No Confidence

Janet Orsi

King of the Hill: During the debate over the fate of Lafferty Ranch, City Councilman Matt Maguire conducted tours to the area.

Questions linger despite charges in Petaluma voter-fraud case

By Paula Harris

AFTER A 16-MONTH probe into what state investigators call one of the biggest voter-fraud scandals in California, the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office and the state Election Board have wrapped up investigations of the Petaluma voter-fraud case, in which some 2,000 signatures were forged to help a controversial land-swap measure get on the 1996 ballot.

Five people have been charged on various counts of fraud and forgery in connection with the scandal. Yet the collective sigh of relief from the community has not been forthcoming. On the contrary, many are angry because so many troubling questions remain unanswered. “We’re adamant the public needs to know exactly what went on in this attempt to deceive them,” says Hank Zucker, spokesman for Citizens for Lafferty. “Any arrangement that doesn’t lead to a full disclosure is not acceptable.”

Moreover, the fact that three of those five suspects charged have close ties to two Sonoma County supervisors, and county District Attorney Mike Mullins has not pursued that link further, does not sit well with many local political observers.

The investigation so far “is only part of the story. I’m sure there’s a very extensive story about leaders in the community,” says Petaluma City Councilwoman Jane Hamilton. “What disturbs me is the blanket of silence people in key positions have laid over the issue. Instead of leadership, all we’re hearing is denials. They should be insisting on a full prosecution, charging for every one of those forgeries because each one has a victim.”

Petition supporters backed an ill-fated attempt to place an initiative on the 1996 ballot that would have approved the swap of city-owned Lafferty Ranch, atop Sonoma Mountain, to millionaire rancher Peter Pfendler in exchange for $1.4 million and Moon Ranch, an old dude ranch at the base of the mountain.

The Independent has requested from county officials a public records act to obtain a full list of all those whose names were forged.

Two weeks ago, Mullins filed felony fraud charges against several local political movers and shakers in connection with the case. Those charged include Martin McClure, a Santa Rosa political consultant, who worked as Supervisor Paul Kelley’s aide from 1994 until February 1997. McClure is active in county Republican circles and ran unsuccessfully for state Assembly in 1986. He is accused of six felony counts of forging signatures on the petitions and two counts of circulating the petitions with forged signatures.

Steve Henricksen, a candidate for the state Legislature last year and a member of the Sonoma County Republican Party Central Committee, is accused of four felony counts of forging signatures, and two counts of circulating the petitions with forged signatures. A close friend of Kelley, who assigned him a post on the Sonoma County Fair Board in 1995, Henricksen recently resigned from that post, citing “negative publicity.” His wife, Donna, also stepped down from her position as an administrative aide to Kelley.

Marion Hodge, a 12-year aide to Sonoma County Supervisor Jim Harberson–who represents the Petaluma district–has been accused of a single misdemeanor: filing petitions she knew weren’t circulated by Petaluma residents, as required by state law. Hodge recently resigned her position with Harberson.

Craig and Shelly Arthur, a former Petaluma couple who were arrested in May, have accepted plea bargains. The couple will be sentenced Jan. 13. Transcripts of investigator interviews with the Arthurs reveal that, as the deadline to file the petitions loomed, there was panic that they wouldn’t gather enough signatures. “About a week to 10 days before the, ah, petitions were due back in, Martin [McClure] and I sat down [and decided] we weren’t gonna make it, and he mentioned that we might forge some signatures and I asked him what’s gonna happen when we get caught,” Craig Arthur testified, according to the court transcript. “Martin, of course, working for the county as an aide to one of the supervisors, ah, represented that he knew how, how things were done and that the chances of getting caught were slim. I believed him and we went on and did that.”

Hodge hired McClure, and the Committee for Choice paid him $1,200 to get signatures.

The Lafferty swap revisited.

MEANWHILE, Supervisors Harberson and Kelley are rushing to proclaim their innocence, saying they had no role in the scandal. “I had nothing to do with it. I was gone on vacation and came home and discovered it,” says Harberson. “I asked Marion Hodge specifically if she had anything to do with this. She said no and I believed her. I was extremely disappointed and devastated she was charged with a misdemeanor. … She was someone who never gave any indication of breaking any law.”

Harberson knew Hodge was collecting signatures, and told her she had to do it on her own time. He told Hodge that he thought the initiative was “a loser,” he says.

“It was obvious the people of Petaluma did not want to get rid of Lafferty,” says Harberson. “While there’s a presumption of innocence, I’m sure people ended up forging signatures because there was so little public support for getting rid of Lafferty.”

Harberson is not surprised he’s now under suspicion. “This is politics and you’re going to be a target,” he comments. “If you’re looking for fairness in politics, you’re going to be disappointed. You’re not going to find it.”

Meanwhile, Kelley hurriedly sent out a press release two weeks ago, after the resignations of Steve and Donna Henricksen, noting he is “shocked and surprised at the allegations around this issue.”

YET ONE OF THE MAJOR unanswered questions in the probe is why certain individuals, some from outside Petaluma, and not all avid hikers and park enthusiasts, were so interested in swapping one ranch for another in Petaluma.

“Some people held the minority belief that Moon was better for Petaluma, but it’s stretching the imagination to think of holding that belief to the degree they were willing to commit felonies to get that result,” reasons Zucker. “A lot of people are acting as if they were bought and paid for, but there’s no evidence.”

Hamilton has her own theory: “People were interested because it was a county network, a small network that wanted to help Peter Pfendler with his agenda. They were willing to risk their careers,” she claims.

Pfendler did not return calls last week for comment.

According to county election records, in 1993 Harberson received $1,500 in campaign contributions from Peter and Connie Pfendler. Between 1985 and 1994, Harberson also received $700 from Matt Hudson, Pfendler’s attorney, and $450 from Donald Smith, who filed the failed initiatives for the Committee for Choice.

In 1994, Kelley received $550 in contributions from campaign manager Martin McClure, and $130 from Stephen Henricksen, who also loaned him $500. Also, in 1994, he received $400 from Craig Arthur.

Meanwhile, Harberson is under fire from Petaluma City Council members and others who charge that on the county level he’s obstructing plans to turn Lafferty into a wilderness park, as opponents of the swap desired. “[Harberson] certainly isn’t helping either to move Lafferty along or to get any other regional park, though a year ago he said he’d look for another site for a park with more family facilities,” says Zucker. “[Access to Lafferty Ranch] is being fought every step of the way–Harberson is certainly listening to his friends on the mountain more than his neighbors in Petaluma.”

Harberson disagrees, saying the delays are necessary to fulfill EIR requirements. “The city has to do an EIR because of state law–it’s unbelievable the City Council would not want to have a full EIR–and I can’t move this along legally,” he says.

He’s asked Pfendler to dedicate the remainder of Moon Ranch as a regional park. Since Moon is more accessible, says Harberson, most people would go there, it would be used more than Lafferty, and Pfendler would have his privacy. Pfendler, says Harberson, has not yet responded to the request. Harberson adds that the open space district has already paid $1.2 million to Pfendler for development rights on Moon.

This week, Petaluma Police Chief Pat Parks told the Independent that the department intends to review the entire voter-fraud case and will ask the District Attorney’s Office to investigate further if it sees a need. Meanwhile, City Council members and community activists are left to guessing games. “No one is coming forward. Why are the people who sponsored the initiatives not coming forward?” asks Hamilton. “The people who are silent are still holding out on the public and are still planning to run for office and do other things in the community. Lafferty cost us our innocence.

“It almost makes you wonder if there’s buried treasure up there.”

From the Nov. 26-Dec. 3, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Quiet Riot

Michael Amsler

The Hunter: Investigative journalist and author Martin Lee’s new book, The Beast Reawakens, spotlights the resurgence of fascist groups. Lee interviewed everyone from youthful skinheads to expatriate Nazis to paint a sobering portrait of the right-wing’s reign of terror.

Fascism reawakens: Sonoma County author Martin Lee illuminates the Nazi renaissance

By Patrick Sullivan

FLAMES EXPLODE and leap to devour the tall building. Hurled gasoline bombs have found their target, and an ugly cheer rises from the huge crowd of men who rule this street in the German town of Rostock. They are young, they are angry, and they are Nazis.

Their fists, boots, and clubs ensure that none of the people trapped in the burning building will escape through the ground-floor exits. As the flames rise higher, a sense of triumph fills the crowd. They have reason for their joy: No one is going to prevent this murderous act of terror. The local police stand idly by–they have made an arrangement not to intervene.

Cries of “Lynch them!” are heard, and the crowd suddenly breaks into a rendition of “Deutschland über Alles.” Behind the crowd, flames rapidly climb the building. Faces peer out of windows as people scramble from floor to floor, desperate for rescue. But no help is forthcoming.

Horrified readers will be forgiven for hoping that this is a scene from the Deutschland of the 1930s. But there is no refuge in the past. This savage attack occurred only five years ago as part of a long series of outrages against racial minorities in the newly reunified Germany.

A well-organized campaign of riots, burnings, and physical attacks–coordinated with cell phones and fax machines–resulted in the deaths of nearly a hundred people. That grim figure includes a Turkish grandmother and two young children burned to death by assailants who shouted “Heil Hitler.”

The beast is back. Fascism has re-emerged on the world scene, igniting new hatred and reviving old horrors. And America is not immune: We have seen a rising toll of terror from ultra-right-wing violence, including the 169 people who died in the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. The explosion that destroyed the Murrah Federal Building also blew to bits our hopes that right-wing terrorism was a tragedy of another era.

Now we fear it may be the wave of the future.

Standing in the forefront of the attempt to understand this terrifying phenomenon is Sonoma County author Martin Lee. Lee has spent years exploring the renaissance of Nazi power across Europe and America. Now, in a chilling new book, The Beast Reawakens (Little, Brown & Co.; $24.95), he shines a spotlight on the conspiracies and accommodations that allowed fascism to survive World War II and re-emerge in force at the dawn of the new century.

Through the Looking Glass

MARTIN LEE is a slim, soft-spoken man with a polite smile. There is an air of matter-of-factness about him that stands in uncanny contrast to the subject of his book. As he sits in a sunny, small-town Sonoma County coffeehouse, he speaks in an understated fashion about some of the most terrifying personalities in the neo-fascist underground.

Some might think Lee an unlikely infiltrator. Many of the Nazis who spoke at length with him would be surprised to learn that Lee’s mother fled Czechoslovakia just ahead of Hitler’s death-camp snatch-squads. Nevertheless, Lee was superbly successful at ferreting out a treasure trove of information about neo-fascism.

The Beast Reawakens took over four years to research and write. Lee traveled to more than a dozen countries, interviewing the old leaders and the new blood of the extreme right wing. For those who marvel at his commitment to spending long hours with racist fanatics, Lee has a wry answer.

“I don’t know, maybe I should be on a psychiatrist’s couch,” he says with a laugh. “There were certainly times when things got very weird, when the whole world seemed upside down.”

Lee, 43, has been a working journalist for decades. He is a co-founder of the media watchdog group FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) and has written two previous books. One of these, Acid Dreams (Grove Press, 1986), has acquired something of a cult following in Northern California, exploring as it does the strange role played by the Central Intelligence Agency in the distribution of LSD.

As part of his research for The Beast Reawakens, the author raced around Europe to reach the elderly Nazi survivors of the Third Reich before they died. These encounters often turned out to be as bizarre as they were disturbing. Even Lee’s remarkable equilibrium was shaken by his experiences.

Spain under the fascist dictator Francisco Franco was a common refuge for Nazis fleeing the Allied victory. So Lee was not surprised to discover notorious SS Gen. Lon Degrelle living openly in an apartment in Malaga. But after he secured an interview with this close confidante of Adolf Hitler, the author was flabbergasted by the reception he received.

“He greets me with a bear hug and ushers me into his really posh apartment with a beautiful view of the Mediterranean,” Lee says. “There were original Roman statues, Flemish wall paintings. I thought I was in an art museum.”

Degrelle was well accustomed to starstruck neo-Nazis from around the world making pilgrimages to his home. Many young fascists looked upon the old general as a father figure, and he assumed that Lee had come to worship at the shrine.

“He took me around and showed me all his war mementos,” Lee says with a grim smile. “Then he picks up his Iron Cross, this German military medal that Hitler had personally given him. He takes the medal, puts it around my neck, and clasps an arm around me as a photographer comes out and snaps our picture.”

It was the clear links between old Nazis like Degrelle and the new crop of fascists springing up in Europe and America that caught Lee’s attention. He soon discovered that high-level survivors of the Third Reich played a disturbing role in inspiring and grooming their ideological offspring.

How did fascism survive defeat? Lee says patience and tenacity played an important role.

“These are people who don’t think in terms of the week or the next month,” he says. “They think in terms of the next generation. They have this mad dream of a National Socialist world, and they’re willing to bide their time.”

Escaping Justice

THE BOOK PROVIDES damning evidence that our own government played a significant, and appalling, part in the survival of fascism. World War II had barely ended before the United States began to employ notorious Nazis to spy against the new threat–the Soviet Union. Foremost among these recruits was Gen. Reinhard Gehlen, whose vast Nazi spy ring was absorbed almost wholesale into the newly born CIA.

Lee believes that the Nuremberg trials–which sentenced some German war criminals to death–barely scratched the surface of Nazi war guilt. Many important supporters of the Hitler regime escaped without punishment; many others actually went to work for the American government. It was all part of a strategy to build Europe into a fortress against the Red Menace, and punishment for war crimes of the Third Reich took a back seat.

Indeed, the Soviet Union was also busy recruiting Hitler’s followers, employing them as spies and soldiers. But whether the defeated fascists worked for the Reds or for the red, white, and blue, their ultimate allegiance seems to have been to the survival of their Nazi ideals.

“Fascists and Nazis were extremely opportunistic, very pragmatic in their political strategies,” Lee says. “In some ways, they’re much less ideological than people think. They’re willing to make alliances with almost anyone if it advances their cause.”

In the shadowy world of Cold War Europe, Nazis coolly played the two superpowers off each other. Meanwhile, they accumulated fortunes, built their power, and groomed a new generation of shock troops.

There is something in Lee’s book to anger or unnerve almost everyone, regardless of their ideology. As the Nazis set themselves up as spy masters and arms merchants, their influence reached into some surprising places. Lee indicts everyone from Arab nationalists to U.S. senators to the Israeli government to Latin American dictatorships for cooperation with the Nazi network.

Through interviews, observation, and research into recently declassified documents, Lee was able to assemble a shocking picture of growing fascist influence and organization.

After the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, fascism emerged from the shadows and dove into the political mainstream. Neo-Nazis played an important role in the establishment of new German rules on citizenship and immigration. In countries like France and Italy, fascist political parties like the National Front became major forces at the ballot box, and hate crimes have become a daily occurrence on the continent.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, things were also heating up.

Made in America?

THE VIPER MILITIA, the Republic of Texas, the Freemen of Montana: A brief glance at recent headlines makes paramilitary groups seem a dime a dozen in ’90s America. Still, for all the press such groups receive, we seem farther than ever from understanding what makes them tick.

Armed groups of anti-government zealots are frightening enough to most people. But for all we think we know about militias, it is what we don’t see that should really scare us, says Lee.

The Beast Reawakens documents disturbing links between German neo-Nazis, American white supremacists, and our country’s armed militia movement. The racist right, according to Lee, sees the growth of anti-government sentiment as a huge opportunity, and they are ready to take full advantage.

“They have realized that swastikas and hoods turn people off,” Lee says. “But if you talk about gun control and big government, people will listen.”

Of course, Lee admits that not all militia members are racists. He believes only about a quarter of the 225 known militias have ties to white supremacist hate groups. But many think that’s frightening enough.

Among the book’s more startling revelations is the role white supremacists may have played in the Oklahoma City bombing. Lee establishes numerous links between convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh and German army veteran Andreas Strassmeir, who trains self-styled soldiers at a bizarre white supremacist compound on the Oklahoma border.

Here in California, there are nearly 20 active racist groups, according to Klanwatch, an organization devoted to monitoring racist activity. These include skinheads, Nazis, and the Ku Klux Klan.

Lee avers that there are also militia groups operating in some of the more rural counties here in Northern California. Many are motivated by anger about environmental regulations. We don’t hear a lot from these organizations, but don’t take that as a reassurance.

“Just because they’re low-key doesn’t mean they’re not active,” he says. “It just means they’re not grabbing headlines.”

Crypto-fascist politicians may be even more dangerous than terrorists in an era of increasingly successful electoral forays by the likes of Pat Buchanan and David Duke. Concealing bigotry beneath the mask of mainstream conservative views is an increasingly popular tactic in the neo-Nazi movement.

In The Beast Reawakens, one former associate says of Pete Peters, a prominent white supremacist, “He doesn’t espouse Hitler. He doesn’t use the swastika or Klan robes. Instead, he uses the Bible and the American flag. Peters talks in a language we’re used to hearing. His hatred is masked in God.”

All this begs a simple question: What is the attraction? Why do apparently ordinary people become involved in such a widely discredited social movement? Lee says the answer is complex.

On an individual level, young fascists are often motivated by an understandable need for identity and community. To an impressionable new recruit, right-wing organizations provide an attractive feeling of purpose and camaraderie in an increasingly uncertain world. Hard-core racist propaganda often comes only later.

Regardless of whether they choose terrorist violence or deceptive political stealth campaigns, American right-wingers are well served by a growing subculture that nurtures their views in a thousand ways.

Lee recounts with equal parts humor and unease an incident that occurred after a talk he recently gave at a Dallas college. Militia members were in the audience, and one came up afterwards to give him a copy of a right-wing magazine. Lee looked it over on the plane home, and he says it gave him considerable food for thought.

“The articles weren’t that interesting,” he explains. “It was the advertising that caught my eye. The right-wing social scene is very active. . . . There was even a Christian Patriot dating service. These people never have to leave their subculture, even to date.”

A Fertile Field

NAILING DOWN a social explanation for the rise of neo-fascism is tougher than you might think. Coming up with solutions is harder still. Even getting experts to agree on a firm definition of this slippery ideology is no easy matter.

“Fascism is a very difficult thing to pin down,” Lee says. “Academics are always fighting over the definition. Historically, it mutates and goes through different phases.”

Among the factors fueling the growing strength of the extreme right are economic upheaval and a widening cultural-identity crisis. Lee says globalization plays a key role. As the world gets smaller, people are increasingly fearful about their employment prospects and more uncertain about who they are in a cultural sense.

“The impact of globalization is not just economic, it is profoundly cultural,” Lee says. “People are concerned about losing their language and traditions. Is every street corner in the world going to have a McDonald’s?

“We have an evolving global monoculture, and fascists have been able to speak to legitimate anxieties about it in a very manipulative way.”

In response to deepening unease about the complicated dynamic of globalization, neo-fascists have crafted a very simple message. They speak of defending cultural identity and of taking pride in national heritage. But their solutions to new problems reek of something very old.

Scapegoating is the tool of choice. Fascists argue that complex economic and cultural problems can be simply blamed on immigrants, minorities, and the international bogeymen at the United Nations.

If we just kick out the guest workers and the U.N. black helicopters, everything will be fine, they say.

Of course, history has amply demonstrated that simple solutions have a way of turning into Final Solutions. Unfortunately, opponents of fascism cannot count on people to remember that terrifying historical fact.

Easy remedies are hard to find. For those who hope that neo-fascists, white supremacists, and militias will just fade away, Lee holds out little hope. He believes it’s crucial to understand and evaluate the phenomenon. But he doesn’t think the force that managed to survive the crushing defeat and disgrace of World War II is ready to die yet.

“The factors fueling the growth of neo-fascism aren’t going away anytime soon,” Lee cautions. “I think we can expect violent eruptions of this sort to continue for the foreseeable future.”

From the Nov. 20-26, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Slippery Slope

Fallen Giants: A splintered oak pierces the air at the E&J Gallo project. .

Conservationists hope to protect oak woodlands

By Dylan Bennett

RURAL RESIDENTS in the county, savoring the rustic country landscape, face a two-pronged environmental attack on the good life as they know it. While timber interests actively pursue the mature forests of local landowners, the local $2 billion grape industry is threatening wildlife habitat and biological diversity through the aggressive conversion of hillside forests into profitable steep-slope vineyards.

That’s the perspective of environmental activists hoping the county Board of Supervisors will pass a law to stop steep-slope conversions. Mark Green, head of Sonoma County Conservation Action, says his organization is working with several other groups in the fact-finding stage of an effort to create a county ordinance to strictly regulate and limit the conversion of steep-slope forests.

In Sonoma County, landowners who want to cut timber for development are allowed to log only in small increments. But those wishing to convert to grape cultivation may clear cut their land.

The new law should be similar to a 1990 Napa County ordinance, but offering tougher protection of wildlife habitat. The coalition of environmentalists expects to have its proposal clearly defined by year’s end, when it will push county supes to pick up the cause. “Vineyards should not be built on these very steep slopes, and oak woodlands ought to be left as oak woodlands,” says Green. “Because habitat fills to capacity, if you take out a whole bunch of habitat, all the animals do not move next door, since next door is full. So they die.

“The conversion of the county in the monoculture of grapes is not in the interest of the biological health of the county, or in the public interest, particularly when you tie those issues to issues of sedimentation from erosion, which goes directly to the threatened coho salmon and steelhead.”

Organizations working with SCCA include Friends of the Russian River, the Westside Winery Group, the Russian River Task Force, the California Native Plant Society, and the Audubon Society. “It’s a vital, diverse, and skilled group,” says Green. “They’re sharp people who have done a lot of politics. Something is going to happen.” According to Green, about 1,500 to 2,000 acres are converted to vineyards each year.

The most dramatic case of hillside vineyard conversion is the proposed 500-acre vineyard project by E&J Gallo Winery on Westside Road in Healdsburg that aims to convert 174 acres of forest. The California Department of Forestry has required Gallo to get an environmental impact report for the wooded portion of the plan, but normally conversions of hardwood forests without conifer trees do not require a timber harvest plan and are loosely regulated, according to activists. Two weeks ago, Gallo representatives announced that the company will delay the timber harvest plan for a year, though it has not withdrawn its application to cut down the trees. In fact, work already had begun on the property, with several large oaks lying toppled or broken on the land.

While Green describes aerial photographs that show “huge scalped-off areas of oak woodland that are being converted into vineyard” and “look almost like bomb craters,” Rick Theis, executive director of the Sonoma County Grape Growers Association, says any accusation of vineyard industry malpractice applies only to a small minority. “We’ve got 90 to 95 percent of the growers out there who are doing things right,” says Theis, referring to erosion control. “Five percent of the people out there are causing a serious problem.”

THEIS, Judy James of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, and Bob Anderson of United Winegrowers for Sonoma County don’t react to the question of wildlife habitat, but point a collective finger at the lack of anti-erosion measures taken by some small-scale newcomers to the vineyard business.

“It’s an attitude,” says Theis. “They are generally property-rights advocates who say it’s my property and I can do anything I want with it.

“Usually they are fairly wealthy and want to come to Sonoma County to live the life of a gentleman farmer. They’re wealthy because they are stingy people when it comes to spending money. They are not willing to hire the right people to do the job.”

Ironically, the three agricultural trade organizations say they have complained to state officials about not enforcing existing water-quality and wildlife-protection regulations. Lack of enforcement, they say, has contributed to the current movement to prohibit hillside conversions.

“Erosion is only a small part of the larger issue here,” responds Green. “We are talking about the conversion of oak forests, coniferous forests, wildlife habitat. Gallo did that. Kendall-Jackson is doing that. It’s not just little people who are doing that. It’s everybody who’s converting these habitat areas on the hillsides. In terms of the eradication of habitat issue, which is primary, the major players are doing that aggressively.”

From the Nov. 13-19, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.