It is not uncommon for those of us who have lived for over half a century to nostalgicize a Mom’s-apple-pie-in-the-sky America of the late Fifties and early Six­ties that was kinder and gentler than it is today. Which just goes to show the truly corrosive effect of time on memory, or perhaps it’s just a cleansing of the psyche of an entire generation of children who spent a significant portion of their formative years crouched beneath their student desks with their heads between their knees, repeatedly reminded of the fact that the thousands of nuclear missiles pointed at those heads were controlled by a fat, balding, blubber-lipped, spittle-spewing Com­mie troll named Nikita who displayed the unsavory habit of driving home points of debate with the heel of his shoe.

According to Nicole Kench, EcoMotion event promoter and founder, city manager Linda Ruffing (who has not returned my call) blamed the fiasco on bureaucratic ineptitude, sighting sloppy accounting, lack of documentation proving claims, and faulty procedure.

After the cancellation, Ruffing was initially unwilling to give Kench her deposit money back, which, as Kench understood, would be used to fund police services during the event. Since the block party did not take place, Kench wanted her money back. But Ruffing said the city needed to keep the money for costs incurred—$4,431.41 worth of city police time in planning.

That’s when Kench hired an attorney, Cliff Paulin, and appealed Fort Bragg City Council’s decision. They were supposed to argue their case Monday at the city council meeting. Instead, Kench received a phone call from Ruffing saying the city decided to settle.

Kench believes that now, “the city has been exposed.” She went on to say that “One first must be able to take responsibility for their participation in such circumstances rather than place blame on bureaucratic ineptitude.”

Kench is now searching for friendlier confines, and is “choosing the path of least resistance by moving EcoMotion to Venice Beach.”

The block party fundraiser, which was supposed to take place October 10th, was to include music, sustainable educational booths, craft vendors, and carnival games that taught children how to compost and recycle. The event would have raised money for local schools. Kench estimated up to 10,000 people may have attended.

The man seemed to be jacked up. He strutted and bounced as he stepped with determination, as if he were getting ready for a football game. The Castro was still buzzing with excitement from Gay Pride festivities, which had recently come to a conclusion Sunday. The streets were alive and colorful, the place was hopping, and the commotion was vibrant. Men sauntered down the sidewalks hand-in-hand, tourists snapped photos and looked at maps, and the motorists roared their engines.

Nobody at the bus stop wanted to give the impression they noticed the naked man across the street, as they focused attention on people walking by, traffic, or their cell phones. The bus pulled up and we all boarded, leaving the commotion and the naked man in the Castro behind.

The 33 line curled up Market Street through Twin Peaks and over to the Upper Haight, where Katie and I got off at Cole and walked a few blocks north across the Panhandle to Fell, where her car was stationed. By this time it was late afternoon. The sun was still shinning brilliantly in the Panhandle, and pleasant breezes carried Eucalyptus scents. We were tired, dirty, dusty, sore, sun-burnt, and dehydrated. It seemed uncharacteristically hot that weekend. Our getaway to San Francisco was complete. There were mixed feelings about coming back to the Coast—Mendocino. The excitement was over.

We maneuvered steadily through some thick evening rush hour traffic then crossed a fog cloaked Golden Gate Bridge. We shot north, out of San Francisco, and slowed just south of Santa Rosa. Pushing north past Cloverdale on the 101, the temperatures were hot, and the sun burst through the car windows, punctuating the dehydrated, sun-stroked symptoms. I was also tired of squinting.

We stopped into a grocery in Hopland, where we refueled with apple juice and where a boy and his little sister repeatedly opened and closed the storefront door—all the while the boy claiming, “My sister is really strong.”

Our car negotiated the turns of a desolate Highway 20 near sunset, orange glowing against the silhouetted pine trees and “This American Life” on the radio. The ease at which we traveled was stunning and free, almost poetic—no cars rearing behind me, none in front slowing me down.

Now I’m in Fort Bragg. It’s the early morning and I’m listening to some drug-fueled domestic disputing across the street. Next door, a man has left his parked truck running with county music blasting.

Maybe it is just as interesting here. Perhaps I will go stand, or maybe pace, naked on the sidewalk.

]]> http://theava.com/archives/7407/feed 1 http://theava.com/archives/7056 http://theava.com/archives/7056#comments Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:12:19 +0000 Nicholas Heller http://theava.com/?p=7056 A blog I posted a few weeks ago, In Good Company?, generated a few comments and created quite a discussion on local musician Will Stenberg’s Facebook page.

I haven’t been back to the Company Bar since the grand opening, but I haven’t changed my opinion of the place. It is part of the new Fort Bragg. I have no problem with it. If you want to experience something a little closer to what Fort Bragg used to be, go somewhere else. The matter was covered quite extensively on Stenberg’s Facebook wall, and I only wish to address a few comments.

Meaghan Davis wrote, “Those ‘fake Roman pillars’ are from Indonesia, and they happen to be real.” She goes on to say, “My frustration lies in the fact that I think the writer may have prejudged us (and if I’m wrong, I apologize).”

I had no prejudgments, and was curious and excited to drop in on the Company Bar. I understand that the large crowd on opening night made it less laid-back and harder to provide service to everyone, which gave me ample time to survey the place and “judge” at that point. The pillars are made from Indonesian wood, but when I see pillars, I think of Rome for some reason. So they are, in my mind, fake Roman pillars. I did not intend to disrespect the efforts of the interior decorator, who obviously worked hard to try and put some class into the joint.

Sarah Hassell wrote that the blog was “factually inaccurate on more than one account,” and that a journalist needs no less than three confirmed sources.

I don’t know what I’ve got wrong. My fear is that perhaps I’ve described the colored beams of indoor light wrong. Feelings cannot be factual. I could have asked three confirmed guests about the pillars, for instance, and I’m sure none of them would have known they came from Indonesia. I wrote what I felt it was like in there.

I would enjoy going back to the Company Bar at some point. It is, as Davis wrote, a “different facet of Fort Bragg.” Of the two facets I touched upon in the blog—the old and the new Fort Bragg—the old trumps the new. However, I see positives to both sides, especially after a few drinks.

Middle aged men, free-wheeling about the Fort Bragg drinking scene, have few reservations about making their feelings known to potential sweethearts.

As I sat atop the only vacant seat in the house, I surveyed the packed grand opening of Fort Bragg’s newest drinking establishment, the Company Bar, where the quarters were so close I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the potential for romance amongst the elder patrons positioned at the table nearest me, lightly intoxicated.

The alcohol was flowing at a steady pace, compliments of yet another addition to the ballooning bar scene here, located inside the Company Store on Main Street. The place, dubbed a wine bar, had more swank than what I had grown accustomed to in other Fort Bragg lounges, which caused me to hesitate upon entry and to re-consider mingling with the local business owners, who seemed to be out in droves to celebrate (and who, as it turned out, didn’t want to mingle with me anyway).

Fake Roman pillars lined the corners of the parameter and newish-looking art adorned the walls of a little cubby section furnished with bookshelves, a coffee table, and leather sofas. Folks sipped wine and cocktails. They conversed loudly over the collective din produced by an excited crowd. Red, green, blue, and pink spotlights illuminated the inside of each exterior wall—a prerequisite of any classy joint. Roving waiters and waitresses took drink orders and offered flashy sample plates of free hors d’oeuvres. According to Mike, who took my order, the top-shelf liquor prices were “ridiculous” (in a good way). The cast of employees was familiar—friends, good people often seen serving customers in other watering holes—who piece together an existence here on the coast.

Once a place selling hardware and groceries to mill workers and their families, the Company Store is currently an example of the Fort Bragg make-over, containing art, raw food cuisine, a café, a bistro, and now a wine bar, all within the confines of the central-downtown establishment’s walls . The Company Bar is part of what’s been described by Freda Moon­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ as the New Fort Bragg, shedding the lumber-town reputation with new, tourist-oriented industry.

I embrace the New Fort Bragg, and often take advantage of what it has to offer—great food, places you can take out-of-towners or in-laws, and opportunity. But if you want to find the grit—the Fort Bragg I have come to accept and love, with juke-boxes, pool tables, and blathering glassy-eyed drunks hunched over the bar in dim-lit spaces drinking themselves into oblivion—where the only appetizers available crumble out of a Doritos bag and the guy sitting next to you may spit a few choice words in your direction or become your best friend, it isn’t going to be found at the Company Bar. Keep stumbling down the side-walk, where there are whispers and shreds of an older, golden Fort Bragg, clumsily revealed at the right time of night.

]]> http://theava.com/archives/6706/feed 0 http://theava.com/archives/6212 http://theava.com/archives/6212#comments Tue, 18 May 2010 21:07:49 +0000 Nicholas Heller http://theava.com/?p=6212 What side of town are you on? Fort Bragg in photos.

Normal price is $7, but don’t bother. It’s probably at your local grow shop free of charge.

The mag is mostly how to’s for the knuckle-draggers–how to clone, how to “pamper” your plants, how to care for your mothers.

But Rosebud is striving for greatness. On the cover of the May issue? Brad Pitt. He’s here to provide the interested grower some deep thoughts on how his $5 million donation is raising New Orleans from post-Katrina wretchedness, and how his $3.5 million, 6-bedroom home in the French Quarter is just soo fabulous. A photo series and centerfold spread of a Barbie-type whose family owns a hydro business in Gilroy is next. She’ll soon be penning a column, Hot for Hydro, “offering tips and insider secrets” on how to make sure you get a super crop.

In addition to loving hydroponics, we’re told, she loves dirt bikes, fishing and “getting dirty and playing in the mud.”

Spoken like a true expert.

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Even though Colombi Jr. had already cut a deal with the DA’s office, even though he’d already agreed to plead guilty to stealing nearly half a mil in lumber from a fisherman’s Fort Bragg log yard four years ago, Colombi Jr. was in Ten Mile Court Monday morning to ask if he could withdraw the plea and hire an expert—someone who could vouch for the value of all that vanished timber.

The fisherman, David McCutcheon, had driven from Oregon—where he now lives—to witness what he thought was a sentencing. Instead, Judge Jonathan Lehan allowed Colombi Jr.’s attorney, Richard Petersen, to file a motion to withdraw the guilty plea. It would be an “abuse of discretion” if he didn’t, Lehan said.

Deputy DA Tim Stoen, visibly irritated, shrugged his shoulders and left the courtroom. “That’s the best I could do,” he said.

McCutcheon had leased an acre of land on Odom Lane north of Fort Bragg from Ed Columbi Sr. in 1998, and was able to store his doug fir and redwood timber there—preserved timber dredged from the bottom of local rivers worth lots of money. McCutcheon salvaged 80 sinker logs, and was able to mill an estimated $70,000 worth of lumber, which was stored on the lot, along with a measly $300,000 worth of un-milled lumber.

When Colombi Sr. passed away in 2004, the lot on Odom Lane transferred to his son, Colombi Jr., who has admitted to impulsive thievery while under the influence of methadone. In 2006, McCutcheon told Colombi Jr. he was moving his business to Elk in late May and agreed to have the logs out by mid-July. When McCutcheon showed up to the lot in June, he found a smoldering burn pile. His logs were gone—“abandoned”—according to Columbi Jr., who gave Robert Russell the okay to haul the wood away and clean up the lot. Russell, Colombi’s co-defendant, is missing.

The case picks up again Friday June 11 at 9 a.m. in front of Judge Richard Henderson in Ukiah.

]]> http://theava.com/archives/6263/feed 1 http://theava.com/archives/6104 http://theava.com/archives/6104#comments Tue, 04 May 2010 23:57:00 +0000 Tim Stelloh http://theava.com/?p=6104

Highway 20 & Highway 1

Don’t know who’s running for DA, Fifth District Supe and judge? Now you do. David Eyster, Jim Mastin, Dan Hamburg, Wendy Roberts, Ann Moorman, Matt Finnegan, Meredith Lintott.

Where are you, Caren Callahan?

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]]> http://theava.com/archives/6104/feed 0 http://theava.com/archives/6006 http://theava.com/archives/6006#comments Tue, 27 Apr 2010 21:51:34 +0000 Tim Stelloh http://theava.com/?p=6006 David Gurney, “independent video journalist” and enemy of all things Marine Life Protection Act, was arrested last week at an MLPA meeting in Fort Bragg for “disrupting a legal assembly.”

A Fish and Game spokesman told the Sac Bee that Gurney had disrupted meetings five times in two days; when he was eventually asked to leave, he refused and was arrested.

Gurney–who says he’s creating a “video record” of the protection act–contends that his rights to film and speak at a public meeting were violated.

On the first day of meetings–which were “work sessions” for the North Coast’s 34 regional stakeholders–MLPA officials asked Gurney to turn off his video camera. He initially protested, saying the meeting was public and that they were violating the Brown Act. He eventually relented (click here for footage of that exchange) and shut off his camera. The next day, after asking a question about ocean industrialization, Gurney says he was approached by a Fish and Game warden and forcibly removed.

Here’s a little more detail, via the Bee, on what the MLPA says the public can and can’t do during such meetings:

The stakeholder group holds two kinds of meetings that are noticed for public attendance. The first is a conventional meeting in which the public may comment and ask questions. The group also holds “work sessions,” in which the public is not allowed to ask questions, take photographs or record audio or video. Accredited journalists are told to obtain approval before attending…The goal is to create a “safe space” to share ideas candidly, said Ken Wiseman, executive director of the initiative to create the preserves. “It lets people talk about ideas without having it thrown on the Web,” he said. “It is as open and transparent as you will ever see.”

This isn’t the first time Gurney has had problems with Fish and Game and the MLPA. There was a similar exchange in January while Gurney was filming a meeting, according to Frank Hartzell at the Fort Bragg Advocate:

The biggest controversy of the night erupted when the PR staff noticed David Gurney videotaping the meeting and asked the crowd if anyone minded being recorded. They said the camera should be turned off if anyone requested it. Two people said they didn’t want to be on tape.

Gurney, who was standing against a wall operating his camera, said it was his right to record a public meeting. A controversy erupted and two uniformed DFG wardens came to assist MLPAI staff.

Gurney has repeatedly objected to the use of wardens as security officers and said they should instead participate in the meeting. He had also been involved in a confrontation at a meeting in Eureka. He blamed the staff for starting the confrontation on Monday, saying it was typical of the extra-legal and illegal efforts of the private MLPAI.

As the situation heated up, this reporter backed up the right of anyone to film a public meeting. A compromise was reached when Gurney agreed not to film people in the audience, although he (correctly) said it was his right to film whatever he wanted at a public meeting (as long as he continued to not disrupt the meeting).

The question, said Peter Scheer, of the First Amendment Coalition, is whether MLPA meetings are more like city council hearings–which can be recorded–or court proceedings, which can’t (unless you’re given special permission).

Though Scheer isn’t familiar with the MLPA, he said its open meeting guidelines are probably defined by the Bagley-Keene Act, which allows the public to record state meetings. Just because someone is uncomfortable with the idea of ending up on the Internet isn’t a good enough reason to keep the public from recording a public meeting, he said.

“Frankly, people who come to these meetings have to understand what they say is the public record,” Scheer said.

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