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 Contact: http://www.fresnobee.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/161 Feedback: http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/lets_ed/send/ Forum: http://forums.centralvalley.com/Forums/ 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.