard to the voluntary ID program. It requires a resolution of the board of supervisors. It is not the fit subject of an initiative because the state constitution limits initiatives to enacting, repealing or modifying ordinances.
    Only by tying it to a repeal of Measure B can the Prohibitionist forces accomplish a rollback of the medical patient limit to six plants. This goes to the single subject rule of the state constitution which says an "initiative embracing more than one subject cannot be placed before voters and cannot have any effect."

April Fools' Court:
    I sued the county over Measure B on the last possible day under state law after seeing that the suit prepared by the criminal defense lawyers on behalf of Laguna and Hanamoto had not asked for an injunction. Both our suits only asked for Measure B not to be printed on the ballot.
    On April 1, judge John Behnke ruled against my TRO motion. I said we weren't joking, but we turned out to be the fools because that decision was a green light for the county to go ahead and print B on the ballots. Like babes in the legal woods, we thought the county would respect the dignity of the court and the majesty of the law to the extent of waiting until the judge ruled on our injunction motion. How little we knew.
    County clerk Susan Ranochak with the connivance of county counsel Jeanine Nadel ordered B to be printed on  the ballots by April 7, days prior to the writ hearing in Laguna and arrived at the admin center on Low Gap Road days before my injunction hearing on April 18. In both hearings, the county counsel pretended that we were debating something real. They never let on the ballots had secretly been printed.
    Like everything else about Measure G and marijuana litigation and prosecution in general, the law, the constitution, logic, common sense and reason are all faggots for the bonfire of repression. All rules are suspended to crush the Devil Weed.
    In addition to advising the board to progressively restrict marijuana cultivation over the last 12 months since encoding Measure G as county ordinance 9.36, Nadel not only wrote Measure B but provided the "impartial legal analysis" that conveniently omits how Measure B will expose marijuana consumers and growers with criminal misdemeanor and felony penalties for the first time in eight years.

A New Wave of Repression
    The complaint of KC Meadows in her Ukiah Daily Journal editorial is even after all this regulation, people continued to grow marijuana. It is in order to stop the cultivation of marijuana that makes necessary the repeal of Measure G and the lowering of medical marijuana cultivation and possession limits, in their mind.
    Once Measure G is repealed, and patients can have no more than 8 ounces and six mature plants, the argument goes, the Sheriff and DA will "feel more comfortable" going after gardens of more than 25 plants, is their line of reasoning.
    This argument is not designed to be true or make sense, it is a careless fig leaf tossed over the lust of the Power Structure to crush the growing number of marijuana plantations and growers in Mendocino County, to eviscerate our economic power before we become a significant political force.
    Individual members of the Prohibitionist "coalition" are correct in seeing it as a political engine to which they can tie their campaigns either for election or re-election, riding on a venomous wave of reaction to even greater power by singling out and stomping on marijuana and marijuana people - a politically vulnerable population because we do not believe in voting. And the history of America is one of majorities who obliterate minorities before they vote.
    Just as Mexicans are being rounded up; and deported in front of their crying children today, a similar fate awaits environmentalists, pot smokers and political progressives in Mendocino County as far as the Radical Right is concerned. Those pro-B Liberals are complicit in their own undoing.
    When I moved to Mendocino County in 1982, I established this publication by championing the rights of owner builders. At the time, building inspectors were prowling back roads looking for hippie homes to red tag. The bulldozers were soon to follow, "abating" structures that did not meet conventional building codes. It was a political pogrom, a cultural cleansing of the land carried out by the old rancher families and their allies in real estate, banking and their lackeys on the board of supervisors.
    Those days are back. Whatever compromises were made between the United Stand Again organization and the Powers that Be are off. If you're not a voter, you are a victim. •