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Valley People (Mar 25, 2015)

SATURDAY BRUNCH! March 28th at the Yorkville Market. — Egg soufflé * Scrambled eggs * Cheddar jalapeno Corn bread * Breakfast potatoes * Bacon * Tortilla cups with yogurt and fresh fruit * Mini pastries * Smoothies and juice * Thanksgiving coffee * Sauces and jams from Petit Teton

BREAKFAST will be served buffet style from 8:30am until noon. $18 person. Call ahead to reserve your spot. 707 894-9456

MARSHALL NEWMAN TELLS US, "The official Boonville total for Sunday/early Monday was 0.36 inches of rain, meager but better than nothing. However, with Navarro River flow at approximately 15% of normal for this date, according to USGS, Anderson Valley-ites should pray hard for rain."

“IT'S AN ADVENTURE,” Teen Center Coordinator Dan Angulo conceded when asked about the details of his plan to take 30 Boonville high school kids on a pre-college tour of UCLA and environs next month. The trip is a follow-up to Angulo's popular previous college scouting trips to the Bay Area. This time Angulo plans to spend four days of the upcoming spring break — April 4 to April 8 — to take a Boonville teen delegation on a tour of the UCLA campus and other as yet unspecified tourist destinations in Southern California. Due to somewhat late confirmations of who's on the bus and who's not, Angulo didn't have time to charter a bus. Instead he had to make around 35 individual Greyhound Bus reservations for the longest leg of the trip from Sacramento to Los Angeles. AV High School will provide a school bus to get the kids from Boonville to Sacramento where they'll board the 'Hound for an LA youth hostel. Two days later they'll be back on the 'Hound for the return trip, returning to Boonville late on Wednesday, April 8. The kids are putting up $150 each for the trip. That down payment will be supplemented by local fundraising and some portion of a recent grant from the Mendocino Community Foundation. The Mendo foundation, impressed by the enterprising Angulo's proposed series of California college tours, donated $5,000 to help get them on the road, and this appears to be just the beginning. Angulo will be accompanied by four or five adult chaperones. For the junketing students, their LA adventure is shaping up as a trip to remember.

COMMUNITY SERVICES DISTRICT Board Chair Valerie Hanelt has tentatively scheduled Wednesday, May 20 for a wide-ranging discussion of water, sewer, septic, and potential development in the downtown Boonville area. Ms. Hanelt has invited several technical and financial specialists to the event as well as 5th District Supervisor Dan Hamburg and a couple of other local officials. “I think we need to have a conversation on public health and development,” said Hanelt, commenting that she's heard stories about contaminated water, earlier water system proposals that didn't get very far, and potential drought- related water shortages. The Boonville Fairgrounds water system could become a source of water for a water district under the Community Services District. The discussion begins in earnest in May.

MENTION of Fairgrounds water reminds me, again, of one of my fave local stories. That giant water tank near the grandstand, the storage tank with the buckeroo on it? That came into being when the state declared that the Fairgrounds had to install a fire sprinkler system. Cloverdale's fairgrounds had completed just such a system, storing the water for their sprinkler system in a community swimming pool. Maybe Boonville could do the same. Nope, no way. Petitioners were instantly out in front of the Valley's post offices gathering signatures against a community pool. How could anyone oppose a place for kids of all ages to get out of the summer heat? How could any kind of community oppose a significant local public upgrade that we would have been enjoying for forty years now if… If, the petitioners argued, there weren't hippies! Hippies? Yes, hippies, and their grubby, insolent hordes of little hippies. Committed deadbeats that they are, hippies would not only use the community pool, they'd take it over. Non-hippies who dared go for a dip would get sick and die. Or never use it out of pure fear. The petitioner's slam-dunk logic convinced the Fair Board that it would be wiser to store the Fair's copious water in the impregnable, hippie-proof tank we see at the Fairgrounds today.

THE RAMBLING WRECK RICARD BUILDING in downtown Boonville will be on next month's Community Services District Board agenda. Director Hanelt was expecting to meet with County Environmental Health Director Dave Jensen this week. Reportedly, Jensen “is aware of the building.” Trustee Neil Darling raised the possibility of an eminent domain acquisition of the property if it can be converted to a “public purpose” such as a parking lot.

Ricard Building, Downtown Boonville
Ricard Building, Downtown Boonville

GLENN RICARD'S firetrap has further deteriorated over recent months as more windows are broken, some of them boarded up in a slapdash manner. Ricard, of Little River, a community that wouldn't tolerate the health and fire hazard Ricard has gotten away with in Boonville for years, has steadfastly refused to sell the property or develop it. [photo essay]

THE INAUGURAL ANDERSON VALLEY GOAT FESTIVAL will be April 25, 2015, 10am-4pm accompanying the Unity Club’s annual Spring Wildflower Show at the Boonville Fairgrounds. Free. April 25 & 26. All things goat including goat milking, cheese making, goat raising, fiber arts, soap making. Birria Cook off contest (pronounced Bi-rri-a) Birria is a spicy Mexican goat stew from the state of Jalisco — mid-day contest. Prizes: Dance Lesson: Texas 10 step hosted by Dean Titus, 6-7pm, Apple Hall @ Boonville Fairgrounds. Dance to Dean Titus and the Boot Jack 5 & Susan Clark, 7-10pm. Tickets for dance $10 includes dance lesson 6 - 10 pm. Vendors, presenters Birria cooks needed. Contest! Prizes! Volunteers. Artists. Performers. Contact Jim Devine 707/496 8725 or avgoats@gmail.com. $5 suggested donation for AV Foodshed. 4-6pm. Lauren’s cafe & food vendors will offer special menu items before the dance: wine, beer, snacks, beverages. Those who would like to help with the planning and outreach for the AV Foodshed Goat Festival, planned for Sat Apr 25 at the Fairgrounds in Boonville, in conjunction with the AV Unity Club Wildflower Show, can get in touch with Jim Devine at 496 8725 or avgoats@gmail.com.

A BOONVILLE FARM, Petit Teton, considers the drought. "Well, we've made a decision...we're bringing in the big equipment, leveling the land, and planting endless rows of nopales cactus. There will be lots of prickly pear items on our shelves going forward. Ok, just joking. Some days — years — make one think like this. Oh sure, it's beautiful out here and everything seems to be in the bloom of health and literally, in bloom. But the grasses give away the deception. They're more weed than grass now and stunted to boot. We've already installed drip on all our crops and are hoping the water holds out until their fruition. We anticipate a long hot difficult season and are thinking we would have done better investing in a shade cloth company. All this “down” mood and we don't even read the world news! We do continue to plug away though, and February was a very busy month. We've added meat to our offerings and it is selling well despite bizarre regulations from the feds on down. We hope you are all healthy and happy and enjoying the lovely spring/summer weather or the thaw, depending on your location."

BOONVILLE KIDS WIN BIG. On Saturday, March 14, the Mendocino County Office of Education hosted the 29th Annual Mendocino County Science Fair in the Mendocino College Gymnasium. This event is an Academic Enrichment Program sponsored by the Mendocino County Board of Education.

Seventeen local schools submitted the names of 217 students who represented 161 projects. Students worked independently or in teams of two or three to address questions in the various fields of earth, physical, and/or life sciences.

Physical Science-Grades 3-4

Silver: Erik Espinoza, Audie Hanes, Araceli Alvarez. Colorful Heat. Anderson Valley Elementary

Bronze: Anika Ellis, Jaden Rice, Edward Becerra. Heat of the Beanie. Anderson Valley

Physical Science - Grades Grade 6-8

Silver: Hannah Wollfenden, Esther Palmer. Amplitude Versus Altitude. Anderson Valley Jr./Sr. High School

Earth Science-Grades 9-12

Gold: Cali Mendoza & Maxence Weyrich. The Effects of Solar and cosmic Radiation on Near-Space Vehicles At and Above the Pfotzer Maximum. Anderson Valley High School

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