Despite Tarnished Image, Color Nancy Hunter Green in Del Mar

It is early morning after Nancy Hoover Hunter’s conviction for tax evasion.

I am in Seagrove Park in Del Mar, in front of a plaque “in grateful appreciation” of Hunter’s “tireless efforts to preserve Del Mar’s open space” during her years on the City Council, 1974-82.

I am interviewing joggers and power-walkers to see if support for Hunter has dimmed. My small survey shows that it has not.

Before her trial, a Del Mar newspaper ran the headline, “Some Say Hunter Can Get Fair Trial.” That seems to sum up seaside opinion: She’s one of us, and now they’re after her.

The fact that several people who were fleeced in the J. David & Co. swindle live in Del Mar does not seem to have sullied the civic mood. Nancy was a “green,” a right-thinking environmentalist.

I remember her as a peripheral figure--in truth, more central than we knew--when her friend and beneficiary, the current talk-show host, ran for mayor. She seemed aloof and dreamy.

Later, I read in Don Bauder’s tale of J. David, “Captain Money and the Golden Girl,” that she had smashed Jerry Dominelli’s head against a wall during a lovers’ quarrel. Appearances can be deceiving, I figured.

Why is it that our local malpractitioners--medical, political or financial--always seem to retain a core of loyalists?

The woods are full of people who feel the ex-mayor was railroaded. Their numbers are thinning, but you’ll still find some who say C. Arnholt Smith was a great man brought down by panicky federal regulators.

It’s always good for a smug laugh when we read about some politician in New Jersey being reelected from behind bars. You’ll usually see a mention that the locals love him because he improved trash collection.

Maybe the Hunter case provides a San Diego corollary: We’ll forgive anything if you bring us open space.

Duffy’s Littered Exit Trail

Take our sheriff. Please.

* Sheriff Duffy gets mixed marks for his “You won’t have John and his burglar alarm to kick around anymore” speech.

Duffy said anyone who trusts newspapers also “believes in the tooth fairy and that professional wrestling is real.” Professional wrestling not real?

You can bet Duffy wouldn’t have said that if he still needed votes in East County. Is this how he repays 20 years of faithful support, by mocking a cherished belief?

* Duffy also libeled Canis auereus by referring to his would-be successors as “jackals who haven’t the courage to kill their own prey but rely upon others to provide them something to feed upon.”

Those are good fighting words but rather poor zoology. Check your encyclopedia.

Jackals have gotten a bum rap. They’re major predators of antelopes and other jungle things.

The notion that jackals are only scavengers is just a media myth. Surely the sheriff can sympathize.

* Sheriff’s Capt. Jim Roache has gotten his Christmas wish.

Hours before Duffy announced his pullout, Roache had mailed Christmas cards with a drawing of a fireplace and nearby Christmas tree.

Attached to the tree is the note: “Dear Santa, Please bring San Diego County a new sheriff in 1990. It’s time for a change.”

It Wasn’t a Party Line

Oops, wrong number.

One reason the Republican Party pulled back from Carol Bentley late in the campaign was that a phone poll of several hundred Republicans showed strong support for Lucy Killea and her pro-choice views.

The logic was, hey, if the rank-and-file are deserting Bentley, why should the party get bloodied by expending more political capital in her behalf?

When Bentley lost by a mere 1,300 votes out of 121,000 cast, it left Republicans wondering if a last-minute infusion of money, troops and luminaries could have tilted the election in her favor.

Now it turns out there was a problem with the poll that had convinced the party that Bentley was a big loser and not worth the extra effort. The voters being called were Democrats, not Republicans. Operatives are trying to figure out how such a snafu happened.