DARRYL CHERNEY and the affiliated ghouls still profiting from the car bombing of Judi Bari in 1990, have now produced a hagiographic movie depicting themselves heroically NOT finding the bomber. Cherney literally can't afford to find the killer. I say killer because Bari enjoyed perfect health prior to the bomb but died of cancer in 1997. The bomb murdered her in slow motion. Cherney made a cool million off a phony federal lawsuit arising from the FBI's and the Oakland Police Department's bumblingly premature arrest of Bari and Cherney for knowingly transporting the device. Out of the proceeds of the suit which, not so incidentally, was carefully edited by the feds and Bari and Cherney's lawyers to excise any mention of who might have done it, Cherney bought himself a pot farm near Garberville. Maybe he used some of the money to make this film, which is called Who Bombed Judi Bari, but having known the guy I doubt if much of his own money is involved in his Kim Il Sung-like docudrama.
THE NORTHCOAST being a kind of open air witness protection program where everyone is whatever he or she says he or she is, Cherney's self-interested version of the spectacular 1990 events still prevail. An honest inquiry into the bombing, portrayed in Cherney's film as a "mystery," was made by Steve Talbot in 1990. It's also called Who Bombed Judi Bari. But unlike the mercenary crew who've produced Cherney's epic, Talbot is a well-known writer and documentary filmmaker whose work is often seen on Frontline. Talbot's film points to Bari's ex-husband, Mike Sweeney, as the bomber. Sweeney is a cunning little sociopath who has since reinvented himself as a respectable citizen. As per the long local tradition of Mendo self-makeovers, Sweeney now functions as Mendocino County's chief garbage bureaucrat. In the turbulent 1960's and late into the 1970's, Sweeney was affiliated with a Maoist terrorist gang calling themselves Venceremos. When the "revolutionary" fad ended Sweeney, by then married to Bari, was living near Santa Rosa where he and Bari made a nice living shaking down Hewlett Packard over the corporation's development plans. It was in his Santa Rosa incarnation that Sweeney blew up a hangar at the old Naval airfield west of the Rose City. He was annoyed, you see, by the air traffic on weekends. He and Bari, having successfully made a nice hunk of dough off a lawsuit against H-P moved to Redwood Valley here in Amnesia County. They soon separated because Sweeney rightly objected to Bari's affiliations with Cherney and other undesirables, especially as those undesirables influenced the couple's two young daughters. It was not a happy separation, to say the least. Sweeney threatened Bari with a court fight for custody of their children while Bari threatened to go public with Sweeney's prior life as a political maniac. Women have been murdered for less reason, but somehow Sweeney, when the bomb exploded in his wife's car in Oakland, was almost immediately excluded from the suspect pool, and has remained excluded by both the FBI and Cherney and Company, co-dependents, in my opinion, in an ongoing conspiracy to protect Sweeney. And here we are 22 years down the line and these creeps are still lying about the case and protecting the bomber. Or bombers.
ANNE MOLGAARD, a non-practicing attorney, has castigated the Board of Supervisors for cutting their already "ridiculously low" salary from $68,000 to $62,000 a year. She pulls down upwards of $90,000 as Executive Director of First Five, a Ukiah-based, grant-gobbling non-profit through whose sticky administrative fingers little in the way of useful services reach the children First Five allegedly serves. Recently elected to the Ukiah School Board, Molgaard thinks the Supes aren't paid enough. She is said to have her sights set on a Board of Supervisors seat herself, but not if it means taking a pay cut. The argument that qualified people won't run for local office unless the salary supports their lattes and cream cheese bagels is another way of saying that anyone currently making less than $68,000 is really not qualified for local elected office.
MOLGAARD HAS CONSISTENTLY called for cuts to the Sheriff's budget to free up more money for social services, i.e., less money for the Blue Meanies, more money for people like her. That stance led to a heated exchange last year in the hallway outside the Supes chambers with Molgaard claiming that Sheriff Allman, "a big man with a gun" had threatened her. (In Mendoland's Princess-and-the-Pea sectors, a raised eyebrow can be the equivalent of an all-out machete attack.) No one but Molgaard thinks she was threatened, but she sent an email to her Board of Directors and others to "document" the episode. Molgaard is currently in Scotland (!) attending a conference for First Five, and you can be sure she didn't pay her own way. First Five must have a travel budget that would make Kendall Smith envious.
AND HERE COMES Mr. Molgaard, aka Michael Kissinger, who recently hustled out of a LAFCO meeting to pursue gadfly government critic Lee Howard out into the City Hall lobby where Kisslinger verbally assaulted and physically shoved Howard. Kisslinger called Howard a bully and an asshole because Kisslinger apparently resented Howard's remarks in support of the Supes' pay cut as "attacking my wife."
A UKIAH MAN, whose name hasn’t been released, is being treated for rabies after he tried to nurse a sick bat back to health. This is the first rabies case in Mendocino County since 2008, probably because most country people know that if otherwise nocturnal critters are staggering around like they’re drunk during daylight hours they are probably rabid. Domestic cats are the creatures most often infected with rabies because they are most likely to come into contact with rabid wild things — skunks, bats and foxes, which is why you should vaccinate your cat against the disease and not attempt to cure the sick animal yourself.
THE LATEST BUG to throw Mendocino County grape growers into a tiz is the European grapevine moth (EGVM). According to the USDA, 100,959 adult moths were found in California in 2010, including 36 in Mendocino County. In 2011, only 143 were found statewide, a 99.9 percent reduction over the previous year.
NONE OF THE YURP moths were found in Mendocino County last year, meaning the Hopland area escaped a quarantine and Ukiah may have its quarantine lifted. A quarantine means all “movement and handling of grapes” is strictly regulated, insofar as anything can be strictly regulated anymore. To battle the moths, growers and their Ag Department helpers, put up 2,000 traps in vineyard areas along with “pheromone confusion” traps, which emit the scent that female moths use to attract male moths. And, in a couple of instances, vineyards were sprayed.
A DECADE or so ago the Glassy Wing Sharpshooter allegedly menaced the vineyards. We advertised for mating pairs of the ravenous little beasties hoping to retard the conversion of Mendocino County’s hills and dales to grapes, but no one seemed to have any for sale and, as it turned out, they were also invisible in the vineyards (although lots of taxpayer dollars were wasted “eradicating” them.
ITS LA DI DAH propaganda aside, the wine industry is a chemically dependent, industrial enterprise heavily reliant on cheap immigrant labor, for whom, the labor that is, the industry assumes virtually no responsibility in the way of housing and health care. The wine biz is often a major tax write-off for mostly wealthy people who seem to get major thrills holding their wine glasses up to their cocaine-numbed nostrils. The industry also gets a lot of tax-funded assistance from Ag departments and grape gofers at places like UC Extension in Hopland. The reason the industry is perpetually in mortal battle with the insect world is because of the industry's reliance on chemicals that have thrown the natural world's organic inoculations way, way out of whack.
CHRIS BROWN is the County's Air Quality boss who incestuously slapped the County with a $123,000 fine for allegedly not jumping through all the asbestos notification hoops when the County began remodel work on the old Mental Health building on Bush Street in Ukiah. Brown's being attacked by some as proof of government regulators run amok and defended by others as a selfless defender of air quality. County insiders say it's more a case of a disgruntled employee — Brown — lashing out at the boss because he didn't get promoted out of Air Quality into better paying County jobs.
WHEN ROLAND SANFORD, the previous director of the Water Agency was sacked, Brown argued that he should take over the remaining duties of the Water Agency, but was turned down by CEO Carmel Angelo. With the departure of Nash Gonzales from Planning and Building Services, Brown once more let it be known that he was ready to step in as director based on his planning and administrative skills, only to be turned down again. We are also told that the County General Services Agency verbally notified Air Quality about the Bush Street project. The County informed Brown at Air Quality that the only asbestos was in the floor tile and pipe insulation. The County says they were given a verbal ok to proceed with the renovation based on an assurance that those areas would not be disturbed.
THE INITIAL COMPLAINT to Air Quality was made by Planning and Building Services employees angry at Angelo and the Supervisors over the recent labor negotiations, and doubly miffed that they were being asked to relocate to the former Mental Health offices on Bush. Brown, who thought he might be in line for the top Planning and Building job, probably also thought he was being a hero to his future subordinates by suing the County on this phony air quality beef. Instead, he scored a zero with the Board (except for Kendall Smith) and the CEO who make the County's promotion decisions.
CALIFORNIA’S Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, has given no explanation for omitting two of the four Peace and Freedom Party presidential candidates from the primary ballot, but here’s the explanation: it’s all part of an ongoing effort to exclude third parties from the Corporate Two Party Super Bowl every two and four years. Peace and Freedom Party State Chair C.T. Weber of Sacramento P&F calls the latest assault on what’s left of our fragged democracy "unlawful," and the omitted candidates are protesting their exclusion.
IN THE CANDIDATE’S LIST announced Monday night, Bowen included Stewart Alexander and Rocky Anderson on the ballot, but Peta Lindsay and Stephen Durham — the socialist candidates — were left off. Weber was unable to get an explanation for the omission when he went to the Secretary of State's Sacramento office the next day.
KRISTI KREBS has been missing for 18 years, but there's always been the faint suspicion she may be alive. The Fort Bragg Police Department has just issued an age-enhanced picture of what Krebs would look like today. The picture is being nationally distributed. Her family and investigators hope this, combined with new leads, will help them solve one of just four missing-person cases the North Coast city has endured over the past 30 years. “I recently got some tips, one from North Carolina and one from South Carolina, that were promising,” said Fort Bragg Police officer Jeanine Gregory. “The hard part was that the only photo people could work with was an old one from 1993.”
THE AGE-ENHANCED photo shows Kristi Krebs as she might appear today. The new photo was worked up by a forensics photographer with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Krebs was 22 when she disappeared; she would be 40 today. Krebs was last seen Aug. 9, 1993, leaving her chef’s job at a pizza parlor, seemingly happy, witnesses said. Her car was found the next day seven miles out of town, stuck in the mud, with the radio ripped out and flecks of blood on the dashboard. Her parents, Bob and Suzanne Krebs, feared the worst, but also held onto hope that she may have wandered off. Krebs had been hospitalized a few years earlier for a mental breakdown. Investigators also believe there is a strong possibility Krebs suffered another mental break and left the area on her own, Officer Gregory speculates. Over the years, sightings of women closely resembling Krebs have come in from Central California and Utah. “This case is something that is very near and dear to our community and to our police department,” Gregory said. “Her father is a schoolteacher, her family is beloved in town, and we really want to keep hope.” Anyone with information in Krebs’ disappearance can call the Fort Bragg Police Department at (707) 961-2800, or (707) 961-3049 to give anonymous tips.
INCUMBENT CARRE BROWN, Potter Valley’s 1st District supervisor and Dan Gjerde, presently a Fort Bragg City Councilman, will run unopposed in this year Supervisor's election. Mrs. Brown is up for re-election, Gjerde is in his first run for Supervisor for the 4th District presently occupied by the disgraced Kendall Smith. Rumors say that a County employee will run against John McCowen of Ukiah for the 2nd District seat.
FORT BRAGG’S CITY COUNCIL and Planning Commission met jointly on January 18th to consider an eight-chapter preliminary draft of the Mill Site Specific Plan. The discussion resumes on February 28th, a Tuesday. The random public lined up at the January meeting to tee off on the tentative plan for the defunct Georgia-Pacific mill. The mill, now as defunct as the thriving woods industry that supported it, had occupied more than 300 acres between central Fort Bragg and the ocean since the 19th century. The proposed scheme for the property, which is now owned by the villainous Koch Brothers, proposes a 30-year development which will eventually consist of 520 residential units, 795,500 square feet of commercial buildings and hotels and motels totaling 450 rooms. Fort Bragg’s Community Development Director Marie Jones explained the status of the property’s proposed new life: “In order for the City of Fort Bragg to accept the specific plan, they're required to complete an environmental impact report,” she said. “The specific plan project includes more than just the document you have in front of you tonight, but [also] the remedial action plans for the remediation of the remaining parts of the mill site that are contaminated, the master tentative map for the subdivision of the site into 27 different parcels, the restoration strategy, the mill pond complex restoration plan and the water rights change petitions for G-P and the City of Fort Bragg.” Critics are holding out for a less conventional development plan, hoping for development consistent with current environmental dreams of post-industrial sanity.
UKIAH, POPULATION 16,000, has 64 Restaurants, or 4 for every thousand residents. Anderson Valley, with its 3,000 residents, has 9 restaurants or 3 per thousand residents.
IN A PAIR of 2008 rulings, the state Supreme Court held that governors who want to block paroles must show some evidence that a criminal serving a life prison term remains a danger to society and should not be released. It's not enough to consider only the nature of the original crime in making that decision, the court ruled. Governor Jerry Brown, following the law, has released 80% of the persons approved for release. His predecessor, The Terminator, released 25%. But Mendocino County’s Billy Mayfield, under both governors, and now held almost a decade beyond his sentence for second degree murder, has twice seen his court-ordered, and parole board sanctioned release vetoed by the two governors. Mayfield’s record as an inmate has been literally perfect, not a single infraction or disciplinary write-up. He has also achieved a college degree from UC Davis. Mayfield shot and killed Mark Snyder in 1987 when Mayfield discovered his estranged wife in bed with Snyder at Mayfield's brother's house. Snyder was reaching for the gun on his nightstand when Mayfield shot him. Mayfield was sentenced to 17-to-life and was first eligible for parole in 2002. The Snyder family has successfully convinced successive governors not to free Mayfield, thus negating the constituted authority that, in theory, dispassionately considers prisoner releases.
MENDOCINO COUNTY CEO Carmel Angelo’s report to the Supervisors of January 24, 2012 explained why Mendo is having trouble refinancing our “Certificate of Participation” debt: “Because the County’s fiscal condition is so poor after decades of deficit spending (unchecked negative general fund balances, poor credit ratings, unsustainable compensation levels, lack of legitimate economic development, and an overall failure to connect County commitments to the reality of available County resources) the County needs the credit enhancement that AG [the bond insurer] can provide in order to increase the marketability of the transaction as well as obtain lower interest rates.”
COMMET, the County of Mendocino Marijuana Eradication Team, raided 2310 Road K in Redwood Valley on Thursday (9th February) where they found a bonanza of 144 pounds of marijuana drying in a detached garage, 89 pounds of processed bud packaged for sale, 17 pounds of untrimmed marijuana, scales, packaging material, records, less than a gram of MDMA, and $164,456 in cash. The cash will undoubtedly wind up with local law enforcement in the County’s cop budget. The raiders also found Karen Spencer, Dakota Nesbitt, James Shook, Bogdan Cristea, Jordan Williams, and Mia Miller, all of whom were arrested except for Ms. Miller. A separate report is being forwarded to the DA on her, but it seems she was merely visiting Villa Dopa when COMMET came hollering through the door. Spencer, Nesbitt, Shook, Cristea, and Williams were arrested and booked into the Mendocino County Jail. Megan Champion was determined to be the person renting the property. Additional arrests are expected, the Sheriff’s Office said.
ALSO LAST THURSDAY, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office received an early morning 911 call from a man reporting a home invasion robbery that had just occurred at his residence in the 3000 block of Thomas Road, Salmon Creek, which is a few miles north of Garberville. The home at that address is behind a locked gate and a mile and a half up a dirt road. At about 4:30am, the two victims, husband and wife, were awakened by their dog’s agitated barking. Four men were soon inside the house, all of them clad in combinations of ski masks and hoods, and each wearing latex gloves. As the intruders entered the home, they were yelling, “It’s the police, get up!” One of the suspects removed the male victim from the bed and forced him to the floor where his hands were ‘zip-tied’ behind his back as his captor demanded to know where the marijuana and money were located. The male victim led the suspects to approximately 30 pounds of dried marijuana. The bandits continued to demand money from the victim, who then led them to a small security safe. When the victim said he couldn't remember the combination to the safe, he was struck in the face, probably with a fist, causing a "moderate injury near his eye." Ultimately, the safe was opened but no cash was found in it. During the robbery, the invaders threatened to kill the victims and/or burn down their house. The suspects were estimated to have been in the home for about an hour, during which time they took an estimated $3,000 to $4,000 in cash in addition to the marijuana. Prior to leaving the residence, the robbers used duct tape to bind both victims, then bound both back to back in a seated position on the floor. The robbers finally left in the victim’s newly purchased Subaru to drive back down the hill to the locked gate. The crooks were not able to get the stolen vehicle through the gate and left it abandoned in the roadway. The male victim was able to unbind himself within minutes of the suspects leaving his home and called 911 for assistance. There is no description of the suspects or description of a vehicle that may probably used to travel to the victim’s residence. Anyone with any information regarding this robbery is asked to call the HumCo Sheriff’s Department at (707-445-7251).
HOME INVASIONS, incidentally, are increasingly expedited by Google Earth. Googling Boonville, for instance, you cannot only see the grows, you can easily figure out their addresses. Home invasions also occur year-round these because there are so many indoor grows. The indoor grows, of course, aren't visible by satellite, but they're just as prevalent as their outdoor cousins.
ACCORDING TO A STUDY conducted by Dalhousie University in Halifax, which would be Canada for those of you hazy on your geography, people who use marijuana before driving are nearly twice as likely to cause a car crash as those not under the influence of the drug. 49,000 people involved in road accidents were interviewed in nine studies conducted by the university researchers, each of which claimed that pot's culpability for road wrecks was confirmed by blood tests or confession. Researchers found drivers who had used marijuana within three hours of beginning to drive had nearly double the risk of causing a collision, especially fatal collisions.
THE UKIAH Planning Commission seems to have finally heard enough about WalMart’s proposed expansion after the fourth meeting on the subject last week. The benefits alleged by a WalMart attorney included increased tax revenue to Ukiah, improved access and landscaping (i.e., massive parking lots, a few patches of water-intensive lawn for drunks to lounge around on and the turd-shaped bushes characteristic of the town’s commercial and public buildings.) Each benefit claimed by WalMart has been systematically refuted by its many Mendo critics. WalMart wants to add 47,463-square-feet to its current store west of downtown along Highway 101.
JUST IN TIME for Valentine's Day! Last Friday morning at 8am, a young Fort Bragg woman was arguing with her male companion when he called the cops for help. When the cops appeared, the 23-year-old woman jumped into her aged GMC Jimmy and drove it full speed into a room at the nearby Tradewinds Motel. “The room was absolutely destroyed,” said Sgt. Brandon Lee of the Fort Bragg Police Department. “The bed was mutilated, the plumbing was ripped out of the walls and water was spraying everywhere. If anyone had been in there, they would have been killed.” Sgt. Lee said the car went almost completely through to the other side of the room before it stopped. The unhinged young woman scrambled out of the wreckage of her vehicle and out of the room “through a busted window,” only to be promptly arrested and detained for mental health observation. Sgt. Lee said her car was “wiped out” and the hotel "likely suffered about $50,000 in damage." The couple is often seen on Fort Bragg streets, and have often come to the attention of law enforcement.
THE ARMY CORPS of Engineers has been granted more than $3 million in additional funds for habitat restoration in Dry Creek (Sonoma County) and to do work alleged to be in the survival interests of Russian River coho. In 2008, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued a ponderous document called the “Russian River Biological Opinion,” one of those things that employs a hundred people to come up with the obvious — fish need water. The “Opinion” was directed to the Sonoma County Water Agency (Water Agency), which owns most of the water in Lake Mendocino, and the Army Corps, both partners for the Russian River Project including Lakes Sonoma and Mendocino. A biological opinion is a determination made by a federal agency to help restore and protect threatened or endangered species. and the National Marine Fisheries Service “found that Warm Springs and Coyote Valley Dams and related water supply activities are likely to jeopardize the continued existence of coho salmon and steelhead and adversely modify their critical habitats.” I should say. No water, no fish.
MENDOCINO Superior Court judges Richard Henderson and Clay Brennan are unopposed for re-election, which is too bad because both should be challenged if for no other reason than to compel them to explain their suspicious disposition of certain cases. Henderson recently announced he would “re-visit” sentencing of a man whose best friend died in a Hopland drunk driving episode. That man just happened to hire as his attorney a well-connected San Diego lawyer who just happens to sit on the state judicial committee responsible for funding the new County courthouse in Ukiah. Is it mere coincidence that Henderson agreed to the first sentence reconsideration in many years? Brennan, who now presides over Ten Mile Court in Fort Bragg, was sitting as presiding judge in Willits when the matter of Clint Smith, a Willits teacher who’d been sleeping with a 15-year-old student of his, came before him. In similar cases, and there are lots of them, local men typically get packed off to the state pen for 3-5 years and are required to register as sex offenders for the rest of their priapic lives. But Smith, in a grotesque sentencing procedure before a courtroom packed with Willits big shots (a self-cancelling phrase of course, but still….) and leaders of the local Mormon church, was given a few months in the County Jail and not required to register as a sex offender. Superior court judges serve six-year terms and are paid $180,000 a year plus an array of perks not enjoyed by most Americans. For reasons having to do with a historical loophole, Mendocino County, with fewer than a hundred thousand people, has 8 superior court judges and a magistrate, making Mendo's judge-to-population ratio the highest in the state. Additionally, a small army of retired Mendocino County judges "serve" as visiting judges around the state. Get yourself elected judge in this county and you ride down Easy Street for the rest of your life.
GOVERNOR BROWN has signed SB 81, the bill that restores funding for rural school buses. SB 81 replaces the $248 million cut to the Home-to-School Transportation program made by Governor Brown with a smaller, more equitable reduction across all school districts in California.
DOUG BOSCO, former Northcoast congressman and now an attorney based in Santa Rosa, is promoting Stacey Lawson to succeed Mike Thompson as the area's congressperson. Bosco told the Press Democrat that Ms. Lawson “can take ideas and make jobs out of them.” Bosco, also a skilled alchemist, in his years as a congressman, took Northcoast votes and made money for himself out of them. Lawson, like Bosco, has access to money, and she's got plenty of money of her own, having sold her software start-up for $60 mil. Having cashed in big time on her obvious entrepreneurial gifts, Ms. Lawson took off for India where she became a devotee of the kind of cash and carry “guru” that narcissistic Americans seem to fall for the instant they board Air India. And now that she's got her mystic ticket punched, Ms. Lawson, a resident of San Francisco's Pacific Heights before she moved to San Rafael three years ago, is running for Congress. Candidate Jared Huffman, also of San Rafael, and a sitting Assemblyman of no particular distinction, has so far lined up the Northcoast's middle-of-the-road extremist vote — mainstream Democrats — while Norman Solomon is stoutly supported by the more reality based Northcoast voters. Lawson will presumably cut into Huffman's support.
BILLY MORIAH NORBURY, 33, of Redwood Valley, has pled not guilty to murdering his Redwood Valley neighbor, reggae artist Jamal Andrews. Norbury's preliminary hearing is set for March 7. The motive for the killing continues to elude investigators, with most relatives unaware of any encounters between the two men prior to late 2011. While some friends of the victim have alleged the shooting to be a hate crime, detectives have failed to find evidence to support that theory. Andrews, 30, and by all accounts a gentle soul, was rifle-shot in the head and shoulder just before 10pm, January 24, in the front yard of his home on Road B in Redwood Valley. He died at the scene. Andrews' girlfriend and eight-month-old son were in the home at the time of the shooting. Norbury was arrested at his nearby Redwood Valley home a short time later. In a press release Mendocino County Sheriff's Office said responding deputies “observed in plain sight items that appeared to link the suspect directly to the shooting incident.” Andrews grew up in Laytonville and was a member of Mendocino County's Reggae group the High Grade All-Stars.
NEXT WEEK Mendo plans to renew its $245k contract with Napa-based “Ligouri Associates” for another year of Courthouse security. There’s no evidence that any attempt was made to recruit a local security services outfit for the simple task of screening Courthouse visitors. Among the contract’s provisions are “While on duty in a Mendocino County Courthouse, guards shall not… display a discourteous, abrupt, abrasive, or belligerent attitude,” or “sleep.” They are also prohibited from “Volunteering, or providing, an opinion regarding a candidate for any political office. In addition, the guard shall not provide any personal opinion regarding any political position, proposition or referendum, whether solicited or unsolicited.”
MENDOCINO COUNTY Department Head's Association will have its contract renewed next week, less the 10% reduction in pay they took in 2010. And no more discounted computers: “The Computer Loan Program is eliminated effective February 14, 2012. Employees participating in the program prior to that date shall be eligible to remain in the program until their loan is paid off.”
BACK ON JANUARY 6th, Halifax Media Holdings LLC, based in Florida, paid $143 million for The Press Democrat and 15 other regional newspapers owned by the New York Times. Halifax has been trying to sell the PD but has not been able to find a buyer. A Mitt Romney-style gut and sell was the fate predicted for the PD when Halifax took over. That hasn't happened, probably because the PD still makes money. But what the PD isn't telling its readers (and what the paper doesn't tell its readers is a subject area the size of several galaxies), is that local moneybags are trying to put together the purchase price with the aim of returning it to the successful local focus it enjoyed under the great Art Volkerts.
CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL officers are continuing to investigate what caused a rollover crash off Highway 20 Sunday the 5th of February that sent two Fort Bragg people to the hospital. According to CHP reports, driver Garrett Matson, 35, was driving westbound at about 55 miles per hour approaching mile marker 2.7. “For an unknown reason, the vehicle slid out of control and rolled over,” the CHP report stated. Skidmarks on the otherwise straight section of road showed that Matson's 1995 Isuzu SUV was sliding nearly broadside when it hit the shallow ditch and flipped, scattering vehicle parts and other items behind it. The vehicle came to rest on its roof, partially in the ditch. Fort Bragg Fire Chief Steve Orsi said the driver, Matson, was out of the vehicle when firefighters arrived, but a passenger was trapped in the car. Orsi said that once her pinned arm was freed, she was able to be helped out of the vehicle. Matson was listed as having sustained a broken collarbone and passenger Gina Rae Bean, 33, was taken to Mendocino Coast District Hospital with moderate injuries. “The reason for this traffic collision is still under investigation,” said CHP reports.
MATSON, 36, also remains the sole suspect in the death of Katlyn Long, 22, of Fort Bragg. Miss Long had broken off her relationship with Matson, who was then 31, but in late May of 2008, Matson apparently talked Miss Long into meeting with him in her home, but in the morning she, a non-drug user, had died of an overdose of methadone. Matson has never offered an explanation of how an overdose of this drug might have occurred. And he has not been charged in her death. DA Eyster has said the case remains open.
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