Just a little hindsight

by  Marty Pezzaglia,

S.O.S. : Republicans are getting a bad rap!

When I was a Midshipman at the California Maritime Academy the call letters 
S.O.S. were used to signal distress in times of emergency. Today Nevada 
County is in distress relative to the slickest political coup Nevada County 
has ever seen. The chief puppeteer pulling all the strings is CABPRO (The 
California Association of Business, Property and Resource Owners), a 
nonprofit California Corporation that has never filed for tax exempt 
status, a clever ruse to avoid financial disclosure.

CABPRO campaigns for Drew Bedwell and Robin Sutherland, their two 
supervisorial hopefuls for District’s 3 and 4. CABPRO also sponsored the 
first version of the budget busting “reimbursement” initiative on the 
November ballot. CABPRO is run by former Supervisor Todd Juvinall and 
Field Director Pat Davison, both of whom have strong ties to the “Wise Use” 
Movement. (Pat is the former CA Field Director of the now-defunct People 
for the USA headquartered in Boulder, CO).

Together with former Supervisor Fran Grattan Freedle, and Drew Bedwell’s 
Secretary of “Protect Your Property Rights” Shirley Hendrickson, this 
coalition removed Karen Chileski from her post as Chair of Nevada County’s 
Republican Central Committee.

If the move against Chileski didn’t upset the majority of caring 
Republicans in this county, Rene’ Antonson’s decision to run as a write-in 
candidate for District 4 surely has. His decision has created such turmoil 
within the Republican Central Committee that the master of dirty politics 
in Butte County, John Gillander, has joined the fray to destroy Antonson’s 
campaign, as evidenced by Gillander’s scathing letter to The Union on July 
23rd, 2002 where he said he wouldn’t vote for Rene’…guess not, since he 
doesn’t even live in this county.

John Gillander’s brand of politics makes Drew Bedwell look like Mr. 
Congeniality. Check out www.chicopolitics.com, or the Chico Enterprise 
Record archives and search Gillander. But what do Gillander and Bedwell 
have in common other than their mutual desire to dismantle the workings of 
local government as we know it? Gillander is also connected to the 
notoriously unethical former Chair of the Butte County Republican Party, 
David Reade.

How are all of these people/groups related? All roads lead right to David 
Reade’s political machine known as “Pillars”, in Chico. On 12/02/01 the 
Chico Enterprise Record defined David Reade as the master of Dirty 
Politics. David Reade was Supervisor Sue Horne’s campaign consultant, and 
David Reade is Robin Sutherland’s campaign consultant. And Drew Bedwell 
and Robin Sutherland are CABPRO’s picks for the Republican Party.

This is a strange time for Republicans in this county. A vote for Bedwell 
or Sutherland would put the county Board of Supervisors under the control 
of CABPRO and their fiscally irresponsible agenda. A vote for Rene’ 
Antonson in District 4 runs the risk of splitting the Republican vote, and 
this has the CABPRO controlled Republican Central Committee going nuts 
because Rene’ is an outspoken critic of CABPRO, and they can’t control his 
voting the way they hope to control Robin’s. Maybe Robin will drop out of 
the race and we will see Drew and CABPRO try to heal the wounds and endorse 
Rene’ in November. Even PYPR’s Secretary Shirley Hendrickson has recently 
moved over, and is firing shots at Robin Sutherland, as per her August 2nd 
article in The Union titled, “Indian Gaming An Issue”, which must make even 
Drew queasy.

CABPRO has brought shame to the Republican Party by engaging in the lowest 
forms of dirty politics imaginable…as close to the McCarthy era as we have 
ever seen. Republicans need to wrest control of their party from CABPRO, 
and never allow any other group to politicize the supervisorial seats that 
are intended to be non-partisan.

What CABPRO has done to this county requires an S.O.S. to all concerned 
citizens regardless of party affiliation, to bring sanity, civility, and 
accountability back to local politics. All of us, including the county 
budget, will be on the endangered species list if CABPRO succeeds in November.

Marty Pezzaglia, Nevada City