Continued Harassment of Fourth District BoS Candidates Continues

Anaheim city council member and candidate Lorri Galloway has made no secret about her new home in the Fourth District, hosting fundraisers there where voters can get to know the candidate better and ask questions for a personal response.  But an invitation to a candidate’s home is one thing – a series of drive-bys and unwanted phone messages is quite another. 

Galloway tells TheLiberalOC that she has received a number of unwanted phone calls from someone using a number belonging to a “Richard Zavala of Placentia” and the vast majority of messages don’t show a return phone number via caller ID.  The messages reference Galloway’s “Lorri in 4th Gear” videos and the FFFF blog which has been hypercritical of Galloway.  “Richard” makes it plain he’s a reader and a fan of Tony’s Bushala’s Fringe blog in Fullerton.

Now elected officials do get calls at their home from their constituents at night.  That’s a given.  But serial harassment of an elected official at their home and via telephone is against the law. 

According to Lorri, “Richard” has allegedly left messages that leave all sorts of derogatory and defamatory names for Galloway and references her “corrupt associations” in Anaheim without being specific.  Since Lorri is in the business of dealing with abusers, stalkers, and other creeps who prey on and victimize women, she did the right thing and kept records of the messages.  The numbers used a Northern California area code, making them hard to trace back to a source here in OC.

 But “Richard” did make a tactical error and appears to have called from a location where the Caller ID revealed the number.  Galloway reports she called the number and the voice message on that line is identical to the voice left on her answering service.  The stored messages and phones numbers have been reported to the Anaheim Police Department which is investigating the case.  We’re working on an MP3 of some of Richard’s voice messages and will post it once we get it produced.

Galloway is a legal resident of the fourth district and is eligible to run for office there.  The same is true of the GOP endorsed candidate Harry Sidhu.  As an Anaheim city council member, she already represents a significant number of voters in the Fourth District.  Bushala’s blog seems to equate the practice of “carpetbagging” with something approaching mass murder.  He and fellow bloggers are coming out hard for Robert Shawn Nelson (let’s just call him “Bob Nelson”), a Republican candidate so inept that despite the endorsement of State Ass. Chris Norby, “Bob” couldn’t garner the endorsement of local Republicans. 

Is it me, or is it just creepy that “Richard” and Tony Bushala spend their time stalking candidates for office?  In Lorri’s case, she did the perfectly appropriate thing.  Frankly, this is what any woman who is the subject of unwanted and harassing phone calls should do.  Document the evidence and report it.  There are laws against harassing public officials in their homes.   And perhaps that’s all the caller had in mind, but too often, telephonic harassment can evolve to something far worse. 

And before the Ministry of Truth that is Tony’s blog tries to defend this telephonic stalking as ”something a reporter does,” reporters don’t do this.  Reporters who do call an elected official at home always identify who they are and the publication they are calling from (as well as a short description of the story they are writing).  The caller did none of this.  But he did slip up.  And let’s see how Anaheim PD responds. 

What’s clear is Lorri is the only Democrat in the race with a chance to win.  Should Harry Sidhu and Bob Nelson split that GOP vote, Lorri can take this seat.  And I have no doubt she’d represent the interests of voters in the district well.

We spoke with Lorri while she was wrapping up filing her papers at the Registrar of Voters; she’s in!

More importantly, if people like Richard are backing Bob Nelson, what does that say about Nelson’s candidacy?