Hot topics in the DA debate

Paul Gallegos, Allison Jackson, and Paul Hagen

The three remaining candidates for Humboldt County District Attorney covered a range of issues Tuesday night in Garberville, but a few points seemed to raise the temperature.

Both challengers to incumbent Paul Gallegos have been sharply critical over the years, but Allison Jackson appeared more inclined than fellow challenger Paul Hagen to confront the DA at Tuesday’s event.  While Hagen gave direct answers to each question, Jackson seized every chance to verbally blast the DA.

To his credit, Gallegos seems to have mastered the art of the cool cucumber, addressing the crowd as “ladies and gentleman” a lot.  Unlike debates of campaigns past, his feathers remained unruffled from the finger-pointing offered by Ms. Jackson.

CODE ENFORCEMENT

Gallegos maintains that he inherited a broken system when he took over the office in 2003, which gave him responsibility but no authority over the Code Enforcement Unit that famously went out of control during several 2007 raids.  He said his worries became a reality when the brouhaha hit.

Jackson disagreed, and said the DA could have exercised authority if he’d bothered to find out he had administrative authority.

Coincidently, Gallegos’ campaign website features a supportive quote from Bonnie Blackberry of the Civil Liberties Monitoring Project which hosted a heated forum in Southern Humboldt at the time.  Blackberry said she was “impressed with Paul’s swift and decisive intervention when the Code Enforcement Unit stepped out of bounds.”

ANIMAL CRUELTY

Gallegos said his office prosecutes animal abuse and cited a recent case involving a dog where he got a felony plea bargain. He said animal cruelty is offensive to him.

But Jackson blamed Gallegos for failing to charge such cases, one of which led to 61 dogs cannibalizing each other, she said.  In another case she said wolf puppies languished in a cage for 6 months because Gallegos couldn’t decide how to charge the alleged offender.   She called his record “deeply troubling.”

STAFFING

Gallegos said Humboldt County’s good retirement policy poses problems with staffing, but in-office training and a mentor program guide the newbies.  He said staff works diligently to make the DA’s office of the future.

Jackson said the biggest complaint she’s received is lack of training and supervision of jr. deputies. She said there is no administration from the DA and that Gallegos said as much to reporter Daniel Mintz.  The article quotes the DA thusly: “The people of this community deserve to see me in court – I’m not an administrator, they didn’t elect me to be an administrator, they elected me to make sure this office runs and it runs well.”

Despite the differences, Gallegos and Jackson had one thing in common — neither could name their top 3 donors. Gallegos said he doesn’t pay attention to the money because it’s the most disfavored part of a campaign, but added that he has a broad spectrum of support.  Disclosure forms show he received $5000 from David Gallegos of Weston, FL and $500 each from the lawfirm of Zwerdling Dibble and Dr. Ken Miller.

Jackson said she has many contributions between $100 and $300 dollars, and that she has is endorsed by victims of crime.  According to campaign disclosure forms her #1 donor is the Harland lawfirm where she is a partner.  Next are a number of $500 donations from notables such as Barnum Timber, HumCPR chairman Lee Ulansey, Kramer Investment, Hilficker, Eureka Readymix, Don’s Rent-All.

The debate was broadcast on KMUD and can be heard in the archives. Blogger Eric Kirk summarized the debate after the closing statements, and said Paul Hagen may have felt like John Edwards in the final debates between himself, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in 2008, by which he meant left out — not hiding a love child somewhere.