Government

The Mayor of Metropolitan Ravensgate chairs the 11-member Metropolitan Assembly of Supervisors for Ravensgate and Greater Nehalem County, and assigns assemblymen to chair the committees that oversee all city bureaus. The exceptions are the Bureau of Public Safety and Emergency Services Bureau (fire and EMS), which autonomous superintendents lead. Key Assembly committees are Public Education Policy (i.e., the school board), Transportation, Parks and Recreation, Public Works and Utilities, Planning and Development, and Culture and Tourism. City ward representatives hail from the Northwest, North, Northeast, East, Southeast and South. County representatives hail from the five incorporated cities Ravensgate has been unable to swallow up: Rockaway Beach, Arch Cape, Garibaldi, Nehalem and Manzanita.

Under a 2002 city charter revision, Assemblymen serve two-year terms and elect one of their own as Pro Tempore Chairman. Throughout the Assembly’s history, each majority party has gerrymandered the ward districts to attempt to perpetuate their majority; the charter revision sets geographic boundaries in stone. Mihaly “Mikey” Cieznik, representing the Democratic majority, is the Pro Tempore Chairman of the Assembly. Nutcase GOP leader Oroville Ketchum heads the minority party solely by virtue of seniority. He’s served in the Assembly since 1960 and even his own party tries to take him out every now and then.

Ravensgate is typically Oregonian in that the more conservative candidate for any office might be a Democrat, the progressive or moderate a Republican, and the wing-nut can be from any party. Salomé Throckmorton-d’Aubaine’s opponents in the 2002 mayoral election, whom she out-spent by three to one, were Superintendent of Public Safety and GOP nominee Philip Snow and incumbent City Assemblyman, political gadfly and write-in candidate Oroville Ketchum.

Snow quit actively campaigning in April 2002 [a.] to present a united front against striking cops and the Ravensgate Crime Commission and [b.] in hopes that the “Vote The Bastards Out” recall campaign, launched TV commentator Vic Charlton, would unseat the mayor. Only Ketchum knows what the hell he was trying to accomplish by running simultaneously for three offices—-mayor, metropolitan prosecutor and assembly.

Throckmorton-d’Aubaine won a term of her own after a contentious 2002 general and 2003 runoff elections. She sponsored the initiative that pared down the Assembly by nearly two-thirds, eliminated the runoff clause in the mayoral elections, and allowed for the mayor to appoint her own deputy mayor from among the Assembly and the bureau chiefs. Political commentators and pollsters credit the “Vote The Bastards Out!” campaign with the success of the initiative. The mayor, upon taking office 3 March 2003, appointed Snow deputy mayor.

As is true with most cities, Ravensgate is a one-daily-newspaper town. The Ravensgate Oregon Journal is published by Jean-Pierre d'Aubaine--yes, the mayor's father--and in turn owns KOJ-AM, KOJ-FM, Ravensgate Cable News (RGCN), KOJ-TV, and Nehalem Bay Cable. If you're the mayor, it helps to have a parental unit in control of most of the city's media outlets—-even if you’re openly feuding with family. Salome Throckmorton-d’Aubaine moved out of the family manor in late June 2002.

The Ravensgate Mercury Weekly is a successful revival of alternative journalism in the city. Veljon Wilson, a former KRGO-TV reporter, in 1995 purchased the remnants of the defunct daily Ravensgate Mercury Post that d'Aubaine had run out of business. Originally serving the African-American community, the Mercury’s audience expanded with each alternative news-weekly the d’Aubaine media empire squeezed out of business. In 2002, the Mercury Weekly survived a firebombing—-and added TV commentator Vic Charlton's op-ed column after the Journal dropped it for biting the hand that fed it. The Journal had a circulation of 400,000 in early 2002, but public scandal-mongering by its publisher cut its ad revenue and circulation in half. As a result of public support, and a mysterious benefactor, the Mercury has a regional circulation of 285,000—-up from 220,000 at the start of 2002-—and publishes two weekly paper and five daily on-line editions.

While Jean-Pierre d’Aubaine controls KOJ-TV and KOJ-AM and –FM under the aegis of Journal MediaCorp, his employees’ unions under the aegis of the Journal Employees’ Benefit Endowment and the city under the aegis of his still-living-at-home daughter, the independent voice of diverse discourse is UPN affiliate KRGO-TV. On the air since 1951, the station boasts a veritable who’s who of Northwest journalism: former radical journalist and current general-manager Morrie Rosenklein, veteran anchors Chris Creegan and Muffy Bennett, city-hall correspondent Biff Moorhead, and right-wing commentator Vic Charlton. The latter was a fixture of KRGO’s Good Morning, Ravensgate! show, and the Mercury Weekly newspaper, with his scathing “You Know I’m Right” column. Charlton makes occasional appearances on KRGO, with “You Know I’m Right” expanded out to 30 minutes, but is now concentrating on his Mercury column and teaching duties at Collegium Caine.

Defining Issues in the 2002 Election

“Personally, I’ve always enjoyed fistfights in art museums.”—Vic Charlton, KRGO.

Initially, the key issues in the mayoral election were the candidates’ leadership experience. Incumbent Mayor Salome Throckmorton-d’Aubaine, finishing her deceased uncle’s term, carried the baggage of possible nepotism and the doubts regarding whether the former supermodel could be taken seriously. Ravensgate’s local Democratic Party establishment threw their political fortunes behind her, since she ran for her party’s nomination unopposed.

Superintendent of Public Safety Philip Snow, a moderate Republican, ran virtually unopposed for his party’s nomination despite his baggage—-an 80-year tradition of police corruption, having been investigated himself seven times in his career, his own bureau’s recalcitrance toward his public-reform agenda, and the alleged excesses of his Street Crimes Unit pet project.

Then along came The Doe Family, later known as The Foundry. A group of unregistered superheroes, these youngsters began upstaging Team Hyperion by neutralizing several local threats—-chief among them international terrorist Abu Scirocco—-and casting doubts on the city’s Vigilante Registration Law. Initially, Snow and d’Aubaine were in agreement, supporting the law, until Snow saw his lead in the polls evaporate. In the race for Metropolitan Prosecutor, marred by the candidates’ fistfight at a debate at the Ross-Muth Museum of Fine Art, major candidates DA Del Yoakham and City Attorney Bryan Sinclair—-running for the same office under the same party—-both supported the law. [The defining issue in that campaign was police corruption, since Sinclair had empaneled a commission to investigate widespread abuses in the Bureau of Public Safety and especially Yoakham’s cop relatives.] Once the superheroes exposed certain elements of local corruption, Yoakham was out of the race and under indictment, and Throckmorton-d’Aubaine reversed her stand on the issue. Snow and Sinclair were silent on the issue, since FBI’s local COMETPRO team officially sanctioned The Foundry while the city suspended enforcement of the registration law pending constitutional review.

Feeling abandoned on all sides and seeing 650 of its 3800 members suddenly under investigation or indictment, the Ravensgate Police Guild threatened to strike unless the Sinclair Commission were disbanded, the RPG was given the right of investigation, and the city prosecuted The Foundry. Fearing for their political futures if they caved in, d’Aubaine and Snow put up a united front—-with the mayor going so far as to threaten “to use all (her) influence . . . to see that you end up in General Population (at the state pen) in Salem.” The threat only strengthened the RPG’s resolve, and it prompted three dozen of Snow’s department heads to resign en masse on the eve of the strike.

On April Fool’s Day 2002, one-third of the Checkerheads walked off the job. A few took potshots at the “scab” officers, made false 911 calls, and tried to kill Superintendent Snow. Others provoked National Guardsmen and on-duty Checkerheads into firing into a crowd of demonstrators near City Hall, killing 21 and wounding 193 in what would become known as the April Fool’s Day Riot. A group of renegade SWAT snipers attempted to kill members of the Street Crimes Unit and instead provoked a firefight between the SCU and mobsters holed up at the Rust City Union Hall—-a firefight the mobsters lost. The SCU suffered only seven wounded, while the mobsters and rogue cops suffered 21 dead and 47 wounded. The Union Hall and 13 surrounding buildings were destroyed in the resulting fire, and the incident became known as the Rust City Massacre.

Although the SCU cops were exonerated by video evidence, the cloud over Snow and his reorganization of the department prompted him to quit actively campaigning, leaving his fate up to the people’s decision. At this point, KRGO’s Vic Charlton considered a write-in candidacy.

In the end, nearly 1100 Checkerheads—-one-third of the force—-ended their police careers in April 2002. Nearly two-thirds chose to resign rather than face criminal charges from corruption and/or walking off the job. More than two hundred are in legal limbo, pending their testimony before the Sinclair Commission. Another 150 are awaiting trial for state and Federal charges including racketeering, extortion, theft, bribery, assault, civil-rights violations, and/or murder. The Ravensgate Police Guild was dissolved under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970.

The Police Strike of 2002 also gave the city a giant black eye on national television. Nightly news reports featured a harried President Bush throwing up his hands and announcing deployment of US Marines from Camp Pendleton, and a frustrated Oregon governor mouthing off to Bush near a microphone neither knew was live: “Can’t we just have NORAD nuke the %#^&ing place from orbit?”