NEW MENDOCINO SHERIFF, DA DOWNPLAY POT USERS

In a region noted for its passionate and sometimes quirky politics,
Mendocino County voters may have outdone themselves in 1998.

They elected a law enforcement team Tuesday that favors
decriminalizing marijuana, including a district attorney who spent
nine months in federal prison for failing to pay federal income taxes.

The election of a sheriff who downplays marijuana may not come as a
surprise in a county with two generations of pot growers in the
mountains, but the victory of Norman Vroman, 62, a Ukiah defense
attorney, over incumbent District Attorney Susan Massini, 55, was an
upset by any standards.

"The people were ready for a change," said Vroman, who garnered about
52 percent of the vote. "They were fed up with the incumbent."

In the June primary, Massini was the top vote-getter with 44 percent
of the vote, to 30 percent for Vroman. In Tuesday's runoff, a
politician in Massini's position -- she's been in office 12 years --
would expect to pick up the majority she needed from among the 26
percent of June voters who voted for losing conservative candidate Al
Kubanis.

Particularly against someone with Vroman's record.

"I don't have a felony record," the victor emphasized Wednesday,
noting that he could not practice law in California or be a candidate
for political office under such circumstances. "It was a misdemeanor
conviction."

Vroman said he failed to pay income taxes for about five years in the
1980s, but as far as he is concerned, "I didn't break any law."

"It had to do with a principle rather than the IRS or money or
anything else," he said. "The principle is that there was no law that
requires me to file a return."

When he demanded to see the law, "a federal judge told me, 'We don't
have to do that,' and it was a downhill slide after that."

The downhill slide included nine months in a federal prison in 1992
and two personal bankruptcy filings, the last in 1994. But all of that
is "old news" dredged up by his political opponents, Vroman said.

"The people of Mendocino County saw through this smoke screen put up
by the incumbent," he said. "My qualifications as a trial attorney are
outstanding. I know what I'm doing. I'm going to be in the courtroom,
a hands-on prosecutor. I look forward to it. It's obvious the people
agreed with me."

Vroman's stance as a tax protester struck a chord in a county with a
long political history of anti-government, rural independence, and
where marijuana is the county's largest cash crop.

The sheriff-elect is Tony Craver, a sheriff's lieutenant who polled 58
percent of the vote in the race to succeed retiring sheriff Jim Tuso.

Craver said Wednesday he and Vroman have not discussed their common
view that marijuana ought to be decriminalized, but both are bound to
uphold the law.

"My attitude is going to be, as long as marijuana is illegal, I will
not discourage deputies from enforcing the marijuana law," he said.

"I don't smoke marijuana and I don't advocate it and I'm not in favor
of it," said Craver, but decades of eradication efforts and other laws
have not succeeded and are drawing time and resources from drug
problems that Mendocino County residents find more
threatening.

"I would certainly emphasize the methamphetamine problem and hope the
deputies would spend their time doing that instead of going after
people who are smoking pot," said Craver. "We can't ask deputies not
to enforce the marijuana law, but it's not going to be a high priority."

Checked-by: Patrick Henry