Kathleen Bryson has dropped out of the D.A. race.
I’ll miss her enthusiasm. She did spend time in Southern Humboldt, and some here were very appreciative of her marijuana enforcement positions.
I’m still predicting a runoff after June. Maybe it’s time for another straw poll.
Addendum: I don’t know whether her name will remain on the ballot. Anybody know?
Second addendum: Here’s Bryson’s statement.
After much thought and discussion with my family, I have made the decision to drop out of the campaign for Humboldt County District Attorney.
While I am grateful for the opportunity, the campaign was taking too much time away from my family and legal practice. I am only 44 years old, the youngest of the da candidates, and our children are school-age. In particular, our youngest daughter is in elementary school, and my many hours away from home were taking too much of a toll on her. In addition, recently, our eldest daughter suffered a very serious car accident that has put matters into perspective for our entire family.
I want to thank all the people who contributed their time, money and moral support to my campaign. I also want to thank the other candidates for their open dialogue in relation to the issues. The experience of running for public office has given me profound respect for those who sacrifice their time and privacy to be our public officials.
Sincerely,
Kathleen Bryson.
27 comments
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April 27, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Rose
It will remain on the ballot.
April 27, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Fred Mangels
I think you mean she will remain on the ballot.
April 27, 2010 at 12:26 pm
money95542
Say Fred, Eric’s question was
Kathleen is not an “it.” Her name is.
April 27, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Rose
‘It’ meaning her name will remain on the ballot. Yes, ‘she’ will still be on the ballot. My heart goes out to her it is a tough process, running for office. She put her heart and soul into it. Best of luck to her.
April 27, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Eric Kirk
Ditto.
April 27, 2010 at 5:17 pm
textwrapper
Thanks for the meaningless and wrong “correction,” Fred.
April 27, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Anonymous
What’s the number to call in questions tonight?
April 27, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Anonymous
It was nice having her there making her case that she felt Paul did not do ENOUGH plea agreements, and showing the contrast to Jackson’s contention that Gallegos does too many plea agreements.
April 27, 2010 at 7:24 pm
ED Denson
Sorry to see her out of the race. She was my second choice, with a shot at becoming first. But perhaps that’s not enought to win an election, and I believe that in general she was running last in a field of better known candidates. Another time, maybe?
April 27, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Anonymous
people close to Pat Higgins are saying he’s close to announcing his departure from his race too.
April 27, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Heraldo
Good discussion of the debate after it ended tonight on KMUD, Eric.
April 27, 2010 at 8:52 pm
Anonymous
Paul Hagen was clearly the grownup tonight.
April 27, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Eric Kirk
Thanks Heraldo. I only got through a fraction of my notes. It was one of the more interesting debates I’ve seen.
And to the angry emailer re the poll, no, I don’t think someone on the Gallegos team is cheating. He may or may not be leading, but a poll on my blog is likely to be skewed progressive, and is certain to be skewed Sohum, which is probably going to support Gallegos with a significant majority notwithstanding the criticisms over the CEU deputizations.
Hmmm. the spell check isn’t accepting deputization as a word. Deputising? Nope.
April 28, 2010 at 7:38 am
anonymous
Eric says:but a poll on my blog is likely to be skewed progressive, and is certain to be skewed Sohum, which is probably going to support Gallegos…..
I think your assumption is wrong on this one Eric, many people in sohum are ready to see Gallegos go and are going to go for Jackson.When people heard the Democratic central committee couldnt endorse either of them cause they were evenly split, people started taking a deeper look at Allison Jackson. I myself was undecided till last night. After listening on the radio and hearing what they all had to say, I too will be supporting Jackson this time around.
April 28, 2010 at 8:36 am
Anonymous
Criticisms? Are you crazy? Gallegos is the guy took AWAY the code enforcement guys guns. Gallegos is one who works to protect us against the ‘heavy hand of government’. You can bet Jackson would just LOVE to give them back their guns.
April 28, 2010 at 8:42 am
Anonymous
Yes, Hagen is very grown up. Unfortunately, he’s not qualified for this job. The DA is primarily the guy who needs to put away the really bad guys, who murder, rape and commit violent crimes. Even Hagen acknowledges that those are the priorities for the office and, that he’s never done any of those types of prosecutions, so unless you think environmental law is the only thing a DA need know how to do, he’s not a real option and he’s only going drain the community’s resources, by forcing us into a Nov. run off.
April 28, 2010 at 11:15 am
anonymous says
“Gallegos is one who works to protect us against the ‘heavy hand of government’. You can bet Jackson would just LOVE to give them back their guns.”
It was Jackson that called Gallegos out last night saying that if Gallegos kept better tabs on the code enforcement that he armed and what they were up to,that those incidents with them running amuk in the hills with guns drawn would never have happened. and she stated emphatically that that will never happen on her watch .She stated with conviction that code enforcement are not Law enforcement and should not have weapons.She said that C.E. should be like any Civil servant and call to make an appointment if they needed to speak with the property owner regarding any building infractions.
check out kmuds archive for tues nite 7- 8pm 4/27 and listen for yourself.
April 28, 2010 at 11:36 am
anonymous says
“people close to Pat Higgins are saying he’s close to announcing his departure from his race too.”
Hagen & Higgins – how do you spell unelectable?
Hagen AND Higgins should both drop out of their races……they both are seen as unelectable because they don’t have wide spread support which means they can’t raise any $$. (unless you counts their mothers $$)
Plus which, having “local solutions” running their campaigns is a liability for both of them.
April 28, 2010 at 11:58 am
Anonymous
But a lot of what Jackson said about Code Enforcement was plain wrong. She attacked Paul for not controlling what he had no control over. I credit him with doing what he could do, which was to pull their badges (and guns) as soon as the scheme created by his predecessor to avoid *anyone* supervising them caused their inevitable scandal. Paul couldn’t do more than that because they were under the formal supervision of county counsel, Ralph Faust when they first went amok, then Wendy Chaitin. Not Paul. No matter how many times Jackson says so. You can hear that on the archives too.
I haven’t heard anyone require a deep look at Jackson, by the way. She’s Worth Dikeman better dressed. But she wants to stomp on windpipes and rip out lungs on behalf of abused children. Hagen wants to stomp and whomp for environmental crimes. It’s funny they need some groovy excuse nowadays to unleash their inner Old Testament assholes. Paul isn’t into any of it, and I’m voting for him.
April 28, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Anonymous
But a lot of what Jackson said about Code Enforcement was plain wrong. She attacked Paul for not controlling what he had no control over.
But he did have control. He could have done much earlier what he eventually did. If he had refused to deputize them right off the abuses would not have happened.
April 28, 2010 at 1:58 pm
the reasonable anonymous
I agree with 1:37 that Gallegos should never have agreed to deputize the Code Enforcement “officers” (allowing them to have guns) in the first place, given that he admittedly had no control over their behavior.
At the same time, Gallegos should get credit for swiftly ending the deputization (taking away their guns) when the issue was brought to his attention at the Garberville Vets Hall meeting.
Perhaps my memory is faulty, but I never heard one word of comment from Allison Jackson or Paul Hagen during that whole controversy. It’s nice that they now admit that Code Enforcement should act as a civil agency, but I have my doubts that they would have handled things better than Gallegos did.
Then there’s Bonnie Neeley, whose supporters cite the creation of the “Community Assistance Unit” (now called the Code Enforcement Unit) as one of her proud accomplishments. Given the way that Unit evolved into a massive unaccountable cluster-fuck under her supervision, it’s an interesting choice of accomplishment to list. Can we attribute that to ignorance, or hubris? You decide.
April 28, 2010 at 2:01 pm
the reasonable anonymous
Another fact to keep in mind is that it was actually a sherriff’s deputy, not a code enforcement officer, who reportedly drew his gun on a mom, infant and child at Yee-Haw in Trinidad, one of the most egregious, and dangerous, incidents in the Code Cop saga. To my knowledge, that deputy was not removed and never punished for their behavior, which was conducted under the authority of the sherriff, not the DA (nor the County Counsel).
Even though the code enforcement officers themselves are no longer deputized to carry guns, they can still bring along sherriff’s deputies on inspection visits if they want to, so there is really nothing (except public pressure) to stop a similar incident from happening in the future. So questions and concerns about that incident, and others, should be directed to the candidates for Sherriff.
We need to make this an issue, and get the sherriff candidates on the record that alleged greywater violations and the like don’t justify armed raids and don’t justify treating residents, including infants and children, like dangerous criminals.
April 28, 2010 at 3:43 pm
humboldturtle
Aw…get a permit.
April 28, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Eric Kirk
I think your assumption is wrong on this one Eric, many people in sohum are ready to see Gallegos go and are going to go for Jackson.When people heard the Democratic central committee couldnt endorse either of them cause they were evenly split, people started taking a deeper look at Allison Jackson. I myself was undecided till last night. After listening on the radio and hearing what they all had to say, I too will be supporting Jackson this time around.
Unlikely. Unless Hagen can cut into the environmentalist base down here, or Jackson manages to draw blood on the CEU deputizing issue, Gallegos will probably win big down here. Allison will probably get about what Johanna got in the Second Dist. Supervisor race – down here that is. She’ll probably do very well in Fortuna.
April 29, 2010 at 8:00 am
Eric Kirk
Directing a question to the undecideds – what will help you to decide? What do you need to know?
April 29, 2010 at 6:55 pm
the reasonable anonymous
Here’s my prediction, guaranteed to be worth every penny you’ve paid for it:
It’s gonna come down to Gallegos vs. Jackson in a runoff.
Gallegos will win.
April 29, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Eric Kirk
reasonable – it’s not an unreasonable prediction, but there could be some surprising twists in the race before it’s through.