Paul Eakins of the Press-Telegram has announced on his blog that current City Prosecutor Tom Reeves (pictured right, photo courtesy smarvoter.org) plans to run for the seat of City Attorney in this upcoming April’s election against incumbent Bob Shannon. Phone calls and e-mails to Reeves’ office were not immediately returned.
Eakins wonders aloud on his blog:
Perhaps not related, and quite probably directly related, to Reeves’ campaign for city attorney, Assistant City Prosecutor Timothy O’Reilly has filed his intent to run for city prosecutor. We might call this an attempted coup d’etat of Long Beach’s top legal offices by Reeves and his people. Suddenly, what looked to be a hum-drum race for city attorney with a shoe-in of an incumbent now appears it may be a tooth-and-nail political battle.
One interesting factoid that we’ll ponder aloud is the fact that Reeves has been extremely vocal about his position on shutting down medical marijuana dispensaries in this past year. Reeves submitted an editorial to the lbpost.com back in September that called the businesses “dope dealers” and then debated lbpost.com columnist Greggory Moore during a Beer & Politics community forum in late October. Some dispensaries have already been shut down.
With his tough stance on that issue, has Reeves been planning to run for City Attorney for several months now?
In his September 29 article, lbpost.com columnist Greggory Moore wondered:
One question that’s always worth asking: Cui bono? Who benefits? Clearly medpot is a hot-button issue right now. Might Mr. Reeves be interested in generating some heat (political or otherwise) for himself on the residue of “reefer madness”?