DA RECALL ELECTION PROBABLE DESPITE FUROR

Despite some claims of election fraud in signature gathering, a special May
election to determine whether District Attorney Paula Kamena should be
recalled from office is probably inevitable, Marin County supervisors were
told yesterday.

"There's not a reasonable likelihood that anyone could challenge those
(recall) petitions and invalidate them," County Counsel Patrick Faulkner
told the board.

Faulkner's view seemed to leave board members resigned to the notion that
they will follow state election laws and officially schedule the recall
election at their Jan. 23 meeting.

But before the board could take up additional matters, Supervisor Steve
Kinsey blamed recall proponents for an election he called "a self-serving
farce" that will cost county taxpayers an estimated $500,000.

"It's a tragedy that this is being foisted upon the citizens of this
county," he said. "I certainly do not think that it will succeed" in
recalling Kamena from office.

An alliance of family court critics and citizens opposed to Marin's
marijuana prosecution policies turned in nearly 14,000 valid signatures to
support the recall, more than enough to qualify it for a special countywide
election in May.

If an election is called, voters will be asked if Kamena should be swept
from office before her term ends at the end of next year.

News that Kamena likely will be Marin's first DA to face a recall vote has
not sat easily with her supporters, some of whom have raised questions
about the veracity of Kamena's opponents in mounting the recall drive.

Kinsey and other officials say they have been peppered with calls from
constituents who said they signed the petitions after being told that they
were supporting medical marijuana, not a district attorney recall.

Kamena has noted that petitions supporting her recall make no mention of
medical marijuana, though the recall drive -launched by critics of her
handling of a Novato child abduction case - appeared to be heading nowhere
until the medical marijuana contingent entered the fray last summer with
paid signature gatherers.

Lynnette Shaw, founding director of the Marin Alliance for Medical
Marijuana, turned in the three boxes full of signed petitions on the day
signatures were due last November.

Shaw has blasted prosecution guidelines Kamena instituted in medical
marijuana cases as ineffective and a green light to law enforcement
officers to seize all marijuana they find - and ask questions about medical
necessities later.

Kamena said she is being unfairly targeted and that medical marijuana
policies adopted by her office are among the most liberal in the state.

Shaw could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Marin's political and legal establishment has been roiled by the high cost
of a recall election.

Michael Smith, Marin's registrar of voters, said the vote will cost
taxpayers an estimated $500,000 because it will necessitate printing
about150,000 ballots and ballot handbooks, and activating 114 polling places.

Despite the criticism, Faulkner told the Board of Supervisors yesterday
that the recall election appears to be a done deal.

Asked by Supervisor Annette Rose if a legal challenge could be brought to
halt the election, Faulkner said history has shown such tactics to be of
little use.

He noted that state elections law does allow petition signees to have their
signatures removed if they claim they were misled - but only before
petitions are submitted and certified.

And while state law makes representing the contents of a petition a
misdemeanor, Faulkner said, there is no legal provision that calls for
signatures to be invalidated if obtained through these means.

The one case where petitions were invalidated by a court after their
submission involved a heated ballot measure over a proposed new stadium for
the San Francisco 49ers football team. In that case, Faulkner said, a state
appeals court found "blatant falsehoods" in statements printed on petitions
that prompted the court to invalidate the petitions altogether.

The complaints in this case focus on verbal statements signature gatherers
may have made to people they approached in seeking signatures.

Faulkner said such statements could be construed as the type of "political
speech" that traditionally is more protected than written words on
petitions intended for certification by a government agency.

Kamena doesn't plan to mount a legal challenge, and is focusing her energy
on a campaign to show her accomplishments in two years in office.

She has set up a campaign committee, co-chaired by Marin Sheriff Robert
Doyle and Marin Superintendent of Schools Mary Jane Burke, and said she
already has rounded up endorsements from constituents ranging from the gay
and lesbian group Spectrum to longtime Marin GOP leader Ed McGill.

She said she has gained pledges of support from prominent defense attorneys
and all the attorneys in her office, in sharp contrast to the bitter
divisions that split local prosecutors before the 1998 election in which
she ran against a longtime colleague, John Posey.

Kamena won the election with nearly 56 percent of the vote. Posey garnered
33 percent, while a third candidate, San Francisco prosecutor Dennis
Cashman of Novato, gained 11.1 percent.

She said her accomplishments include her office's bolstered commitment to
prosecuting domestic violence cases and her role in establishing a center
where law enforcement officials gather to interview young victims of crime
to minimize the trauma of putting these youngsters through multiple interviews.

"Of course I would rather not be in this position," Kamena said yesterday.
"But I'm trying to keep a positive attitude. It's never a waste of time to
show the people that you're doing a good job."