Late-Arriving KK Mailer Angers Opponents

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A recent mailer in support of Measure KK kicked up a firestorm of protest from opponents.
A recent mailer in support of Measure KK kicked up a firestorm of protest from opponents.

A campaign mailer that arrived in the mailboxes of Laguna Beach residents late this week stoked fury in opponents of Measure KK, a medical marijuana dispensary initiative on Tuesday’s ballot.

Some of the measure’s early supporters also expressed outrage over the mailer that misstates the position of elected city officials, police and firefighters, which have publicly disavowed Measure KK.

“This is classic black ops skullduggery,” said Rob Zur Schmiede, a Laguna Beach council member and KK opponent. The mailer demonstrates that the measure’s backers are “unscrupulous liars who care not a whit for Laguna,” Zur Schmiede said Friday, Nov. 4. “It’s all aimed at low-information voters.”

Measure KK promoter Houston Durand and a Laguna Beach resident did not return phone calls and texts seeking comment about the mailer Saturday. His Costa Mesa businesses have contributed more than $60,000 in support of the measure, disclosure reports filed this week show.

Besides misrepresenting the positions of authority figures, the mailer also sows confusion among potential voters with graphics representing ballot boxes that conflate the intent of two local measures on the extensive ballot: KK would repeal the 2009 ban on medicinal marijuana dispensaries in Laguna Beach and allow two to open, an issue that opinion polls show divides the city nearly equally, while LL would increase the bed tax on hotel guests to generate $2 million for general budget purposes, which is predicted to succeed though it has met with some resistance.

“Either they purposefully transposed the writing on the LL and KK boxes or they were high. I suspect both,” said Deborah Schlesinger, who helped organize the No on KK committee.

“Whatever credibility they had with me, they’ve squandered it,” said Billy Fried, an Indy columnist, who prior to the mailing’s arrival included Durand as a guest on a radio show about the measure broadcast by KX 93.5 Thursday, Nov. 3. “I feel betrayed,” Fried said in an interview Saturday.

Fried said he queried Durand about the mailer via text. Durand’s response was, “I’m only responding to their dirty tricks.”

Durand isn’t alone in calling out KK opponents for fudging their own campaign materials.

Opponents’ mailers use “scare tactics,” pointed out resident Michael Beanan, citing, for example, two points in recent mailers suggesting that a dispensary would allow distribution near pre-schools and allow operation by felons. (The ballot language excludes proximity within 1,000 feet of schools for kindergarten through 12th grade and prohibits licensing anyone with a felony in the previous 10 years.)

“Dial down the fear,” urged Beanan, who said city officials lacked the foresight to draft their own dispensary regulations and set their own restrictive conditions that would be a convenience to the legitimate needs of medicinal marijuana users in town. During a hearing after KK qualified for the ballot in April, an operator of a Santa Ana collective testified that 748 Laguna Beach residents are members, Beanan pointed out. “This is a war on drugs and a war on people who use drugs,” he said.

Elected officials say their opposition to KK is not intended to block access to medical marijuana by people with legitimate prescriptions, but a disagreement with what they view as an imperfect measure: one that skirts the town’s land use rules and is crafted to benefit a select group.

LL champion and KK critic, incumbent City Council candidate Bob Whalen, called the mailer’s claims “outrageous and embarrassing.” He wondered if the factual misstatements in the mailer could trigger prosecution. “Is it an election law violation to say black is white?” asked Whalen, a public finance lawyer.

Whalen, seeking re-election to a second four-year council term, also ran twice for school board. “This is a classic strategy; a drop late in the game with no opportunity to rebut.”

While troubled that some voters may accept the mailer’s statements as accurate, “the good news is half the town’s already voted,” Whalen said, citing an announcement from the county registrar that 61 percent of Laguna Beach voters had requested absentee ballots.

 

 

 

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