Like The Professor and a handful of others, Monterey County Sheriff Mike Kanalakis believes the Paris Hilton-goes-to-jail story has been overblown. Kanalakis, who knows how hard it is to run an overcrowded facility for malefactors, feels sorry for his buddy, L.A.
County Sheriff Lee Baca, who provoked a thunderstorm of indignation by allowing Ms. Hilton to leave jail early. "It's just a sad situation all the way around," Kanalakis said Friday, as fleets of news choppers churned through the L.
A. smog to chronicle Hilton's journey back to court and back to jail. "It's getting way too much attention.
" Kanalakis was relieved Hilton wasn't sentenced to his jail. "I don't have a thousand fans camped out in front of my jail and all the media," he said. But he guaranteed things would have been different if she had been ordered to do her time here.
"If sentenced to my jail, she would serve her time," he said. Kanalakis said his jail staff has contingency plans for handling high-profile and dangerous inmates. But as for weathering a Paris Hilton-type tsunami, he admitted, "We have never dealt with a situation like that.
" Has the Monterey County Jail ever had a celebrity inmate? After a few moments' reflection, Kanalakis said he thought that actor Doug McClure had been held in the local hoosegow, possibly sometime in the 1970s. But he'd have to check, he said.
The sheriff's uncertainty about that episode points to the fleeting nature of things like celebrity, fame, beauty and good sense. By next year, maybe, Baca and everyone else will have forgotten about Paris Hilton and her jail record. The Professor believes that would be good.
180 seconds: For a blessed hour, the political speeches were many, but the words were few. The office-seekers were on a tight time leash. Three minutes apiece to make their case, then sit down and forever hold their peace.
With all the national debates with bloviating presidential candidates, the quick-paced parade this week of 15 applicants for a vacant seat on the Marina City Council provided welcome relief. Brevity is the soul of wit. With only 180 seconds each, the Marina council hopefuls leavened what could have been leaden politicking with a few light touches.
One showed a picture of himself in an old newspaper as a young boy. It was taken when he won the greased-pig contest at the first Kids Day in Marina. There was no greased pig in the photo, though.
Another applicant proposed a motto for the world-class city that Marina is becoming at least in the minds of many Marina boosters: "Marina minutes from Monterey, and miles from your problems." Mayor Ila Mettee-McCutchon delivered one of the best lines. Warning her council colleagues against questioning any candidate lest they need to ask all the applicants the same questions, she said, "Then we could be here for breakfast.
" They didn't even ask the greased-pig contest winner about his winning technique, or why the pig wasn't in the picture. And they were out of there, in time for a late dinner. Like The Professor and a handful of others, Monterey County Sheriff Mike Kanalakis believes the Paris Hilton-goes-to-jail story has been overblown.
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