Inmate 60924-098 Could Prove to Be the Least-Taxing Candidate Around

I am sometimes asked to disclose my politics.

By temperament and background (I worked for the Copley Press), I am a monarchist. I was content when Pete Wilson was mayor.

If we must have elected government, I prefer farce. I like the present San Diego City Council.

I also like politicians who serve their prison sentences before their terms of office, rather than during or after. It’s tidier.

As such, I was saddened to learn that Barbara Hutchinson, or, as she would have it, Federal Inmate 60924-098 (“Just 098 to my friends”), has decided not to run for Congress.

She took out papers to seek the Libertarian nomination in Bill Lowery’s district, but decided against pursuing it when her mother’s health worsened.

Hutchinson, 63, just might be San Diego’s most notorious tax protester. She’s been back home in Rolando since April, 1987.

Before that, she served “36 months, 2 hours, 22 minutes and 11 seconds” of a five-year fall for mail fraud. It started as a massive tax-evasion indictment involving “family trust” plans.

A loser for City Council in 1965 and county assessor in 1978, Hutchinson figures that public outrage at the tax man has finally reached a fever pitch.

“This would have been an excellent year for me,” she said. “The public is finally ready. They’ve realized that the Gestapo is alive and well and known as the IRS.”

She’s keeping a low profile except for a little picketing and calling of talk shows.

She wrote to Lech Walesa, dissident-to-dissident. She rejoiced when Roseanne Barr sassed an IRS bureaucrat into submission on “Roseanne.”

Soon she’ll join those who say easements for horse trails amount to confiscation of private property. She doesn’t rule out a run for office later.

Her only elective office was president of the inmate council at Pleasanton federal prison. When Hutchinson started agitating for change, the warden disbanded the council.

The Gotch Grudge

Since we’re talking politics.

- Are voters in San Diego’s 6th City Council District still mad at former two-term Councilman Mike Gotch for his support of the Belmont Park shopping center?

Can a duck get wet in Mission Bay?

In last week’s special primary in the 78th Assembly District, Republican Jeff Marston outpolled Democrat Gotch 35% to 29%.

But, in that hunk of the 78th that is also in the 6th Council District, the Marston margin was much wider: 46% to 30%.

* Ben Ginsberg, chief counsel to the Republican National Committee, arrives in San Diego today for four days of politicking with state party chairmen from across the country. Also, one day of golf with reporters.

* Chris Crotty is out as of Friday as chief of staff for San Diego City Councilwoman Linda Bernhardt.

Replaced by Aurie Kryzuda, Bernhardt’s landlord and campaign director. Kryzuda, Bernhardt and staffer Eloise Emery just returned from a week in Cabo San Lucas.

Can you spell p-o-w-e-r s-t-r-u-g-g-l-e?

* Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego) is set today to tell a House subcommittee in Washington that border violence in San Diego is getting worse.

Among other things, he will scold San Diego Police Chief Bob Burgreen for supposedly not taking seriously reports of war-game-playing teen-agers. A spokesman for the chief says Bates is full of wind.

No Hand Holding Allowed

The medium is well done.

* The Washington Post caused a flurry with a story about Navy boot camp going soft, pointing to the camp at Orlando, Fla.

Navy Times followed with a harrumphing column.

A spokesman at the San Diego boot camp says that, regardless of what’s going on at Orlando, San Diego still: requires daily calisthenics, requires steel-toed boots and greets recruits with a company commander, not a hand-holding chaplain.

Recruits in San Diego run 600 miles in eight weeks.

* Headline in the East County Weekly: “Corn Starch Cloud Leads to Accidents on Highway 94.”