Sundberg’s DUI
Ryan Sundberg.
The same week Ryan Sundberg announced his candidacy for 5th district Humboldt County Supervisor, a bench warrant was issued when he failed to appear in court for DUI charges.
Stemming from a Dec. 7, 2009 incident, Sundberg was charged with 2 counts of Driving Under the Influence with a special allegation of blood alcohol levels of .15 or higher. The legal limit is .08.
Sundberg’s campaign announcement came on January 22. The warrant was issued on January 26. Sundberg pled Nolo to count 1 and the second count was dismissed on January 28.
The court imposed a fine of $2,341.00 and 3 years probation. Sundberg was also ordered to enter a 1st Offender DUI program. The fine was unpaid as of March 12.
While the Times-Standard regularly runs a list of people charged with DUIs, Sundberg’s name never made the paper. Maybe he lucked out and got lost in the shuffle of a new computer system at the DA’s office.
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The Humboldt Herald 
Too bad. I guess it is too late to get an endorsement from City Cab?
Maybe an endorsement from Jack….Jack Daniels, that is. I doubt it’s a regular occurance for Ryan but it does suggest bad judgement and lack of attention to details.
It was a first offense.
Drunk driving shows very bad judgement and can have potentially lethal consequences. While I wouldn’t say that a DUI automatically disqualifies one for office, it certainly isn’t a good sign in terms of his maturity and judgement, especially because this was quite recent.
This is the strongest argument I’ve seen so far as to why Sundberg may be a poor choice (as opposed to arguments as to why Cleary and/or Higgins would be better choices, of which I’ve already seen some fairly persuasive ones).
too soon for this guy to be in office. needs to sober up.
and grow up.
He’s asking voters “hey, support me even though I will be on probation until 2013!”
What about the fact he failed to appear? I can’t believe he would fail to appear on a DUI charge the same week he announced his candidacy. That blows my mind.
oh, that’s gotta hurt.
but another big scoop on the Heraldo board, for anyone keeping score.
Just looked at the T-S link. Damn, that’s a lot of DUIs. Kinda backs up Gallegos’ assertion that alcohol is our most serious local drug problem.
Every one of those people put lives at risk — their own, any passengers they had, and all the other driver, bicyclist and pedestrians on the roads. Kinda makes smoking a doobie on your porch seem pretty darned harmless by comparison.
“Hi, I’m Ryan Sundberg. I’m on probation until 2013 and I want your vote.”
“While the Times-Standard regularly runs a list of people charged with DUIs, Sundberg’s name never made the paper. Maybe he lucked out…”
Quite unlikely. Where did the arrest take place and which agency made the arrest?
It appears to be an arrest by CHP.
Why didn’t Hank pick this up? It’s not like the news media didn’t know.
Wow! Why would he hide that from voters, supporters? He should withdraw.
I’m confused.
First of all, could someone explain what a bench warrant is?
How frequently is the list of people charged with DUIs generated by the DA?
Is this list stated to be comprehensive? That is, is it the DA office’s intent that every person charged with DUI during a period will be listed at the conclusion of that period?
Does the TS run every such list?
In short, I’m wondering if a batch of DUI charges missed the paper, or just this one. And I’m also wondering how this came to light four days before election day.
“The same week Ryan Sundberg announced his candidacy for 5th district Humboldt County Supervisor, a bench warrant was issued when he failed to appear in court for DUI charges.”
So we’re supposed to elect a guy who has trouble following the law.
I can hardly wait for the spin from his supporters. This ought to be good.
And it’s not just any old law, it’s driving under the influence, which actually put lives at risk. Not good. Not good at all.
Mitch, the warrant was issued by the judge from the bench in open court when Sundberg didn’t appear as scheduled to answer the charges.
Anon like me and anon a me seem to be hiding at the moment. Maybe they needed a drink?
Heraldo,
Thanks. Does that mean that the information would have been in a standard handout to the press? Or available since January 26th to anyone who covers the courts?
The press knew about this a long time ago Mitch. This isn’t new news.
The District Attorney’s office refused for months to release the names of people charged with DUI.
Why? Supposedly because of a transition to a new computer system in the DA’s office. Why would that take two or even three months? I don’t buy it.
When the computer transition was complete and the DA’s office resumed reporting the names of people who had been charged with DUI, why didn’t they release all the names that had been withheld for all those months?
Surely, the Times-Standard could have printed a special report including all those names. The public wants to know and, I understand, has a right to know.
Why is the District Attorney keeping the public in the dark about the names of dozens and dozens of people his office charged with driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol?
Why isn’t the Times-Standard demanding to know those names, because, as the media is constantly telling us, the public has a right to know?
I’m not sure how the T-S receives the DUI lists, but publication of the names seems to begin with the preamble: “The Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office recently announced that it has charged the following people with driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.”
Election Day is four days away. Yep, this is going to hurt.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the “failure to appear” was just an error on his part, his attorney’s part or the court’s part. I don’t have any info on it, but I just have a hard time believing that he would purposely blow it off. Anyway, I’m far more concerned with the bad judgement demonstrated by the DUI itself.
How do you know?
I seriously doubt there was any conspiracy by the DA to hide the fact that Sundberg was charged with a DUI. But I’m sure the Gallegos-haters will have fun whipping up some kind of conspiracy theory. Maybe Allison Jackson could whip out another deceitful ad to help them along…
This is the oldest news in the world, Sundberg has been very open about this since last YEAR. Very interesting that it just happened to come out the weekend before the election. Typical Salzman technique, drop a negative issue just before an election and not give any candidate time to reply.
I heard this- at the time- “rumor” from two different places in mid April. I find it hard to believe that the media hadn’t heard the same thing. It is difficult to believe that they couldn’t verify the information. Also, Ryan must have known that this was going to come out. Did he and his campaign team think that they could win outright in the primary and then they wouldn’t have to answer for this. Also, do you really think that the Sheriff’s office didn’t know about this even if CHP made the arrest.
Amazing how many people didn’t know about this “oldest news in the world.”
A Non A Me,
In his openness, did Ryan explain why he failed to appear? And do you think people are going to vote for a candidate who is on probation for the next three years?
DUIs are no game to law enforcement and courts. There’s no such thing as hiding. My guess is this has been right under our noses at the courthouse for some time. No one bothered to look. His lawyer obviously worked the process to keep it as quiet as possible, requiring someone truly on the ball to find it. Combine that with the luck of the “new computer system” and that’s why it took 5 mos.
The press knew about this
I’d be even more astonished if they did than I already am that they didn’t.
History lesson, folks. After the rise of public outrage against drunk driving about 25 years ago, The Times-Standard began printing the names of people who had been arrested for drunk driving.
After doing that for several years, the Times-Standard decided it would be “fairer” to report only the names of people who had been charged with DUI by the DA after having been arrested for DUI by the police.
That way, if the police had made a mistake, a person’s reputation would not be ruined unnecessarily.
Of course, some people figured that the new system allowed well-connected drunk drivers who had been arrested by the police to be released and sent on their merry way by their friends in the District Attorney’s office.
Which leads us to the present state of affairs.
Or does it?
Only the Shadow knows.
Anything to contribute to scum dirtbag politics eh Heraldo?
Has the left any shame at all ? Is there no personal attack you all wouldn’t stoop to?
I think I am going to be sick.
The issue is not what happened, but the timing. Everyone who knows anything knows about this and it has been no secret. But now, just 4 days before the election and it just makes the blogs, is interesting timing. Cleary’s campaign must be really hearting to have to rely on this at the last minute. This tells volumes about his opponents and the need to go negative to try to wrestle the lead from Sundberg.
It’s more like straight reporting, HiFi. Was this another one of those secrets we’re somehow obligated to hide?
A non a me, who was Ryan open to? His wife, mother, attorney and campaign manager?
“The press knew about this long ago.”
But didn’t cover the story? Pretty hard to believe.
Are we supposed to believe that ALL our local reporters have thrown away their journalistic integrity in a bid to protect Sundberg? Or that NO ONE in the local press found it newsworthy? Or that every last one of our local reporters is secretly sympathetic to drunk drivers?
Despite all the shortcomings of our local media outlets, I have a hard time believing any of those possibilities. I think that somehow this just slipped by unnoticed, and if no one had tipped off Heraldo, it would still be slipping by unnoticed.
Certainly Sundberg wasn’t going to volunteer the information, and he must have thought he had just gotten really, really lucky that no one had seemed to notice. But apparently someone did, either just recently, or they knew it some time ago and timed the release of the info for maximum electoral effect. Even if the latter is the case, Sundberg only has himself to blame, since he could have mentioned it earlier in the campaign, but chose to remain mum.
A Non A Me is lashing out at all his enemies hoping one verbal outlash or another will land true.
Yet Sundberg’s campaign apparently chose to risk the news coming out at a bad time. Perhaps they should have been more open about it earlier so everyone would have forgotten by now.
Well, Heraldo, here in the 5th this was no secret. Again, interesting timing, and I am sure that even the comments on your blog months ago about this did not get your attention.
That must be because the candidate you are so emotionally invested in is self-destructing.
You don’t think a candidate running for County Supervisor having a DUI six months ago and for which he failed to appear and for which he will be on probation for the next three years is news that voters have the right to know?
Do you have a link to those comments?
A N D R E W, do you have a filter for this?
Keep trying, Ben. PUSH!
RA is right. If Sundberg wanted to do the right thing, he would have announced this DUI early in the campaign to give voters the chance to evaluate his worthiness for office. He didn’t – and that says all we need to know about his fitness for office.
I’ll assume that the TS will cover this tomorrow or the next day based on the standard applied to Allison Jackson’s screw up with Betty Chin which got front page above fold coverage. I think “candidate gets DUI” would make a good headline.
tra,
You find it hard to believe that the press knew about this long ago and didn’t report it? Wake up.
“DUI looms over Election Day”.
I have a feeling that HiFi, A Non A Me and so on would have been ALL OVER a story like this if it had been Gallegos or Lovelace or Higgins (or for that matter Heraldo) who had been arrested for DUI, failed to appear in court, and tried to keep it hushed up. I suspect they’d be a little less concerned about the “timing” of the news breaking, and a little more concerned about the content of the news.
Look, the guy broke a serious law, putting lives at risk in the process. Pointing that out is not “scum dirtbag politics” or an inapprpriate “personal attack.” It’s a crime, it’s a fact, and it’s quite relevant to the issue of Sundberg’s maturity, responsibility and judgement. I think the queasiness HiFi is experiencing is due to the dawning realization that his preferred candidate is gonna lose a whole lot of votes over this.
Not enough chance for Sundberg to respond? Nonsense, what kind of response is really necessary, except to acknowledge that he made a serious mistake and takes responsibility for his actions. If he wanted more time to put that out there, he should have made sure it came out long ago.
In politics, that’s sometimes called “innoculation” and in this case it would have been wise for him to pursue such a strategy and put this on the table early on and deal with it openly. Then he would have been able to now say that “it’s old news.” But instead he chose to try to keep it on the down-low, which was a risky bet, and one that he has now lost on, big-time.
It’s gonna cost him votes, no question about it.
“DUI looms over Election Day”
No, Heraldo. My money’s riding on “Blogger Attacks Local Hero”.
My headline would read “Did We Hide Sundberg’s DUI, or Are We Just Mind-Bogglingly Incompetent” and my story would end “only time will tell.”
Hey George Bush was also busted for DUI but he still got elected. What’s the big deal? He didn’t show poor judgement once he was in office… wait, nevermind.
I do recall someone posting about Jackson having a DUI many years ago but nothing about Sundberg, although there have been comments at TS about DUI’s not being reported a few times and hints that someone was being protected. Could have been people who knew about Sundberg’s DUI and were looking for it in the paper.
It’s strange that people who want heavy sentences when accidents happen due to drunk driving don’t seem to care about the DUI’s who were lucky they were stopped before they killed someone.
Mitch,
The press makes money by attracting an audience, in the case of newspapers attracting readership. This is a story that would sell quite a few extra copies of newspapers — to Sundberg opponents, to Sundberg supporters, and to scandal-loving people in neither camp.
I can imagine a scenario in which one or two individual reporters or editors might have had an interest in protecting Sundberg, or some misguided idea that drunk driving wasn’t important or wasn’t an appropriate issue to cover in relation to the campaign But I have a really hard time believing that ALL our local reporters and editors felt that way, and felt that way strongly enough to suppress a story that clearly would draw readers/listeners/viewers. That just doesn’t make sense to me.
I think the fact that Sundberg had a recent DUI was probably just “hidden in plain sight” as so many things are unless you specifically go looking for them, and that this is a genuine “scoop” by the Herald.
GWB was busted long before the election, not during it. Timing is important!
And please, you people, stop misspelling “judgment.” It makes you look ill-educated.
Let’s list the errors in judgment committed by Sundberg:
1. Got busted for DUI.
2. Was driving while twice over the legal limit.
3. Failed to appear in court on the day that was supposed to.
4. Failure to appear resulted in a bench warrant for his arrest four days after he announced he was running for County Supervisor.
5. Has been campaigning for five months and has never publicly acknowledged this rather serious breach of the law.
And WTF aren’t they whining that Gallegos let Sundberg plea bargain?
Or that one of the charges was dropped.
Hell yes, Jane! They let him off with PROBATION? Notice the question mark.
Oy vey. Is he guilty of false advertising with his election ads?
old news, but very well timed.
tra,
The press doesn’t make money by selling papers. It makes money by selling ads.
The Journal doesn’t even have to be worth two bits, it just has to be the only county-wide weekly, and it will get its ads as long as it doesn’t offend the wrong people.
The daily is owned by an outside conglomerate and I doubt it’s making them any money. I’m sure the conglomerate would prefer to replace their remaining staff with people in India. They’re probably working on it.
The teevee local news programs, if any still exist, is just a dumping ground for the bottom of the class in journalism school — we’re something like the smallest market in the United States.
I guess KMUD used to have a good news department, but its former head, who did work I’ve heard was widely admired, now works for a developers group.
I don’t know if KHSU or KHUM have any reporters.
And, tra, notice how sharp the Journal was when somebody signed their dog’s name to a letter. Get it now?
This has nothing to do with whether or not journalists here knew about the DUI and covered it up, or incompetence, or denial, or anything. This is just a good example of what you can find out when looking at public records.
yes, Yes, YES!!!
This is exactly what this election was lacking!
Are we saving the illegitimate black child that Bass fathered until Monday?
What about Gallegos’ dog fighting ring?
Gotta out ’em all, Heraldo.
Well the value of their ads depends on the size of their circulation. Thus my assertion that they make money by attracting readership. I maintain that the financial incentive would favor covering the story rather than suppressing it.
A genuine scoop alrighty. Warrior might be on to something…
Oh, none of what I said about the nature of the local press is meant to take anything away from Heraldo. Go, Heraldo, Go!
tra,
Maybe you haven’t lived here for very long. There’s no newspaper competition, and the T-S is not going to increase its circulation by actually becoming good, because there aren’t enough people here who would care. People buy the T-S for the ads, and in the hope that Thad might have written something. But even if Thad is scooped up by a real newspaper, that’s not going to affect the circulation of the T-S. People will still want to find out what’s on sale at the mall.
10:34, the one little difference between your “examples” and this story about Sundberg’s DUI is that, well, the Sundberg DUI actually happened, and that fact is documented in public records. If either of your “examples” turns out to be true, I’ll eat a ten-gallon hat.
No spin from Ryan yet. His Twitter page still says “Test” from Jan 27. Hillarious. His Facebook still says, “duh, election day is 9 days away, duhhhhh, duhhhh.”
Note to Probation officer: you might want to follow up on this one after tonight.
Something tells me this scoop comes from the ink monkeys who print the T-S.
Okay, Mitch, I can see I’m not going to talk you out of your position of deep cynicism related to the local media, which I’ll admit is not without some substantial justification.
But I think the simpler explanation is that none of those reporters had this story, simply because no one had thought to ask any of the candidates if they had recently been arrested or convicted of a crime or were currently on probation. I guess we’ll need to add that to the standard debate questions in the future.
My best *guess* at this point is that whoever tipped off Heraldo found it in the public records precisely because they went looking for it, quite possibly someone from an opposing campaign doing pretty standard “opposition research,” who then held the info until just before the election for maximum impact.
Which doesn’t give me any additional sympathy for Sundberg, since he should have realized that such a turn of events was a distinct possibility, even a liklihood. He had a chance to get this out earlier in the campaign, and he instead chose to keep his lips zipped and hope for the best. Understandable, but certainly a miscalculation, to say the least.
The incompetence the Humboldt right-wing has displayed in local elections in recent years defies belief. If they want to know why they keep losing elections, they only need to look in the mirror.
Given that more than 50% vote absentee this won’t have a huge effect. Probably will still go to November.
tra,
Someone at the T-S is “responsible” for covering the courts. (Or, maybe things are worse than I guess.)
There is no way that a reporter, even a bad reporter, would not be handed a tip from their contacts in the courts, long before now.
Usually I can chalk things up to incompetence, but this would be a reach.
By the way, Mitch, I’ve lived in Humboldt for many years, and seen plenty of good journalism, as well as plenty of mediocre and poor journalism during my time here. I’ve also lived (several decades ago) in a mid-sized metropolitan area (approx. 500,000 in that metro area), and while the quantity of journalism was definitely far, far greater, the quality all too often was not. Believe me, things could be a lot worse. I know, that’s not all that uplifting a thought. Sorry.
Failure to appear?! This is stunning. A DUI for over 0.15 is pretty extreme, but failure to appear in court on top of it is really irresponsible. Not to mention showing total disregard for the law.
Judgement is a variant spelling of judgment and, though not the standard spelling in North American English, it is quite acceptable.
And please, you people, look these things up before correcting others. When you fail to do so, it makes you look stoopid.
Well Mitch, I think you make a good point at 10:56. But that would still be just one reporter deciding to ignore the story (or conversely deciding to hold it until just before the election for greater impact). It would still be quite possible that the rest of our news outlets could have simply not known.
In a way, we should thank all the famous right wing pundits for getting us in the position we’re in today. It couldn’t have happened without Rush and Sarah, or the folks at Fox. Thanks Glenn and Bill, and especially Karl. And a special thanks to you Dick.
“The incompetence the Humboldt right-wing has displayed in local elections in recent years defies belief. If they want to know why they keep losing elections, they only need to look in the mirror.”
It goes without saying that they keep looking in the mirror. Fortunately, we can count on Matthew Owen and Jill Duffy to keep liking what they see.
a Bird in the hand…
10:55 raises an interesting point with regard to many absentee votes already being returned. With that in mind, the actual “maximum impact” might have been to release this story a week or so ago. Of course that would have left more time for a Sundberg response before election day, but really, what kind of response is going to help him all that much?
In any event, I think this WILL cost Sundberg a significant number of votes on election day, both those who end up voting for his opponents, and some of his supporters who are disheartened or disillusioned with him and just sit it out entirely. One thing’s for sure: it isn’t going to help the Sundberg campaign to have to spend the next couple of days dealing with this.
tra,
9:20, 9:32, 9:41a, 9:41b, 9:47, 9:51.
Again, I think you need to wake up. When you recall the good journalism (and I remember Arno Holschuh (sp?) was great!) keep in mind that the editors change over time.
Even if it goes to November, how do you tell a voter, “Yes, I drove drunk at twice the limit. Yeah, I’m on probation. You may see me on 101 in an orange vest. I know, I know, I skipped out on my court date. Yep, my lawyer did the pleading for me. Oh, yeah, I kept it secret til my cover was blown. So can I count on your vote???? Did I mention I’m a lifelong resident and believe in blue sky, cute puppies and button down collared shirts?”
He’s toast.
I’ll bet there’s a couple of others in this game sitting “Pat”
“Well, Heraldo, here in the 5th this was no secret.”
If it was no secret then the timing of this is a mute point. Of course no 5th district voter I know knew about this. They will all find it very interesting, I am sure.
DUI is one thing. Not showing up to court? Wow, I want to hear that excuse.
What a joke the Times Standard is. No decision on Neely v Bass? Cleary for Sup, but uh…Ryan’s ok too….? Oops, we didn’t think to walk across the street to punch a button and get this info ourselves?
We have a serious crisis real news in this area. Thanks Heraldo.
“Judgement” is the variant spelling used by people who enjoy stretching the sharp creases of our language into baggy garments of sloth and linguistic imprecision.
No offense intended, of course.
;>)
I agree with Johnny O. Score one more point for the droids who spend their time sifting through public records.
Now I am curious to see what “bombshell” will be dropped here about Bass on the eve of the election. Just reporting the facts makes it all good.
Yeah, 11:55 pretty much sums up Sundberg’s quandry.
He only has a couple of potential approaches to this thing:
(1) To say that in the grand scheme of things the DUI is a personal matter and isn’t that important and that he’d rather discuss the policy issues — but if he trys this approach he’ll run the risk of pissing off people by trying to minimize his offense.
or
(2) Try to play the victim role by pointing out the timing of the revelation so close to the election — but that will just raise the point that he has been trying to keep it hush-hush up to this point.
(3) Give a basic mea culpa statement that he knows he did something wrong and he takes responsibility for it. And then he just grits his teeth and hopes that people don’t care enough about this for it to sink him entirely in the June election; then he hopes that by the fall runoff it will be “old news” and again not enough people will care about it to make a difference in the outcome.
Whatever approach (or combination of approaches) he tries, I really doubt that it will go all that well for him, but we’ll see. I know one thing, I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes right now.
Whew, now it’s safe to vote your conscience.
Those excuses could work. But the bottom line is:
Professional, qualified and pleasant candidate Vs. Candidate on Probation
It’s a kill shot
Unless the press doesn’t cover it, in which case most people in the 5th district simply won’t know about it, at least not in time for the first round of elections.
If it was only leaked to the blog, that was a big mistake. The newspaper won’t verify the information until Monday, and anyone who watches circulation numbers knows you want to be in the newspaper on Fri, Sat or Sunday even if election day is later in the week.
If the Times-Standard prints the story this weekend, then the leaker has a big mouth, or the leaker originated from within the Times-Standard somehow.
so this story tells us a lot about Sunberg.
how the other candidates react may reveal some other important things, especially about Cleary.
If Cleary really is the effective political operator that county government needs to function at its best in these very challenging times, he will go for the kill here. The political logic is compelling. Why risk a longer election, much more money to raise, etc, if the game can be won now?
And contra concerns about possible backlash from ‘going negative’, being seen to destroy Sundberg would go a big step toward building Cleary’s mojo going on to the council.
One thing about radio, unlike print or even video – it’s a rapid-response format.
Sundberg. Board, not council.
Type in haste. Repent at leisure.
I can assure all of you that we did not get this information at bicoastal media. JB and myself were not sitting on this information because he had better local news or I was more interested in national news.
The fact is for the record that at least some in the local media did not know about this until Heraldo reported it.
I’ll admit that I don’t get a lot of scoops and have only scooped Heraldo once or twice but does anyone seriously think I would sit on a story like this and let Heraldo or someone else scoop me?
I guess I just gave away my other posting name. Once again Heraldo gets the story.
No more Hum Depot for me.
Buck up, TomHum. Hey, that’s almost like Tom and Huck. An American Classic!
Assuming that anything I write on the web can be traced back to me, I don’t feel I have much to worry about.
I still resemble that Hum Depot guy.
When I leave south Eureka and drive by a closed closed Pierson’s but can still get to McKinleyville Ace before they close, I can see why some people in Eureka would like a Home Depot so they don’t have to drive to McKinleyville to find an open hardware store.
I just happen to like McKinleyville Ace and are headed that way anyway.
A couple points:
When did the Herald know this information?
With absentee voting, does anyone think this is going to effect more than 100 votes total?
The possibility exists that the idea of persecution by the blogosphere could be advantageous to Sundberg.
I already said I was for Higgins, but I think we should all cut him some slack. Shit happens, I hope he learns from it and doesn’t do it again.
As for the Failure to Appear, BFD, I had one when I was a college student when I didn’t appear for a fix it ticket on my license plate light. Bullshit. I ended up with a suspended license for a while.
A college kid’s failure to get a fix-it ticket cleared on time doesn’t compare to a “responsible businessman” who failed to show up in court on a DUI and is asking people to elect him to the board of supervisors. The DUI was bad, the failure to appear demonstrates gross irresponsibility and / or a delusional sense of entitlement, neither of which are good traits for a supervisor.
A political campaign’s digging up dirt on a fellow candidate far outweighs any slime dug up.
I wish I knew who the slimebag is. Can I vote “none of the above” this year? To whom is Sundberg a bigger threat? We’re likely giving ourselves an unethical supervisor.
Yeah, because reporting the crime is worse than the crime itself. Why would you want to elect someone so irresponsible as to drive while very drunk who failed to show up in court to answer for it and then had the audacity to run for supervisor while on probation without mentioning it. I’m wondering if this is the real reason he refused to debate.
Revealing that someone was caught driving drunk is worse than actually driving drunk? Wow, that’s quite a claim.
Look, the person who revealed the DUI may have put Sundberg’s political career in jeopardy, but Sundberg actually put people’s lives in jeopardy when he decided it was O.K. to go for a spin with a blood alcohol level of twice the legal limit.
Pushing other people down to lift yourself up is wrong. I’m sorry your mother never taught you that.
“Pushing other people down to lift yourself up is wrong. I’m sorry your mother never taught you that.”
It isn’t a crime. Driving drunk and failure to appear are both crimes. Hiding your crimes to run for elected office and then whining when they are exposed is wrong. I’m sorry your mother never taught you that.
Sundberg pushed himself down when he decided to go for a little spin at twice the legal limit, putting people’s lives at risk. But if he wants to try to play the victim card, he’s welcome to try.
I can only repeat, pushing other people down to lift yourself up is wrong. The police handled the situation. You can’t look into a man’s heart and know what’s there. I can look into the dirt digger though and know he’s a bad person. Why? Because, oh to say it again, pushing other people down to lift yourself up is wrong. Go call your mother.
And if the info didn’t come from another candidate?
Oh, before you claim I’m contradicting myself, a DUI can be a one-time accident or mistake you learn from and never repeat. Meanwhile, having the ability to ruin other people for your own personal gain is an outright character flaw. It’s intrinsic in a person’s being. If this scumbag dirt digger gets elected, it’s unlikely he’s going to learn his lesson and become a better person.
Anonymous,
I think I understand where you’re coming from.
But how do you justify a so-called press that managed for five months to not report that a candidate for the county-wide governing body had been arrested and charged for DUI at a substantially-higher-than-just-illegal level, and then failed to appear in court to answer the charges.
The information was obviously dug up to diminish one candidate in favor of someone else. So, in your scenario, it’s pushing someone down to lift someone else up, which is still wrong. Seriously, call your mother and have a nice long conversation to straighten this out for yourself.
Good luck young fella with the soul-searching, a little rehab, and reconstructing your life after this,
Just think what might have happened if the New York Times had run with the fact that Bush-hole cheated during the 2004 debates, as evidenced by the box outline on his back. But they pulled the article.
Keep up the good work Heraldo, if HiFi is upset you are doing the right thing.
Headline in sunday’s TS: “Sundberg withdraws from Supervisor’s Race”
My mother was hit by a drunk driver Anon. What advice do you think I’d get?
Revealing someone else’s crime who is minding their own business is a smear tactic, but revealing someone’s crime when it pertains to an individual who is seeking the public’s trust is to be commended and btw not owning up to your crimes is always wrong. Maybe your mother forgot that one.
118 comments overnight. This must be a record.
Ooops.
Just as a matter of interest — certainly no surprise — but neither the Journal web site nor the T-S web site have anything about this story as of 8AM. Clearly, not a significant enough story to merit rushing to alert voters that might not yet have voted.
The McKinleyville Press web site does not post news.
I can’t wait to read the sanctimonious advertorials.
If the Betty Chin hoopla ra
Okay, Anonymous Sundberg Defender, we get it.
You’re pissed that your candidate has to face up to this thing in public, just a few days before the election, and now you’re looking to blame the messenger. That’s not an uncommon response in this sort of situation.
But, look, Sundberg had every opportunity to get out ahead of this issue months ago, but he chose to keep his lips sealed and hope for the best. It was a risky bet, and he lost. Now he’s potentially got a PR disaster on his hands, at least if this is covered in the press.
I know this: if I had to choose between (a) someone with a blood-alcohol level of twice the legal limit driving past me and my loved ones, or (b) someone who revealed that a local politician was caught with a blood-alcohol level of twice the legal limit driving past me and my loved ones, well that would be an easy choice.
Sundberg put lives at risk when he got behind the wheel wasted. That’s a fact. Drunk driving is never “accidental,” (oops I got drunk and “accidentally” started driving around?) it’s irresponsible and immature behavior. It’s understandable that he and his supporters would rather this remain unknown to the voting public, but I’m betting that a large number of members of the voting public would disagree.
But like I said, if Sundberg tries to play the victim in all of this, well that’s his choice. But I don’t think that will go over very well, especially with those who have lost loved ones as a result of the irresponsibility of drunk drivers.
The Media is going to have to give Sundberg a chance to respond. Sunday at the earliest for the papers.
8:15,
That may well be the line the media will take. If the Pope announced his opposition to a candidate, the media would need to include the candidate’s response in its story. But the media doesn’t need to give a candidate a chance to respond if the media has missed a PUBLIC RECORD for five months, and the candidate never acknowledged it.
yes, I am afraid this is pretty bad. I wasn’t voting for him any way, but you can’t pull that stuff. Bad judgment and dishonest. Nice guy, bad call.
I really think this area needs to find a way to fire its journalists. I don’t know if a boycott would do it, or what.
The older I get, the more convinced I am that many of our country’s troubles, including the decayed state of our politics, are attributable to a disgusting press corpse. It’s become just another industry spewing toxic waste, and except for the internet, there’s no “press” to expose it.
I have a feeling that Sundberg will have a more reasonable response than his anonymous defender on this thread. I expect he’ll admit his mistake and apologize, assure voters that he doesn’t make a habit of driving drunk, say that he has learned his lesson, and express a desire to focus on the policy issues.
It won’t get him out of trouble completely, but it will go over a lot better than whining about how “unfair” it is that someone brought this arrest (which is a matter of public record) to the attention of the voting public.
This is saddening news. I felt I had to at least respond to the claims and concerns as to whether or not another candidate is digging dirt.
First, a poster up thread (Anonymous) got it right – the inital claim started over at the T-S Topix forum. So, whomever read that particular post AND made the comment regarding a DUI and other claims IS probably “a start”.
Second, I knew of the claims myself, buy have said nothing to none, nor commented on initial DUI charge information until now on the Herald.
Third, I had hoped that if the claims were true (I certainly never researched) that Mr. Sundberg would be transparent and open because TRUST is all a person really ever has.
4th, understanding politics, this information was bound to come out. Question is, did Jill Duffy and Gary Philp and others know about this too? Casino? Individual donorship? Eleanor Sullivan know???
Again, sad state of affairs which reminded me of the drunk senator from Dakota land or Montana who kept running through the same rural intersection drunk on a weekly basis and never was arrested until after killing someone.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
I agree Mitch that the media will have to explain why they missed it and question Sundberg on why he kept it silent or exactly who he told that made this the “oldest news in the world”(see 9:41)that the media failed to report.
“smear”
He “smeared” his own reputation when he stumbled to the car, fumbled with the keys, and zoomed away, high as a kite.
To be blunt, 8:24, all America is suffering from an immune deficiency.
I doubt there will be anything in the papers about this before election day. The only daily, the T-S, won’t have staff back at work until Monday, and they won’t want to try to rush a story out for Tuesday, because it is election day. The T-S brings in one reporter on Saturday to cover the entire weekend. The Saturday shift revolves among the reporters, so unless that reporter is Thad this week, don’t look for it in the T-S. The other papers are weeklies with publication dates after Tuesday, except for the Eye, which comes out on Tuesday. Hank Sims or Ryan Burns might try to get something up on the North Coast Journal blogthing before Tuesday, but nobody reads it anyway.
Thank heavens the only casualty here is Sundberg’s reputation and political career. It could have been a whole lot worse. If he had run over someone’s kid, would it still be inappropriate “dirt digging” to reveal it? Because he was lucky enough to get pulled over before he did that kind of damage, it’s out of bounds to report it? Please, enough of the “how dare you have the temerity to report on my candidate’s life-threatening crimes” baloney.
Mitch,
no need for any firings when the Humboldt Herald and other blogs ore sooooooo effective. The papers will just go belly-up because their back sides have been over-weighted. Less readership is the key to eliminating the worst newspaper I have ever experienced in my lifetime, bar none!
Jeffrey Lytle
McKileyville – 5th District
The timing suggests that this release was indeed managed by the Cleary campaign. Time it so that, worst case, you go into the runoff against a dead candidate. Then, just hope Sundberg’s handlers aren’t as talented as Karl Rove.
There is not just one drunk driving incident, just one time he got caught.
good catch,heraldo.
there has been a glitch off and on with DUI reports since the farmer administration.
because of duty officers at the jail “prioritizing” reports, some were held until after press deadlines for sunday papers.
another issue, was “supplements”. if a sensitive name was to appear on any such report it would be left off of the initial list of arrests and filings.
these “announcements” are actually paper filings that reporters and citizens are allowed to review as a matter of public record.they aren’t press conferences per se.
it is surely in keeping with sundberg’s “think tank”-just review the public records on campaign manager mostranski’s multiple contempt citations for failure to abide by court ordered child support orders.
so, highly fried announces he’s “going to be sick”.
news flash!you ARE SICK,HIFI.YOU’RE THOROUGHLY INCAPABLE OF OF COMMITTING ANY ACT OF INTELLECTUAL HONESTY OR IMPARTIALLY VIEWING ISSUES OR EVENTS BEYOND THE MOUNDS OF SELF GENERATED HORSESHIT YOU’VE SURROUNDED YOUR LIFE WITH,YOU POMPOUS JACKASS.
HoJ,
The problem is most voters don’t read the Herald. And half of the voters have probably already mailed their absentee ballots. I think something like half the votes come in via absentee.
If voters had known about this even a week ago, Sundberg would have been out of the race by now. Instead, he’s probably going to be one of the top-two vote getters, so whoever is the other candidate — most likely Mr. Wall Street, endorsed by the Democratic Machine and using professional campaign sleaze beyond what Humboldt can normally afford — wins it barring the miracle of a successful write-in campaign. Which I’d be happy to organize at this point.
People,
all you need to do is look and see who the endorsers are for any candidate.
Most are former or current political insiders or well connected.
It has been this way for decades in Humboldt.
When the voters finally pull their heads out with regard to money, contributions, endorsements and all those things political fraud and corruption, then maybe, just maybe voters in Humboldt will finally understand why America is soured nation.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
Unfortunately, the report in the Herald will not be seen by anywhere near as many 5th District voters as it would be if it was on the front page of the Times-Standard and the McKinleyville Press.
Most people reading the Herald are already political junkies who had most likely already decided to vote for or against Sundberg, and most of his supporters reading this site won’t be swayed by this. By contrast, the newspapers are going to have a lot more readers who may still be undecided, or at least not that strongly committed to a candidate. And that’s where Sundberg could really lose a lot of votes.
If the poster above is correct that it probably won’t make it into the newspapers until after the election, then the timing of the person who tipped off Heraldo seems to be a little off, as far as trying to make the maximum impact. Also the fact that it’s too late to affect the large number of absentee ballots that have already been cast. So either the person who tipped off Heraldo WASN’T holding the story and timing it for maximum political effect (perhaps they just found out?), or else they didn’t do such a great job of it.
Still, it’s a small (population) county and word travels fast. This turn of events definitely ain’t gonna do Sundberg any good, and I’m betting that in fact he’ll lose a significant number of votes as a result of all this.
0.16 is more than a little drunk. He likely had about 10 drinks and drove away. Wow!
http://www.ou.edu/oupd/bac.htm
True on that last posting Mitch, so true!
Enough people knew in the media, I am sure of it. Media plays a corrupt part of Humboldt Politics – always has and it is really a shame that voters in Humboldt have been so led like rats.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
And Heraldo, I’d feel a lot better if you’d say out loud that you posted this information within a day of getting it.
Yeah, I loved 7:51’s attempted spin that “A DUI could be a one-time accident or mistake…”
Oops, I accidentally downed 8 or 10 drinks and then, oops, I accidentally stumbled to the car, and then, oops, I accidentally stuck the key in the ignition and turned it, and then, oops, I accidentally went for a drive. If he’s that accident-prone, it’s lucky for all of us that he got pulled over when he did!
Actually on timing,
the other two candidate have a support team too. SO, they knew. In fact, both are smart enough men that they would have realised the paper time constraints prior to an election day. So, it is not far fetched that one of Sundberg’s own wanted this out now knowing the constraints with the newspapers. Just sayin’ – politics is too deceptive these days when unethical people are at the helm.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
H made it clear on Tom Seborn’s blog that he did not have the info until yesterday.
Ryan did the one thing possible to make it worse. He let someone else tell the public.
Question is:
Who is “someone else”?
JL
Again about T-S and Topix forum:
T-S employees and staff/journalists READ the TOPIX POSTS – T-S knew too!!!
JL
On the timing:
Friday before an election after 5 p.m. is THE time to go negative on your opposition. Before blogs the preferred medium was radio.
Nah, Henchy. Shooting the messenger won’t work on this one. It doesn’t matter which one of you other candidates pulled the trigger. This one belongs to Ryan.
Here is Heraldo’s post on Tom Sebourn’s blog. My faith is intact.
Heraldo said…
This story was unknown to the Herald until today.
An earlier release would have been better for everyone. Ryan’s camp would have appeared up front rather than hiding it.
If opposing campaigns were holding the info to harm the vote it would have been better to release it before the absentee ballots went out.
HOJ: Politics IS deceptive, it’s ABOUT deception, but it’s easy to infer these folks are as bright as they are crooked. More likely other other candidates’ staff just didn’t pick it up any more than the the local press did. One might think Dick Cheney planned 9/11 or wasted Paul Wellstone. . .God knows he benefited from those tragedies, but even HE wasn’t good enough to bring them off. The rule of thumb should be “assume crookedness, limited by stupidity.”
This reminds me of the Holmquist thing. Even after it came out on this blog no other media touched it. WTF? Does the T-S care?
True Mitch,
I would think the other 2 candidates are smart enough to understand timing. Yet, they did not put their website address in their candidate statement as only intelligient business owners would do, so who knows whether they are really smart or not, I suppose.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
At the same time, Fridays after 5pm is often the time when PR people like to dump their bad news (PR pros call it “taking out the trash), in the hopes that it doesn’t get covered on the weekend, and is then considered “old news” by Monday. So although I think it’s unlikely, the Hunchman’s 8:48 theory isn’t outside the realms of possibility.
If someone had dumped this story on some Friday evening OTHER than the one right before the election, I’d be more inclined to believe it was attempted self-innoculation by the Sundberg campaign. But I think this would have been way too risky a move in this case. The risk is that it might be on the front page of the Sunday T-S, just a couple of days before the election. We’ll see.
turtle,
There’s more than one well-deserved bullet on this one. The first bullet: one of the two candidates entering the runoff is fatally wounded, with the timing done perfectly to ensure he still makes it into the runoff.
The other bullets: the local press corpse, and the political consultant(s) that pulled this off with the corpse’s assistance.
I agree Walt
AND
it is a sad state of affairs in politics when our first thoughts are about how crooked one politician is over another. Sad state of affairs
JL
Humboldt Turtle,
I agree that the responsibility lyes with Mr. Sundberg.
To clear the air though, I had “no part” as one of the candidates in the 5th District in outing this news. So, barring a response from the other two candidates, they are free to respond at their will any involvements they participated in or not. Well see!
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
Jack Durham at the McKinleyville Press won’t be able to do much on this story. He has to exist in the same town as Sundberg’s backers, many of whom are his advertisers. In order to survive, he will have to tread lightly on this story. He probably already knew about it anyway. You don’t publish a newspaper in a small community without knowing its dirty secrets. The Mack Press is already a marginal financial enterprise at best. He tried to sell it for almost nothing and had no takers. That is not a bad reflection on Jack at all, just the financial realities of small newspapers in this era of American journalism.
Hank Sims at the North Coast Journal will want to dive into this. But NCJ Publisher Judy Hodgson, God bless her, will fret and henpeck Hank over how much it will cost when Sundberg supporters threaten to pull advertising.
“…fatally wounded, with the timing done perfectly to make sure he still makes it into the runoff.”
Maybe that’s how it will play out, and maybe that was the intent, but what coverage it will get, exactly what the impact will be, and all the other variables are just too complex for the person leaking the story to know, with absolute precision, exactly what would happen with regard to who makes it into the runoff, etc.
But if indeed this was the result of opposition research long known by one of Sundberg’s opponents and strategically released yesterday, then they made the best calculation they could, probably pretty much along the lines of what Mitch said, and are now hoping it will play out the way they want it to. And no matter how it plays out, it ain’t good for Sundberg.
Wow! Lytle is accusing the media of corruption. How soon we forget. Full disclosure, Jeff.
Is Alan Olmstead working for either Cleary or Higgins?
To be clear, this post went live within hours of receiving the tip. Friday night is not the greatest time to break major news, but the internet never sleeps.
As stated on Tom’s blog, it would have been better for Ryan if this had come out months ago. It would have been better for his opponents if it broke before absentee ballots hit the mailboxes.
Huh?
O.k, corrupt media connected to corrupt politicians?
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
It was a classic hit piece, and the timing was intentional because it limits the ability to respond in the press. Don’t be surprised if there is follow-up by direct mail or radio.
The timing was no accident, Heraldo. The tactic is a classic, and it was probably engineered by another campaign. Yes, Ryan should have been upfront and this should disqualify him to most voters.
The internet never sleeps – too true.
Hence, the downfall of the T-S and the rise of the Herald!
JL
Perhaps, but that would seem to require a conspiracy involving all local news outlets to sit on the story until bam! The Friday night heartbreak.
Mitch, think for a minute. Why would an opposing candidate sit on this until after the absetees were in. You would do it earlier so that it can do significant damage. This will have a limited effect on the vote count and we now get to limp along with a dmaged candidate until November unless he pulls out. By November this really will be “old news” and its effect will be factored in as well as the opposing candidates handling of it.
I don’t think the timing on this was intentional because there isn’t enough time for it to really circulate. What could Sundberg possibly say in response that would in any way lessen his culpability for not only the DUI and failure to appear but for keeping it a secret. If nothing else this serves to show how ineffective local media is in their primary responsibility to keep the public informed.
OMG, Ryan leaked it!
9:22,
You’re missing the point. This was about killing Sundberg, but MAKING SURE HE STILL GOT INTO THE RUNOFF.
The only way to do that is to delay the leak until most absentees are in. You’d need a well-paid polling organization.
You shove this out too early, and you end up killing the guy you want to be running against. Then you have to run against a local candidate who has similar stands on the big issues.
Bass leaked it to keep her screw-ups from hitting the Herald for a few days.
Mitch, pretty loose conspiracy there. Use some names and maybe it will make sense or then again maybe not.
Odd that this came out just a few days before the election. I don’t support his campaign mind you, but the timing is odd. Right about the same time the DUI revelations came out about Bush in 2000, for all the good that did.
mitch-the glare from your tin foil hat has blinded you to reality.
get a clue, dude.
Oh, before you claim I’m contradicting myself, a DUI can be a one-time accident or mistake you learn from and never repeat.
Yeah, but .15 is pretty high.
You’re absolutely right, d’herbois. It’s just a remarkable co-inkydink. And 9:34, the name is Cleary.
This is the first step to qualify as being a career politician.
Just to lay it all out.
If the Sundberg campaign releases news of the DUI at some point shortly before or after it announces the campaign, it might conceivably recover.
Even if another campaign releases news of the DUI, the Sundberg campaign might conceivably recover, but that’s less likely.
So you watch the numbers.
If it looks like you’re going to win without a runoff, you stay silent, take your 51, and win.
If it looks like Sundberg is going to win without a runoff, you release at the earliest opportunity, to get him below 50.
But if it looks like nobody is going to win without a runoff, you want to face the weakest possible opponent.
You’ve got the option of firing the fatal bullet just before or after the primary. Absentee voters lean more conservative than those who vote at the polls. So if you shoot after most of the absentees have been sent in, and you know the poll numbers, you let Sundberg be your opponent.
But now that this news is out, Sundberg is dead (unless the county’s electorate doesn’t care, in which case you won’t win anyway).
If you let the news out after the June election, you’re the only opponent and it’s easier to trace it to you.
Maybe this is tin-hat territory, I don’t know. It just seems awfully suspicious. And Cleary has played the climbing game awfully well.
The big joke on the right wing developers and their friends is that this couldn’t have happened this way if they hadn’t kept the DUI to themselves.
Bass ‘fathered’ a child well thats breaking news.
Hey who here hasn’t been tipsy behind the wheel before? Are you all a bunch of tee totalers or what? I personally have exercised bad judgment and I’m sorry for it-relieved I didn’t get caught at the time and those days are over. But it COULD happen to anyone. Of course Ryan isn’t going to blab to the world he made a mistake like this, that would be TMI in any circle.
Truth in advertising? Where in the job description does it say take a breatalizer before getting behind the wheel. Sure we shouldn’t do that, bad bad. But throw the first stones of course here on the blog where all are perfect except the one we’re talking about.
Monday Morning quarterbacking
Being “tipsy” to the point of getting a DUI, which usually involves evidence of impairment before the stop, and then running for public office without mentioning it shows poor judgment on many levels. An alcohol level of .15 is beyond “tipsy.” People who support Sundberg and oppose Gallegos because of his plea bargains on drunk drivers who are now excusing Sundberg’s DUI as no big deal are the biggest hypocrites of all.
Drunk Drivers, people on probation and those who blow off thier court dates are a potentially large constituency in Humboldt County .
Perhaps Sundberg is just pandering to them.
After all, don’t they need representation on the Board too?
So… you think Sundberg told his endorsers that he would be on probation for a DUI until 2013 when he asked them to support his run for supervisor? This list includes a lot of stand up people who put their reputation on the line for Sundberg like Mike Downey, Mike Pigg, Jill Duffy, Johanna Rodoni, Kenny Richards, Dan Hauser, and others.
As serious as Sundbergs actions are Cleary has matched him in the dishonesty department. A mailer was sent to all in the fifth district that was titled “Voter Information Guide For Democrats” Inside it lists Cleary as the fifth district pick.Boxer and Jerry Brown are pictured on the front panel. It is meant to look like a mailing from the Dem Party. Read the fine print and you find that there is no party affiliation and that Cleary paid for the posting of his name. This is serious slime. The T-S won’t cover this because they’ve already endorsed Cleary. My guess is that the endorsement was bought. Cleary is a bad piece of work. Sundberg is not likely to get substantial votes in any case.
I would like to hear what Pete Nichols (Baykeeper) and Jen Kalt (Healthy Humboldt) have to say now since they have backed Cleary to the hilt.
DUI’s mean nothing nowadays, they’re a cash cow for law enforcement, handed out like popcorn. You can most certainly DUI while very sober after very little alcohol. Look into it.
robash141,
How would you know, in this county, that they don’t already have substantial representation on the BoS?
So Mitch, using your theory, wouldn’t that make Sundberg incredibly stupid for not getting it out himself as early as possible. You can’t be blaming his opposition for something that he could control?
Bareilles Jr had a failure to appear while he was in college and now he says it was no BFD. Was the fact that his Daddy was a Lawyer have anything to do with Jr’s casual attitude toward obeying the laws that the rest of us were taught to fear? Class privilege, anyone?
Or is it that a failure to appear for a license plate light is not as serious as failure to appear on a DUI? Does that distinction elude the gentleman?
If he’s sorry, is it a big deal?
10:55,
Check out Wikipedia’s entry on Blood Alcohol Content here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content#Effects_at_different_levels
Here’s what happens at .06 to .10 — the report says Sundberg was at .15, at least 50% greater:
Blunted Feelings
Disinhibition
Extroversion
Lowered Libido
Reasoning (impaired)
Depth Perception (impaired)
Peripheral Vision (impaired)
Glare Recovery (impaired)
At .11 to .20:
Over-Expression
Emotional Swings
Angriness or Sadness
Boisterousness
Reflexes (impaired)
Reaction Time (impaired)
Gross Motor Control (impaired)
Staggering
Slurred Speech
And the “drink chart” suggests that .15 typically means 7 or 8 drinks for a 180 to 200 pound male.
Here’s a scoop fer ya H. Bonnie has gone negative in the fourth district. WTF?? She desparate or somethin’?
Anonymous 11:06,
It goes without saying that Sundberg’s campaign was either incredibly stupid or overconfident about how it could control the information, or both. And not releasing the information was, in the end, a decision Sundberg has to take responsibility for. Neither the DUI nor the nondisclosure are the worst mistakes in the world, but they aren’t great character references, either.
I’m hardly saying this isn’t Sundberg’s fault. I’m saying that the timing of the release makes me suspicious that this was “cleverness” on the part of a former Wall Street banker’s hired consultants.
I obviously cannot know that for a fact.
And 11:06,
I’m way more concerned about what this says about the area’s press corpse than what it says about our local pols and pol wannabees.
It’s a serious problem, because the press is the only thing the press doesn’t expose. At best, they’ll explain “mistakes were made.” That’s at best.
Something needs to be done, but I don’t know what. Heraldo is the only reliable news source in Humboldt County.
I don’t believe that’s the case, Mitch.
“I obviously cannot know that for a fact.”
True. It just doesn’t look that way on my end.
A comment above said Sundberg is “dead.” What the writer meant is that Sundberg’s chances of being elected are in danger.
In a time when Humboldt County has seen so many real deaths of real people, would the folks who write to the Humboldt Herald please not to refer to living people as if they were dead?
can we call him toast?
You can’t be a reliable news source when you only print what you like and only support the side you help build up with your propaganda.
This is an opinion piece, albeit one many find entertaining, but reliable news it ain’t!
9:13: Alan Olmstead is working for Higgins. What’s your point?
I’m waiting for Rose to tear into Gallegos for letting Sundberg get off with probation.
Which part of it is opinion?
Sylvia de Rooy’s judgement is seriously impaired: She thinks that “Sundberg is not likely to get substantial votes in any case.” Earth to Sylvia! Hellooooooo????
What Mitch said about the state of the press, or lack thereof, is a serious problem. I think it should be clear that what I posted above about Cleary is information that should be covered but the reality is that with the exception of Heraldo there is no effective place to go. Weeklies aren’t adequate to cover breaking news. This situation makes ugliness like this recent mailer by Cleary possible with no fear of ramifications.
Sylvia De Rooy has been associated with Higgins negative campaign tactics since the get go. I have heard one or more voters switch to Cleary after the negative campaign calls put forth by Higs camp, De Rooy, and the democracy unlimited ‘all or nothing’ team.
Sylvia’s point is about slate mailers. They are sleazy and dishonest because you pay to be placed in them. Cleary’s campaign advisers just happen to be fans of them. I’m not. As a Cleary supporter, I was disappointed to see his name on one, especially since PG&E had also paid for an endorsement of Prop 16. I think if Cleary and his advisers had known about the Prop 16 endorsement, they would have turned it down. This particular slate mailer is getting a lot of press scrutiny around the state. After this election cycle, the gig may be up for slate mailers. Voters are wise to them and I think candidates will avoid them.
To “Get Real”above. An alcohol level of .15 is hardly light, and at that level, is seriously impaired. So I guess I gotta say, “you get real”.
“Was this another one of those secrets we’re somehow obligated to hide?”
You mean like your name?
Sylvia,
Let’s be clear. This was not a “mailer by Cleary.” His campaign paid a fee to be included in a statewide mailer that is regionalized by County. This mailer was not produced by Cleary’s campaign or in this county.
Like I said above, I don’t agree with the decision to pay to be on a slate mailer. But I still support Cleary. Though I’m not involved with his campaign in anyway, I believe he did this without really knowing much about it – he was following his advisers’ advice.
I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of Democratic anger statewide at the publisher of this particular slate mailer over being placed on a slate that also endorses Prop 16, which the California Democratic Party has taken a stand against.
Cheap shots by hot shots, Mr. Hoover, don’t impress the girls anymore.
I too have heard that the Higgins campaigns negative diatribes against Cleary have turned people off. Sylvia’s view that Sundberg isn’t going to get many votes seems to be the Higgins’ supporters general take. Either they are really clueless, or listening to people from outside the district who don’t have much exposure to McKinleyville politics. Democracy Unlimited/Local Solutions might give ok campaign advice in the districts where those folks live, but McKinleyville might as well be on another planet to our southern neighbors.
Every nut case progy has smeared Ryan on hear. A form of mental masturbation. This release is just slime ball politics. Less than a week after he announced some anon talked about the DUI on this blog. Obviously H cut the comments on it until now to use it as a slime. Just proves the tie with Salzman.
It won’t effect Ryan much here as folks know him. Slime away, most folks in 5th don’t follow this blog anyway. Most of them are real people. Most of you are R. Trent and his followers.
Negative diatribes? What did they say!?
(More, more!)
anonymous says,”I believe he did this without really knowing much about it – he was following his advisers’ advice”
And you want this man to be a county supervisor? What’s wrong w/ this picture?
What you’re saying is that Cleary is not a leader who examines and makes his own decisions.In any case, he is responsible for anything that comes out in his name with his consent and his money behind it. The mailer was a fake endorsement just like his claim to be “the only candidate with the experience to create jobs…..,while protecting our environment”. Higgins has been creating jobs here for nearly 40 years as well as protecting the environment. Further, Higgins has the background to do those things. Cleary doesn’t. He came here and flashed $$$, jumped onto any board and occupation he could hustle because he was setting up for his political climb. I’m appalled that who he is and what he’s done isn’t obvious to everyone.
What 839er means by implying that Democracy Unlimited is in any way connected with Higgins campaign is a puzzle to me. DU has no connection whatsoever with Higgins campaign. Local Solutions has not given any campaign advice to Pat, further, Pat doesn’t need their advice, he makes his own decisions. His name hasn’t appeared on a bogus mailer, has it? As for McKinleyville politics have you taken a tour of McK lately 839er? It’s covered with Higgins signs, they are everywhere you look.Higgins has over 500 endorsers and with the exception of a small handful they are all in the fifth district. Take a look at Clearys endorsements.
Three more days and we’ll see.
Sylvia:
I know Patrick Higgins and like him. I think he’s done a terrific job on the Harbor Commission. For my own reasons, I just think Patrick Cleary is the better candidate for Supervisor.
But if Cleary doesn’t survive the primary and Higgins does and there is a runoff in November, I will be 100 percent behind Higgins.
If Higgins doesn’t make the cut on Tuesday and Cleary is in a runoff, I hope you will support Cleary in the November election. Your venom toward Cleary is counterproductive.
Still no defense from the Sundberg supporters other than to blame the messenger for the timing when they should be blaming Sundberg for both the act and trying to keep it a secret. It’s obvious they don’t value integrity in their candidates.
Sylvia, why don’t you attack Sundberg, who is our real opponent? P.S. he is also the subject of this post! If Cleary and Higgins end up in the runoff, it’s a win-win for us enviros, get a clue. How you can turn a post on Sundberg’s DUI and failure to appear warrant into a diatribe against Cleary is unfathomable. You seem to be losing your marbles.
Dr. Bill, I mean anon like me, shouldn’t you be at Pony Express Days rather than blogging about how all the “progies” are just Salzman puppets? You are totally obsessed with a delusional fantasy. You might want to see a doctor about that.
839er , I don’t see a run off between Higgins and Cleary as a win-win for enviros. I don’t believe a word of what Cleary has said about the environment. He’s a businessman who at one talk started to say he’d like to create an environment that would attract businesses from out of the area. When that didn’t go over he did a quick turn around. When he was asked about the GPU his ardent fans were there, Pete Nichols and Jen Kalt, and before Cleary could answer Jen answered for him. If he needs them to answer for him…
As for Sundberg, is there anyone who doesn’t know he’s the developer candidate. Frankly I don’t think many take him seriously. I’ve spoken w/ a lot of fifth district people and he just gets dismissed. The amount of money that he and Cleary have taken is obscene for a Humboldt Cty election. Cleary is up to over 150k. What’s wrong w/ that picture?
If I had voted absentee for Sundberg, I’d be raging mad right now and demanding a do-over in November.
This comment just got censored from the North Coast Journal blog where they attack other local media for allowing the same “F-bomb” to be uttered that Hank Sims belts out with sickening regularity:
“So Ryan Sundberg appeared on the Access Humboldt debates and interviews, but wouldn’t appear on the North Coast Journal debate. Boo hoo. Sounds like sour grapes to me coming from the Sims gang.”
So who is Alan Olmstead and why is his name floating about here?
I just happen to be at the radio station today to run the Crabs baseball opener. I’ll have this story on after the game on 1480.
Heraldo, I can’t seem to figure out your philosophy for deleting comments. You deleted one that referred to Ryan as “an injun” but let all those people call Holmquist disabled. Are there guidelines?
One of those terms is racist. I deleted several comments from the Holmquist thread that were equally ugly. Is “disabled” an offensive term?
I believe:
I believe alcohol is a mind altering substanse, I believe I’ll have another cocktail. Hic!
I know Garth Sundberg better than Cleary or Higgins. Garth is a fine person, and I am sad to read about this lapse of judgment on his part – getting behind the wheel while obviously impaired. I can’t fathom what would cause him to miss the original court date. Aside from his intention to run for Supervisor, he has a business to protect. I have to say this is out of character for him.
All that said, I wasn’t planning to vote for him anyway. His politics are different than mine and I don’t like the people who are giving him money. Nonetheless, I felt he had a decent chance to win in the 5th District. I believed it would come down to a runoff between Garth and one of the Patricks.
But this revelation is going to severely damage Garth’s chances. I’m not sure now he will survive the primary. There is already a buzz about this in McKinleyville, it’s going to spread like a wildfire in August, and I’ll bet more than 50 percent of voters will wait until election day to vote.
If Garth does survive the primary, this is not going to go away. It will dog him throughout the campaign for the November election. Most people simply are not going to vote for a candidate who is going to be on probation for three years for a very recent DUI in which he got behind the wheel twice over the legal limit. The bench warrant for failure to appear, if it is true, is also something that there can be no reasonable explanation for. People aren’t going to accept excuses from a candidate who is asking for their trust. Not when both other candidates (I intentionally excluded Lytle) are stand-up, respected members of their community who aren’t dogged by a criminal conviction.
De Rooy said “Cleary is up to over 150K”
Some facts Sylvia. By the way, yesterday I caught a fish thiiiiiiiiiis big.
An interesting piece of journalism would be for a reporter to call up every person on Sundberg’s donor list and ask if they knew about this DUI before they gave him money.
is Garth a nickname for Ryan Sundberg or is 2:55 confused? I thought Garth was Ryan’s dad…
Serious mix up on my part substituting Garth for Ryan. Yes, I meant Ryan. My sincerest apologies to Garth.
First of all, could someone explain what a bench warrant is?
Mitch, it’s simply an arrest warrant issued in court from the bench – the bench being where the judge sits.
All the candidates for this one SUCK. Any worthwhile write-ins?
mitch, wiki-shmiki…here’s the chart from the world’s most respected source on quantitative drug and alcohol impairment:
der-erky derky der
shner shner erky shner
duh-dee duh duh duuuuhhh
everybody’s different
and that chart is garbage
because there are countless variables
and you know it.
I don’t give two bits for any of the candidates but DUI’s are pretty trivial. Politically, it looks way worse for a candidate to drag an opponent through the muck over one than to actually get one.
get real,
Ah, yes, I recognize your argument. I’ve usually heard it as “facts, shmacts, you’re still ugly.”
And WTF aren’t they whining that Gallegos let Sundberg plea bargain?
Or that one of the charges was dropped.
Typically, a DUI defendant is charged with driving under the influence of an intoxicating substance AND driving with blood alcohol level above .08. Basically, to prove the first, you have to prove impairment, which isn’t always easy. So the legislature passed a law which says that if you’re blood alcohol level is above .08, you’ve broken the law whether impaired or not. You actually used to have defenses that went along the lines of “my client is an alcoholic and his body has great resistance to alcohol, and therefor he wasn’t impaired.” I don’t know how well they worked, but the blood alcohol law bypasses such a defense.
As for the failure to appear, I don’t know the specifics. However, I’ve had a number of clients who showed up to court when their ticket told them to, only to find out that the DA didn’t get the complaint filed in time (yes, this happened under Farmer too, and it happens in Mendo and everywhere else). Then when the DA does file, he’s supposed to notify the defendant by mail. But sometimes a defendant forgot to notify the DMV of an address change, or for some other reason never got the mailed notice. Meanwhile, the Judge doesn’t know why the defendant isn’t present, and issues the bench warrant. Every time it’s happened with my clients, I’ve simply explained it to the judge, who then nixes the warrant and takes the plea – no harm, no foul.
Mind you, I don’t know if that’s what happened here, but a failure to appear can sound like more than it is.
Oh, and to the person complaining about misspelling judgment as “judgement,” the latter is the English spelling and it’s not improper. Or so I was told in law school.
I know Higgins too, and am voting for Cleary because though Higgins is a strong environmental advocate, he is a divider, just another swing of the political pendulum. His phonebankers and door-to-door volunteers have slung mud to create a monster in their own imaginations. This County has had enough of this divide-and-conquer fear-based bullshit. We have more in common than not, on the whole. Making everything about “which side are you on” is self-serving crap. It’s sad that Higgins’ supporters can’t just talk about his strengths but have to make up nonsense about the other candidates.
As to the DUI, it shows poor judgment, but the failure to appear, failure to pay the fine, and failure to disclose to the voters is terrible judgment. Sundberg should withdraw.
McK Voter,
Most of my life, any candidate who I mostly agree with has been called a “divider” by people who like the status quo. Candidates who are equally as passionate but with whom I mostly disagree, or who strike me as obvious frauds, are often called “uniters.”
It all depends on from where you are watching the show, doesn’t it?
Eric:
Is a first offense DUI a felony or misdemeanor? And is it a criminal offense?
mitch, I recognize your argument as well. You go, politico! Google that wiki! Google it good!
Ok, I decided to do a little investigative reporting myself, dug through our paper recycling box and found the two slate mailers we got. One is an “Election Education Guide” that “Officially” features “Every Statewide Candidate and Proposition Endorsed by the CA Democratic Party”. Patrick Cleary is on it for Board of Supervisors. The recommendation for Prop. 16 is “NO.”
The other one is from someone called “Calfornians Vote Green”. No county supervisor candidate from any district is listed, but “Yes on Prop. 16” is prominently featured on both sides.
Is there a third one that both lists Cleary and Yes on Prop. 16 as mentioned by an earlier commenter? I might as well try to collect a whole set. It sounds like their days are, and should be, numbered.
Apropos Sundberg (I’ve already sent in my ballot and voted for….not Sundberg):
The DUI was bad enough. Someone could have been killed or maimed by him. It was not trivial and there is no excuse.
Failure to appear on the bench warrant is totally unacceptable for someone who wants to run for public office.
Concealing it was stoopid.
Sundberg was charged in a misdemeanor criminal complaint.
Mitch,
I just hunted down the T-S endorsement of Cleary and they say it this way:
“Over the years, Cleary has built a reputation of being able to come into difficult situations and bring divergent sides together to find common ground. Cleary’s approach is simple: In order to lead and find common ground, one must first step back and listen.”
I didn’t know Cleary until he announced his candidacy, so I asked a lot of people about him, from the Arcata Co-op manager to employees of KHUM. I heard a lot of praise. The worst thing I heard about him was from a former KHUM employee who didn’t like that Cleary came on board and then sat back and observed for 4 months, THEN started changing things, which to me seemed like a good way for a manager to operate.
He has a track record of coming up with workable solutions at the Co-op, KHUM, and KHSU, and has led the Folklife Society back to being an active organization with a successful and really wonderful week long festival in Blue Lake. It’s not just talk, he really did a lot of good for a number of important local businesses.
I predict the new Supe from the 5th will be named Pat.
Trick question for Jill; So uh Jill, did You know Sundberg was on probation for a DUI? If yes, why endorse him? If no, are you still endorsing him?
McK voter,
I’ll have some research to do. Thanks for your thoughts. How do you feel about the Headwaters Fund being used to prep public opinion for the Richardson Grove project?
get real,
That’s just devo.
I support Higgins and I don’t “sling mud”. It’s a FACT that Cleary’s radio and print adds state that Cleary is “the ONLY candidate with the experience to create jobs…..,while protecting our environment”. That statement is, and you can pick whatever you want: not true, deceptive, a lie, an un-truth or any bunch of other words both nice and not so nice. What bothers me most about this is that Cleary has some real accomplishments (so do Higgins and Sundberg, for that matter) but rather stressing his true accomplishments or explain the substance of his platform, Cleary chose to lie (or whatever you want to call it), and his lie smears his opponents. It smears his opponents by denying/diminishing his opponent’s real accomplishments. Why lie when it isn’t even necessary? The answer is simple — to hurt the other guys and deceive folks into voting for you. Those folks are the same folks that one of these guys will have the honor of calling ‘constituents’. You have to be really cynical if you really don’t think that there IS something wrong with that.
Eric:
Is a first offense DUI a felony or misdemeanor? And is it a criminal offense?
If there’s no injury to someone else, it’s a misdemeanor. All misdemeanors and felonies are criminal. Infractions are not.
Carlos, you don’t even live in the 5th. Give it a rest.
Fox Studio 5:07 wants to know:
“Is there a third one that both lists Cleary and Yes on Prop. 16 as mentioned by an earlier commenter? I might as well try to collect a whole set. It sounds like their days are, and should be, numbered.”
Yes, there is another slate mailer called Voter Information Guide for Democrats. It advises a YES vote on Prop 16. Cleary paid to get his name on this mailer. I got the other mailer too and it says vote NO on Prop 16. The voter information guide comes from Riverside. The other slate mailer comes from Burbank.
They both have exactly the same disclaimer in very very small type saying the mailer does not imply endorsement from any political party.
A letter in the McKinleyville Press expressed concern about a similar mailer sent to Republicans. Cleary is on that one too.
This is part of the reason people are so cynical and don’t vote.
I agree, Fox Studio, the days of these mailers should be numbered. And the politicians who pay to get this kind of advertising should be voted down.
Eric,
Thanks for answering questions here.
McK voter,
Even before I got to your response to Carlos, I was going to ask you how you felt about what he points out.
I think he raises good points. I also think the points about the mailers are valid — I was pissed off when I got mine, because I knew it would fool people.
I’m also curious about how you feel about the way the Headwaters Fund has been managed.
Do you have anything you’d like to add, besides that Carlos isn’t in the fifth?
well mitch, you can be like your ancestors or you can be different. Thought I’d read this blog to see if I could gain any worthwhile insight into the candidates that I haven’t figured out already. DUI’s not being one of them, because who cares. If there aren’t at least 20 other negatives about the guy to keep on the frontline of debate, than that’s sad. It reads like a pity stab.
Plenty of intelligent discussion going on but no clear statements on what I want to hear. None of the candidates appear adamantly pro-environment, and they all seem okay to flood the area with apartment buildings and retail so fuggum. As far as the working stiffs are concerned, McKinleyville is in a comfortable place of stasis. Anybody hyping it otherwise is hurting their vote by me.
Thanks, SIO 6:07, that’s what I thought must be the case. I somehow didn’t get that one.
Yes, I’d almost certainly vote against anyone who paid to be in one of those things. And it turns out that I didn’t.
Get real,
What the fuck are you talking about. Never said all progs are followers. No doubt there is a division going on now with Higgins running. Who cares what you want to hear. Ryan is the best candidate and that the fact. You are just running your mouth. You know shit about McKinleyville or 5th district. DUI was know about by many. See what the TS has to say Sunday. The way this was done is typical shit by the local solution/prog crowd. Doubt it will effect the vote much. Again, get real you have no voice in the community nor infulence. Just an anon on this web site. Sucks to be you.
get real: DUI’s not being one of them, because who cares.
Who cares? Maybe hundreds of thousands of people who have lost loved ones, or a limb, or livelihood, to drunk drivers. Can we surmise, because you think DUI is no big deal, that you are one who drives drunk?
The new, improved Sundberg supporter.
anon like me says to get real: you have no voice in the community nor infulence. Just an anon on this web site. Sucks to be you.
Oh My. How true.
Oh, Crikey, Eric! Do you believe everything they told you in Law School?
Oh, Crikey, Eric! Do you believe everything they told you in Law School?
Every last thing.
Hah!
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/judgement.html
See, that’s why we pay big bucks for law school tuition.
7:09 above. I strongly suggest you get your head out of your ass. Progs, as you call them, have brains that work. Yours’ doesn’t.
OK. Something New: Sundberg’s TV ads just came out. I saw person after person give their heartfelt testimony on camera about what a great, honest, above-board guy this fellow Sundberg is.
No mention of his DUI or his hiding his DUI from the voters of the Fifth District.
Is this the height of hypocrisy? Of Stupidity? Or of some other negative aspect of the human character of which I have been happily ignorant until I saw that TV ad tonight?
7:32 – did you really expect him to bring up his DUI in a TV ad?
Do you suppose there’s a Calaveras jumping Prog? Or a Tree Prog? Maybe even a Red Leg Prog?
Eric, I didn’t expect him to run an ad that flies in the face of the facts that have been revealed here during the past few hours. I find that appalling. And I am not easily appalled!
I wonder how the people who gave him their statements of support for that ad feel now that the truth about his lack of character is becoming known.
Get Real said: “…DUI’s are pretty trivial”
Not when you or a loved one gets killed or maimed by a drunk driver, you worthless piece of shit.
Traumatic Brain Injury is “trivial?” Fuck you.
Paralyzed from the neck down is “trivial?” Doublefuck you.
Dead children pulled from a twisted wreck is “trivial?” Triplefuck you and your willfully ignorant horseshit!
I’m a pretty peaceful person, and I generally try to be calm and reasonable, both online and in person. But I can tell you right now, if you had the gall to tell me to my face that DUIs are “trivial,” I’d probably be hard pressed not to beat the living crap out of you with a whiskey bottle while describing, in vivid and excruciating detail, EXACTLY why I take this issue so personally.
Then we’d see whether you would continue to see this issue as “trivial.”
My apologies to everyone else on the thread — except for “Get Real,” who is cordially invited to eat shit and die.
No apology needed, tra. In fact, thank you.
Sounds reasonable.
Great post tra, hope Sundberg sees it along with all his apologists.
Perfectly said, tra. Definitely no apology needed at all.
Mitch – as you know, there have been a number of controversies surrounding uses of Headwaters Funds during Cleary’s tenure. In the meetings I’ve attended, it was hard to tell if he was paying attention or more concerned about his next meeting. I would like to know more about his involvement with selling Humboldt Creamery stock shortly before the fraud broke, including the still hazy attempt to get Headwaters Fund money for that fiasco.
I will vote for Sundberg because he is a good person and will make a good supervisor. He made a mistake no one should drive under the influence but many of us have. If you haven’t ever driven while under the influence good for you most of us have at one time or another.
“selling Humboldt Creamery stock shortly before the fraud broke.”
I have no idea if that accusation is true. But the Times-Standard’s “coverage” of Humboldt Creamery wouldn’t have gone deep enough to have uncovered that, now, would it? If it’s Sundberg versus Cleary, I won’t be surprised to see some heavy-duty investigations of Cleary, though. I’m sure the money will become available.
8:11,
His blood alcohol content was 0.15, indicating seven or eight drinks and substantial impairment. Don’t you think you were entitled to know about the DUI charge before now? Doesn’t it raise the question in your mind, “what else haven’t I been told”?
Anonymous at 8:11 says “He made a mistake no one should drive under the influence but many of us have. If you haven’t ever driven while under the influence good for you most of us have at one time or another.”
And if you decide to run for Supervisor, you don’t get to decide if your DUI is relevant, the voters do. If you think you get to decide, that makes you unqualified to run for supervisor. What else might you hide?
I will vote for Sundberg because he is a good person and will make a good supervisor. He made a mistake no one should drive under the influence but many of us have. If you haven’t ever driven while under the influence good for you most of us have at one time or another.
You know, if it was years ago and it wasn’t such a high blood alcohol level, I might be a little more forgiving. But .15 isn’t just having a couple of beers on an empty stomach and not realizing that you’re a little more tipsy than apparent. You have to really pour the stuff down and unless you’re in complete denial you are wantonly driving knowing that you are a danger on the road. .15 is the threshold – .16 opens you up to enhanced charges which include mandatory jail time.
I’m not saying it should damn him for life. But I’d need a lot of convincing that there’s been a huge leap in judgment capacity over the past few months. Not dealing with it publicly makes me nervous.
I can tell you I would say this about any liberal candidate. This isn’t a speeding ticket. It’s more serious than shoplifting. He put members of the public, presumably some of his voters, in serious danger of injury.
I wish it had come out earlier so he could have time to address the issue. Maybe there are mitigating factors deserving consideration. I don’t know what they might be. But the timing, whether deliberate, is unfortunate.
I agree 8:19 the voters will decide and my opinion is they will be more understanding then the posters on this blog that have always opposed Sundberg.
Saw the Sundberg commercial. Love Dr Bill W vouching for Ryan’s integrity.
Do live in the 5th and am proud of all the candidates. All good capable choices with some blemishes included. Quite different platforms and personalities for the voters to pick between.
Remember Ted Kennedy would have been President if he only drove a volkswagen.
I’m having ryan’s baby
I can’t see why people of the 5th District wouldn’t vote for Cleary, he’s very smart and on a Supervisor’s salary he is going to be a total bargain.
I agree with Eric. After three, four years without a repeat offense I wouldn’t hold a 1st-time DUI against him. But this happened just six months ago, within weeks of the date he announced his candidacy. He needs to put this behind him and build voter confidence by serving finishing his probation without any repeat offenses.
The .15 BAC is disturbing. Voters are smart. It’s doubtful the night he was busted for DUI was the first time he got behind the wheel drunk. This isn’t his time. But he is young. He will have plenty of opportunity in the future, if he does the right thing.
He should withdraw from this race and try again in four years. If he forces voters to make a decision about him this year, he could permanently damage his reputation. I would hate to see that happen. He is a good kid.
“He is a good kid.”
Who needs to grow up before taking on an adult job.
Drinking & then choosing to drive is BREAKING THE LAW. Period. Duii drivers kill your family & friends. Is that someone you want to vote into office?
Dr. Bill vouched for Ryan? Perfect.
I want to add, the best thing for Ryan in the long-term would be to lose in the primary. If he survives Tuesday and is in the runoff, what is left of his dignity will be butchered during the campaign. The opposition will see to that. And he may not ever be able to recover it, in the public’s eye. I don’t think he would want to put his family through that. He should think carefully about the long-term consequences. I hate to see this happen to him.
Wendy (Ben shepards wife) said “Ryan will be there for us.” Maybe she is planning to post his bail
Anonymous at 8:19 said “I agree 8:19 the voters will decide and my opinion is they will be more understanding then the posters on this blog that have always opposed Sundberg.”
Sundberg doesn’t appear to agree with your opinion.
Forget the DUI for a moment. Can anyone name one position Ryan has on one issue? Grow houses? Rail? Development? Public safety? Rural healthcare? Budget and taxes? He has no position on anything. There’s nothing on his website of substance. He avoided all but one debate. Can anyone argue with a straight face that objectively he is worth your one and only vote in this race when there are 2 Patrick’s that have substantive ideas on the issues? My God, have our standards lowered that much?
Just want you all to know that “Get Real” is no relation of mine. Well, there may be a branch of the family around that I don’t know about. Anybody know a good genealogist? Personally I do think a DUI is a big deal. Ask the thousands of families around the country that have a dead relative, thanks to a DUI.
I’m so confused…is get real related to Get Real AND Time to get real?
I think Dr. Bill should have to pass a breathalizer test before he can post on this blog. He must be the angriest nastiest person in McKinleyville, and that’s saying something!
Mitch,
I have to admit I have not followed every action of the Headwaters Fund, but it seems to have funded a lot of good projects, such as the ice flake plant in Eureka, the education grant, and the branding of local food products. Cleary has spoken of the education grant, because he says that Humboldt County has a high rate of high school graduation but a very low rate of kids going to college. He attributes this to the past security of timber jobs which always paid very well.
I do not appreciate the grant that funded the Prosperity public relations push on the Richardson Grove project, but was at a town hall meeting where Cleary said he was unhappy about that too–he said the Headwaters Fund grant was to CalTrans to do an economic study, and the County changed the grant without the Fund board’s knowledge. He said the Fund changed its policy after this incident. I don’t know if it’s true but he seemed pretty angry about it. That said, he also said he still supports the project because so many local businesses have been pressing for it for years. I don’t support the project, but also don’t think it is the be-all-end-all of Humboldt County either.
Re: the Humboldt Creamery, my understanding is that the Headwaters Fund loan application process is what brought the company’s financial discrepancies to light, since the loan application required financial statements that would be made public. When the Creamery learned its financial statements would be public, they pulled the application. That is what I recall reading in the papers. I don’t see how Cleary can be blamed for that.
Thanks for asking…I appreciate the Herald for this sort of exchange. What do you think?
Who knows if it’s going to be in the T-S tomorrow?
Local Eurekan asks: “Who knows if it’s going to be in the T-S tomorrow?”
Who knows?
The Shadow knows.
Just one problem.
No one knows who The Shadow is!
(What do you think about that, Heraldo?)
The papers hate getting scooped by Heraldo. We hope they get over it and do some solid reporting on the matter.
McK voter,
The Headwaters Fund Board was not the ONLY entity on the Creamery issue. Supervisor Chair Smith (at the time I believe) was pushing for a bailout after the application process, along with other supes too. So, transparency is a huge concern.
Also, I don’t believe the Grant excuse for Cal-Trans was 100% secret on both sides of the decision making process.
As far as the Flake Ice Plant – why does the city of Eureka get to have “ownership” of the “county” funded project. Further, claims have been made that this is just an accounting trickery for the short term using jobs as the tool to secure public tax monies. Also, will there be cool storage like the old facility???? Nope. Also, where and when did the extra $50K get appropriated from the Headwaters Fund??? Or, better asked, why did the financial terms increase after the public revies process? Ronnie Pelligrini’s plea using some 14 month old baby in the back of the supervisors chamber slated as the up and coming future of the fishing industry (as if in 18 years, that child is going to care a wince of what Ronnie fabricated).
So, with regard to the Headwaters Fund and Board – it is a special interest pulpit that has done really nothing for displaced timber workers, or retaining local people through economic stimulus. Additionally, the waste of money on outside organizations is a crying shame – Cal Trans never needed the money for any other entity pushing a study; nor Delta for pre-paid seats; nor money going to education training, etc…. The results are the economic returns for which I am still waiting to see some crunched figures that I presume won’t quantify one way or the other any empirical data.
Anyhow, I can see how an appointed Headwaters Fund Board member would be mad as hell toward the supervisors, especially the supervisor that APPOINTED that particular Fund Board member. Ya, right.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
I think most of the voters in the 5th, see we need a business person right now, with a vision and an ability to to see through the B.S. Patrick Cleary gets my vote. Maybe Ryan in 10 years with some life experience, and a handle on his little drinking problem.
Heraldo says:
June 6, 2010 at 12:31 am
The papers hate getting scooped by Heraldo. We hope they get over it and do some solid reporting on the matter.
Healdo, saw the article this AM. Generally factual except for leaving out the elephant in the room as to why the media wasn’t aware of this when Sundberg claims that his “supporters” knew. Also, allowing Jill to insinuate that the other candidates aren’t being held to the same standard was cheap/lazy/ unethical journalism.
The story is in the Times-Standard this morning. Sadly, instead of just taking full responsibility and apologizing to voters, he’s blaming “dirty politics.” He doesn’t get it.
Jill Duffy’s comments in the T-S story are disturbing. She also blames others, instead of holding Sundberg accountable for his actions. Jill says everyone’s record should be examined. What she means, I’m not sure. Criminal records? Do either of the Patricks have criminal records? I don’t know what happened to Jill over the past 8 years. She left the building at some point.
Sundberg’s BAC was .16 according to the Times-Standard. He told the Times-Standard his attorney, Greg Rael, appeared for him on the day he was supposed to appear in court. But according to court records, the T-S story says, neither Sundberg nor Rael appeared on court that day and that is why the bench warrant was issued. Two days later Rael appeared in court, not Sundberg, and pleaded no contest.
Sundberg still thinks Rael appeared for him on his original court date? Does he not know what happened? And he couldn’t appear in court in person to face this? And he wants to be a County Supervisor?
He makes the point that he told his supporters and volunteers about this DUI, but feels it is dirty politics for his opponents to inform voters four days before election day. He doesn’t think it was his responsibility to inform voters about this before absentee voting began? I find this attitude amazing.
I’m waiting for Rose to blame Richard Salzman for Sundberg’s decision to get behind the wheel with a BAC of .16.
The Sundberg DUI story is only available at the online T-S via search instead of being featured with a link to it as is normal. Is it front page in the paper version?
Thanks Jane.
Sundberg DUI draws attention
Page 2, Jane
HumCPR’s expensive crusade to gain control of the County’s General Plan self-destructed this weekend. But that won’t stop them from blaming progressives. There is going to be a lot of anger on the right this week in Humboldt County.
This is very odd. First they don’t report it at all, not even in “on-the-record” and now they put in on the 2nd page and not on the on-line home page at all without a deliberate search to find it. The new name for the T-S should be the sub-sub-standard.
In the T-S article, Sundberg says
Who is “they”?
If it was such common knowledge, why did the T-S say they just learned about it Friday?
Answer: They didn’t know about it earlier!
Jill Duffy says, ”I think if you are going to hold a standard, you’ve got to make sure you are putting everyone up to the same.”
Well, gosh. If Jill or any other candidates got busted for DUI and a warrant was issued when they failed to appear in court, the Humboldt Herald will be happy to print it.
I saw it right away on the T-S homepage online. I wasn’t even looking for it.
It’s out now, for sure. Let the people decide.
Go Higgins!
That is the problem with the “right”. Outside of social issues, they have very valid concerns about government policy, and rightfully question our system of entitlements. Unfortunately they always come off as extreme and out of touch. They can still taste the Bush victories, but fail to recognize that Bush lost twice in CA, and that we hate Carl Rove politics here. These same extreme positions people hold are the reason ‘liberals’ are not taken seriously in other states.
As long as this atmosphere of division remains, you may as well write in bugs bunny in every election.
Can you really feel good about elections where at least 40% of your community disagree with you? I have relatives I cant stand, but still have the love. There has to be a better way!
It truly is an example of dirty politics to try to bring attention to this now when it happened before, dealt with honestly, and it’s “over”. It all depends on who people support whether they want attention brought to a subject or shoved under the table. This was unfair to this candidate.
You’re right, Jane. This issue is not just about a DUI, but about the media’s failure to report this so-called well known story. Now it’s on page 2?
If you click the “Local News” on the T-S homepage it goes to an expanded list of stories. The Sundberg DUI story is #6.
“I saw it right away on the T-S homepage online. I wasn’t even looking for it.”
When I clicked on the “local news” link it does show up way down the page but not on the home page for “local news.” I would think a story about a supervisor candidate getting a DUI would rank above crafters, trails, Betty Chin, an elderly bay area woman driving erratically and sports. In fact, the only stories deserving of front page coverage are about whooping cough which made it and the Sundberg DUI which didn’t.
humboldtturtle,
“Let the people decide.”
Shouldn’t that be “let the 60% of the people who go to the polls or have not already mailed their absentee ballots decide.”
I think the Grand Jury should be asked to investigate whether any County employee took action to reduce the likelihood of this public record coming to light. I also think people should cancel their subscriptions to the Times-Standard and refuse to purchase it. This incident is just too much.
Dirty Politics!?! Duh, that’s what politics is. The CHP were waiting for him at his house, it’s a CHP plot, damn hippy liberal Pigs. should have tazed him too.
Good idea Jill, let’s hold them all to the same standard. Scrutinize every representative and their appointees too. That almost never happens in politics.
If this had been dealt with honestly when it occurred it wouldn’t be an issue now. The dirty politics occurred back when it was hidden and the DUI’s weren’t listed for a few weeks, too coincidentally convenient for the Republican candidate. The current attempt to minimize the offense and now blame the messenger makes it worse.
Right on, Mitch. Yes, those people.
The T-S dug into the story as soon as they learned about it, which is appreciated.
Ryan is lucky the info was revealed on a Friday.
I always just click the local news button to see what’s in that day’s edition. Give the T-S a break. They did the story, and they brought in an extra reporter on a Saturday to do a pretty thorough job. Come on Jane, the T-S is not the enemy. Same with you, Mitch.
The T-S story is great in that Jill looks like a fool trying to put blame everywhere except where it belongs. Same with Ryan.
Jill thinks it’s enough that he was honest with her, but doesn’t seem to mind it was hidden from voters until after many of them already voted.
Heraldo and Anonymous 8:59,
That’s kind of you to acknowledge the T-S actually tried to investigate a story once it was leaked five months after it was a public record.
But we disagree about the T-S. I think it’s long past time that it be put out of its misery. It wouldn’t take much for a more competent, locally owned paper to rise from its ashes.
I believe not having a daily paper would be better than having the current excuse for one. At least no one would be fooled into thinking the paper was covering news in the county.
The Cleary camp are scumbags they trashed Higgins for last 4 months that didn’t work. Now they want to bump off Sundberg its not going to work. It will be Sundberg and Higgins on Tuesday.
They did a half-assed story and minimized it, 8:59. This should have been front page with serious questions about who knew about it, when, and why nothing was ever reported. This is symptomatic of the disease affecting newspapers and all MSM today, their eagerness to protect the elite. The press has special constitutional rights to insure an educated and informed populace. They are failing dismally.
The article quotes Jill Duffy: “He was upfront with me about it — a lot of people can’t do that.”
Why wasn’t he upfront with the voters, then, Jill? And why weren’t you?
Did the Cleary camp force Sundberg to get behind the wheel and drive with a BAC of .16?
Mr. Arkley, can we please have The Eureka Reporter back?
Do you really think the ER would have reported this, Mitch?
If the Times-Standard came close to minimum standards of competence, this would have been public news in January.
That means that Sundberg’s supporters would have had a chance to decide whether they wanted to continue working for him, or whether they wanted to find another candidate who suited them.
It would mean that the community could have had a discussion about whether driving with a BAC 0.15 disqualifies someone from public office, or not.
It would mean that the community would have had a lot of time to analyze what actually happened that night — according to the Times-Standard report, but not Heraldo’s, CHP was WAITING AT SUNDBERG’S HOUSE to arrest him, which sounds a lot like he was set up.
And it would mean that similar questions would have been posed of the other candidates.
This County’s bureaucracy is a disgrace, and that’s only possible because it has no newspaper. It needs reporting, and that will only happen once the Times-Standard has been flushed down the toilet, where it belongs.
Mitch – more on Cleary’s connection with Humboldt Creamery stock offer. On the day the fraud story broke, Cleary’s employee Greg Foster appeared in a brief TV news segment stating he was no longer involved in selling the stock. This is more than rumor. The point is, clarification is needed.
As to Headwaters Fund management. Claiming job creation because you approve grant or loan applications as part of your responsibilities on the Board is certainly a stretch.
On the negative side, Cleary sat by while the Harbor District spent $200,000 of Headwaters funds on a very poor container port study by out of the area consultants. He also approved the Delta deal that included the risk that $500,000 of funds would be handed over to Delta if they did not reach 70 percent of their projections in the first year. Guess what? Delta was the winner, took the dough (the whole $550Gs!), and split town. I call that very poor risk management.
Also, the Richardson Grove grant was to Humboldt County’s Economic Development Dept. Another $50Gs of Headwaters funds largely paid to Washington DC lobbyists, Dr. Gallo at Chico State, and a local PR firm. I should hope the Board made some changes after that misuse of funds was exposed.
I also was very disturbed by the failure to aknowledge how deeply wrong it was to hide it from the voters.
To say that “I did not hide it from my supporters” indicates a deep understanding of why this was a breach of trust.
It is just not “my supporters” who have a right to the facts but everyone who you are asking to vote for you.
If Jill was in fact correctly quoted by the Times-Standard then shame on her as well.
Quote Jill Duffy:
“She said Sundberg had told her about his misdemeanor before she endorsed him for supervisor. She said it did affect her decision, but felt Sundberg handled the issue well.”
I read this to mean the DUI had a positive influence on her decision to support Sundberg.
Why do “conservatives” has so much trouble owning up to their mistakes, and for the matter, to reality?
Hey 9:11 true or false has the Cleary camp not been saying Higgins is a stoner and now that Sundberg is unfit because he drank and drove four days before the election when the information was available in January.
Possibly, PJ. Possibly not. In my experience, the Reporter was pretty fair. But it was clear to everyone exactly who owned the Reporter, and why. And people knew that if they wanted the full story from anything but a perspective that would eventually satisfy Mr. Arkley, they needed to look elsewhere.
In all seriousness, I think Humboldt County would be better off without a newspaper than relying on the Times-Standard. My opinion might change if the editor was fired for this, but I seriously doubt it.
The advertising dollars will still be there. Somebody — maybe Arkley, maybe not — would start something to skim those dollars. Or, if not, maybe they would go to advertising on radio or the internet.
But this community is not served by the Times-Standard, it is damaged by it.
Mitch, sometime when I see you again I will explain why outside, corporate ownership of the daily newspaper is not all bad. There are pros and cons to it. Basically, outside ownership by a big corporation helps to shield it from threats by local interests not to report stories such as this one.
“CHP was WAITING AT SUNDBERG’S HOUSE to arrest him, which sounds a lot like he was set up”
That sounds to me like someone saw him drinking heavily or appearing inebriated when he got into his car, or maybe someone saw a car weaving and call the license number to the CHP. Neither of those possibilities is in any way a “set-up.”
“Duffy for DUIs”
Just spit out my coffee. Thanks.
“On the negative side, Cleary sat by while the Harbor District spent $200,000 of Headwaters funds on a very poor container port study by out of the area consultants.”
Mitch, you need to start to get your facts straight. Cleary was one of the critics on the Headwaters board of this fiasco from the beginning. It did not get unanimous approval.
Cleary is not responsible for either the fraud perpetrated by the former CEO of the creamery or the world economic collapse that made Delta pull back from Humboldt.
Mitch, I strongly suggest that you take some time to call Cleary and talk to him about these things.
But Mitch, the TS wasn’t made aware of the DUI until Friday. That indicates a possible cover up. If only Jill and Ryans backers knew, aren’t they complicit to some degree?
If you vote for someone are you not a “supporter”?
Ed,
A real newspaper would have sources in the courts, and in the campaigns.
A real newspaper would have known.
And if, by some inexplicable combination of bizarre factors, a real newspaper had discovered on the Friday before the election that it had been snowed about a FIVE MONTH OLD PUBLIC RECORD, it would have spared no expense to redo its front page to trash the candidate that had snowed it, and to put it in 72 point type.
Only a pathetic press-release regurgitator needs to be “made aware”.
The amount of fraud going on in this County is probably unlimited. The T-S is one reason why.
Those of you who have never got behind the wheel when impaired, line up to throw stones at Ryan. Examine yourselves hypocrites.
good points
Lefty, While many people drive when impaired, few have the audacity to run for elected office 2 days after being charged with such a serious offense and very few have the good fortune to be convicted on a DUI without any public notification. The coincidence is just too great to believe.
Anonymous 9:42,
Are you confusing me with some other poster? You’re quoting a message TO me, not from me.
No, Plain Jane, we completely disagree. If someone saw Sundberg leaving a place and getting into his car while clearly impaired, the human response would be to intervene THERE, not to call 911, tell them where the driver lived, and have them meet him AT HIS HOME. Only a complete sleaze would do that, and the sleaze would be as morally responsible for any accident as Sundberg.
This thing has layer after layer of crap all through it.
Actually, the sleaze would be MORE responsible, since they presumably would not be as mentally impaired at the time.
Mitch:
Intervening once wouldn’t likely have stopped Sundberg from driving drunk again and again in the future. If someone indeed reported this to CHP, they did the right thing. Getting a DUI is a more effective way of forcing someone to take stock of their life than taking his keys away.
10:17,
Remind me never to go to a bar with you.
I call in drunk drivers whenever I see one on the road. Sundberg wasn’t around the corner from his house: he drove from the North Coast Inn to his neighborhood in McKinleyville. Someone probably saw him driving erratically and called 911, and the CHP tracked him down. The speculation will be over when the CHP records can be accessed.
Anonymous 9:39,
Your advice would sound a lot more reasonable if the Times-Standard had actually reported this in a timely way. Why worry about “threats from local interests” when the newspaper can’t get the story anyway?
FIRE THE SUBSTANDARD.
HUMBOLDT COUNTY NEEDS A NEWSPAPER.
anon 10:20,
Somebody suggested he was on the road for five minutes. Let’s say it was ten from the North Coast Inn to McKinlyeville. So you’re asking me to believe that at some point during that ten minutes, another driver sees someone weaving, calls it in to 911, 911 contacts CHP, CHP gets the call, and a CHP unit is AT HIS HOUSE BEFORE HE ARRIVES.
Sorry.
Does anybody know where Rose is? She has been MIA since this this story broke. She’s not even posting at her own blog.
Rose is out alerting Hank Sims to anti-Arkley stickers being posted on parking meters.
We don’t know the facts about what alerted the CHP to Sundberg’s drunk driving yet, Mitch, so all the speculation and name-calling is pointless. In fact, we don’t know that the CHP was actually waiting at Sundberg’s house when he arrived or if they were following him prior to that. I wouldn’t give much credence to Sundberg’s claims at this point, especially since he was relating his drunken impressions as to the events of that night.
Yes, Jane, you’re exactly right. We don’t know all the facts. We don’t even know which facts we don’t know.
What we do know is this:
1) a candidate for the county’s governing body had a DUI shortly before announcing his campaign, made worse by a warrant issued for “failure to appear”;
2) some of his supporters claim that this was “common knowledge”;
3) the candidate never revealed the DUI in a way that would have made the information available to all voters;
4) Heraldo has reported that the DUI was not presented in the normal court reporting mechanism, possibly because of a computer changeover;
5) the McKinleyville Press never reported on the DUI;
6) the Journal never reported on the DUI;
7) the Times-Standard never reported on the DUI;
8) Heraldo says he was told about the DUI on Friday, four days before the election;
9) the Times-Standard says it was told about the DUI on Friday, four days before the election;
10) the Times-Standard did not run a story on the DUI in its Saturday edition;
11) the Sunday Times-Standard story does not appear at the Times-Standard’s home page as of 11 AM on Sunday, and was not printed on the front page of the physical edition;
12) the Times-Standard story includes the following statement from Sundberg: “Sundberg said he had been drinking at the North Coast Inn with some friends and decided to drive himself to his home about five minutes away. He said the California Highway Patrol was waiting in front of his home when he arrived.”
13) this statement by Sundberg is acknowledged by the Times-Standard to be, as yet, unconfirmed;
14) no opposing campaign has stated that it presented the story to Heraldo and/or the Times-Standard;
15) many folks who would normally speak up about the importance of “personal responsibility” have remained quiet, or feel that Republicans driving drunk need to be excused, because, well just because;
16) the current 5th district Supervisor endorsed Sundberg after knowing of his DUI, and has neither withdrawn her endorsement nor taken steps to notify the public of the DUI;
17) the public appears to find the story interesting, judging by more than 360 comments at the Herald in response to Heraldo’s post, and a whopping 22 from the people who thought it wouldn’t be a waste of time to comment at the Times-Standard.
Anything I’ve left out?
Stupid emoticons.
It’s #6 on the list of most viewed articles at T-S.
Yes, Sundburg is the ONLY candidate currently on probation.
Wow, PJ, that means it got at least three hits.
Emoticons disabled.
I mean, Sundburg is the ONLY candidate qualified to be on probation.
Well, as far as we know.
The T-S should have asked whether he lost his license.
What I can’t get over is the incredible incompetence by the political machine of the Republican right in Humboldt County.
To invest as heavily as they did in this candidate, with so much riding on this election, knowing, apparently, that he had pleaded no contest to a DUI just days before he announced his candidacy, and then stand by while his campaign mishandles the situation by not revealing it to the public and giving the opposition maximum opportunity to exploit to their advantage, is taking incompetence to a new level.
There first mistake was backing Sundberg knowing he had a DUI in December. Their second mistake was allowing Richard Mostranski to manage Sundberg’s campaign. Mostranski was already a two-time loser in local campaigns as a manager. And now they know why. In all the comments I’ve read about the mistakes Sundberg made in handling this, I haven’t seen Mostranski’s name mentioned once.
Sundberg’s campaign advisers must have at least discussed the possibility of publicly announcing and taking ownership of this DUI. Anybody who knows anything about managing political campaigns understands that you never want to let your opposition reveal any skeletons you may have in your closet.
I feel bad for Sundberg. If it was his decision to keep this under wraps in the hopes it wouldn’t be reported in the media, then he is responsible for the fallout, which will probably cost him the election. But if it was Mostranski’s decision, then Sundberg has been seriously aggrieved by his campaign manager. The way Mostranski botched the handling of the North Coast Journal/KHUM candidate forums should have sent alarm signals to those backing Sundberg’s campaign.
11:26,
You’d almost think the Republican machine was highly confident that the papers wouldn’t “find out.”
This whole things shows how desperate the establishment is to make sure Cleary wins. He’s been the insider’s pick all along and only now it’s beginning to dawn on you how he has law enforcement, the casinos, the Arcata elite class and the rest of the big money all lined up behind him.
Heraldo – that should be in the minutes. There is a mandatory loss of license for a certain amount of time. More months if you want a limited license which allows only driving to and from work and the mandatory DUI classes.
This whole things shows how desperate the establishment is to make sure Cleary wins.
Yeah, I bet they hired an attractive woman to approach him in a bar and challenge him to a drinking contest…, oh wait, that was in a movie.
Yep, it was the establishment who forced Ryan Sundberg to get behind the wheel and drive with a BAC of .16 and fail to appear in court. And it was the establishment’s fault Sundberg failed to take public ownership of his DUI.
11:41,
Every scam artist knows it’s easiest to scam someone who’s a little greedy. If the Sundberg campaign had done the right thing, whatever shitty political operative bastard who pulled this off wouldn’t have had any traction.
Leave it to the internet…
yes, a politico’s DUI isn’t going to affect whether or not my rent goes up, the status of my employment, who my new neighbors may or may not be, the ammount of tax I’m shelling out with every dollar I spend etc etc etc. While you all continue to lambaste the aside to my point, a quick audit of you and your friends’ lives would reveal that you’re no worth to society either. Yep, get a DUI and you might as well drop dead and die, you are no longer welcome to be a contributing member of society…not that you’re capable any longer either, by the mere requisite of having a DUI. No, I don’t drink at all as a matter of fact. And if my post is negative publicity for sundturd, good.
The penalties handed down to this guy are very typical, at least among people I know who’ve got them. Some of you need to peel the computer screen off your faces and step away from the computer for a week or so…the internet is becoming integral to your common sense. Really, scroll up…is this ticker-tape of mostly stupidity how the movers and shakers of this district operate? Don’t worry, I’ll steer clear of your nonsenses in “real life”.
So, is this the bombshell that Rose was telling she had a few days ago?
As to whether or not Jill (Geist) Duffy would have endorsed Sundberg even if she already knew about his DUI, I would say that she was living with a much bigger lie during her own campaign and so would relate to someone wanting to cover up their personal lives.
Who is Dr. Bill or Dr. Bill W, who has been referenced on this blog a few times?
McKinleyville Chirpractor Bill Wennerholm is Dr. Bill W. A rabid right winger who has FOX News on in his office all day.
Duffy for DUIs says:
June 6, 2010 at 9:34 am
Quote Jill Duffy:
“She said Sundberg had told her about his misdemeanor before she endorsed him for supervisor. She said it did affect her decision, but felt Sundberg handled the issue well.”
I read this to mean the DUI had a positive influence on her decision to support Sundberg.
— LOOK Jill Duffy, back when she was married to Walt Geist, ran for Supervisor with help from her best friend and neighbor Rose Welsh. Her husband at the time, Walt Geist, also worked on her campaign and took care of their son, while mom was out campaigning. Now it turns out that much of that time she was out doing other things, not campaigning,but that was kept very hush, hush. Sure her close friend and confidante, Rose, knew the truth, but Rose has a different standard for those she likes then she does for those she despises.
NOW, lets see what Rose thinks of Ryan’s DUI. If she can set down that bombshell she’s been holding on two for three days and weight in on this item.
Mitch, bashing the editor of the Times-Standard is one thing, but remember, the information about DUIs was withheld for some reason BY the District Attorney’s office FROM the Times-Standard.
I believe you should be calling for the current District Attorney to explain his failure to release that DUI information, which after all used to be released to the local media every week for over 20 years before he showed up in that office.
By the way, the editor of the Times-Standard did a heroic job of cleaning up the cesspool of a Topix Forum she inherited from the previous editor. She got the filth-talkers off the Forum and helped serious local thinkers get their ideas out to others like them. Our community owes her a real debt of gratitude to her for taking on that difficult responsibility, which she undertook because it served the needs of our community and because her own personal values required her to make those changes.
This guy is no better than George W. Bush or Dick Cheney. No possibility of him getting elected more than two or three times now.
It will really be a shame if the 5th District race becomes known for this rather than the issues. I don’t know if it will decide the race, but if Sundberg comes up short that will be the assumption. Everyone loses to some degree, as it will call into question any mandate Cleary or Higgins may claim with regard to the General Plan Update or any other policy.
And yes, the media really did drop the ball on this. The issue should have been out and vetted before the absentee ballots went out.
All of the volunteers and donors for all three campaigns – they’ve put a lot into the race to have it decided by something like this. I wouldn’t want to win like this. I mean, I guess you take your wins however you get them, especially when the stakes are so high, but I’d want the hours and money I put in to mean something.
There is only 1 issue here: is a candidate who was arrested for misdemeanor DUI disqualified for political office? The answer clearly is, “no.” Ryan committed a misdemeanor. He suffered the consequences; that is good. Will the voters DQ him? A few, maybe. Most, no.
First off, let’s turn off italics.
To Anonymous 9:33am: Although I am not you, I am in full agreement with you.
Hmm, not as easy as I’d hoped.
12:12, I’m interested in what happened at the DA’s office to prevent this from being listed. In an earlier comment, I did say I think the Grand Jury should be asked to investigate whether any County employee took any intentional action to make this DUI harder to discover.
But that doesn’t in any way excuse the crappy, substandard newspaper this area has suffered. As I’ve also commented, a real newspaper would have had this story long ago: if not from a source in the courts, then from a source in the campaigns.
Whatever personal values the editor of the substandard may have, she’s operating a useless excuse for a newspaper, that does our community serious damage.
Maybe emphasis?
“the information about DUIs was withheld for some reason BY the District Attorney’s office FROM the Times-Standard”
That is an assumption for which there is no evidence and an issue that should have been covered in today’s T-S article. Maybe they’ll answer that when they get report on the CHP’s side of what alerted them to Sundberg’s inebriation.
Okay.
Judge shoulda stuck Sundberg with S.W.A.P. Coulda got to know some of his constituents who happen to be probation violators, in contempt of court, drug dealers, wife beaters, failure to appearers, petty thieves, fraudsters, and other drunk drivers. Would help to appreciate the diversity his district has to offer as far as job creation. All kinna opportunities in the weed slinging and check fraud industries.
On and off.
On and off.
Well, Mr. Nice. You’re the smart brother. Get rid of em.
begone
Mitch at 10:10 assumes facts not in evidence.
What if Sundberg, impaired at BAC .16, was abusive and seemingly dangerous? Would Mitch take his keys away? Is Mitch a big strong guy? What about the guy in the bar? How able would he be to wrestle the keys away from Sundberg if Sundberg had become, as some drinkers do at BAC .16, combative?
A quick phone call to 911 could save a life. 911 IS for life-and-death situations, after all. And what would be more a matter of life-and-death than a stubborn drunk who will not relinquish control over his car keys despite being twice as drunk as needed to trigger a trip to the County Lockup?
If they find the person who called law enforcement, they should give out a medal!
But the Times-Standard story has me concerned. Did the CHP take Sundberg into County Lockup or let him sleep overnight in his own bed? This is not an insignificant question. Most of us reformed drunks reformed ourselves after being forced to sleep overnight in a cold rubber room at the Humboldt Hilton (County Jail Drunk Tank) in the presence of a collection of pissing, puking, stinking, shouting drunks. Like ourselves.
How can any first time DUI hope to overcome the lure of alcohol without having the hellish experience of a night in the Drunk Tank to help them see their way to making responsible choices in the future?
Unless Ryan Sundberg spent time in the Drunk Tank, I wouldn’t even think of voting for him, no matter how reformed he or his supporters claim he has become!
12:23 nice try.
There is only 1 issue here
wrong.
Issue #1: Sundberg was arrested for a serious DUI.
As Eric Kirk said upthread, it’s a bigger deal than shoplifting, as a criminal matter.
As many others have pointed out, by driving drunk, Sundberg put many others at potential risk of very, very serious harm. Many no longer consider driving drunk ‘no big deal.’ Sundberg does. If so, that would also be relevant.
Issue #2: Sundberg failed to appear in court, resulting in a warrant being issued for his arrest, within only a few days of his campaign announcement.
Again, this point has been made several different ways. This is an additional crime, and demonstrates a serious lack of judgment.
It also demonstrates a lack of political savvy.
Issue #3: Sundberg kept the issue quiet, apparently hoping it would blow over.
That tells you something about both his judgment, again, and his political skills. Is that how Humboldt county wants problems addressed? By ignoring them?
Issue #4: Sundberg has decided to push back against the revelation of 1-3 above at this late point in the election by calling ‘dirty politics.’
Again, this says something pretty important about Sundberg – rather than address the serious and substantial issues of character, judgment, and skills raised by 1-3, he’s hunkered down in what looks like a defensive pout.
is a candidate who was arrested for misdemeanor DUI disqualified for political office?
also wrong. This is not ultimately about qualifications. It’s about who the voters think is the best choice for the office.
I think when Heraldo turned off emoticons, wordpress may have stopped accepting html tags.
wordpress may have stopped accepting html tags
See 12:36 – blockquotes still works. Looks like H or Henry needs to close the itals on the 12:23 comment where this all went sideways.
12:41,
You say I’m assuming facts not in evidence, but then try to further slander Sundberg. You still haven’t explained the world-record-beating CHP response.
12:42,
Your #2 has been adequately explained.
Four hundred comments on one post in one weekend. This is more comments than the Mirror has gotten all year.
12:51,
Four hundred comments? That’s because this post cuts to the core of what’s rotten in Humboldt, in multiple ways.
Favoritism. A crappy newspaper. Drunk driving. Sleazy politics.
Mitch,
how? where?
In fact, as I read the T-S article, Sundberg has compounded the problem here by suggesting that his attorney appeared in his stead. That is not consistent with the court records reported here.
The italics were caused by someone upthread who failed to use the proper closing tag.
Well, so Sundberg actually DID decide to try to play the victim role in the T-S article. Wow.
At this point I would extend to him the same invitation I extended to “Get Real.” Namely, Sundberg is more than welcome to eat shit and die.
But I’ll settle for him getting trounced in a landslide and then crawling back under whatever rock he slithered out from in the first place.
Mitch, I have read what you wrote and I am thinking about it.
Let me ask what you thought of some previous T-S editors – Rich and Charles.
How would you say they performed for our community during their time as editors?
And how would you compare their service to our community then with Ms. Wear’s service to our community now?
According to the article the T-S buried:
“Sundberg said his lawyer, Greg Rael, appeared for him. Court minutes indicate neither Sundberg nor Rael was present. A call to Rael’s office Saturday was not returned.”
If it turns out the lawyer blew an appearance, how do you blame Sundberg for that? If Sundberg is wrong about it being Rael’s job to have appeared on his behalf, that will come out soon enough.
1:12,
I don’t know. I’ve lived here since 1993. The only period during which I thought the Times-Standard had a pulse was when the Reporter existed.
I don’t know that I’ve ever met any of the editors, but the paper as it exists now is a total loss. I’m sure there are a lot of problems beyond the editor.
But to miss something of this magnitude for five months, and then put the story on page two, the Sunday before a Tuesday election? Especially when absentees might be mailing ballots in on Saturday and Sunday?
It’s beyond disgraceful. It’s basically incomprehensible.
Mitch at 12:49 appears to be accepting the word of an admitted drunk driver that he was able to find his home and drive to it while his BAC was .16 and do it in only 5 minutes. The world record-breaking performance of the CHP might not be so spectacular if Mitch had access to the actual time-line from the time of the call to CHP and Sundberg’s actual arrival at his house.
BTW, Mitch, no disrespect intended.
Also, BTW, when the public has been given so few actual facts and only so recently, it is very likely that we may ALL be assuming “facts not in evidence.” So we might want to watch ourselves.
RA, your invitation to Sundberg to slither under his rock would carry more weight if you had not invited me to do the same thing last week over some petty difference of opinion on a blog we both use.
Maybe you should refresh your barrel of metaphors?
Anonymous 1:20,
You’re right.
Thanks, Mitch.
Internet: the stupid leading the bored.
1:24, duly noted. I’ll try to keep it fresh. Now, get back under your rock.
Welcome “evil”, you seem to enjoy your turn at the front of the line…
If you’re the “Get Real” who said that DUI’s are “trivial,” then you certainly seem to fit your own decription of “stupid.” To say the least.
While I never said you were motivated by or imbued with “evil,” you certainly haven’t done anything to dispel that impression.
More likely, I think you are just immature, ignorant, and staggeringly insensitive to the losses suffered by victims of drunk driving and the friend and families of those victims. Sadly, Sundberg seems to share some of those attributes.
North Coast Journal’s banner teaser links to Times-Standard article – the one we already saw. But it’s a gateway to those 40 comments.
The T-S article is now #2 on its “most viewed” and “most emailed” lists.
So, I’m trying to think about how I’d handle this strategically if I was in his camp. Do you immediately come out with a statement and apology? Or do you ride it out and comment on Wednesday? Probably the latter at this point.
RA, just to make sure we understand each other before I slither back under, I really admire the way you addressed the irresponsible casual immoral unbearably uncaring DUI drivers including the one currently in question. Thanks for speaking for their innocent victims.
Wow, so the only thing so far from the NCJ is the link at the top of their webpage with the title “Last minute Sundberg DUI leak an example of ‘dirty poltics,’ candidate says.”
So, NCJ is promoting the spin that the important part of the story here is that a poor, innocent candidate was “smeared” by last-minute revelations?
It’s almost as if the Journal is determined to prove Mitch correct — that Humboldt County journalism is a joke. Perhaps even a dirty joke. Perhaps even a dirty joke equivalent to Gilbert Gottfried’s telling of “the aristocrats” in the movie of the same name.
Thanks 1:56. If whatever we argued about a while back was as petty as you say it was, then I certainly shouldn’t have used the same metaphor for you and Sundberg. His transgression was anything BUT petty, and he’s now compounded the error with the way he has responded to the fact that the story has now come to light.
Don’t insult Gottfried, tra. He’s got more class.
Well Eric, he’s already kinda-sorta apologized while also trying to spin the story for his own political benefit by referring to the revelation as “dirty politics.”
I don’t think we’ll hear much more from him about this story until Wed., and if he doesn’t make the runoff we won’t hear anything more from him at all.
That would be fine with me, he’s made a fool of himself enough for one lifetime (or by politician standards, enough for this election cycle).
Don’t get me wrong, Mitch, that was one very funny movie, and Gottfried’s rendition of the joke at the Friar’s Club was truly a masterpiece. It was a dirty joke that was supposed to be a dirty joke and it delivered…bigtime.
Ideally, our local weekly newspaper shouldn’t be a joke at all…but I have to admit that in some cases, it’s starting to look that way.
Being on probation means that you can be hauled into jail at any time. I would expect a supervisor to be more available than that.
Good point, 2:46.
Also, probation very often involves a no-alcohol provision, sometimes even when the crime in question has nothing to do with alcohol consumption. In a DUI case like this, where Sundberg had such a high level of alcohol in his blood (typical of someone who had downed 7 or 8 drinks in a row) it would certainly make sense for there to be a no-alcohol clause in his terms of probation.
Does anyone know whether a no-alcohol clause is included in Sundberg’s case? Because if he has been ordered by a judge not to consume any alcohol, then his statement that he had decided not to drink alcohol anymore would certainly appear in a slightly different light, would it not?
RA – I believe the standard probation order is that he may not drive with even .01 blood alcohol until the three year term is over. But generally speaking, there’s nothing about not having alcohol ever. I’m not sure that such an order or law allowing it would stand up to Constitutional scrutiny. Maybe.
Interesting little fact is that the North Coast Inn is owned by the Trinidad Rancharia. My guess is that the employees of the North Coast Inn will be more than a little bit reluctant to discuss the events with the press or anyone else.
I live in the 5th district and I am really pissed off that this was hidden from me. I am not sure if the DUI would prevent me from voting for him but I do know that hiding the fact and then attacking the messenger when the dirty secret is revealed is so egregious that I feel he should withdraw.
Count on the NC Journal to attack the messenger in any case like this. First Bonnie is stalked and threatened; then Ryan is falling-down drunk and drives home. Both times they treated them as non-stories, except when finally reporting on them, to uncritically adopt the spin that this was all just dirty politics on the part of the messenger.
The charge that Hank Sims is a hack, heard from numerous parties over a long period of time, is starting to look like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Eric,
I personally know someone who is on probation for a possession of marijuana conviction that took place in the Mid-west, though he lives here and his probation is supervised by Humboldt County’s probation dept.
His probation for marijuana possession stipulates NO use of any alcohol during the probationary period. Ironically, since he has a 215 and state medical marijuana card, he can use marijuana all he wants (even though that’s what the “crime” was related to), but he can’t drink a beer or go to a bar, even though his conviction didn’t involve alcohol at all. Pretty bizarre, eh?
So, I know it is certainly possible for probation orders to include a no-alcohol clause, and it seems like a DUI case, especially one at twice the legal limit (suggesting a possible binge drinking problem) would be a logical case in which to have a no-alcohol clause.
Of course once the probation is over, the clause would no longer apply. But in the meantime, if Sundberg’s decided to quit drinking permanently, well that’s fine, but if he actually has a no-alcohol clause in his probation, he shouldn’t be pretending that his decision to refrain from drinking is voluntary at this point.
Anon @ 3:04 pm, I believe that the Rancheria no longer has ownership of the North Coast Inn. Think that was sold a couple of years ago.
The candidate doth protest too much, methinks.
One has to wonder if bartender called the cops. If I worked at a bar owned and operated by the Trinidad Rancheria–which may have sold the Inn, or may still own it–I doubt I would confront a tribal council member who I thought had a drinking and driving problem.
Judging from Jill Duffy’s comments in the Times-Standard, if I run for office and seek her endorsement, I will need to have a fresh DUI conviction on my record in order to have a chance with her.
Well, 4:33, apparently it wouldn’t hurt.
(your chances)
California does that for parole for felony offenders. That is East Coast shit for county judges to tag that on probation for misdemeanors. Where are you from?
The case I referred involved an arrest of a California resident who was visiting a state in the Midwest. The case involved “possession of more than 30 grams of marijuana,” and was prosecuted as a felony, so I believe it would be considered “felony probation.” The defendant lives in Humboldt, and his probation is supervised here.
Anyway, the result strikes me as pretty bizarre, since the defendant was caught with marijuana, and no alcohol whatsoever, but the terms of his probation allow plenty of marijuana use, but no alcohol. Kinda demonstrates what a joke our court system can be at times, dontcha think?
432 comments on the HH and no one has told anyone else to “put the bong down.” That must be a record too.
have a peaceful day,
Bill
And despite Godwin’s Rule, no “Hitler” comparisons either!
I wonder what Rose’s spin will be when she finally decides to resurface.
“I wonder what Rose’s spin will be when she finally decides to resurface.”
Well, I hacked into the server for her Watchpaul blog and found the following:
Somehow…must…fault…Gallegos…calculating…calculating…WARNING!…WARNING!…does not compute…attempting manual override…somehow… must…fault…Gallegos…recalculating…recalculating…WARNING!…WARNING!…does..not…compute…attempting diagnostic of logic circuits…diagnostic has failed…WARNING!…WARNING!…SYSTEM FAILURE IMMINENT!…EVACUATE ALL PERSONNEL!…EVACUA…KA-BOOM!…fzzzzzzt.
Oh I got ya. I was speaking on harmless offenses like driving drunk and not dangerous crimes like having a big ziplock bag full of weed.
Put the bong down, Mr. Nice.
Not until I get my lighter back.
Reasonable Anon certainly is not. Why the Rose fixation?
you’ll have to pry it out of his cold dead hands
5:57,
As far as Rose goes, that was just a bit of attempted comic relief. But it was probably not necessary, as Rose does a pretty good job of making a fool of herself without any assistance from me.
By the way, if you read these comment threads with any regularity, you’d see that I usually take pains to be as reasonable as possible, but I’ll admit that this drunk driving issue has me hotter than a Klamath salmon in an August drought.
It hits too close to home and Sundberg’s repulsive way of responding (minimization of his crime and self-pity over the timing of the revelation) isn’t helping any. Then there’s the obnoxious attitude of some of his defenders like “Get Real,” who claim that DUI’s are “trivial.” These kinds of chumps aren’t helping their candidate any, that’s for sure.
So yeah, I’m pissed about this. Deal with it.
Maybe Rose will respond to this comment on the T-S website:
In 1980 Allison Jackson rolled a car in Palo Alto after drinking. Her mother was in the car and was badly injured. Ironically, a year later her mother was killed by a drunk driver.
Did a court find AJ to have been DUI?
I’m no fan of Allison Jackson (to say the least!), but something she did 30 years ago is a bit different than something Sundberg did less than a year ago.
Anonymous says:
June 6, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Did a court find AJ to have been DUI?
Someone opined on the TS comment section on this topic that she was in an accident in 1980, apparently the year before her parents were killed by a drunk driver. There was no evidence supplied to support the involvement of alcohol. Allison has flatly denied ever having a DUI.
What if she’s still doing it?
Where is Mr. Sundberg’s booking photo? Don’t we get to see it? Or maybe he got special treatment?
If he did then the CHP and Sheriff Philp have got some splainin’ to do.
What if Ed is adding a “what if” to an unsubstantiated rumor about something that MAY have happened 30 years ago?
Let’s stick to the facts. There are plenty of good reasons to reject Allison Jackson, starting with her sickening willingness to exploit the case of an abused child for her own political gain with her extremely deceitful ad in the Schooling case. That alone is more than enough.
It sounds like Sundberg was “cited and released” at his home, never booked or jailed.
I’m not sure, but think most people arrested for DUI are booked into jail, then released on bail or on their own recognizance.
Perhaps the fact that he was apparently cited as he returned home makes some difference in how the officer decides to handle it, though I can’t see why that should be.
Perhaps Eric Kirk or some other legal eagle can chime in and let us know whether his treatment from the police was typical or not, and what kind of factors the cops keep in mind when deciding whether to cite and release with a promise to appear in court, or whether to arrest and book and jail them pending bail or OR.
Listen, voters, your votes are too important to take chances with them. Please don’t rely on the advice of well-meaning strangers.
If you have questions about how to change your ballot or how to make sure it counts, please call the Elections office at 445-7481 after it opens 8:30 Monday morning – and ask them for the real story.
Yeah, but cited and released after blowing .16? Maybe he didn’t show up because he didn’t remember being arrested. The CHP has some splainin to do.
You raise a valid point, 6:41.
If Law Enforcement really did release him from their custody when his Blood Alcohol Content was still .16, they blew it.
What would have prevented him from waiting until they left his property, climbing back into the car, and racing down the road, still gassed from his drinking binge at the bar?
This is a public safety issue, folks.
Not only that. It is an issue of basic equality. Why should one drunk driver or one set of drunk drivers be given special privileges?
The great majority of drunk drivers are taken to an uncomfortable, smelly, squalid, and well-deserved eight or more hour involuntary rest stop in the rubber room at the Humboldt Hilton (without benefit of access to toilet facilities, may I add). (Based on my most recent experience with that facility some thirty years ago.)
It is subversive to our form of government (call it representative democracy or constitutional republic) for any individual or class of individuals to be empowered to ignore the laws that were made “By the People and For the People.”
And for your information, you doubters, as I write this, I am stone cold sober! (I am just an expressive sort of feller.)
;>)
Even in Humboldt, if he had a couple of ounces of pot and no 215 paperwork, he would have been booked into jail pending bail or OR, even if he wasn’t inebriated at all and posing no threat to anyone.
But driving while falling-down-drunk? Just give him a ticket and his lawyer can (eventually) appear for him, he never even had to show his face.
Screwed up law enforcement policies: Another potent argument for the Legalization, or at least De-criminalization, of Marijuana.
Why not instead repeal all laws, let all prisoners loose, and let the honest citizens live behind bars?
Huhwhat?
That’s what I have been trying to say!!!
:>(
The great majority of drunk drivers are taken to an uncomfortable, smelly, squalid, and well-deserved eight or more hour involuntary rest stop in the rubber room at the Humboldt Hilton (without benefit of access to toilet facilities, may I add).
Actually, that’s not true. Most aren’t.
Eric,
What would you guess the percentages are for how many are jailed and how many are just cited and released with a promise to appear, and how do the cops decide which way to go?
Is the blood-alcohol level relevant to that decision, and is it unusual for someone who blows a .16 to be allowed to go with a citation and a promise to appear?
Mitch,
about a third of the Grand Jury is HumCPR–they are too busy “investigating” their enemies in the planning department and Board of Supervisors to investigate an incident related to their candidate for 5th District.
I don’t see how, even if your statement is true, 1/3 of the Grand Jury would control whether the Grand Jury as a whole could look into this or not. By definition, 1/3 is clearly a minority.
What would you guess the percentages are for how many are jailed and how many are just cited and released with a promise to appear, and how do the cops decide which way to go?
Is the blood-alcohol level relevant to that decision, and is it unusual for someone who blows a .16 to be allowed to go with a citation and a promise to appear?
Almost all of the DUI suspects who have been nabbed in Sohum are taken up to Eureka for processing and then release. Usually a few hours inside. There have been exceptions, and I’m not sure what the basis for them was. Obviously if you’re hospitalized, they don’t bother to take you in, though you are “arrested.”
But they don’t end up in the drunk tank. They’re booked, held in a regular cell, and released. I think the rubber cell is reserved for those who are so out of it they could hurt themselves.
Oh, so your statement that “most aren’t” was only referring to the rubber room, not whether or not they are booked and held in a cell.
So it’s sounding more like Sundberg got unusually lenient treatment, despite having an unusually HIGH blood-alcohol level.
Hmmmmmm.
That’s odd…I was arrested (and not convicted) for DUI about 10 years ago, and the cops at the county jail said they legally had to hold me until 6 a.m. Were they lying?
P.S. I was not convicted because my blood alcohol level was under 0.08, but I still learned my lesson!!
oh I see, no there was no rubber room involved–just really bad tv and a big room full of nutjobs. one guy covered in blood screaming…true joy.
“The only period during which I thought the Times-Standard had a pulse was when the Reporter existed.”
Mitch,
There’s a reason for this. When the good ole fashioned newspaper war was on, Dean Singleton was putting everything he could into the T-S. When the Reporter closed its doors, Kim Wear told me, this is going to be very bad for the T-S and local news media. Indeed, they are short-staffed and shockingly underpaid. They mostly do ok under the circumstances, but readers are wise to get more info on things they are concerned about.
Missing this story was a real F-up, and I am sure the T-S is cursing themselves for missing it–and for getting scooped by the Herald while they sat on it.
Until you know how the newspaper world works, it’s easy to judge. Headlines are written by copy editors, not the reporters; the layout was probably done by the weekend dude rather than the regular person. Kim Wear does great work, indeed was their best reporter when she was reporting, but she can’t work more than the 60+ she’s already working.
Not an Expert says:
June 6, 2010 at 8:42 pm
Mitch, said
“about a third of the Grand Jury is HumCPR–they are too busy “investigating” their enemies in the planning department and Board of Supervisors to investigate an incident related to their candidate for 5th District.”
Yes and now they have accomplished the task of making the Grand Jury reports completely useless. Let’s see, Supervisors, the Grand Jury , the Eureka City Council, Auditor. Absolutely, Hum-CRR is doing some really great things for the County.
The above post from 9:58 refers only to Not an Expert’s comments.
Help me remember, but wasn’t there a potential supervisors candidate from the 5th that some were wanting to run early this year but then he had a issue with driving and drugs? Somewhere near Orleans?
Continuing the thread in regard to what appears to be the unusually lenient treatment of Sundberg during his DUI, it is an incredibly salient fact that Sheriff Gary Philp (outgoing now, with nothing to lose) also publicly endorsed Ryan Sundberg.
So, let me get this straight: A guy who’s .16 falling-down drunk is “met at his house” (Sundberg’s story) by the CHP, where, conveniently, he is booked and released, and not taken in to spend the night in jail, as appears to be the normal protocol. Then, in another incredible turn of luck, his name magically never appears in the newspaper.
If you believe this is all coincidence, folks, well, I gotta bridge to sell you.
That’s odd…I was arrested (and not convicted) for DUI about 10 years ago, and the cops at the county jail said they legally had to hold me until 6 a.m. Were they lying?
I think so. But now you have me curious. I’ll research.
“Help me remember, but wasn’t there a potential supervisors candidate from the 5th that some were wanting to run early this year but then he had a issue with driving and drugs? Somewhere near Orleans?”
I remember now, it was Lyle Marshall. The difference is, is that his transgression was made public at the time, ending his potential run for supervisor. So I would think that if Sundburg’s bench warrant was made public two days before his announcement, he may not have run either.
Here’s another way to look at the whole question of why Sundberg never mentioned the DUI and seemed so outraged that he had been exposed by a tipster:
Considering that he was never booked and jailed, had a lawyer appear for him in court so he didn’t even have to show his face there, that his name was never in the paper, and that his sentence was just misdemeanor probation and a fine, well not surprisingly the whole episode must have seemed like “no big deal” to him. A minor bump in the road, if you will. Until Friday afternoon, there had been no meaningful consequences at all, other than not being able to risk going binge drinking and then driving home. I’m sure that was a disappointment, and perhaps even life-changing, but not exactly what you’d call a hardship.
Until Friday, he had sustained barely a scratch from his brush with the law. He had glided right by on privilege and kid-glove treatment, and as is often true of those who have become accustomed to such privilege and impunity, he expected that his good fortune would probably continue.
This may also explain his crybaby routine when confronted: Wah! It’s a Dirty Trick! Wah-Wah! I was only driving a few miles! Wah-Wah-Wah! I’m being held to an unfair standard. Oh wait, that last one was his playpen pal Jill Duffy.
I wonder if perhaps the threat of exposure was on his mind when he elected to forego appearing on live radio.
Big Banana @ 10:50,
Yeah, that occured to me too. I never bought the “but Cleary owns the radio station so I won’t participate” argument. It didn’t stop the other candidates from participating, and all seemed to get a fair opportunity to share their views.
I mean, so what if Cleary owns the station? How would his ownership of the station affect the questions asked by callers? And when the radio hosts put questions to the candidates, they generally ALL have to answer the questions, so again it shouldn’t have mattered who the owner of the station was, although it was a convenient excuse.
I think you may be onto something, Big Banana. He may have been afraid that someone would ask him point-blank if he had recently been convicted of a crime, what that crime was and what the circumstances were, whether he was on probation, etc. Outright lying would have been too dangerous, but avoiding a question when it was put directly to him on live radio would have been very difficult. Answering truthfully would no doubt have made that the big story coming out of the debate. And then there was the further danger that he would make some further gaffe while trying to do damage control in real time.
A concern I have is that if he only shares this important information with “supporters” as a candidate, then how can he be trusted candid with his all his constituents as a supervisor.
Not good.
Nothing about this on Sundberg’s campaign website. Not even in the “Ryan in the News” section. Go figure.
Channel 3 News likes to brag that it is “The Only Local News on Television.”
From the beginning to the end of the 11 O’clock News tonight, no news was reported about Ryan Sundberg’s DUI or his efforts to conceal it from the voters of the Fifth District.
There WAS, however, an advertisement for Ryan Sundberg, full of glowing testimonials to his “honesty” and “good character.” This is the same ad that appeared yesterday on TV.
I believe this absence of news about Sundberg’s DUI arrest and the presence of the TV ad in support of Sundberg provide us with an irrefutable answer to the question: Can the silence of the local TV News be bought?
The question of the sheriff’s endorsement really goes to ALL of Sundberg’s endorsements and large donors.
“Did you know about this, and do you think it is OK and do you endorse keeping this information from the public?”
Let’s start down the list.
Of course you are right, 11:36, but with the sheriff being specifically charged with upholding the law, the contrast is particularly stark.
The claim is that all his supporters knew about this. My gut tells me that that is not true.
I think if asked, most of the supporters will tell you they had no idea their candidate was on probation.
In the interest of clarity, let me state that the last post I posted as “Anonymous” appears above as the first 11:36 p.m.
The subject of my post was the Channel 3-TV News.
On June 5, 2010 at 8:21 am, I wrote:
“I have a feeling that Sundberg will have a more reasonable response than his anonymous defender on this thread. …It won’t get him out of trouble completely, but it will go over a lot better than whining about how “unfair” it is that someone brought this arrest (which is a matter of public record) to the attention of the voting public.”
Boy was I wrong. Instead of taking his medicine, Sundberg decided to try to minimize his crime (“five minute drive home”) and whimper about how he is the poor, innocent victim of “dirty politics.”
He seems intent on signing the death warrant for his own political career. So be it. May it Rest in Pieces.
Unless Sundberg goes dirty, I guess we’ll never know.
Someone above wrote, “A concern I have is that if he only shares this important information with “supporters” as a candidate, then how can he be trusted candid with his all his constituents as a supervisor.”
I have had this concern from his announcement–the undertone of his campaign has been that he has a lot of friends and family in the 5th, people who’ve known him since he was in diapers. Which to me says, if you aren’t one of my friends and family, you can talk to the hand.
I’d say the 5th District constituents have had enough of that in the past 8 years to last a century.
The number of comments on this post has surpassed those left on Bass Campaigner Threatens Bonnie.
If Ryan can go double the limit, I say, so can we.
I think this is the best place for people who care about this situation to meet and share information.
When any local media outlet comes out with a news article or editorial comment about Sundberg’s DUI, let’s share it here so we all can see it.
McK Voter has a really important point.
I know it’s always a potent political story for a candidate to be able to say “I grew up here, I know where people are coming from and what the area really needs over the long term” That’s especially strong in this kind of context, where Sundberg is at least implicitly pointing not only to the fact that he grew up here, bu also to the fact that his people are from here, and have been from here since long before the rest of us started coming here.
But the flip side of that is to devalue the people who have come here because of HSU, because of the incredible place this is, because they want to invest their lives, energy, and capital in a place that matters.
Personally, when I hear the “I’m from here” line, the other thing I hear is “and you’re not, so —- off, because ‘locals’ count more than other citizens.”
Further, given the kind of ‘locals’ (ie good old boys and girls) that seem to represent the center of Sundberg’s support, the idea that he’s the candidate for change just seems to be a cheap coat of paint on a developers’ agenda.
I didn’t mean we should all get plastered.
I meant we can double the number of comments!
Sheesh!
Do I have to explain ALL my jokes to you guys?
Still unanswered:
1) Was Sundberg set up?
2) Is it accurate to say that Sundberg’s drive from the North Coast Inn to his home took five to ten minutes?
3) What do the CHP or 911 records say about the timing of the call to 911 and the perhaps-surprisingly rapid response of CHP to a house in McKinleyville?
4) Did any County employee intentionally make it more difficult for the public to discover Sundberg’s DUI?
5) Did any local “reporters” or “editors” know about the DUI prior to Friday?
6) How many of Sundberg’s endorsers, besides Jill Geist/Duffy, knew that Sundberg had driven a car when he was twice the legal blood alcohol limit?
7) Did the Sheriff know, when he endorsed Sundberg, that Sundberg was on probation?
8) Did Sundberg tell his donors that he’d pled no contest to drunk driving around the time he announced his run?
9) Who released the DUI information to the Herald and substandard on Friday?
10) When the standard DA procedures of releasing lists of DUI charges resumed (after what has been described as a “computer update”), were the backed-up names provided on a supplemental list? If not, why not? If they were, why was the supplemental list not published?
Thanks, Lurch! Indeed, having some experience elsewhere is valuable, especially if it is a place that has had major population growth. I often joke that folks like Dennis Mayo ought to have to live in Morgan Hill for a year, and then we’d see what he thinks about planning. But for now, it’s all putting lipstick on a pig in his view. That’s what they said in Santa Rosa 20 years ago.
Yep, 500 comments by 22 people. A real majority. The guy ” I hear ” he is a true winner. “Citizens”, you are a scary little person.
Used all your fingers and toes to count commenters, did you?
I wouldn’t be surprised if the story shows up in the T-S and on the tv news on Wednesday. Busy ramping up for election day, you know.
Keep digging and asking the hard questions, everyone. There appears to be some ugly s–t under all those rocks you’re turning over. This is important.
And it’s left me wondering what else is being covered up for those who have the right friends.
Excellent questions, Mitch. Too bad there isn’t time before the election to get all the answers. Another strike against the leaker being part of a 5th Dist. candidate’s campaign.
That’s an assumption, of course.
Maybe the T-S is busy today answering some of these questions for tomorrow’s paper.
Let’s not forget about the deafening silence from the only source of local news on television, the spirit of the north coast, our own Channel KIEM-TV 3!
So far, all Channel 3 has done (to my knowledge) is broadcast paid pro-Sundberg political commercials.
As to Mitch’s #1 question……..it could only be a set up if someone forced the liquor down his throat and convinced him to drive.
Nope, this one is just bad judgment. Bad in that he did it, bad in that he thought he could hide it.
No not hard at all. A few leaders, a few wack jobs, a few strays, and lots of followers. Most cults have that in common.
Whahuh?
What’s your evidence that he tried to hide it?
Quite right, Anonymous 3:46. Who needed to hide it?
It’s clearly not news that a candidate for County Supervisor gets a DUI with a blood alcohol content at twice the limit, pleading no contest the week he announces his campaign.
If you need any proof, just ask the substandard, the Journal, the McKinleyville Press. The public record was present for five months, various commenters here insist that Sundberg’s DUI was common knowledge, Jill Geist/Duffy knew all along, but neither the substandard nor the Journal nor the Press thought it worth mentioning.
If voters want to know these personal, private details of candidates lives, they should hire private investigators.
Or just truck on down to the courthouse and browse the public records.
Even if he didn’t try to hide it (though in hindsight, maybe it would have been smart of him to be proactive on this one), at the very least he was a danger on the road. To drive at almost twice the legal limit…….there simply is no defense.
Channel 3 News is coming on right now. I’ll let you know if they consider this news important enough to cover.
Channel 3 News covered the case of a Hispanic-named 38-year-old man who was arrested for drunk driving on Broadway this past weekend.
Nothing about the Sundberg affair so far.
Stay tuned.
Thanks for that report.
The Hispanic-named man was 38. Sundberg’s only 35. Cut the callow youth a break. Everyone was willing to excuse George W Bush’s drunks.
The Five O’clock Channel 3 News is over.
About Sundberg?
Nothing. Nada. No news there.
Check back later. I’ll watch the Six O’clock News for any sign Channel 3 cares about tomorrow’s election for Fifth District Supervisor.
Anonymous 5:30,
I don’t know what your politics are. But if you used to think the “news” carried information, now you know better.
No, no, it’s “News You Can Use”, a euphemism for fluff/bread/circuses. Anything but actual information about what’s going on in the world.
…first, this snooze from the noose and inform-a-shun service.
‘Cause then we might, you know, QUESTION why there was a tv news DUI story about someone who isn’t running for anything and not someone who, oh well never mind.
At least the Times Substandard put it on their website. Finally. Probably because of this blog.
By now, I hope we are all tuned to Channel 3 News.
Today’s Times Standard has a story that should serve as a reminder of what CAN happen while driving drunk. And this is actually fairly minor as drunk driving crashes go:
——————————————
CHP says alcohol may be factor for Hwy 255 crash
A Eureka woman sustained major injuries after she tried to counteract her car going off the road with a sharp turn, rolling her car, the California Highway Patrol reported. Alcohol is believed to be a factor, but the cause of the collision is still under investigation, according to a CHP report.
________________, 19, was driving southbound on State Route 255 near Carlson Drive when her car began to leave the roadway. _________________ turned the car sharply to the right, causing the car to roll off the road. Her passengers — ________________, 18, of McKinleyville, and two juveniles, a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old from Eureka — suffered minor injuries. All occupants were wearing seat belts, which may have prevented fatal injuries, the CHP report said.
http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_15243076
——————————————
While Sundberg whines about his bad luck in being outed before he has a chance to put one over on the voters, he SHOULD realize that, in fact, he is VERY, VERY lucky.
Driving drunk is like playing Russian Roulette, but driving at .16 is like playing Russian Roulette…but with 3 or 4 bullets in the gun.
The drunk driver I mentioned earlier, one Jesus Garcia, 38, slammed his car into a police car. A crossbow was found in his car. No mention was made of any less-recent DUI such as Ryan Sundberg’s.
The early weather report has begun without any mention yet of Sundberg’s DUI or his attempt to hide it from the voters of the Fifth District.
I plan to watch this broadcast all the way to the end. Sometimes, the Channel 3 News crew will slip an important news story into the program near the end.
Stay tuned.
Channel 3 moved on to state news by 6:02. But they did air a quick segment on the Humboldt County budget meeting already in progress in the Supervisors chambers.
Day you broke story was Pony Express. Crowd cheered Sundberg start to finish. Hardly a peep for Cleary, no one knows him. Some shouts for Higgins, mostly family members. Yes, I was in and around the parade. Last 2 days in and around Mck town and some Blue Lake. Most could give 2 cents, ones who knew about it were pissed off about slimy deal. Tuesday we will know.
Mck voter, move back to Santa Rosa or Morgan Hill if you don’t like our slice of paradise. Those of us who like it here will do just fine. Don’t need your infill.
From Sundberg’s website:
If you have any District 5 issues you would like to discuss, please don’t hesitate to call me at
707-599-0131
or email me at
sundbergforsupervisor@gmail.com
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best Regards,
Ryan Sundberg
Hey, why not shoot him an e-mail or give him a call and let him know what you think of his driving at .16 blood-alcohol a(twice the legal limit), minimizing his crime (“five minute drive home”) and trying to play the victim role by whining about how the release of this PUBLIC INFO is somehow “dirty politics” due to the timing (despite the fact that he could have avoided the late disclosure by…disclosing it earlier himself).
You might also let him know how you feel about absentee voters not getting the chance to factor this info into their decision. If you’re one of those absentee voters who wishes to change their vote, but it’s too late, let him know what you think about that, and how it might affect your vote in the fall, in the event that he makes it into the runoff.
In fact, whatever your voting status, let him know how this episode, and his half-hearted apology, minimization and attempted spin, has affected how you are voting. I’m sure he is, as his website says “looking forward to hearing from you.”
Still no actual news about Sundberg’s DUI has been broadcast on News Channel 3.
On the other hand, Channel 3 has just broadcast Ryan Sundberg’s campaign ad again.
That campaign ad starts out showing a smiling Ryan Sundberg asking the viewing audience to listen to some of his supporters.
We then cut to supporter after supporter who tell us the characteristics they see in Ryan Sundberg that they believe are good reasons for us to vote for him.
They say Ryan Sundberg is:
* a regular guy
* honest
* honorable
* a person of good character
* genuine
* a person where “what you see is what you get”
The campaign ad ended. Then News Channel 3, the Spirit of the North Coast, aired its last news article of the Six O’clock News.
That was a featured story from Great Britain about “a shin-kicking contest.”
What do you think about that?
Still no apology, or even ANY statement on this matter on Sundberg’s website. Apparently he’s either hoping it will just blow over, waiting until Wednesday to see if he even still has a campaign to bother trying to resuscitate, or he’s so despondent that he’s not even attempting damage control with something as simple as putting up an apology / statement on his website, one which could even give his “side of the story.”
And on a related note, sheriff Gary Philps is STILL listed as a supporter on Sundberg’s website. That’s right, our Top Cop is endorsing the guy with a recent CRIMINAL offense, where he was driving while VERY DRUNK, and therefore putting the public in grave danger. Glad Philp is retiring, his “tough on crime” credentials just swirled down the porcelain vortex.
What has the CHP to say about where he was arrested? Was is at his house or on the highway?
Can we get the details now?
I’m going to cruise on over to the T-S free site and see if there have been any recent updates or relevant comments. Hope springs eternal, you know.
Anonnnn at 6:21 said “Mck voter, move back to Santa Rosa or Morgan Hill if you don’t like our slice of paradise. Those of us who like it here will do just fine. Don’t need your infill.”
What I don’t understand about the people who support candidates like Sundberg is that a lot of them are all for growth but when you talk to them they seem to hate everyone who moves. I guess they must have a lot of babies or something.
I realize this post regards Sundberg. But since Channel 3 came up I feel it’s appropriate to respond. If the TS is a shitty paper, channel 3 LOCAL NEWS is shittier. It starts at 4:58 and 6:00. If you tune in at 5:00, you’ve basically missed the LOCAL NEWS. The 6:00 version has the same stuff that was on at 4:58, with a couple of additional stories thrown in. There isn’t enough LOCAL NEWS for two half hour spots. There isn’t even enough for a half hour. We get a rehash of other news that was on the day before on national news. What a friggin joke. Just have one half hour show and call it good.
Right now, there are 202 posts over at the T-S website but still no update of the original story. So much news to report, so much hope in my heart that the Times-Standard will run a big news story in tomorrow’s paper to answer all our questions – on election day!
Indisputable fact: over 95% of all vehicular accidents are caused by drivers who are 100% sober. Google that wiki…and if a CHP officer ever pulls you over for a broken tail light and politely asks if you’ve had anything to drink that day…say NO, no matter what.
I’m sure that would be a real comfort to the families of that 5%.
Indisputable fact: “the ‘evil’ get real” is still trying to minimize Sundberg’s crime, following his candidate’s despicable example.
But of course those statistics are meaningless. All they demonstrate is that the great majority of drivers are sober at any given time, therefore most accidents that happen involve sober people.
Those number don’t tell you whether a *disproportionate* number of the accidents that do happen are due to drunk driving.
In other words, for every 1000 miles of drunk driving, there are X accidents, while for every 1000 miles of sober driving, there are Y accidents.
So, “evil” one, Google THAT wiki, and see if you can educate yourself about how much being drunk increases your chance of causing an accident. Then really wiki up your google and find out what the increased risk of an accident is with a blood-alcohol level of .16, DOUBLE the legal limit (and usually the result of pounding down 7 or 8 drinks in a row).
Then come back and admit that not only are DUI’s far from “trivial,” Sundberg’s was even MORE egregious due to the very high blood-alcohol level.
Anonymous 7:00, you have made a good point!
For background, twenty years ago, we had three TV stations in competition with each other. Now, there is no competition in the field of TV News.
Then, they worked hard to bring us some news worth knowing. I saw the reporters hard at work. I don’t think that is happening in the TV News business anymore.
TV, newspapers, radio, all seem pretty poor sources of news these days.
Thankfully, we have at least one conscientious and energetic and ethical blogmeister!
One who keeps them from going totally moribund.
For the non-English majors, moribund means
1. being in the state of dying : approaching death
2. being in a state of inactivity or obsolescence
the “evil” get real says:
June 7, 2010 at 7:27 pm
“…if a CHP officer ever pulls you over for a broken tail light and politely asks if you’ve had anything to drink that day…say NO, no matter what.”
In other words, you are advising people who DID have a drink before driving to LIE to the police!?
I’m starting to wonder whether you really ARE a Sundberg defender, or whether you are just a parody of one?
Because if you ARE a real Sundberg defender, you’re not doing him any favors by associating your dumb-ass opinions with him.
Well, you’re either a parody troll or else you’re a really counterproductive Sundberg apologist.
Either way, keep it up.
I need a drink.
Its sounds like Sundberg supporters are struggling to reconcile their beliefs as painlessly as possible.
1. Drunk driving is bad.
2. Sundberg is good.
3. Sundberg drove while drunk.
4. I am not a hypocrite.
Solution: Drunk driving isn’t bad.
mang, I dun gib a FOOK about Brain Sunturd. But joo gosta get joo fax straight about DUI’s, mang, and stoopid potty-licks and da emerging generation. Gibben da noombers, you look worts by slamming smoebuddy over a DEE-JOO-EYE dan shit dat matterz, mang. MANG. DAMMIT, MANG. HOW STOOPID R YOO? How mangy times a day joo look at dis page, mang?
evil,
Imagine for a minute that we are not dealing with one person driving drunk, increasing the risk to other drivers and passengers on the road.
Imagine instead we are dealing with a corporation that decided to save $3 per car on the gas tank by choosing a cheaper design that was very slightly more likely to explode on impact, only once or a couple of times a year.
What would you think of the corporation’s executives?
What would you think of the news media, if it didn’t catch that fact — or pretends it didn’t — even if it was a PUBLIC RECORD for five months.
No doubt. Prolly ordered virgin sex on the beaches.
Reasonable.
Cops do that. The CHP was two minutes away.
Someone fills out the wrong form or puts it in the wrong place. Nobody dropped the ball on purpose.
Psssht, they didn’t even know Arkley was getting sued.
Could speculate that anyone who knew him personally could guess. People don’t suddenly go from being sober drivers to sinking martinis and swerving home.
I don’t think that is relevant.
Woulda been smart.
Psssht everybody leaks shit to Heraldo. Heraldo is #1.
They fuck that up all the time. Who’s checking?
Some ironic shit that our old supervisor gets killed by a shitty driver and y’all about to elect one.
Dee-Joo-eye for DUI?
Mangy for many?
Heraldo, the post at 8:09 above seems like an insult toward people who speak with non-standard dialects.
mitch…how about instead of talking with analogies…which could eventually lead to discussing whether or not the galactic federation was a bunch of fucking nazis for forcing the ewoks to deal with their satelite bases on endor after defeating darth vader and blowing up the death star…let’s stick to the specifics of the specific matter at hand.
Your analogy doesn’t work regardless. How many people do you personally know that have been given DUI’s? Give me a minute, I can think of 10…the penalties handed out to sunturd are very typical, except that they got him at his house? Means they couldn’t find him on the road? Means it was called in? I dunno…no need for the drunk tank if he’s already home. I’ve know people who geot off better and worse, but it won’t affect the quality of my tap water either way. Do you get my point?
P.S. write in “Alfred E. Newman”, because everybody on the ballot right now really sucks.
P.S.S. it would be so great if Sundberg was somehow responsible for the CHP guy parked outside of six rivers for at least three weeks a few months ago, grabbing people as they left the parking lot. That one CHiP alone must have brought the department $20k per week.
Yeah, I’m gonna have to say the “evil” one is looking more and more like a parody troll.
evil,
Did you choose your avatar?
Sometimes they fit just right.
If 8:09 were really saying mang they wouldn’t also speak Dell Nort dialect.
the “evil” get real says:
June 7, 2010 at 9:06 pm
mitch…how about instead of talking with analogies…which could eventually lead to discussing whether or not the galactic federation was a bunch of fucking nazis for forcing the ewoks to deal with their satelite bases on endor after defeating darth vader and blowing up the death star…let’s stick to the specifics of the specific matter at hand.
Mr. Nice says:
June 7, 2010 at 8:53 pm ” 6) How many of Sundberg’s endorsers, besides Jill Geist/Duffy, knew that Sundberg had driven a car when he was twice the legal blood alcohol limit?
Could speculate that anyone who knew him personally could guess. People don’t suddenly go from being sober drivers to sinking martinis and swerving home.”
“the “evil” get real”, meet Mr. Nice.
For you perennial optimists, let me mention that the KIEM-TV Channel 3 News at Eleven O’clock will start in a few minutes.
Perhaps then, the intrepid journalists at Channel 3 will break their silence about the 6-month-old DUI arrest of Ryan Sundberg, one of the candidates in tomorrow’s election for Fifth District Supervisor, County of Humboldt.
Don’t hold your breath!! You could die in those three minutes!
My ears are tuned to Channel 3. I will let you know if any mention is made of Mr. Sundberg, either in the news or in the campaign ads.
So far, the Eleven O’clock broadcast is an exact duplicate of what was broadcast at Six O’clock.
Still, it is said that “anything is possible” so I will continue to watch Channel 3 to the very end of the News and report what I see and hear.
Bartenders do sometimes call the CHP if an overly intoxicated person (i.e. drunk beyond doubt) is determined to drive away. They usually offer to call a cab, and often encounter resistance and sometimes it’s belligerent or dismissive (i.e. it’s not a big deal, I”m fine!).
Not only does the bar have their license on the line, but the bartender can be held responsible and sued for serving an obviously intoxicated person.
Does anyone know how the CHP became involved? Or how his arrest and release were handled?
Or a definitive answer on why his DUI was never released to the public as required by law???
Before y’all get too wacked out, I should point out that the libertarian view of this whole conviction on the basis of biological test scenario is unnecessarily invasive. DNA evidence makes that view a little more controversial but DNA is bullshit anyway, people will make DNA in a bathtub someday.
Mandatory minimum sentencing is what turns this whole thing into charge bargaining as opposed to an actual plea bargain. Defendants will go and plead no contest to a reduced charge as opposed to a lesser sentence for charges that fit the crime. That may sound like the same thing, but it ain’t.
Madd.org/stats states that 1 out of 88 DUIs results in arrest and then says that 1 out of 139 licensed drivers is arrested for DUI annually. Seems like more people drive drunk than drive period.
Also all that money the state spends locking people up for fucking up in their vehicle when really, petroleum-powered vehicles will kill us all.
So, vote no on Prop. 14.
To: Anonymous 10:56 p.m.
I know exactly what you mean (that the hard news portion of the Channel 3 evening news usually lasts no longer than 3 or 4 minutes).
But remember, sometimes they throw in a hard news story at the end of the broadcast, just to keep us on our toes!
Ryan Sundberg ran an ad during the Eleven O’clock news on Channel 3, stressing the importance of Humboldt County’s communities and asking for the votes of the people who live in them.
Channel 3 just aired that campaign ad.
So far, no hard news has been broadcast on Channel 3 about Sundberg’s DUI or any of his efforts to minimize its importance or its impact on his campaign for Supervisor.
“People will make DNA in a bathtub someday”
I pretty sure that I leave a fair amount behind every time I shower or bathe. Does that count?
Ben Kroeplin, news anchor for Channel 3, closed the Eleven O’clock News with this reminder: “Don’t forget to vote.”
Wasn’t that thoughtful?
For the record, News Channel 3 has not reported one word about Ryan Sundberg’s DUI arrest or his attempts to minimize its importance or to hide its existence from the Voters of the Fifth District.
I added some thoughts to the post I wrote and posted at 11:38 tonight. I feel they are worth sharing.
June 7, 2010 at 11:38 pm
Ben Kroeplin, news anchor for Channel 3, closed the Eleven O’clock News with this reminder: “Don’t forget to vote.”
Wasn’t that thoughtful?
To summarize what I have learned: News Channel 3 has not provided any news to its viewers about Ryan Sundberg’s DUI arrest or about his attempts to minimize its importance or to hide its existence from the voters of the Fifth District.
Although coverage of this story in the local media was slim to none, I believe we can give credit to the Times-Standard for publishing one fairly extensive article on June 6 about it and for monitoring this Topix comments Forum in what appears to be a fair and even-handed manner.
At the same time, it would be completely unfair to overlook the importance of the Humboldt Herald, an important online source of information about local matters. Without the news coverage provided by the Humboldt Herald, this story might never have seen the light of day.
We the People need to learn how Sundberg’s hidden information was kept hidden for so long. The local media owes us a thorough job of getting to the bottom of the Sundberg story, especially how information was concealed, who concealed it, and whether special favors are available to certain citizens based on their group membership or other factors that undermine the democratic basis of our society.
I posted that message at the Forum on Topix for the Times-Standard folks to think about.
Wow, now there is not only NO article and NOT EVEN one blog post about this over at the NCJ website, they even took down their link to the Time-Standard article.
Weeeeeeeeeeeak.
Imagine if it was Gallegos who had a secret recent DUI. I’m pretty sure you’d see a top-of-the-page story on the NCJ website, and AT LEAST one blog post about it. Heck, they might even put out a special edition!
But Sundberg, well, he’s “just an excitable boy” (to quote Warren Zevon). So he blew a .16, that’s not important, except that revealing it is “dirty politics,” because, because….because…well, because the Boy Wonder says so, that’s why.
Your still full of it RA. You know nothing and yet you continue to speculate. Just keeping it going. If you are self employed I would think you should go to work. Or as I state before perhaps this is your work. Perhaps NCJ knows something about this that you don’t. My god do you have a real life, I do not think so. You would bet Cleary/Salzman will steer clear of this whole thing. Just light the fuse and run.
Anonnn has no facts on his side, so slander is his favored choice of weapon.
You would not know a fact if it hit you in your face. What will hit you is his numbers.
Sundberg took a chance that driving from a bar to his home while he was extremely drunk on booze would not result in some other person’s death.
Sundberg could have gotten a ride and avoided all this trouble.
But for his own convenience, he chose to drive home while plastered.
He gambled his own convenience against the lives of all the people on the road that day, in cars or on bikes alongside the road.
Those are facts.
Even Sundberg admitted to the judge that those were facts.
Why can’t you accept those facts?
What is wrong with you? Look deep. You are bound to find quite a lot down there.
Fact: Sundberg drove drunk, very drunk (.16).
Fact: In driving drunk, in fact very drunk, Sundberg put innocent lives at risk.
Fact: Sundberg got caught.
Fact: Sundberg made no public statement on the issue until it was revealed recently by an anonymous tipster.
Fact: When he finally had to respond in public, Sundberg chose to minimize his crime (“five minute drive home”) and whine about how the timing of the release indicates “dirty politics” (despite the fact that he could have controlled the timing of the release anytime he wanted during the last 6 months by releasing the info himself).
These ARE the facts. I know some find those facts inconvenient. Too bad, deal with it.
Having sucessfully kept his secret until the Friday before the election, the candidate tells the press it was dirty politics for the secret to then be revealed to the voters. I could forgive a DUI, but this attitude reminds me of John Edward’s attitude when he got caught. Neither candidate would get my vote.
Spin it any way you want. Watch the numbers. Higgins might get 2nd with Cleary trailing. The left in McK does not trust Cleary so even though they know Higgins is high strung they may just vote that way. Cleary support is from the left wing not in the 5th district. There are more Cleary signs in Arcata and Bayside than in McKinlyville.
I wouldn’t count out Sundberg either. The near-total media blackout on this story (one page 2 article in the Times-Standard) means that most 5th district voters may not even have heard about the DUI yet.
Because they know him they will care less and vote for him. The ones who read this blog will be voting for Higgins and Cleary.
When Sundberg announced, the DUI was leaked on this blog within 2 days. Several posts then nothing, I always wondered why no traction. Bang 3 days before election, mystery packages. You can spin it all you want, the DUI was common knowledge in McKinleyville and the surrounding area. He did just what anyone else on the circumstances would do. Hired an attorney, plead, and did what they wanted him to do.
One mistake does not blot out years good work and involvement in Humboldt County and the 5th district.
That he is whining about anything is just bullshit spin. Your have a right to your opinion but you have taken far beyond that into some sort of vendetta. Makes your motives questionable.
No doubt that many of the anon comments are slimmers.
Usual crap for this site.
Oh and Mitch, again if you are unhappy move away. None would miss your whinny self.
PJ, get a life. One with real people in it.
Well you’re just a little ray of sunshine, aren’t ya?
It’s our old “friend” with yet another new ID, RA. His “witty” style is easily recognizable.
“You can spin it all you want, the DUI was common knowledge in McKinleyville and the surrounding area.”
If it was common knowledge then why is it news? Is McKinleyville some kind of secret society?
I have spoken to many voters in the 5th and I have not found one that knew this. Guess they weren’t part of the “inner circle”.
One wonders who you gotta know to get the secret information from Sundberg. I guess not all 5th district constituents are considered equal.
anonnnn, you claim that “When Sundberg announced, the DUI was leaked on this blog within 2 days.”
You could sift through H’s archives to find that post. Get on it!
I already have tried but days I want cut off and can not bring them up. However at the time I discuss the posts with others. That one of the reasons I know that a number of his supporters where aware of the DUI. That it was not posted in TS is weird, can not believe he could control that in any way.
I never said every voter in Mck, that you talked to a few in your circle is meaningless, there are thousands of voters. No secret circles however there are many people in many towns who are involved in the town. Others just live there. You can see examples of this in the number of people who do not know the name of their Vice-president, speaker of the house, etc. The people who are all excited about this mostly do not live in 5th. Including RA, I would say 70%+. Just a few more hours and away we go.
Anonnn, when you write “away we go” it makes me wonder if you think Sundberg will have gotten
“away” with something if he wins this election.
I think differently. If he wins this election, people are still going to want answers. If he continues to stonewall his own constituents after he is elected, he may eventually wish he could have lost the election and gotten away from his constituents and their questions when he could have.
I just crawled through the filth of Topix comments attached to every article that mentions Sundberg or the 5th district race and there wasn’t a single hint about a DUI. He was accused of being a crook, a thief, a money launderer, tribal exploiter, and member of a crime family involved with drugs, but nothing about a DUI. It’s unlikely someone would leak it here but miss all those opportunities to leak it at Topix. I call BS.
I searched the archives on the Herald and did not find any mention of Sundberg’s DUI as mentioned earlier.
Only a tightly held secret wouldn’t have made it into Topix comments and certainly something as scandalous as a recent DUI would have been brought up if it were known in the community.
I appreciate the work Plain Jane has done in Topix and value her analysis of what it means.
In fairness to the editor of the Times-Standard, I want to point out that the comments Jane mentioned are not currently on the active Topix Times-Standard Forum, no doubt because the editor has removed them. I think Jane must have found those filthy comments on a cached version of the Forum, where they will live forever in infamy. Does that seem right to you, Jane?
Thanks also to Heraldo for searching and reporting what he found.
-> I can’t believe I missed watching the Five O’clock Channel 3 News tonight. I’ll do better at Six, I promise!
PJ,
I frequent Topix on and off – I personally read the claim for myself that was made by a “monikered” poster. It is quite possible it got moderated. Again, the origin of the claim I read was on Topix (Times Standard) back in probably late January or early February I want to say.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
I read the comments still linked to the articles found in the TS archives. If there had been any editing of those threads, they did a pizz poor job since they would have deleted truthful statements and left smears of an even worse nature which are unproven. That makes no sense at all.
I recall a post somewhere a while back questioning why the TS wasn’t running the DUI’s but there was no accusation that a named person had a DUI that wasn’t being published.
PJ,
the post “I read” the claim on was definately a 5th District article – either direct individual campaign, campaign contributions, etc…
One thing is for sure – I did read a DUI claim in a Topix (T-S) blog forum. Like a few other of the accusations by the same poster, a phishing expedition was what the poster seemingly wanted.
JL
That’s right, Jane. Until Friday, there was no specific name to ask about! But quite a few people did wonder why the 20-year old tradition of printing the names of the people charged with DUIs had been stopped for several months by the DA’s office. Maybe if the Times-Standard had pushed the DA harder, the public would have known about the Sundberg DUI sooner.
Away we go means I went to vote. I did not see it on TS etc. It was on the H blog around the 22nd to the 30th of January I believe because Ryan was on the H blog on the 22nd. Why would I make it up, its a fact. I have no idea about people having the ability to remove or edit stuff they have posted. The comments were made, I saw one of his campaign people within a day and discuss it. Later I had several discussions about it with people in the community. All of them were aware of it.
JL, Jeffrey Lytle, you are wrong. The fishing expedition was in your mind.
I am the person who wrote in Topix to ask why the DA’s office had stopped giving the media the names of people charged with DUIs.
I did not, repeat not, have any specific person in mind.
I just didn’t want a practice of embarrassing drunk drivers to be lost. It took a lot of people a lot of hard work to get that tradition started, and a lot of innocent people didn’t die because of that tradition.
I didn’t want the District Attorney to stop that tradition of taking drunk drivers off the hook. I didn’t want the DA to be able to charge whoever the DA wanted to charge and let the others go, without the people knowing what was going on behind closed doors at the courthouse.
The first sentence of my last paragraph at 6:13 should have read: I didn’t want the District Attorney to stop that tradition and take drunk drivers off the hook.
6:13 pm or above,
what I read originally and what your defense statement is don’t match-up.
What moniker did you use?
What article?
What date?
What time?
Reads as if two separate issues.
JL
You can’t believe topix, at least 1/20 posts is a false allegation.
Mr. Nice,
19 are true? No way!
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
“Why would I make it up, it’s a fact?”
Here’s an example where the original meaning of the phrase “begging the question” actually applies.
The veracity of the comments wasn’t the issue. There were lots of accusations against Sundberg, true or not, but nothing about a DUI.
The name Sundberg was not mentioned during the Six O’clock News tonight on KIEM-TV Channel 3.
Channel 3 is an unwatchable joke. Don’t even bother.
Ch 3 doesn’t even mention much of local news.
Sadly, I think we can all agree on that.
They only keep Ch. 3 news on to make the Times-Standard’s reporting seem in-depth and hard-hitting by comparison. :)
LOL :>)
this has DUI has gotten so much dam attention its crazy. Humboldt Herald : 605 comments, Times Standard: 287 comments, other blogs and newspapers : thousands! He really should of fessed up alot sooner. Most his votes were mail in and lots and lots of people say they regret that decision now.
Update:
The Five O’clock KIEM-TV Channel 3 News (our “only news on television”) will appear tonight at 8:00 p.m. according to schedules now available to all who still care to view what Channel 3 considers “news.”
Sundberg’s DUI ain’t gonna matter. Dude don’t drive a school bus, he’s running for office.
He’s taking notes from the master. D.C. Councilperson Barry has been speaking out in favor medical marijuana lately, representing the opinion of his community… well, the portion of the community comprised by 40-something to Vietnam-aged men… but… they vote… so… go Marion! Dude also both co-sponsored a gay marriage bill and subsequently voted against it. That’s how to get votes.
Smoking crack with some hoe in a hotel room won’t ruin a political career. Barry hit the pipe and was mayor four years later. They woulda voted him in the same year if the moralists would have gotten off his ass.
Sundberg is on a roll.
Forgot to say I know smoking crack isn’t as bad as DUI.
More people die from alcohol-related accidents than crack smoking
It’s NOT OK for a candidate to be in the middle of DUI proceedings. Go home to your wife and kid, sober up, come back in 4 years and talk to me.
Hank Sims’ editorial in the NCJ now on newstands explains why he chose not to alert the voters of the Fifth District to the Sundberg DUI.
He pins the blame on everybody but Hank Sims.
It doesn’t really matter if someone at Northcoast Inn called CHP on Sundberg; there are billboards all over Calif. that encourage people to report drunk drivers by calling 911, and in Eureka there is a EPD program to encourage people to call in on their neighbor’s activity. Maybe the same person contacted the media just before the election…but, it probably wasn’t one of the campaigns. Any pro would have done it a week prior; you can now see the reaction it caused on the blogs.
If he did tell his supporters, that is very telling. Some of his endorsers are politicians, law & order types, and prominent names. Why would they withhold the information?
Interestingly, two of his endorsers are the Quigleys.. if they knew, shame on them. They have supposedly(?) made their position clear on drunk drivers. No one encouraged him to be upfront about it?
There are intentional lies, and lies of omission. What does this tell you about his so-called good judgement? Politicians are supposed to lie “after” they get into office. It is important to win through your actions, not your later arguments.
What I’d really like to hear from the candidate, a quote. What did he say to himself when he saw the CHP in front of his house? In the future people will know better than to drink at The NorthCoast Inn; if he had been at the McKinleyville Moose Lodge nobody would have cared enough to make the CHP call.
I just read P.J.O’Rourke’s “Driving Like Crazy.” He said, “When it comes to taking chances, some people like to play poker or shoot dice; other people prefer to parachute jump, go rhino hunting, or climb ice floes, while still others engage in crime and marriage. But I like to get drunk and drive like a fool.”
It will be interesting to see what people say in the upcoming election about having a dishonest candidate, one who is on probation.
Great PJ o’Rourke quote Dr. Kimble. The examples given for gambling show that most are inherently victimless, and some aren’t.
I’m still waiting for responses from those law and order endorsers like Philp, Duffy, etc.
And where is the Times-Standard on completing the investigation and reporting?!?
Pretty pathetic!
They’re all the same…
I see Sundberg is having a campaign event.
I see they are serving wine.
Now that is a scary combination.
I have wanted to remark on this comment for so long. in our county there so many people who drink you cannot judge somebody just because they had a DUI and in the long run who are you to judge because God is the only one who can judge people my brother is a good man and he told me to be strong I would be nothing without him and no one will ever bring him down