Pubdate: Thu, 24 Jul 2003
Source: Fresno Bee, The (CA)
http://www.fresnobee.com/columnists/mcewen/story/7180855p-8109831c.html
Copyright: 2003 The Fresno Bee
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Author: Bill McEwen

TO FORGIVE, FORGET THE FRESNO WAY

While attending a leadership forum in Florida, you're busted for allegedly
trying to buy crack cocaine from an undercover police officer. Not good.

You're the top dog for a chamber of commerce, which means you are paid
handsomely to buff the image of the people back home.

Start looking for a new job.

Maybe not.

This is Fresno, the city that forgives and forgets time and again.

If allegations against Stebbins Franklin Dean are true, he has something
more important than his job to worry about.

His life.

Crack cocaine is highly addictive. One puff is enough to hook some people.
That's what the National Institute on Drug Abuse says on its Web site.

Petrina Macklin, who is receiving treatment at the WestCare substance abuse
rehabilitation center in Fresno, says it like this:

"When you start using, your high is the first hit. After that, you are
chasing the dragon. It robs you of everything."

Macklin knows. She has chased the dragon on and off for 18 of her 37 years.

The 50-year-old Dean says he is innocent, the victim of a misunderstood
conversation with an overzealous officer.

But earlier this year, he pleaded no contest to drunken driving in Fresno.
In concert with that plea, a count of possessing a drug pipe was dismissed
by the District Attorney's Office.

On Monday, after word of his Florida arrest broke, Dean said, "People that
know me know that I don't use drugs."

Two arrests in nine months suggest that either he's spinning a tale of
denial or police in two cities have it in for him.

Question is will his bosses -- the board of directors at the Chamber of
Commerce -- stick with a chief executive officer who has delivered another
black eye to a city trying to fix decades-old problems of bad air, high
unemployment rates and failing schools?

Logic says the board will demand Dean's resignation or send him packing.

But this is Fresno, and Fresno has a history of asking for a little and
putting up with a lot. Here are a few examples:

Steve Samuelian, cited for soliciting a prostitute in 1998, was elected to
the state Assembly last year. Samuelian was stopped by police this year in
an area known for prostitution, although charges never were filed. He still
has a camp of loyal supporters.

Mike Briggs, who pleaded no contest in 1986 to having unlawful sex with a
minor, later was elected to the City Council and the Assembly.

Longtime Assembly member and state Sen. Jim Costa, who termed out last year,
suffered no voter fallout from a 1986 citation for soliciting a prostitute
and the 1994 discovery of a small amount of marijuana in his condominium.
Costa denied the marijuana was his, and no charges were filed.

Want more?

Jerry Dyer was named Fresno police chief in 2001, even though police sources
said the department twice investigated accusations that Dyer had sex with an
underage girl in the mid-1980s. He declined to discuss the allegations. City
officials, including Mayor Alan Autry, and many business leaders backed his
selection as chief.

Dan Fitzpatrick, head of the city's Redevelopment Agency, kept his job after
being cited by police for allegedly soliciting an undercover officer posing
as a prostitute in 2000.

Planning consultant Jeff Roberts pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting
extortion and to tax evasion in the federal Operation Rezone investigation
in 1995. He went to prison, returned to Fresno and last month represented
developers at the podium when the City Council approved the Copper River
project.

And let's not forget that many of us clamored for the hiring of Jerry
Tarkanian, who previously ran outlaw programs at Nevada-Las Vegas and Long
Beach State, as Fresno State basketball coach.

Given a third chance to show he could do things right, Tarkanian oversaw an
operation that became a national embarrassment before his forced
resignation.

Why is Fresno so forgiving?

"We are all conscious of our propensity for failure," says the Rev. G.L.
Johnson, pastor of Peoples Church in northeast Fresno.

"You have to be realistic about people. Who's to say that tomorrow something
might happen to you or me? So you forgive and give people a chance."

In other words, we're empathetic.

Or it could be that we just don't expect much from our leaders.

Now we'll find out if these great unexpectations include forgiving an
allegation that Fresno's designated image-builder tried to score crack on
one of the worst streets in Naples, Fla.