Pubdate: Tue, 19 Dec 2000
Source: Marin Independent Journal (CA)
Copyright: 2000 Marin Independent Journal
Contact:  150 Alameda del Prado, Novato, CA 94949
Website: http://www.marinij.com/
Author: Guy Ashley
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1719/a05.html

RECALL ELECTION IN MAY FOR KAMENA

Marin's chief elections officer says he will request the Board of 
Supervisors to call a special election for next May asking voters whether 
District Attorney Paula Kamena should be recalled from office.

Registrar of Voters Michael Smith said he will make the request at the 
board's next meeting in January, after an official count of recall 
petitions found enough signatures to necessitate sending the county's 
first-ever district attorney recall drive to the voters.

Smith said five employees of the elections office finished two weeks of 
counting 19,911 signatures yesterday afternoon. They found the recall drive 
produced 13,942 valid signatures on Kamena recall petitions - 186 more than 
legally required.

Smith said he would ask the board on Jan. 9 to call an election for May 
within 14 days. If the board declines to do so, Smith said he would be 
obligated by law to set the election himself. He said elections officials 
are considering a special election date of May 15 or 22.

The petition drive targeting Kamena was launched in May amid a surge of 
community resentment about decisions in the Marin courts in cases involving 
child custody disputes. These cases included the prosecution by the 
District Attorney's Office of a Novato woman who attempted to take custody 
of her own daughter in violation of a court order.

Four judges were also targeted in the recall effort. But as the campaigns 
against the judges dissipated, a second wave of opposition descended on 
Kamena, led by critics of her office's marijuana prosecution policies.

The medical pot forces, led by a handful of paid signature gatherers, put 
the Kamena recall campaign over the top.

Kamena said she was disappointed to hear of the petition drive's success, 
and she reiterated her suspicion that recall backers used misleading 
tactics in gathering signatures.

She also accused opponents of using the recall process to strong-arm her 
into adopting more lenient policies for people claiming a medicinal need 
for marijuana. Kamena claims the recall grows out of longstanding 
opposition by the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana to county efforts to 
launch its own licensing process for medical marijuana patients.

"This is not about medical marijuana," Kamena said. "This is about someone 
or some group with one issue trying to misuse the political recall process 
to get their way.

Kamena's critics, led by Lynnette Shaw of the Marin Alliance, raised an 
estimated $15,000 to hire signature gatherers and otherwise support the 
Kamena recall. Shaw delivered three boxes of recall petitions to Smith's 
office last month.

News of the submissions prompted some people to call in complaints, 
claiming they were misled into signing petitions by people who spoke only 
of support for medical marijauna and nothing about a Kamena recall.

Despite indications that it was the medical pot forces that led the 
petition drive to success, Smith said it's likely ballot arguments in next 
May's special election won't mention medical marijuana.

He said that instead, arguments supporting the recall likely will be 
limited to claims of abuse by Kamena's office in the recent prosecution of 
Carol Mardeusz, a Novato mother who was convicted by a jury of attempting 
to abduct her own daughter in violation of a court order forbidding her 
from contacting the girl. That's because recall petition circulated in 
Marin this summer and fall mentioned only the Mardeusz case, Smith said.

Kamena said complaints of misleading tactics led her to believe voters who 
signed the recall petitions didn't know what they were supporting. She said 
she had been contacted by a man at a San Rafael shopping center who urged 
her to sign the petition, without mentioning a recall.

But she said she won't be taking any action to challenge the recall 
campaign in court. Instead, she said she will reactivate her campaign 
committee and focus her energy on urging voters not to support the recall.

"If the citizens of Marin County want to have an election I will do 
everything I can to show that I'm doing an excellent job and that the 
recall is a bad idea," Kamena said.

Shaw could not be reached for comment yesterday afternoon.

Prosecution guidelines adopted by Kamena's office last year made county 
certification a central requirement for people seeking a medical exemption 
to avoid prosecution for possession or cultivation of marijuana.

Shaw has said the guidelines were no good because some local police 
departments disregarded them by seizing any marijuana they found and 
sending cases to the district attorney even when the D.A.'s guidelines had 
been met.

According to Shaw, some Alliance members have since had their plants seized 
and destroyed, even after Kamena's office has accepted their claims of 
legitimate medical use and declined to file charges.

Kamena said that much of this criticism is better put to local police 
agencies that take action against pot growers.

She said her office's medical marijuana policies are among the most 
progressive in the state and make a good-faith effort to recognize a 
person's rights to medical marijuana under Prop. 215, the medical pot 
initiative passed by state voters in 1996.

Smith said the recall election would cost an estimated $500,000 to hold.

He said these costs woud go toward the printing of ballots and ballot 
booklets and staffing all 113 polling places in Marin on the day of the 
election.

Kamena, who swept into office in 1998 with the support of 56 percent of 
Marin voters, said it's a shame the county will have to bear such a high 
cost, especially since she would have to run for re-election in March 2002 
anyway.

"Instead of wasting taxpayer money on this, they could just wait 10 months 
and tell people not to vote for me," she said.
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