FOR A WEEK NOW, the name of the accused has been promiscuously circulated. What if she’s innocent? Her reputation has been seriously damaged before the investigation of the allegations is complete, and barely just begun. Maybe the money isn’t missing, merely misplaced in one of the wonderfulness boxes.

SERIOUSLY, THE WAY these things normally work is that the accused is first confronted with the discrepant figures. He or she is then given an opportunity to explain the figures. If the explanation is defective the police are called. The police do an investigation and submit their findings to the District Attorney. The DA investigates. If he finds that an embezzlement has occurred he can either seek reimbursement or prosecute or both.

PRECEDENT. DA EYSTER, some of you will recall, sent a letter to Supervisor Kendall Smith telling her to either return the money she chiseled from the County on her travel account or else. Smith gave the money back because Eyster wasn’t jiving around. Smith would have been arrested and charged.

THE SUM alleged to have disappeared in this case is $23,000. The accused said Monday night that she had just learned of the letter being circulated and that people were already calling her a criminal.

JANUARY 30, 2012. Dear Parents, It was recently brought to our attention some problems with the finances in the PTAV’s bank account, an account separate from the district’s. PTAV and the district are working with law enforcement to determine who is responsible and to recover the funds. The PTAV Board is being restructured to better achieve the goals of the group. The PTAV’s mission has always been to support its members (parents and teachers) and create a closer relationship between home and school. The PTAV Board is committed to rebuilding a positive and collaborative relationship with the parents, teachers, and members of the community at large. Please be patient while they work through this restructuring in the next couple of weeks. The PTAV is a dynamic and active group of parents and school staff who have provided the help and funds to not only maintain, but to expand the programs in our school in the last five years. We are grateful for all the work and support this organization has provided. Sincerely, JR Collins, Superintendent; Donna Pierson-Pugh, Principal; Nicole Mclain, PTAV President.

ANOTHER INTERESTING EVENT in Boonville last week. A bunch of high school boys left the campus at the noon hour to enact their version of the movie, ‘Fight Club.’ When they straggled back bloody and bruised to resume the educational experience, the high school principal, an uneven fellow named Tomlin, declared that henceforth the campus would be closed at lunch time and, additionally, 13 boys would be suspended for a day while the ringleaders would even more punitive time off from the rigors of secondary scholarship. Tomlin’s disciplinary crackdown occurred for no real reason at all, but it’s in the ancient tradition of American high schools in that it was wholly arbitrary; some of the involved got whacked, some didn’t. But Principal Tomlin, who pulls down $92,000 for half a year’s work, was also unhappy for other reasons. Not only did the Fight Clubbers post their faux fisticuffs on the internet for global viewing, several of them offered full-face denunciations of Tomlin himself. A high school’s discipline guy is always going to be somewhat unpopular, but this guy is a little more than unpopular with his funding units, er, students. High school kids, boys especially, seriously dislike him, and there are lots of grumbles about him from parents, too. Anyway and overall about the Fight Club incident, so what? Teenage boys should be allowed to bleed their overloaded hormonal lines once in a while, and this event was really no more serious than boys being boys. Which they aren’t allowed to be much anymore beneath the great PC mommy blanket that smothers all spontaneity, all joy, all life in educational Mendocino County.

FROM a Mendocino Beacon of January 1938: “The Fashauer brothers of Greenwood Ridge were at Elk, Monday. They were returning from the Ray ranch on Navarro Ridge where they killed a large sheepkilling bear. The old dog and her two pups ran the bear for over ten miles but were unable to tree him. The bear was so done out that Anthony Fashauer shot him while he was on the ground. He weighed about four hundred pounds, and was found to be full of sheep meat.”

SMALL SCHOOL HOOPS is coming down to a three-way duel between Mendocino, Point Arena and Laytonville.

THAT’S A NICE community gift Wendy Blankenheim and Doug Read have given us in the big, illuminated, nighttime heart glowing red out of the winter night on the hillside just north of Breggo Winery.

AND ANOTHER crucial community donor is Ms. Arlene T’s early morning trash pick-ups along the Boonville roadsides. She’s out there darn near every day picking up after us, and we sure as heck appreciate her efforts.

APOLOGIES to Miss Grecia Herrera whose surname we inadvertently dropped from last week’s basketball account.

YORKVILLE MAN, 79, missing, but no sooner did we get the bulletin last Thursday than he wasn’t missing, and doesn’t a person have to be absent more than a couple of hours before the alarm bell is rung?

THE TALENTED singer Nahara knocked ‘em dead at Lauren’s last Saturday night while down at the Philo Grange the Anderson Valley Film Festival, organized by Steve Sparks, garnered some $2,000 for the Senior Center and other Valley non-profits. Steve summed it up as “An excellent festival. Raised about $2,000, the same as always but in a day less and without the $50 we usually ask from 20 or so local businesses. Good films, good discussions, fine food and bar provisions, many plaudits for our efforts.”

DA EYSTER’S APPEARANCE at the Unity Club on Thursday (tomorrow) is sold out for lunch, but interested persons should know they are welcome to hear the DA anyway after the sold out noon meal. If you arrive at 1pm you can hear what the DA, who will be accompanied by Sheriff Allman, has to say over coffee and cookies. The event is at Rivers Bend Retreat Center, Philo. With Eyster and Allman you get a twofer, Mendocino County’s two top law enforcement officers.

THE ANDERSON VALLEY Fire Department is coordinating a Free Chipping Project in the Anderson Valley Area for the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council. As in years past, persons interesting in having free chipping done on their residential property can contact Colin Wilson at 895-2020. The project is designed to provide free chipping service to people who are creating defensible clearance around their homes and along their driveways in the greater Anderson Valley. Call for details.

THE FEBRUARY meeting of the Anderson Valley School Board will be held on Monday, February 13th in the admin trailers at the elementary school, tedium kicks off at 7.

FORTY YEARS AGO if you’d seen “End Corporate Rule” on the Fairgrounds billboard you’d have rubbed your eyes and looked again, and it would have said, “Kill the Hippies.” But darned if End Corporate Rule isn’t up there right now for David Cobb’s appearance tonight. (Tuesday)

A BOX VAN driven by Kenneth Fuller, 61, of Petaluma, unaccountably left Highway 128 at Haehl Grade near Yorkville last Thursday morning and rolled on down into a gully. The accident was witnessed by a passing Elk firefighter who quickly determined that Fuller, a scrap metal recycler, had not been injured. But the van contained propane cylinders requiring that hazardous materials protocols be adhered to and, after several hours, it was determined that no toxics had escaped the van.

VIOLET CARPELLO RENICK isn’t the only local enjoying the remininscences of the late Maurice Tindall. Violet, among the few native people remaining in Mendocino County who grew up in a Pomo-speaking home on Anderson Creek across the road from Evergreen Cemetery, remembers as a child shopping at the old Tindall Market in Boonville where her grandfather, Frank Luff, spoke a dialect of Pomo with Tindall. “Maurice Tindall was the only white man my grandfather knew who could speak our language,” Violet recalls. I will always enjoy Violet’s remark to an uppity old timer who was bragging about her seniority in The Valley. “Well,” Violet said in a quiet voice of ultimate triumph, “my family has been here for 10,000 years.”

WHILE we’re working the ethnic beat here, this from the January 29, 1887 edition of the Mendocino Beacon: “China New Years was celebrated by the Celestials of this place in a very enthusiastic manner. From Saturday morning until Monday night there was almost a constant fusillade of fire-crackers and bombs.” It was these Celestials who hand dug the Navarro Cistern which provides the perfectly sweet and pure water enjoyed by several Deepend households to this day. Chinese also hand dug the Skunk line tunnel outside Fort Bragg and the Eel Diversion Tunnel at Potter Valley.

A PROPELLER BEANIE event occurred at the Grace Hudson Museum last night (Tuesday) called “UFOs: Their Spiritual Mission and Role in Coming World Changes.” Co-sponsored by the Mendocino Environment Center and Sharing for Peace Network, the presentation advertised a Valley telephone number for information. The world is certainly gone to heck in a frayed handbasket, but it’s unlikely that ET and his friends would want to take over management.

BLACK JANUARY. Steve Sparks writes: “Gentlemen…. Amongst all the turmoil and scandal of the stories featuring J. Schmitt and All That Good Stuff, the High School Fight Club and its accompanying student suspensions, and the PTA’s financial irregularities, perhaps the most disturbing piece of news I have heard this past few days is that The Boonville Saloon, formerly The Boonville Lodge is closing and the liquor license is being sold to an establishment in Point Arena. If this is true we may never get one back here in the Valley. Say it ain’t so!”

MY FRIEND SEAN at Pic ‘N Pay laments the deteriorating local business climate. He says his business was alarmingly down in 2011 and 2012 is off to a bad economic start. Sean’s distress is widely shared in the Anderson Valley, and there’s not so much as a glimmer of hope at the state and national leadership levels.

THE VALLEY’S very own Kathy Cox, a truly excellent teacher, is offering Spanish language classes for adults at the high school beginning the week of February 19th. Fifteen sessions at the bargain rate of $150, days and starting times to be determined at the first meeting on Wednesday, February 15th, 5pm, in the Career Center Classroom.

THE NEWLY formed Anderson Valley Tennis League team scored 3 wins no losses in their first match-up with Cloverdale. Tina Walters paired with co-captain Arnaud Weyrich in a see-saw match with the first set ending in 7-6 after a tie-breaker and an equally hard fought 6-4 second set. J.R. and Jeanne Collins won their first set 6-2 but then had to dig deep to pull out a 7-5 win for the second set. The combo of Peter Gordon and Rich Ferguson proved too much for the Cloverdale team with a 6-4, 6-3 triumph. Well done team AV. The next match will be on the home courts at the high school at 10 am on Saturday, February Come out and cheer on the home team.

GREG KROUSE alerts those of us desirous of high speed internet that we get put on an AT&T wish list to be sent to corporate offices where a decision on service to remote customers like us will be made in March. The e-mail address for your wish list submission is SR1242@ATT.com Type in the subject heading “dsl wish list.” Write in the body your home telephone number and/or business number. If you’re not an AT&T customer, write in a contact number and your physical address. “If enough people do this,” Greg says, “there’s a good possibility we can get them to tap the lines and give us access. We live real close to access points, and dsl is faster, more secure, probably more accurate, and probably cheaper.”

IT WAS SO cold at The Major’s house Monday morning he said the water in his toilet bowl froze over. “I had to chip it clear with an ice pick so I could continue my morning ablutions, some of which, so to speak, had bounced.” It was 23 degrees at my place, and Mike Kalantarian at Navarro said it got down to 26 at the Deepend.

AND FROZEN PIPES everywhere in The Valley and, according to my old friend Sam Halstad, a plumber, everywhere in the county. Sam’s own water was out, and he’s on a municipal water system. I’m among the many waiting for mine to defrost and the water to begin flowing again, hoping the pipes don’t crack, which is always a fairly major hassle.

SOME 250 satisfied diners enjoyed the Senior Center’s crab feed Saturday night with the Catholic’s annual crustacean feast coming right up.

A VOLUNTEER Santa at Sea Ranch was startled by the little girl who jumped up on his lap to ask Santa to bring her “a hog-stickin-knife” for Christmas. Santa replied, “Little girl, you must be from Annapolis.”

BRUCE McEWEN is agog at Jacqueline Carmody’s vivid acrylics on display at Lauren’s Restaurant and, when “three lovely ladies beckoned me to come inside and listen to us sing,” I marched right on in and was glad I did. They sang beautifully, especially when they did ‘Nightingales Singing In the Branches of My Heart.’ The human nightingales that night at Lauren’s were The Motherland Family Band, and there was free champagne courtesy of Scharffenberger’s Winery. A great event.”

DEPUTY AND MRS. WALKER have returned to The Valley from a two week vacation in the Far East where they enjoyed stays in Hong Kong and Mrs. Walker’s native Philippines. Mrs. Walker, by the way, is a long distance runner, a runner of very long distances including a hundred miler she recently completed in less than 24 hours. When she says she’s going to run to Ukiah she just might mean it.

THE MISS MENDOCINO County 2012 pageant — “an official preliminary to Miss California and Miss America” — will be held on Saturday, February 4 at the Ukiah High School Cafetorium at 7pm. Tickets are $15 at the door. All proceeds go to scholarships for winning contestants. Ordinarily, we don’t pay much attention to this Ukiah-centric event, but this year the six contestants include an Anderson Valley entrant: the vivacious and multi-talented AV High Senior Olivia Allen. She can sing, she can dance, she pulls straight A’s! The multi-talented Miss Allen’s performances at the Anderson Valley Variety Show and the Ukiah Players Theater hold the promise that she just might walk away with the Miss Mendo tiara. Miss Allen tells us that she will deliver her rendition of “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” from Phantom of the Opera. Knock ‘em out, kidoo!

SMALL SCHOOL basketball season has begun. It looks like a three-way race between Mendocino, Point Arena and Laytonville. The smart money is on Laytonville.

JUST NORTH of Cloverdale, a large new billboard announces, “Entering Mendocino County. Wilderness, Waves, Wine.” You can probably think up more than a few variations on the theme.

CROOKED TELEMARKETERS (are there any other kind?) have been calling Mendocino County residents claiming to be employees of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office. If you are contacted by telemarketers who say they are associated with the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office in any type of fundraising effort, they are not. “Please call immediately to report it to our office at (707) 463-4086.”

LITTLE LEAGUE BASEBALL signups are being held this week and next at the Elementary School cafeteria. All kids ages 5-12 are encouraged to play. Please appear on Tuesday the 17th, Thursday the 19th or Tuesday the 24th between 5-630pm to sign up. You’ll need your child’s birth certificate and 3 proofs of residence. Cost is $120 and there are scholarships available. Call Shauna @ 684-9126 for info.

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THE HAZARD of year-end remembrances is leaving someone out, and we somehow forgot to include Jim Clow on our roster of Valley people who left us this year.

DAVID EPPSTEIN, a Frisco computer specialist with senior Wikipedia chops and Mendo connections, has done a nice update of the Hendy Woods Wikipedia entry, with new information about the Occupy Hendy Woods activity and the status of closure resistance. Look it up on Wikipedia under Hendy_Woods_State_Park. We expect that Mr. Eppstein will continue the updates.

THE SIXTH ANNUAL Crab Feed Fundraiser for the Senior Center will be Saturday, January 14th. Happy Hour at 5:30, dinner at 6:30. $25 per ticket. Call 895-3609 for tickets! (PS. Mileage reimbursements are available to drivers taking seniors to necessary medical appointments. Volunteer drivers are needed. Call the Senior Center 895-3609 for details.)

LAST THURSDAY NIGHT, about six miles up the Ukiah road, the rural peace was rent by a sudden, the repeated explosions of gun fire. Soon, someone from the Toll House was at the gate of the shooters shouting for a cease fire. The shooters, the same people who plunked down that eyesore shipping container beside the road a couple of years ago, shouted back insults and continued shooting. Deputy Squires being out on disability, and deputy Walker on vacation, there was no one available to mediate. Fortunately, the shooting subsided, the irate Toll House guy retreated and there was again quiet in Bell Valley.

REBECCA JOHNSON, the talented Navarro sculptress, has made a short film called “Change Over Horse Haven Ranch,” which will be shown at the Anderson Valley Film Festival the weekend of January 27th at the Philo Grange.

HORSE HAVEN, as us locals know, has transmogrified into Rhys Vineyards, vineyards that would not be there if Mendocino County had a grading ordinance. (A grading ordinance for Mendo was discussed for twenty years, but…) Even the wizards of Silicon Valley aren’t allowed to plant grapes on precipitous Sonoma and Napa hillsides, but in Mendocino County the One Percenters have it all their own way.

BOB SITES is fit again and back at his Yorkville home after holiday gall bladder surgery at the Vet’s Hospital in San Francisco.

BAD ROLLOVER crash Monday evening about 7:30 just south of Philo. The driver, still not identified, was medi-vacced to Santa Rosa with serious head injuries.

THE MAJOR took a midnight stroll around Boonville to watch  Boonville celebrate the arrival of 2012. “Departing AVA headquarters high atop the Farrer Building, a precautionary pistol in my pocket, I walked into the chilly night air of Boonville’s sedate streets. It was just before midnight. All was quiet at the brewpub next door. Four pickups were in front of the Boonville Saloon. A thin dark-haired drunk, female type, stumbled out of PicNPay, east down the alley and on into the laundromat. I thought back to a time when I did my laundry at midnight in a New Year’s laundromat. I’d almost called the Suicide Hot Line that time. The pleasant sound of a bass guitar trickled out of the Saloon. Country guitar emanated from Lauren’s Restaurant down the street where the ever popular Dean Titus and the Coyote Cowboys were entertaining. A drunk leaning against the Valley Bible Fellowship Church asked me if I was looking for trouble. ‘Are you looking to get knocked out?’ I snarled back. ‘This isn’t like you, Major,” he said. ‘What’s up with you?’ Another drunk asked me to keep his booking photo out of the Sheriff’s Log. ‘Cost you fifty bucks, punk,’ I said, walking on. 15 to 20 revelers appeared in front of the Boonville Saloon. Firecrackers exploded. ‘Anybody here need a serious punch in the mouth?’ I asked. Someone said, ‘Dude, cool all the way out.’ A man produced what looked like a flare gun and an umbrella of multicolored sparks instantly lit up the sky. Within the minute three of these brightly hued umbrellas had appeared  above Highway 128. Between the firecrackers, a burst of gun fire seemed to be coming from the house next door to the Saloon. More fireworks went off and several more gunshots were heard, some of them in bursts of 10 or 12 rounds. Firecrackers again, but not quite as loud. I kept my trigger finger on my piece. You never know who might go off in Boonville.  You can’t have too many guns in this place. Nothing seemed immediately threatening, however. All good clean celebratory noise. A solitary reveler in a cardboard top hat blew into a paper noisemaker. I stifled a sob. A quintet of drunks screamed incoherences into the sky. “Go, Giants!” I shouted, finally into the evening’s spirit. I could hear muffled gunshots deep in the hills. Smoke drifted up into the night air from the last of the street level fireworks. By 12:30 it was quiet again. 2012 was already half-hour old.”

BOONVILLE’S CHRISTMAS displays seem grander by the year, and this frigid Christmas season, with most of us dancing at the danger end of the most tenuous economic tenterhooks, the random optimism we feel at the hopeful sight of electric diamonds against the cold dark have never been more welcome.

ANOTHER NICE thing about Christmas in Boonville, Ricardo Suarez’s carolers strolling through town last week singing the old standards. Mr. Suarez owns the Redwood Drive-In, having purchased that pivotal local institution from Cheryl Schrader now of Boonville and Grass Valley.

CORRECTION: The Saturn stolen off Anderson Valley Way a couple of weeks ago did not belong to Stephanie Adams. It belongs to Jed Adams’ mother-in-law, and jokes about stolen cars without the mother-in-laws in them are not appropriate here.

FOUR NEW YEAR VENUES likely to be jammed with revelers Saturday night include the always convivial Boonville Saloon; Burt Cohen’s place on Lambert Lane where the popular proprietor of Boont Berry Farm serves whole seas of sushi to his many friends; Lauren’s Restaurant offers dinner and dancing with Dean Titus and the Coyote Cowboys; and Tom Towey hosts a combination Casino Night and dinner at the Boonville Brewpub.

KZYX RADIO, perennial winners of the Nikita Award for impenetrable communiqués, recently posted this update about the station’s Fort Bragg signal difficulties. “The factory does not at this time have a loaner unit available for our use and if we sent our unit back to them in Colorado they would not be able to work on it until late January, so we took the 88.1 ‘translator’ unit to a technician in Napa and worked on it while the lead technician for the manufacturer guided us over the phone through the repairs. We made three repairs that are the main problems that usually cause this type of failure. When we put it back together it was working fine so we took it back up to Bald Hill and hooked it back up. We believe this was the best option under the circumstances. It has now been working steadily since December 6. When a loaner becomes available, we may send it off then, especially if it gives more trouble.” Translation: OK for now but we’re still working on it.

RUMORS seem to circulate faster the colder it gets, but the prevalent ones last week said a local couple had been held up at gun point and relieved of the pot they’d uneventfully sold for years to the stick-up man; two home invasion robberies had occurred in The Valley but went unreported; and lots of people were describing by name the alleged snitch who was assumed to have orchestrated the recent bust of a popular Yorkville man.

THAT SHY, pretty young woman you meet behind the cash register at Anderson Valley Market may not be there much longer. Her name is Stephanie Frost and she can sing, really sing, sing so well that her album called “A Quiet Fire” is getting five star reviews on I-Tunes and other on-line music sites. You won’t be surprised to learn that Miss Frost is the daughter of the attractive and gracious Marcia Martinez, co-owner of the Boonville Saloon.

THE BOARD of Supervisors recently put their “Community partners on notice” that as of July 1st of 2012 there’s no more County money for the flow gages on the Navarro or Noyo rivers. These “community partners” — local grape growers and the Mendocino Redwood Company in the case of the Navarro — will have to pick up the $14,000 annual tab if the gages are to continue operating.

MANY OF US saw the young black woman hitchhiking west on Mountain View Road two weeks ago, and most of us couldn’t help but notice that the young woman was nursing an infant as she stood surrounded by trash bags of her belongings and, incongruously, a car seat, as forlorn a tableau as we’ve seen lately. She was vague as to her ultimate destination and, it seemed to some of us, so generally vague about everything else that we had to wonder if she was fully capable of caring for herself, let alone herself and a nursing child. But over the hill she went and the next we heard the young mother had appeared in Point Arena where a kindly MTA driver had deposited her with directions to seek shelter at the Sea Shell Inn. The Inn’s owner, Ken LaBoube, instantly embraced the wanderer with no thought of the timely Biblical implications of his generosity, which was soon supplemented by the Reverend Alyce Soden of the South Coast Crisis Line. The young mother, not much over the age of twenty, if that, mentioned Placerville as if she may have come from there. To another she said her surname was Butler. Rev Soden, who’s been helping the distressed for many years, was unnerved by the sudden appearance of the mysterious mother and child. “I think she was running away from something awful,” the Reverend speculated, an audible shudder in her voice. Two days later, mother and child were on the road again, this time to Ukiah where the two-person family was last seen last week.

ALICE BONNER writes: “Despite the new federal funding status of the AV Health Center, ongoing financial support is crucial for this community resource. A committee to plan future fundraising events and activities will hold its first meeting Monday, January 9th at 6pm at the Family Resource Center. All are invited to attend. The FRC is the brown portable building located behind the AV School District Office just south of the Elementary School on Anderson Valley Way. A light dinner will be served. Please let us know if you plan to attend by emailing or phoning Alice Bonner at arbonners@directv.net / 895-2545.”

IF YOU’VE DRIVEN north on 101 lately you’ve seen that big billboard advertisement near Calpella for the casino just up the road. “Come to Shodakai Casino!” it says. “Try our new pot-themed slot machines!” The invitation is illustrated by a cartoon dude in dark glasses, a joint hanging from his mouth against a backdrop of a triple pot leaf jackpot. And near Ukiah on 101 and deep South State Street, billboards advertise turkey bags, prompting visitors to comment, “These people sure must eat a lotta turkey.” Nope. The bags are used to transport marijuana because they are dope-dog sniff-proof. No odor escapes the interior of the bag. And the pot brigades scratch their heads and wonder why the feds have made NorCal their top drug priority.

JAMES BURNSIDE, 32, of Willits, was the guy who careened a stolen truck into a Yorkville tree near the Sonoma County line after being chased through Boonville by the CHP.

AND STEVE FARRER, descendant of the old-line family who once owned the Farrer Building in downtown Boonville in which your beloved community newspaper is headquartered, is warning Ray’s Road folks that he’s tempted to place a locked combo gate across the Navarro River end of the road. If Farrer goes with the locked gate there will be no handy public access to the Navarro from the Anderson Valley except at Hendy Woods. Farrer seems to flip at the sight of pedestrians on his stretch of the road, although there are very few of them.

THE TWO juvenile car thieves who fled Boonville’s LifeWorks group home in a vintage Saturn have still not been arrested. The two boys snatched the Saturn off Anderson Valley Way and successfully drove it to Hayward where it was found abandoned. Before departing south in the Saturn, the thieves damaged two other Boonville vehicles by jamming their ignitions with a screwdriver in failed efforts to hotwire them.

THE HAYWARD TOW COMPANY in possession of the recovered Saturn informed its owner, Boonville resident Stephanie Adams, that she’d have to pay $700 plus other nebulous costs and fees, to get her car out of the tow company’s impound yard. If Ms. Adams merely wanted to retrieve personal items from her Saturn it would cost her a $100. Bay Area tow companies have been getting away with this kind of extortion for years, as many thousands of us have found out the hard way.

MS. ADAMS SON, Jed Adams, approached Jack Graves, proprietor of the group home, to ask Graves to cover these fees. After all, as pater familias, Graves is responsible for the youths placed with him. Graves brusquely refused to take responsibility. Doubly victimized by the incident, the Adams’ have since returned the Saturn to Boonville but are out a good 800 bucks with no hope of reimbursement from any of the persons responsible.

AT LAST WEEK’S CSD meeting, newly installed Director Henry Gundling said he’d like to invite Kathy Bailey back to the Board to discuss the looming closure of Hendy Woods. Gundling thinks that The Valley, perhaps under the auspices of the Community Services District, could operate the park, although the state would have to fund the rangers. Gundling is aware that the discussion might be premature since most people would prefer that the Parks Department simply rescind their closure order. If the CSD were to step up now, it might take the pressure off the State to back off closure. When Director Fred Martin asked if CSD funds would be involved, he was informed that CSD tax and assessment funds are limited to fire protection, so Hendy Woods would have to generate its own revenue. Ms. Bailey’s invitation to discuss Hendy stands. She is tentatively scheduled to appear at January 18th meeting.

A LOCAL visiting Mexico for the winter writes: “The weather could be warmer and sunnier but it’s still nicer than at home! We feel very safe. We did fly, but I’ve spoken to several people who have driven. They say the main road down is safe and heavily patrolled by the federales.”

ANOTHER READER sends along an interesting historical artifact: “Thought you would appreciate this copy of a card that was my great uncle Ralph’s. He was Sheriff of Mendocino County off and on for 40 years. In his time he was chasing bootleggers and rumrunners. Today the Sheriff is after big time pot growers. Things haven’t changed much except the expense.”

THE CARD, on one side, simply reads “For Sheriff Re-Elect R.R. Byrnes. General Election Tuesday, November 4, 1930.” On the reverse Sheriff Byrnes makes a simple but strong argument for his re-election by comparing the law enforcement costs of Humboldt and Mendocino County. The profligates to our north spend $1.77 per person on law and order while Sheriff Byrnes maintains order in Mendocino County for 39 cents per resident. Mendocino County’s population in 1930 was 23,457. Humboldt had a population of 43,189 and the beginnings of Depression-era labor unrest, which must have driven costs up somewhat. Mendocino County didn’t even have a strike until after World War Two, and that was the big one at the Fort Bragg mill.

PEOPLE IN THE KNOW tell us that marijuana trimmers are getting $150 a day and that an experienced trimmer can easily clear $200 for 8-10 hours labor. The finished product is going for $1,000 to $1,200 a pound. “Maybe more if you know what you’re doing.” The same persons in the know lament “Used to be an old timer could pay his property taxes on a dozen plants. No more. With everyone in the business, prices are down, way down.”

STATE PARKS has installed “iron rangers” at Elk’s Greenwood Beach State Park, and Norman de Vall, among lots of others, is very unhappy about the unsightly metal pay boxes. Norman says he’ll “file a complaint with Mendocino County Code Enforcement on Thursday for the State not having filed a Coastal Development permit for a change of use.”

LORETTA HOUCK WRITES: “A big thank you to everyone who has supported Laughing Dog Books, now celebrating its second holiday season! A little reminder to shoppers that the “Give-A-Book” trees still have plenty of titles the Anderson Valley school librarians have requested. Pick a tag and buy a book for the AV High School and/or Elementary School libraries. W.Dan & Loretta hope everyone has a wonderful, safe, and (as W.Dan would say in the Treehouse) interesting holiday season! PS. Just in time for that special gift that really says “Boonville”: T-shirts are now available with the Laughing Dog proudly displayed! Ho, ho, ho!”

JACKSON FAMILY FARMS, via Dennis Winchester, has donated a large receptacle for storing the high school’s athletic equipment, a gift much appreciated by the school’s AD, Bob Pinoli.

THE BAD NEWS is that Garrett Mezzanatto, the talented three-sport guy at Boonville High School, is still suffering from a knee injury he suffered in the last football game of the season with Point Arena. Garrett took a helmet to the knee, and the knee has been out ever since, causing the kid to miss all of basketball season and maybe all of baseball season, and baseball is what he does best and is most interested in playing at the higher levels.

SPOTTED LAST WEDNESDAY at Mosswood, a CalFire lady in full uniform plus sidearm. Why would a CalFire person be armed?

UKIAH’S DERELICT PALACE HOTEL is in the news again. Still the most attractive structure in Ukiah’s dying downtown even in its crumbling decrepitude, the Ukiah City Council has just issued its annual threat to begin abatement procedures, again declaring the stately old building a safety hazard. Erected in 1890, the Palace went into serious decline in the early 1980s. A series of dubious characters, including at least one major cocaine dealer, bought the hotel and attempts, at least one of them serious, were made to get it going again. The restaurant and bar on the ground floor also turned over a number of times until Vince Sisco, one of the men involved in the infamous Fort Bragg arson fires of 1987, literally flamed out of the Ukiah bar and food business via one of four suspicious blazes to burn properties of his. A subsequent owner looted the Palace of every single fixture of resale value including the fine painting of Black Bart that hung over the bar. It simply disappeared. An imperious Marin County real estate agent named Eladia Laines bought the Palace at a bankruptcy sale in 1990 for $115,000 and has ever since sat on it, doing nothing beyond issuing occasional statements that she’d deign to accept a cool mil, cash thank you, from anyone wishing to buy it. As the Press Democrat’s Glenda Anderson errantly put it, “the hotel runs the length of a city block and is the scourge of downtown improvement efforts.” An empty lot would be an improvement? The ‘scourge’ of downtown Ukiah, more empty storefronts seemingly by the day, is more than one, but in an imploding economy, central Ukiah, first abandoned by previous city councils who approved the big box stores along 101, will continue to crumble. But Ukiah’s leading citizens, the people with the money to do the crucial civic good that leading citizens once assumed as an obligation of their good fortune, back in the day when leading citizens cared what their towns looked like. Charlie Mannon’s grandfather would have saved the Palace Hotel.

A CYNIC WRITES: “Subject: Savoy’s New State Water Permit. In a rare case of a vineyard owner bothering with getting a State Water Board permit, Savoy Vineyards of Boonville and Philo just got one got approved on December 2nd.

ANOTHER READER asks, “Did you know the famous black woman who lived up on Mountain View next to the Piper’s who was a UC Berkeley grad named Ida Jackson? Have I asked you this before? She was a cousin of Mahalia Jackson, gospel singer, who sang, did ya know, at the very first opening of Hendy Woods? Are there any pictures of that over there in AV?”

AS WES CHESBRO would say, “We’re looking into it.” I know that Jack’s Valley Store has just produced a file of newspaper clippings describing early Hendy, so we should have confirmation soon of what exactly the opening ceremonies consisted of.

AV HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR Lily Leighton is going to Haiti over Christmas where she will work with the Reveil Matinal Orphanage. Lily’s expedition is the practical end of her senior project

NOBODY KNOWS YET how the Post Office cuts will affect the Anderson Valley, but the cuts are another swindle engineered by the Republicans, who in 2006, got a bill passed that required the post office to prefund retirement for the next 75 years, and who ever heard of another employer prefunding retirement for 75 years? The Post Office would be in the black except for this pension pre-fund requirement. Social Security and MediCare aren’t broke either, but that’s another story. Every day, a new lie from The Party of Lincoln.

NORM CLOW WRITES from Las Vegas: “I’m one of those odd Panther fans who would certainly not be unhappy if Anderson Valley had ever won more than two championships — 1966 and 1981 — but was really more interested in seeing some different teams and some higher grade of basketball, no matter who won. I figured the league campaign was more important as far as titles went. The two best basketball games ever played in that gymnasium were the 1990 title game between winner Bethune, South Carolina, and Brentwood of LA, which Johnny Bazzano and I broadcast live on KZYX radio, and the 2002 championship won by Hoopa in a last-second, come-from-behind, OT game over Branson. As my father posed once, do you want to see some really good basketball or do you want to see Geyserville and Covelo for the 500th time? Nothing against those two schools, but I think he made his point.”

MYSELF, if I want to see good basketball, I’ll head for the USF gym, but locally give me Covelo vs. Geyserville, or Covelo vs. Anyone. As a Covelo-phile, I think that community is endlessly fascinating, and endlessly fascinating in a physical setting as beautiful as any in the land.

PASTOR BILL NOBLES is moving on from his Boonville church to the Assembly of God pulpit in Willits.

POT BUST at the high school a couple of weeks ago netted two boys apparently selling the stuff. And last week, a day prior to deputy Walker’s campus appearance with his dope dog Bullet, high school principal Tomlin announced they’d be coming, and thus nullifying Bullet’s Boonville debut. A local said he thought Tomlin’s warning was also intended for staff.

BULLET, by the way, is the same breed — Belgian Malinois — as the dogs the Navy Seals deploy with, a dog now advertised as the dog that cornered Osama bin Laden. Here in Mendo, our Belgian Malinois will be pretty much confined to pursing Osama bin Tweekers.

LAST THURSDAY early morning two young residents of Lifeworks Group Home, the only two residents remaining in the home, broke into two cars in downtown Boonville — one parked behind PicNPay the other at the Elder home on Highway 128 — and tried, unsuccessfully, to punch out the ignitions to hotwire them. The two absconders finally found a Saturn sedan on Anderson Valley Way with the keys in it, which they drove back to their county of origin, Alameda. The Saturn was recovered Friday in Hayward. The two boys, both of whom have lengthy records of serious crimes, remain at large. One had only been in the Valley for two months, the other somewhat longer.

TERRY RYDER reminds us that Lauren’s-Sing-Along is this Saturday beginning at 8:30pm. Which reminds me. Chatting with a local friend the other day, he asked, “Have you noticed how many deadbeats there are around here? A lot of locals don’t tip, and they’ll show up at, say, Lauren’s, to take in a show but won’t buy a meal or even a drink. One guy even has the nerve to leave religious tracts in lieu of a tip!” I’m not surprised. The libs, in my experience, which mostly derives from lib-lab potlucks, are the worst nickel-nosers, probably because they’ve never lived with the wolf at the door. (You bring real food, they show up with of seaweed.) But Lauren is particularly worthy of full support beyond her unfailingly modest graciousness, she not only hosts a lot of local events that would otherwise have no venue, she buys local produce as a matter of restaurant policy.

SUFFERED a minor shock myself last week when I visited my optometrist to get another pair of glasses. My originals had disappeared and I was reduced to reading through Edell’s, which is like reading through the bottom of a Coke bottle. I biked up to 414 Clement where Kimberry La, the friendliest, most thorough lens person I’ve known, maintains her office. It’s a family affair with Kimberry, her husband and a daughter. Before I’d become a customer I’d stopped in one day because a lens had popped out onto the sidewalk. I was so please at how Mr. La had not only snapped the lens back into its frame, he’d tightened the frame and had thoroughly cleaned the glass. I could see again! Last week, Kimberry’s store front office was closed. There was no sign on the door explaining why. I returned the next day. Still closed. I called the office number. No answer, no message machine. I went on line where I learned that Kimberry was dead, carried off by a fast-moving cancer only the week before. She couldn’t have been much over forty, and I can’t even imagine what that close-knit family is going through at her loss, but it explains the silence at Kimberry’s passing.

POINT ARENA has received the go-ahead to install bike lanes on three separate stretches of Highway One. 14 bike paths are being developed between Point Arena and Manchester, and by golly if the fog eaters can do bike lanes so can we!

AS 2011 BEGINS to recede in our rearview mirror, allow me one more complaint about Glen Ricard, the intransigent owner of the abandoned, ramshackle, fire trap perpetually greeting us at the south end of Boonville.  When I arrived here in 1971, there were four businesses and the fledgling Anderson Valley Health Center in that building, all of them fronting Highway 128. I also recall a bar run by Jim Boyd of Yorkville, a feed and grain operation, a laundromat, and one more enterprise I can’t recall. I think Karen Ottoboni’s brother owned the building, which he kept fully functional. When he died Ricard bought the place for, I’m told, $75,000. It limped along unmaintained for a few more years as it tenants dropped off. The laundromat disappeared as did a pizza parlor operated by the Portlock family, and then it was vacant. And it’s just sat there ever since, crumbling, vandals occasionally breaking its windows. I noticed just the other day that Ricard has replaced the latest round of shattered glass. Resisting a temptation to re-break them I walked on, wondering why this major eyesore and health and safety hazard is tolerated. Ricard also owns at least two well-maintained structures in the village of Mendocino where abandoned buildings are not permitted, and he lives in a well-kept home in a gated, high end Little River subdivision overlooking the ocean, also a site where the unsightly is not tolerated, although the unseemly seems to be. I know for a slam dunk fact that Ricard has turned down jaw-dropping cash offers for his Boonville wreckage, yet he continues to simply sit on the property while he sticks a daily thumb in our eye. It’s way past time to abate this guy. I hope our Community Services District Board makes Ricard its first 2012  priority.

NORM CLOW writes from Las Vegas: “That wasn’t the first Classic when AV beat Cardinal Newman, it was actually the 9th, in 1966, Newman’s second year in business. AV beat them the year before for 3rd place in overtime. Seems like some school like Fort Bragg or Covelo was around for the first title game in ’58, but I don’t have it at hand. AV’s win in 1966 was a good game, about an 8-point spread, led by C. Hiatt, T. Rawles, D. Huey, E. Waggoner, R. Cupples, G. Bates, D. Pronsolino, J. Blattner and probably a couple more to whom I apologize in absentia for not remembering. As for a county-wide affair, all the teams except Ukiah have played in the tournament to one degree of success or the other, but watching the same local and league teams that play during the season over and over again is not exactly riveting action. There used to be good teams from Lake County as well that participated, even Clearlake High in Lakeport, a couple of steps up league-wise. They had a guy named Duane Pollard in the early-to-mid ’60′s who could shoot the lights out and frequently did. Middletown and Calistoga were regulars for a while. Seems like even St. Helena showed up a time or two way back when, but that may be my age kicking in. Rancho Cotate and El Molino from Sonoma County were there mid-60′s when they were brand new. So there’s been a good mix from the general area. It can be done, but there are also more tournaments for which to compete for teams than the handful there once were, two or three actually for years. As for Branson, well, maybe they should simply be given a life-time achievement award and call it good.”

I TOOK IN four tournament games myself, and of the teams I saw, including perennial powerhouse Branson, the best coached five by far was Laytonville, led by Mark Kelly. I could have sworn Inker McCovey, the great Hoopa coach, was on the bench with Kelly, but I’m told that although Inker had appeared earlier in the evening with Hoopa, the Inker look-alike was Corey James. I met Inker years ago when some Hoopa kids stayed at my house, back when visiting teams stayed with local families instead of Ukiah motels. (Don’t get me started on what used to be, but used to be used to include night time awards banquets at the Apple Hall, to which the community was invited to enjoy a pot luck supper as the trophies were awarded. These days we get a hurry-up affair in the high school gym, and no one outside ever knows from nuthin’.) Inker or no Inker, Kelly seems to have channeled Inker’s hustling, fundamentally sound style of play. Best Laytonville team in years, and a pleasure to watch. High schools play a run-and-gun NBA-style game, which I don’t find particularly interesting and would have derided in my playing days as merely “6th period gym.” Today’s high school hoopsters launch all kinds of improbable, low percentage shots, including cascades of caroming 45-foot jumpers. Used to be you got benched for free lancing. A disciplined team like Laytonville, which almost knocked off perennial powerhouse Cloverdale, will usually beat the wild bunches, and even Laytonville didn’t have anybody who could shoot reliably from outside. But neither did this year’s powerhouse teams, including state champs Pinewood. The Cloverdale state champion teams of the McMillan era would have run Pinewood out of the gym, down 128, and clear back to Frisco, and the Boonville teams of the Tolman era would have won this year’s tournament, no problemo. The Tolman teams could put five guys on the floor who could shoot. Most high school teams are lucky to they have one consistent outside guy. This season’s Boonville edition got whomped twice. The homeboys haven’t played much basketball, but they’re gamers, and Coach Slotte has them playing hard and having fun, which is the point after all.

NOTE TO JIM TOMLIN: For at least a couple of decades, the high school principal’s amplified remarks have been inaudible because his mouth is too close to the mike. Back boy, back!

LUIS ESPINOZA, born and raised in the Anderson Valley, will become a full-time member of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department on December 12th. Deputy Espinoza is slated to work The Valley after tours of rookie duty in Ukiah and Fort Bragg. He will join the popular Craig Walker and, perhaps, the legendary Deputy Squires, currently out on medical leave as he recovers from shoulder surgery.

THE BOONVILLE HOTEL’S Christmas tree at the corner of 128 and Lambert Lane is an absolute delight. It brings a much needed and hugely appreciated yuletide cheer to Boonville, Mendocino County’s most happening community. Melinda Ellis told us Monday that not only did the tree lighting ceremony sponsored by the Hotel draw an overflow crowd of delighted Valley-ites, it raised more than a thousand dollars for the Anderson Valley Food Bank.

ROSSI HARDWARE’S window display is also a Christmas one-of-a-kinder, hearkening back to the enticing displays of pre-Fall America, that is America before 1967.

JOHN STOTT, highly skilled English gardener, is looking for a new home for himself and the mobile home he lives in, a 32-footer. John will exchange services, which come with witty conversation, for a place to park himself. Please call 707 972-1641.

THERE HAS BEEN a change in plans for the Foodshed December Quarterly Meeting. The meeting will still be Thursday December 1, 7 — 8:30 at the General Store. However, there will be no potluck this month.

HENDY WOODS COMMUNITY reminds us: “Please join us this Wednesday, December 7th as we continue our efforts to keep Hendy Woods State Park open and thriving! We will be gathering at the Grange in Philo at 7pm sharp. The meeting will include a short history and updates from the amazing Kathy Bailey, information about the new Hendy Woods Community group and how you can get involved, a brief question and answer session, as well as time and materials for letter writing, brainstorming, and other action items.  Help us spread the word! Bring a friend! We need as many people as possible to get on board so we can show California that our community cares about the park and is prepared to do our part to keep it open should it become necessary. If you cannot attend the meeting but still want to help out please take a look at our attached letter writing instructions and let your voice be heard through writing.  Thank you!”

THIS YEAR’S FIREFIGHTER AWARDS for the Anderson Valley Volunteer Fire Department went to Angela DeWitt (Rookie of the Year), Jim Minton (Officer of the Year), Marcelino Santamaria and Jim Minton (co-winners for Engineer of the Year), and Sarah Minton (Firefighter of the Year). The award winners were selected from among the volunteers themselves, the best kind of award there is.

GIMMEE that old time community spirit, especially at Wellspring, Philo, where people are being chased off the road that runs through Wellspring to the Navarro. Not just chased off but snarled at by the caretaker or whoever the unpleasant gringo is who does the snarling. Can’t believe that the property’s unfailingly gracious owners, Todd and Marge Evans, would encourage unneighborliness, but Wellsprings neighbors sure are wondering que pasa and what the heck.

ENTRY FORMS are now available for ‘Out of the Comfort Zone: New Directions in Quilting,’ a juried exhibition of contemporary art quilts by Mendocino and Lake County artists to take place March 2 to July 29, 2012 at the Grace Hudson Museum in Ukiah. Entry forms are also available at the Grace Hudson Museum, 431 South Main Street in Ukiah, or by calling the Museum at (707) 467-2836. Supplies of entry forms have also been sent to regional art centers, arts councils, quilting organizations and suppliers. The deadline for entries is January 6, 2012. The exhibition is sponsored by the Sun House Guild.

SPEAKING OF THE SUN HOUSE, I stopped in a week ago and was lucky enough to arrive just in time for a docent-led tour of Grace Hudson’s home adjacent to the museum housing her paintings and lots of other interesting artifacts. Never cared much for the paintings except for a miniature done in Hawaii of an old woman, but I’d been curious about the house for years, assuming it was what it turned out to be, the home of a patrician bohemian way ahead of the rural bohemian curve who must have regularly scandalized 19th century Ukiah with visitors who included Jack London and Isadora Duncan. London may have been more than a friend. There have always been rumors that there’s a semi-nude, daguerreotype-style photo of the semi-erect writer inscribed something like, “Until we meet again….” If it exists, did Grace’s photographer husband take it, and if he did…? It didn’t seem fair to ambush the docent with salacious gossip so I didn’t bring it up. But it’s always striking how iconic figures like Grace Hudson, married and divorced by age 18 to a man many years her senior she met in San Francisco when she was 16, are sanitized and sanctified down through the years. The whole person is always much more interesting than the scrupulously respectable face applied to her or him years later. The old girl was certainly among the livest wires Ukiah has seen, scandalizing at a time scandals were still possible.

REMINDER DOS, this one from Gene Herr: “Community members who want to find out about the proposed closing of Hendy Woods State Park and things we can do to help keep it open are invited to come to the Philo Grange on Wednesday, December 7 at 7 PM.  Learn a bit about the almost forgotten history of Hendy Woods and hear about steps we can take right now and in the next few months to either overturn the decision to close the park or find ways to help keep it open.  This moment of truth is providing an opportunity to renew our connection with one of the signature landscapes of Anderson Valley.”

DEPUTY WALKER and his K-9 Unit “Bullet” have been certified for patrol following an intensive six week canine training program. Walker says he’s pleased with the results and has already put Bullet to work — successfully — on a few  drug-sniffing stops.

JUST LAST NIGHT, Monday, the Panthers walloped Calistoga, and the lady jv Panthers walloped Calistoga even more mercilessly, darn near shutting out the visitors.

BACK IN THE DAY I was foolish enough to intervene in the domestic affairs of persons barely known to me. Both interventions occurred when the male was hitting the female and I had no choice but to intervene. In one, the woman told me to mind my own business, in the other the man said he was going to come back with a gun and kill me. A week later, the latter two lovebirds, arm-in-arm, flipped me off. In unison, as if they’d choreographed it. “Here’s what we’ll do when we see that busybody Anderson.” The domestic situation I’m about to comment on is absolutely none of my business, but I’ve known both parties to it going on forty years. They were my back fence neighbors on Anderson Valley Way all that time, and very good neighbors all that time, too. My pump broke down they let me tap their water. They had a party we got invited. We had a party, they got invited. Good people. Then the man had a stroke and wasn’t himself. She said he’d become dangerously violent and got a court order restraining him from the 7-acre property and two houses his parents had left him. He said he was being dispossessed of everything he had and had known for much of his life, which was true, but, suddenly disabled, he was slow to defend himself. She was quick to get herself power of attorney and a lawyer. And I know he’d driven them into a deep financial hole with mortgages and a failed wine scheme she’s had to somehow make right. This lady has legitimate grievances, God knows, and it may take God to fairly sort it all out. Myself, I don’t quite know what to think other than sadness at the whole of it, which is what everyone who knows them feels, but I do think she could be more forgiving, not quite as intransigent as she’s become. Her adamancy surprises me because she never struck me as a vindictive sort of person, and he never struck me as a man who’d be violent with his wife of forty years even if, in his altered state, he was estranged from her. He might threaten his wife, but strike her? I don’t think he has it in him, but that’s always easy for a person standing apart to say. Maybe the stroke did make him dangerous, but I’ve seen him and talked to him and I don’t think so, and other people who’ve known him as long as I have also don’t think he’s a threat to anybody. Surely he could live at one end of their 7 acres without disturbing her as she lives at the other end of the 7 acres. As it stands, in this the season of fellow feeling, he’s in failing health and living in a tiny trailer at the Boonville Fairgrounds while the rest of us hope there can at the very least be a reasonable accommodation.

OTHER DOMESTIC MATTERS include the news that Zachary Dale, 31, and Jerry Carrell, 26, both of Boonville, have taken out a license to be married. And, major correction here, Tara McLeer is not married to that co-worker’s husband she’s never met, let alone vowed to spend the rest of her life with.

ALWAYS A PLEASURE to see the Christmas lights twinkling in the cold hillside dark of The Valley’s hills and the truly stunning displays that grace many homes on The Valley’s floor.

SPEAKING of which, don’t forget tomorrow evening’s (Thursday) tree light party in the parking lot of the Boonville Hotel, a fundraiser for the essential Anderson Valley Food Bank featuring clam chowder, roast vegetable bisque and focaccia, all of it for a mere five dollar donation.

THE FINAL-FINAL school board election results in order of vote totals: Ben Anderson 448; Dick Browning 383; Martha Bradford 364; Don Harris 307; Ernie Pardini 303.

THE ANDERSON VALLEY Senior Center now has its own website at avseniorcenter.com

AND THE REDWOOD CLASSIC starts today in the Boonville gym, but what Mendocino County really needs is a county-wide, or area-wide tournament, with all the high schools in the County, big and small, competing. It’s hard to get interested in games between, say, Branson and Marin Academy, but Hoopa vs. Cloverdale would be interesting. In the very first classic Boonville beat Cardinal Newman, and there’s a game I would have liked to have seen. But even with Marin and SF teams in the majority there are enough local teams, if you include the wilds of Lake County, to make the tournament well worth the price of admission.

A READER sent in this quote: “There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build, and yet leave a landscape as it was before.” Oh yeah? Try chickens. They build nothing and tear things up almost as thoroughly as wild pigs. And while we’re discussing the animal kingdom I notice that the blue jays who dominated our feeder all summer have disappeared. Do jays migrate? Another thing: Our neighbor’s rooster now flies his coop early every morning to stalk our hens, viciously attacking our rooster every time he comes anywhere near.

FIRE CHIEF COLIN WILSON is looking for a structure to burn as a training exercise for our volunteers. Call the Chief at 707-895-2020 if you’ve got something (inanimate) you want to see go up in flames. The Chief and the volunteers will get the necessary permits and do all the site-prep. (I nominate the Ricard property at 128 and Haehl Street.)

ODD SIGHT in Navarro last week where several people waiting for the bus were dressed as extra-terrestrials. I was reminded of Kary Mullis’s account of alien visitations told in his most interesting book, Dancing Naked in the Mind Field where Mullis reports his 1985 encounter with a glow-in-the-dark, extra-worldly raccoon. Mullis, a Nobel laureate, maintains a home in Navarro. “Having passed the functional sobriety test,” Mullis said he had “driven successfully” to his Navarro home where “once he turned on the lights and left sacks of groceries on the floor, he lighted his path to the outhouse with a flashlight. On the way, he saw something glowing under a fir tree. Shining the flashlight on this glow, it seemed to be a raccoon with little black eyes. The raccoon spoke, saying, ‘Good evening, doctor,’“ and Mullis replied with a hello. I can’t remember if this cordial man-beast interface resulted in more conversation, but Mullis said the raccoon was definitely from some other place.

ONE OF THE BEST reasons to save Hendy Woods State Park was offered by Roederer Estates local manager Arnaud Weyrich at Jared Huffman’s recent visit to the Valley. “Being a manager of a business in the valley,” Weyrich, “I see a lot of the guests who visit Anderson Valley are people from elsewhere and if they don’t have a budget to go to one of the very few hotels in the valley, for some, their only choice is to go to Hendy Woods, where it is fairly cheap. It’s not like we have a lot of other options. There are no big factories or plants here; there is nothing else around. If you cut off the park, that is cutting off one of the very few branches we sit on, in terms of income from people showing up to the valley and spending money.”

LORETTA HOUCK WRITES: “Next week at Laughing Dog Books: the return of the ‘Give-a-Book’ tree. I’ve asked the two schools for their ‘wish list’ and have placed a tag for each request on holiday trees. Customers pick a tag and buy a book that goes to either the Anderson Valley Elementary or Junior/Senior High School libraries. Last year we gave the two schools more than 50 books! Then, on Saturday, December 3 from 1-3pm, we will host a reception for the artists from Anderson Valley Jr/Sr High School, whose creations will adorn our walls for the month and will be for sale. What great holiday gifts: books for the schools, art for your walls that benefit the students! Thanks to everyone for shopping locally this holiday season.”

KATHY BAILEY WRITES: “Community members who want to find out about the proposed closing of Hendy Woods State Park and things we can do to help keep it open are invited to come to the Philo Grange on Wednesday, December 7 at 7pm. Learn a bit about the almost forgotten history of Hendy Woods and hear about steps we can take right now and in the next few months to either overturn the decision to close the park or find ways to help keep it open. This moment of truth is providing an opportunity to renew our connection with one of the signature landscapes of Anderson Valley.”

LINDA MACELWEE REMINDS US that the Grange and Anderson Valley’s Foodshed Group invite you to a Holiday Community Potluck Dinner and Holiday Sing-along on Sunday December 11th at 5:30 p.m. at the Anderson Valley Grange #669 in Philo. Please bring a side dish or dessert for 6 – 8 people, including local ingredients if possible, with a serving utensil. Also please bring your own eating utensils, plates and cups. Locally raised turkey, ham and mashed potatoes and gravy will be provided. This is a family friendly and alcohol free event. Everyone Welcome! Todos son Bienvenidos! for more information call Suzy 895-2336.

CHRISTINE CLARK is back in her Philo home, doing well and getting better every day after her terrible medical ordeal with msra, a kind of mysterious infection that can be fatal and nearly was in Christine’s case. But Christine is now recovering, and she’s grateful to the many people who took the time to wish her well, and isn’t it true that well wishes are often the strongest medicine there is?

MRS. W.T. JOHNSON rightly wants us to know that “My husband, W.T. Johnson, has been referred to as his, I suppose, alter ego, J.T. Johnson, on a couple occasions in the newspaper over the past few years. While I know W.T. just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as J.T. does, nonetheless, it’s not his name. I tend to find a few laughs in it, but I think it’s beginning to rub him a bit wrong. I just waned to bring that to your attention so I don’t have to hear him raving about the house again. Thank you, Jessica Johnson.”

CRIMENY, what a dumb mistake. I admire the guy, his quiet get ‘er done competence, his unfailing good cheer. W.T. has rescued me a couple of times, once when I had my truck stuck in a most unlikely place. But W.T. didn’t laugh and he was kind enough not to ask me how the heck I’d managed it.

QUINCY STEELE has a limited edition of an excellent rosé he’s created, which is now available at Laurens Restaurant. Ask Lauren for “Quincy’s Calvino Jones.

THIS JUST IN from John Lewallen: I have just filed a formal Public Records Act request with the California State Parks Legal Office in an attempt to find out who decided to close seventy state parks, and what process was used to make this decision.  At a November 1 State Assembly hearing, Bill Herms, Deputy Director of the Department of Parks and Recreation, testified that a small group of park professionals decided which parks to close in a series of meetings which were not noticed or open to the public. Then, Herms testified, the meeting notes were destroyed.  “This process seems to violate the letter and spirit of the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, which requires that major state agency meetings be noticed and open for public attendance, testimony, and recording,” Lewallen stated. “Now there’s lots of expert and public testimony that closing state parks may cost state and local governments more than keeping them open, and devastate local economies which depend on park visitors for livelihood.”  Lewallen called on Jared Huffman, Chair of the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee, and Roger Dickinson, Chair, Accountability and Administrative Review Committee, to nullify this flawed decision to close state parks, and hold new hearings open to the public. “Our legislators should not be allowed to abdicate their lawmaking responsibilities to people who meet secretly and destroy their notes,” stated Lewallen.

FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS of Handley Cellars are invited to visit the winery on Friday, December 2nd to lift a glass in celebration of the season. From 4 to 6 p.m., holiday treats and libations will be served and special discounts offered. The annual Holiday Open House will take place in Handley’s tasting room, located at 3151 Highway 128 in Anderson Valley, between the towns of Philo and Navarro. Information about the winery and upcoming events can be found on the website, www.handleycellars.com, or by calling 895-3876.

A DROP-FALL drunk had dropped and fallen at the highway end of our office driveway last Wednesday morning about 8. Deputy Craig Walker and the AV Ambulance crew scooped him up and into the ambulance for the trip over the hill. Deputy Walker said he wasn’t local, “but he was so drunk he was lucky not to be dead.” Speculation: The guy was probably a chronic freshly released from the County Jail. Hitchhiking back to his home base of Fort Bragg he’d become totally stupified in Boonville and passed out. The drunk with him looked very, very concerned but he was still ambulatory.

ON A TRIP to Fort Bragg the other morning, I was momentarily confused by the roundabout smack in the middle of Highway One at Simpson Lane. I knew about it in theory, but I hadn’t expected it in fact. I predict there will be lots of accidents there as people brake in sudden confusion at an unanticipated but required swerve in an otherwise straight stretch of highway.

THE FORT BRAGG Steak House just up the road from the roundabout, and assuming you make it safely past the road block, er roundabout, throws a heck of a good breakfast at a surprisingly low price. It’s open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

ANDERSON VALLEY Animal Rescue says it “has lots of kitties who need homes. Some would be good as working barn cats, some friendly, some not so. OUR Barn cats are free, although donations are always welcome of course. If you have a ranch, barn, shed, warehouse, or know someone who does, we need a place for these guys. All community cats are spayed/neutered, rabies vaccine and ready to go. Call for more information — 707-621-2912. We currently have around 13 housed in a facility that is closing…we will more than likely always have this ‘style’ of kitty available, but we are in a bit of a pickle soon — so thanks.”

YOU NEVER KNOW who’s going to walk through the office door. The other day it was Mrs. Richard Kruse of Albion, beleaguered wife of accused child molester Richard Kruse, the man who founded and ran a water ski club for young girls only. Kruse was subsequently accused of violating at least one of the girls. I told Mrs. Kruse that she looked quite chic in her subdued brown ensemble with matching hat. “You look grayer than I imagined you looking,” she said, going on to tell me that her husband was going to trial and “he’s going to win because he’s innocent.” She said she was tired of people looking at her “like I’m Mrs. Scumbag.” I said I thought most people were fair, and that if the case went to a jury, a jury would surely make the correct decision as to her mister’s guilt or innocence. She hadn’t lingered, and when she was gone, I thought, ‘A nice lady, but if the charges against her husband are true, and DA Eyster is adamant that they are, I would have to wonder how it came to be that she hadn’t known that she was married to the worst kind of man there is?’

THE NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY will hold its holiday potluck luncheon on Sunday, December 4th at 12:00 noon, at the Greenwood Community Center in Elk. Everyone interested in native plants is invited to attend. Please bring a main dish, salad or dessert to share, plus your own beverages. The noon luncheon will be followed by a special program on our gorgeous native bulbs, starting around 1:30. The program speaker is Mary Sue Ittner, whose stunning photos help convey her boundless enthusiasm for native bulbs. She is a founding member of the Redwood Coast Land Conservancy and is the administrator for the Pacific Bulb Society’s online discussion list. Mary Sue and her husband, Bob Rutemoeller, enjoy traveling abroad to observe and photograph wildflowers — especially bulbs. For information about the program please call 882-1655 or 882-2528.

WHEN I READ that Congressional candidate Jared Huffman had said, to a great cheer from the Hendy Woods crowd, that “I’ve been endorsed by Mike Thompson and Wes Chesbro,” a cold chill of nearly overpowering despair swept over me. That statement, by itself, is reason enough to vote for Norm Solomon. I won’t hold it against you, my dear fellow Valley People, but what on earth were you cheering?

CONGRESSIONAL HOPEFUL JARED HUFFMAN will appear at Hendy Woods this Saturday at 2:30pm and the Boonville Hotel at 4. Huffman, an Assemblyman from Marin County who has already raised tons of money from all the wrong people to fund his run for Congress, sits on the legislative committee overseeing state parks. Occupy Hendy Woods has gotten a lot of Bay Area media attention, hence Huffman’s visit Saturday.

ROEDERER Estates and the Anderson Valley Community Action teamed up last Tuesday (November. 9th) to host a training on “Responsible Beverage Service”. Many wineries sent representatives along with community clubs and agencies that serve alcohol at their fundraising events. The training was sponsored by the Center for Applied Research Solutions (CARS) and funded by the CA Dept. of Alcohol and Drug Programs. Bi-Lingual presenter George Vasquez did a great job of packing a ton of information into his four-hour program. Certificates of completion will be sent to those who passed the final exam.

BARBARA GOODELL WRITES: On Saturday, November 19th from 2:00-4:00 in the afternoon you can sample the six outstanding new salsas in the 10th Anniversary Edition of the Secrets of Salsa Cookbook. Imagine ten years! And now, against many economic odds, the salsa cookbook is continuing to keep the doors open for the English as a second language classes at our adult school. So come to Boonville Hotel’s Shed — behind the house behind Paysanne, the Ice Cream Parlor in Boonville — to savor the new buttery Sinaloan Salsa for Salmon from Marisol Jimenez; the rich and full-flavored My Grandmother’s salsa by Olga Medina; Anaheim Chili salsa with a taste of the ocean by Iriana Camacho; a very refreshing Strawberry Jicama salsa by Aurora Torres; an exquisite Garden Gazpacho by Pilar Echeverria; and a very versatile Baja Fish Taco salsa, a collective recipe. Meet the women who have contributed these salsas, get autographed copies of the new edition of the cookbook, and enjoy the live mariachi music and celebration! For more information please call 895-2953.”

DEPUTY SQUIRES said Monday that the surgery on his troublesome shoulder had gone well, and that he will soon be back on duty.

ACCORDING to a Sac State study which wafted down out of cyberspace and into our office the other day, “The average park visitor spends $57 locally and in the park.” Based on those statistics, the report says, Greenwood State Beach at Elk brought $2,553,543 into the Mendocino County economy in 2009/10. Hendy Woods at Philo, with its many overnight camping spots, probably generated that and more in total sales of this, that and the other thing in the Anderson Valley.

I DID A DOUBLE TAKE the other Boonville day at the young guy who’s a dead ringer for Zippy the Pinhead — shaved skull, top knot, idiot grin — the works. Is he local, or just loco?

BALLOON GUY’S name is Kevin Herschman. He calls himself Hot Air Balloon Adventures, and from the look of the thing, hand-stitched by its owner, it would seem to be a rare example of truth in advertising. Herschman was here in 2010 for a weekend festival called Mendo-A-Go-Go. People lined up at $75 a ticket for a ride lasting 20 to 50 minutes. The law says aircraft of any kind are supposed to stay at least 500 feet above terra firma, and Herschman is licensed by the FAA. He says his balloon can soar as high as 12,000 feet but he usually confines his flights to 6,000. Herschman’s truck is inscribed, “The sky’s not the limit.” In theory, he can be reached at 225-772 4208.

REGINALD B. THATCHER, a one time resident of Anderson Valley, is believed to have committed suicide in 2005. Anyone who can confirm Mr. Thatcher’s passing is urged to call us at 895-3016.

A READER WONDERS: “In Oakland, on Telegraph between 42nd and 43rd, there is a shoddy storefront with BOONTLING in big letters -nothing else. Any connection with Anderson Valley?” None that I know of.

WHAT A GAME in Point Arena last Saturday. Unfortunately, Point Arena won, and won in spectacular style on their last offensive play of the game on a perfect pass up the middle, which was almost intercepted by the dependably magnificent Omar Benevides, but wasn’t, and Boonville was sent reeling into muddy defeat. A Point Arena friend welcomed me to what she called “Gopher Stadium,” and I thought back over the years to the many nights in the acoustic horror chamber of the Point Arena gym, the gale-force winds sweeping the baseball field, and settled in for frigid football in Saturday’s pounding rain. There was a big turnout of Boonville fans, their vehicles lining the east side of the field and home made tamales for sale at Point Arena’s snack stand. Meanwhile, back in Boonville, our championship soccer team also playing in the mud and the rain and gopher holes lost a heartbreaker to Emery on a tie-breaking penalty kick.

LAURA HAMBURG has abandoned her proposed “Mendocino Generations” marijuana dispensary in downtown Boonville. The license application has stalled in Planning and Building, and persons close to Ms. Hamburg have told us she’s now looking at a location somewhere north of Ukiah, not in Yorkville as previously rumored. The County has put its dispensary regulation ordinance process on indefinite hold in the wake of the federal crackdown on Northcoast dispensaries.

A BOONVILLE WOMAN writes: “I was walking to the AVA office last Friday when, crossing Highway 128 in the crosswalk near the post office, I saw a truck approaching in the distance, but I deemed it safe to cross, figuring he would slow down as he got closer. Instead, he never slowed down and I ended up running out of his path. When I turned around and raised my arms in a ‘what’s up?’ sort of gesture, he gave me the ‘bird.’ I proceeded to call 911 and report him and his ironic license plate, ‘DANGER 6.’ The truck was a white Ford F-series with a toolbox in the back. It turned up Mountain View Road. I’m happy to be alive.”

WE HOPE the CHP or someone in badged authority acts on the above complaint. This Danger 6 oaf might have killed the lady if she’d tripped or otherwise paused in the crosswalk. We’re short on law enforcement at the moment. Deputy Squires is out with a shoulder injury, Deputy Walker is mostly unavailable while he trains his German-speaking police dog, and our very own Luis Espinoza is still going through the Sheriff’s Department’s hiring procedure. All three of them could have been counted on to track Danger 6 down.

THE TALENTED Ashley Jones has donated two of his one-of-a-kinder wood creations as silent auction pieces, all proceeds to the Anderson Valley Teen Center, while his stunning acrylics are priced by you, the buyer. Mr. Jones’ work can be seen at Laughing Dog Books in downtown Boonville.

SUPERVISOR John McCowen was spotted last Thursday at dinner at Lauren’s Restaurant with the Mendo-based journalist, Christina Aanestad, a single woman presently freelancing for public radio stations around the state while she helps with the radio and newspaper communications arising out of the Mendocino Environment Center, Ukiah. McCowen, a bachelor, owns those premises at 106 West Standley housing the MEC.

CORRECTION: We announced last week that the Occupy Hendy Woods event would be last weekend; it’s this weekend, Friday the 11th through Sunday the 13th. Organizers especially hope locals will show up for the “General Assembly” on Sunday morning from 10am to noon for some serious discussion about how to keep Hendy Woods up and running.

THE BOONVILLE WINTER MARKET will begin the following Saturday, Nov 12, 10:30 — 1:00 in front of Boonville General Store. The 10th Anniversary Edition of Secrets of Salsa Book Release Celebration will be on Saturday, November 19th from 2:00-4:00 p.m. at the Boonville Hotel’s “Shed” behind the Farrer Building and Paysanne Ice Cream. We hope you can come help us celebrate, taste the six new scrumptious salsas, and enjoy the mariachi music!

KZYX LOST ITS SIGNAL Sunday evening from about 6:30pm to about 8:30pm. The station’s manager, John Coate, explains what happened: “The building that houses the 90.7 transmitter as well as the STL (studio transmitter link) that beams it over to 91.5, is owned by Cal Fire, to whom we pay rent. The power to that building has a 400 amp main breaker switch that is defective. It flips off the power to the building for no apparent reason, and does it at inopportune times. Last night was one of them. Often when it happens, and it has happened numerous times to our extreme frustration, Rich or I can get up there within 45 minutes and flip it back on. Last night Rich wasn’t there, Mary was on her way to the Bay Area and so I drove down there in my truck from Little River and flipped it on and then stayed there for a couple of hours to make sure it didn’t flip again — something it has done numerous times, and in fact had done it last night. The signal went down for a bit and our bookkeeper who lives not far from there went up and flipped it for us. But after about ten minutes it flipped again. I couldn’t ask her to stay there and deal with it so I drove down. Last week I went up there with the Cal Fire electrician to change it with a new one, but when we got there he saw that he had only one of the two items you need for such a big device: the switch itself and the ‘trip mechanism’ (which is the part he didn’t have). SO he ordered it, “put a rush on it”, and when it gets here he says he will go up and install it. I don’t know about the time process involved with Cal Fire and the speed with which they can get things, or if it’s a weird part or what. But we needed it fixed already. Rich was going to call him today. I drove to LA today and don’t yet know if he did. I am going to ask him now.”

COLD SPRINGS, where the broadcast gear is situated, is way to heck and gone up on Signal Ridge, deep in the Coast Range mountains. It’s a long haul from Philo where Mendocino County Public Radio is located.

BILL TAYLOR’S Fall Salad University class occurs on Sunday Nov. 13, 1-4pm with herbalist Wendy Read, and Jaye Alison Moscariello. Meet at the Boonville Fairgrounds Parking Lot at 1pm for a 1:15pm departure to the nearby garden. Cultivation and medicinal properties of dozens of plants, including those that do best in winter will be discussed. Green smoothie and salad to taste will accompany a small meal (potluck contributions welcome). Rain or shine (heavy rain may reschedule). Call 877-1668 or just show up.

AFTER LAST WEEK’s exchange with Caltrans spokesman Phil Frisbie Jr. in Eureka wherein Frisbie Jr. informed us that he would no longer being sending us road bulletins because of a Caltrans joke we made in the early 1990s (!), we discovered that the road information bulletins are published on the Caltrans website. We asked the irony-deficient Mr. Frizz if it was ok for us to use the web-bulletins. “Yes,” Phil The Magnanimous shot back by e-mail, “the content of our web postings is for public use.”

COINCIDENTALLY, Mr. Frisbie was quoted in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat last week on the status of the repaving of Highway 128 in Anderson Valley: “We have two more paving projects which will occur next spring/summer. Between the two projects, paving will occur from Lambert Lane in Boonville to the Sonoma County line. There will be several locations which will not be paved due to storm damage repair projects which will occur over the next few years. Those locations will be repaved as part of the storm damage repairs.” He didn’t say where those locations are but, gee, a guy can’t think of everything.

THIS POSTER was sent to us by a young guy who said it was an “art project” designed to elicit “community response.” It sure did. The artist, a high school kid, was deluged with responses, which he recorded and which range from “That’s a possum, you retard” to “I’ve been looking everywhere for my cat. Thanks for finding him.” Most, however, simply pointed out that the animal is a possum, not a cat.

MENTION of the animal kingdom reminds me of the many times I trapped raccoons, possums and skunks in my Have-A-Heart to relocate them in the woods near an enemy’s house. The skunks were a lot easier to deal with because they’re slow to get into spray position. You can out-maneuver them while they’re backing around to open fire. Possums, as the above photo illustrates, are much quicker and a lot more aggressive. Raccoons? No prob.

MIKE KALANTARIAN of Navarro writes: “Listening to the World Series on the radio this year has certainly been entertaining, but I would also add disappointing, in that neither team has played very well, on a consistent basis. Thus far, it feels like neither team really deserves the title. Which brings to mind last year’s Giants, who sailed through their final couple months of baseball at a consistently elevated level of play. It was such a joy to watch them play out that 2010 season, as if they were riding destiny. Anyway, the other interesting thing is the best radio signal I’ve found for listening to the games. Out here in the boondocks of the Northern California Coast Range it is difficult to pick up radio signals. Before the Series started, I went online to research how I might be able to listen to the games on the radio. Well, these days, few people care about radio, so the information available was very sketchy, and all I was really able to ascertain was that the Series would be aired on an ESPN radio station. I found a map of ESPN radio stations, wrote down the frequencies of the ones in our general area (southern Oregon to central California), then took an evening spin around the AM dial. As dusk settled in, one station rose to the fore, and continued gaining strength and clarity into the night. To my surprise, it was from Rosarito, Mexico! So, I’ve been listening to the World Series on a Mexican radio station (XEPRS AM 1090) — which makes sense, in a funny way, when you consider how Mexicans (and their Central and South American brethren) fairly dominate the league these days. I guess this is because boys in these countries still grow up using their entire bodies (rather than thumbs only). One interesting economic development from this is, with big-league salaries the way they are, the vast amount of baseball dollars that must be flying south every year. It’s become a pathway for sharing the wealth.”

JULIE WINCHESTER has gotten a welcome start on the Christmas season with strings of gloom-alleviating lights on her house next door to Anderson Valley Market, and gotten them up just in time for this weekend’s storms when night time sparkle is just what we need.

UPDATING PLOWRIGHT. Plowright’s the guy in lots of trouble with lots of public agencies, from the cops to Water Quality to Fish and Game, all of it arising from a tractor discovered early last year stuck in Little Mill Creek off Nash Mill Road. From there a multi-agency task force raid was soon rummaging through the Plowright property where a suspected meth lab, guns, stolen construction equipment, and the usual evidence of a marijuana farm were discovered. It took me six calls to finally arrive at the historically resonant Mr. Huey Long, esq. of the State AG’s office after futile calls to the hopelessly elusive Fish and Game and a curt fellow at Water Quality from whom I learned that although the case was active with them he was unaware of the rumored fresh violations involving Plowright at Mill Creek. It is also known that Plowright, who is not in custody, has hired an experienced local contractor to “remediate” the damage he or associates did to Little Mill. Mr. Long said Plowright would be in Mendocino County Superior Court on the 16th of this month where the case would either be settled or set for a preliminary hearing. (I got the impression from Mr. Long that it would settle.) Plowright, incidentally, is represented by former Mendo DA Duncan James. He had been represented by present DA David Eyster. Eyster had to turn the matter over to the State Attorney General when Eyster was elected DA, deftly making the transition from defense lawyer to chief prosecutor.

REUBEN BROWN and Maria Kaplan are in business on Greenwood Road as Mendoscenic Ridge, accommodations about two miles up from Hendy Woods.

AS ARE Dennis McSweeney and Leslie Osman at The Navarro Mill Guest House, Wendling Street, Navarro, and they’ve been there for five years, which I was unaware of because I haven’t been on Wendling Street for at least ten years.

AND, YES, you qualify as an old timer if you remember the Navarro Dump at the end of Wendling Street.

GOT A KICK out of the Rastafarians at the General Store the other day as Mom and Pop Rasta, dreadlocks flowing, called out to their two careening little dreadlocked Rastas to be a little less careening, “Freedom! Justice!” (Boy, are those kids going to have some ‘splaining to do.)

THEN THERE’S the mom who says she felt like screaming when her daughter informed her that she and her husband planned to name their child, ‘River.’ (Hippie! The beast that won’t die!)

TERRY RYDER lost her keys at Lauren’s last Trivia night.

“They’re on a dark blue strap, Terry tells us, “that says CADCA and have a large beaded strawberry charm attached to three keys: a car key with black Honda plastic on it, a post box key and a heavy key with a squared-off top.” Reward for return: Terry Ryder 894-8429.

UNCLEAR on two concepts in one sentence? The Ukiah Valley Medical Center will be offering a free drive-thru diabetes screening test on Monday, November 14th “in honor of World Diabetes Day.” I don’t ‘honor’ is the word we want here, and if you think you might have diabetes you ought to be walking up to the drive-thru window, not driving.

TWO MUCH APPRECIATED gifts arrived last week, the first being a sample tasting of Mary Pat Palmer’s truly wonderful absinthe brewed by the master mistress of potions herself at Navarro, and a package of gift cards illustrated by the brilliant South Coast painter, Jane Head, depicting one of the famous Point Arena zebras.

BY NOW you’ve voted, and I hope you’ve voted to liberate the school board from a quarter century of 5-0 votes. Naturally, the 5-0′s and their agents have been hustling around The Valley pulling aside the credulous and the uninvolved to say, “Here’s who you should vote for and why,” and that of course would be Marti Bradford and Dick Browning, 5-0′s to their very marrow. There are lots of people who think 5-0 management practices and all that they imply are just fine, and lots of Russians still yearn for Stalin, but I daresay most parents, especially parents of high school students, would like to see major changes in Boonville management practices.

HOW GOOD are our schools? No one will confuse the high school with Eton, but they’re about like most American high schools — not so hot, and not so hot for lots of reasons ranging from low parental expectations, to uninspired instruction, to the overpowering effects on young people of our idiot-making popular culture (often encouraged by idiots running the schools), to the separation of teenagers from the rest of us like they’re some sort of interim sub-species, to the prevalence of dope, to really bad management by really dumb, lazy people. (cf Paul Tichinin of the Mendocino County Office of Education, walking testimony that we’re talking failed system here.)

AND THEN THERE’S the big local one. Which in our case is that 80 percent of our students are the children of immigrants still learning the ropes here in GringoLandia and, despite their large prevalence in the student body, still lack any representation at any level of local government, and certainly aren’t represented at the school board level. What do the Mexicans really think of the local schools? I have no idea (note to self: get a translator and find out). All we get from the school bloc is a lot swellness rhetoric.

WHAT I’VE ALWAYS found especially irritating about the local school apparat, as dominated by J.R. Collins and Mrs. Pierson-Pugh, and their gofers like Mrs. Bradford, Browning, is its impenetrably smug assumption that they’re not only simply swell in themselves and doing an even sweller job educating “America’s future,” but there’s something seriously wrong with anyone who doesn’t share that assumption. Lots of people don’t. If Bendini gets elected to the school board Bendini will be representing the many local people, especially Mexican and Anglo parents, who think the local schools could be a lot better.

TIME FOR THE USUAL disclaimer which, if not issued, the fuzzy-warms get all upset and go around saying, “There he goes again, Mr. Negative.” I like J.R. and Donna on a personal level. They’re capable, nice people. Dick Browning seems like an affable old gaffer, and I’ll always be grateful to Marti Bradford for picking me up that scorching afternoon twenty years ago when I was hitchhiking back from Ukiah. I know how excruciating the next 16 miles must have been for her. But golly willikers we’re all adults here, aren’t we? Can’t we talk about this stuff without everyone getting all het up?

I ESPECIALLY appreciated Ernie Pardini’s interview remark last week putting school things in historical perspective by pointing out that teachers used to be obligated to at least one extra-curricular activity or sport as part of their contract. That’s long gone. If it weren’t for community-minded volunteers we wouldn’t have all but one of the sports programs.

COACH STEVE SPARKS has lost four starters from his league champ and playoff-bound soccer team because they couldn’t manage a 2.0 gpa. You’d think they’d at least have tried to stay eligible given their success this year, but….

THE FOOTBALL PANTHERS travel to Point Arena this Saturday for a crucial 2pm game with the Fog Eaters while Sparks’ champion soccer team is again in the regional play offs here in Boonville, also at 2pm Saturday, against either the Bay School or Emery School of Emeryville.

I’LL ALSO MISS Jim Clow, but Jim’s passing in his eighth decade was not unexpected. He’d lived a long, full life, a life he shared with us in Steve Sparks’ wonderful interview with Jim which appeared in the June 23rd, 2010 edition of this newspaper. It’s stored on-line at theava.com and well worth reading because, as everyone who knew Jim will testify, he was a wonderful storyteller. He had some great baseball stories from his youth as a “ringer,” an old sports term that means the insertion of a gifted athlete into a ball game played by ordinary athletes. The ringer gets paid. The other guys don’t. A terrific baseball player when he was young, Jim, a pitcher with the big fastball and pro-level breaking stuff, was much sought after by local semi-pro teams in the forties and fifties when semi-pro baseball games were big draws in rural and urban areas alike. Lumber mills were great ones for bringing in ringers, and Mendocino County had lumber mills everywhere. I’ve always heard the Harwood Mill team out of Laytonville loaded up their mill team with ringers, and I know the Fort Bragg mill team was a whole line-up of ringers, including the great Vern Piver, a Fort Bragg homeboy who went on to play pro ball. Fort Bragg held its own against City teams featuring the DiMaggio brothers, to give you an idea of the quality of the competition you could find in the rural areas of Mendocino County in the thirties, forties and fifties with Jim Clow in the forties and fifties mowing down the invaders one, two, three. I always pumped Jim for baseball stories when I met him in Boonville, and he never failed to deliver. If you missed his interview, look for it on-line. If you’re of Jim’s vintage and you don’t know on-line from a fishing line, get your grandkid to print Jim’s interview out for you. That man was a one-of-a-kinder.

AS IS CHRISTINE CLARK presently confined to Howard Hospital in Willits where she’s recovering from a nearly fatal battle with blood poisoning. Christy Kramer, Christine’s devoted daughter-in-law, said Tuesday afternoon that Christine was much improved. “She’s got her color back and she’s able to walk a little,” Christy said.

LOTS OF LOCALS are following, or trying to follow, the ongoing Plowright matter. Plowright is the guy who tore up a stretch of Little Mill Creek, a blue-line stream into which a huge effort at restoration has been invested. He, or persons associated with him, drove a tractor into the stream near land Plowright owns off Nash Mill. The tractor got stuck in the creek and left there, an indication that Mr. Plowright was not the kind of guy who walked lightly on the land. The stream damage drew the wrathful attention of everyone in the area, including law enforcement and a host of state environmental agencies. Law enforcement subsequently busted Plowright for possession of heavy equipment stolen out of the Santa Clara Valley. They speculated that the whole Plowright show, as it played out near Navarro, was the rural end of a crank business headquartered in San Jose. Plowright was ordered by Water Quality to clean up the damage he’d done to Little Mill Creek which he seems to have at least attempted to do but, perhaps, not quite to regulatory standards. The case was moved to Ten Mile Court in Fort Bragg where it presently rests. The state’s Attorney General’s Office is prosecuting Plowright, and getting information out of the AG’s office isn’t easy.  We hope to know the status of the Plowright affair by next week.

FRIDAY NIGHT, under the lights of legendary Kezar Stadium, the Anderson Valley football Panthers take on Stuart Hall, a San Francisco private school. Kick-off at 7pm. Of course I’ll be there. Wouldn’t miss it, the venue being about a ten-minute bike ride from my city home. I was sorry to see the old Kezar go; I saw my first Forty Niner game as a little kid at Kezar in 1950. Made a football fan out of me forever

CINDY WILDER tells us that the final Boonville Summer Farmers’ Market takes place this Saturday, October 29th. “After the market, at 1pm in the Hotel courtyard, we will come together for our annual End of the Season pizza bake and local food potluck, The pizzas will be baked in the outdoor oven in the courtyard and will feature toppings from our local farmers. We will also have fresh-pressed juice from our apple press. Bring a dish, utensils. Hope to see you there.”

WE WERE DELIGHTED by the sudden appearance Tuesday morning of Jeni Benville, the ebulliently charming proprietor of the Boonville Chocolate shop, open now for two weeks in the Caboose complex next door to Boont Berry Farm. Ms. Benville is a delight in herself, but instantly became doubly delightful when she handed us a sample plate of the quality chocolates now available at her shop in the Caboose. And we’re here to tell you that the goods live up to their advertising: “Specializing in fine American made chocolates and confections.” A most welcome business much appreciated by the great many of us always on the lookout for the perfect gift. Ms. Benville’s shop is easy to miss because it’s partially obscured by the English walnut tree landlord Mike Shapiro maintains out front, but with a discreet haircut the tree can be mooted, and Mike’s an amenable sort of guy. The chocolates are truly delicious.

FROM AN OCTOBER 1886 edition of the Mendocino Beacon:  ”… We are informed that a fine large lobster was caught in the bay at Noyo last week. A large number of Maine lobsters were planted in San Francisco Bay some years ago and this one is probably an offspring from them. We believe this is the first Maine lobster caught on the coast.” And the last?

THE THURSDAY NIGHT trivial pursuit contests in the unfailingly pleasant Lauren’s Restaurant are mucho fun, as are the names of the competing teams. Last week a group of young people called themselves, “Occupy Hendy Woods,” which it may come to if the state tries to close it down.

ALSO FROM AN ANCIENT Beacon of October 1911:  ”Dwight Kent, the expert mill fisherman, succeeded in landing a large salmon near the mill one day last week. In cleaning the fish Mr. Kent found about four pounds of junk composed of bolts, set screws, etc. He says he thinks the fish must have been hanging around an Oregon foundry, or possibly the Union Iron Works in San Francisco. However, others who claim to know, say this was one of the salmon trained as carriers from the blacksmith shop at the mill who can make emergency trips up-river to the Boom whenever mechanical apparatus is needed up there in a hurry. The hardware is on exhibit at the Beacon office.”

CHIEF COLIN WILSON advised the CSD board last week that he will be asking for somewhere between $30,000 and $50,000 to purchase two used water tenders, an estimate ranging from pocket cash to lots and lots because it depends on availability of state surplus property. One will be stationed on the Holmes Ranch — we suggest the $30,000 truck for them — the other at Navarro. Chief Wilson believes that positioning water tenders in those locations will lower the fire insurance rates of residents.

BOB SITES is resting at his Yorkville home after what turned out to be a perilous stay at the VA Hospital in San Francisco. Bob and his faithful companion Terry Ryder had set out for the City and what they’d assumed would be a routine gall stone medical process. The routine procedure developed complications and resulted in a week-long hospitalization for the unfortunate Mr. Sites fortunate, though, in his companion who stayed with him throughout his ordeal.

THERE MIGHT BE a local connection to the big Dos Rios pot bust last week that saw 13 people arrested on pot cultivation and sale charges when their illegal water diversion out of the lower stretch of the Middle Fork of the Eel River was spotted by Fish and Game. Most of the people arrested appear to be pot trimmers, here for the season. But two of the lead suspects, the Depesa Brothers, surfer dudes Jeremiah and Golden Depesa of Oceanside, are known to Mountain View Road residents. Most of the other people arrested with the Depesas are also from Southern California.

SPEAKING OF DOPE, Napa County cops busted a grow on Butts Canyon Road where they found 35 marijuana trees, none of them under 9 feet tall and 5 feet around at the base. “There was so much bud on their branches,” one of the cops said, “that the limbs were propped up with poles like you see in old apple orchards.” A few years ago, there were reports of dwarf pot plants that produced more than five pounds of bud per plant.

IF THERE’S ONE THING we all have in common in the Anderson Valley it’s our constant struggles with our water systems. On Sunday, October 23rd, at Jug Handle Creek Farm (visible from Highway One near Caspar), a group of bona fide experts will present a workshop on storm management and rain water harvest systems. These authorities include Bruce Broderick of Being Water LLC; Abby Stockwell of County Planning and Building; Joe Scriven of the Mendocino Resource Conservation District; Terri Jo Barber, manager of Fort Bragg’s ingenious water projects; Helen Chalfin, manager of Jug Handle’s native plant nursery.

STEVE SPARKS WRITES: “Anderson Valley ‘Good Food Lovers’ and ‘Friends of the Seniors.’ The fourth and final ‘Guest Chef Dinner’ of 2011 will be taking place at the Senior Center on Friday, October 28th. These have been very popular and seats are limited. This month’s Guest Chef is Fal Allen, the General Manager of the A.V. Brewery who, in fine Oktoberfest tradition, will be serving locally “grown” Wild boar (pig) and herb sausages, served on a bed of beer-steeped sauerkraut with a side of traditional German-style warm potato salad (with bacon and onions) and an apple (locally grown) & walnut salad. Desert will be traditional German apple, cherry and plumb strudel. Anderson Valley Beers will be on draft (Poleeko Pale Ale & Boont Amber) and local wines also available. The doors open at 6.30pm. Dinner will be served at 7pm and seating will be limited to sixty guests at $25 per head. Last month this event once again sold out and tickets are selling quickly so either let me now by e-mail, or get your tickets from the Senior Center (Tuesday or Thursday lunch times) or Laughing Dog Books in Boonville. Kind regards, Steve (not a senior but thinking it’s quite good to be one in Anderson Valley. PS. Despite the German Ocktoberfest theme, the wearing of lederhosen is not compulsory.”

AFTER ALMOST TWO YEARS of local fund-raising resulting in some$13,000 donated to the Sheriff’s Office for a K-9 unit, aka police dog, for resident deputy Craig Walker, Deputy Walker’s four-footed unit, “Bullet,” a Belgian Shepard (Malinois, technically) arrived in Anderson Valley to meet his new handler, the aforementioned Deputy Walker. Many weeks of on-the-job training remain before “Bullet,” who’s about a year and a half old, gets his K-9 badge. According to Wikipedia, “the Malinois is bred primarily as a working dog for personal protection, detection, police work, search and rescue, and sport work. Well-raised and trained Malinois are usually active, friendly, protective, and hard-working. Some may be excessively exuberant or playful, especially when young. They can be destructive or develop neurotic behaviors if not provided enough stimulation and exercise. These are large, strong dogs that require consistent obedience training, and enjoy being challenged with new tasks. They are known as being very easy to obedience train, due to their high drive for rewards.”

DEPUTY WALKER is looking forward to upwards of ten years of dedicated service from “Bullet,” who, from our first impression, meets the Wiki-description of the breed quite well.

SALAD UNIVERSITY is holding Fall classes to highlight the abundance of healthful herbs, flowers, and greens as the rainy season returns. Learn the secrets of Floodgate Farm’s salad mix from Bill Taylor, Jaye Moscariello. Come to the coast Sunday October 23 from 2 to 5 PM in Elk (6141 S. Highway 1) or to Boonville Fairgrounds Parking Lot at 1 PM on Sunday Nov. 13 for carpooling to a nearby garden. Wendy Blankenheim will also be coteaching the Boonville class. Each class includes tasting and discussing each plant, and ends with a salad, green smoothie, kimchi, and small meal to which potluck contributions are welcome. If you need more info Bill or Jaye can be reached at 707-877-1668 or edibleland@earthlink.net .

THE HAZ MOBILE, courtesy of Mike Sweeney, Mendocino County’s lead garbage bureaucrat and former direct action communist, will be at the Boonville Fairgrounds parking lot this weekend where you can off-load this or that toxic substance at no charge. Sweeney, incidentally, is easily the most interesting man in Mendocino County and, if he ever goes national, might plausibly become Dos Equis’ Most Interesting Man in the World. “His motto is safety second, just after his job; his charm is so contagious it captured the Press Democrat’s Ukiah bureau; he can speak Chairman Mao in French; and he can cure narcolepsy simply by exclaiming, ‘Who Bombed My Ex-Wife?; Stay gullible, my friends.”

YOUR KID will surely benefit from Coach Miles’ Little Bounce Basketball Clinic on Saturday, October 22nd in the Boonville gym. Coach Miles is a truly excellent teacher with whom your budding athlete will learn the fundamentals of the game and have a great time doing it. Boys and girls, ages 3-7, 9am to 12:30. Boys and girls ages 8-15, 1pm to 5:30pm. Only $25! Walk-ups welcome. Info atr 707- 812 0369.

NICE ALTERMAN, you might say, is the Marti Bradford of the County School Board. Nice has represented the 5th District on the County Board forever, just as Marti has forever represented JR Collins on the Boonville School Board. But forever ends this year for Nice and may end for Marti as well if she loses next month’s election. With Nice retired, the 5th District seat on the County Board will be open. Interested? A couple of hundred bucks for the once-a-month meetings, all be them tedious affairs with Superintendent Tichinin talking dumb and crazy all day. And you get plus lavish health bennies for you and your loved ones, making a seat on the County Board a sinecure well worth even enduring a monthly dose of Tichinin-ism. Info at the Mendocino County Office of Education, Talmage.

MEMO TO DAVE BLACKSHER, the KZYX news guy. I only listen the front part of the week, but I assume the format is same-same every night. I’ve got a couple of suggestions: (1) Introducing the news with a heroin tune — Kinda Blue by Miles Davis — is, well, bizarre, not that bizarre doesn’t often visit Mendocino County Public Radio. The first time I heard your theme music I thought it was somehow 3am and I was out of Old Grandad. But the sun was still on my tomatoes and my chickens were still running around out in the yard. Dude! Pick up the tempo! (2) Not to be too much of a fuddy duddy about it, but when you’re interviewing local officials they should be addressed by title, as in Captain Smallcomb; Sheriff Allman; Ms. Angelo; Comrade Hamburg, and so on. Addressing Smallcomb as ‘Kurt,’ Allman as ‘Tom,’ Angelo as ‘Carmel’ etc. is not only overly familiar and unbecoming of a news guy, it can be confusing. You’re not chatting with an old pal, you’re talking to a specific person with a specific public function for a specific reason. And a reputable reporter should keep all these people at a good arm’s distance. Get chummy with them and you’re not inclined to rip them when they have it coming, not that KZYX is ever likely to rip anyone in a position of authority. Otherwise, kiddo, you’re doing fine.

PROHIBITION, the one we didn’t learn from, lasted in this country from 1920 until 1933. It was stoutly but narrowly resisted by the incorporated areas of Mendocino County but prevailed in the County at large, winning overall by a small margin. Ukiah, for instance, voted to remain wet by a mere 16 votes while Point Arena was so frightened at the mere prospect of no booze it incorporated itself before the election, confident that its electorate would vote to go on drinking. Which Point Arena did. Fort Bragg voted to remain wet, although the vote there was also close. One doesn’t need to be particularly imaginative to understand the sentiment against drink. With no social welfare net beyond a few private charities, and male bread winners in large national numbers cashing their meager weekly pay at the corner gin mill, women and children were at the mercy of the bottle.

CONGRATULATIONS to Gus and Shelly Arredondo (nee Squires) with the birth of their daughter Kathryn (Katy) Elizabeth Arredondo. Katy was born on October 7 at 15:20 hours, weighing in at 8.9l pounds and 21″ head to toe. Katy was welcomed by two big brothers, Nicholas and Benjamin and her Boonville grandparents, Keith and Debbie Squires. Mrs. Squires, unfortunately, while helping her daughter with little Kathryn fell and broke an ankle!

MIKE BROCK of Boonville’s Brock Farms recently drove back over the hill with a first place from Ukiah’s annual Pumpkin Weigh-Off. Mike’s big beauty weighed in at 1,039 pounds.

THE GRACE HUDSON MUSEUM always features exhibits worth the trip to Ukiah, exhibits far superior to those at the much better funded California Historical Society in San Francisco if you’ll pardon an invidious comparison. Opening this Saturday (15 October) at the Grace Hudson is “Bear in Mind: The Story of the California Grizzly with a bona fide expert, Susan Snyder, featured at the opening reception on the following Saturday afternoon, 2-4:30pm. Ms. Snyder has written a book on the history of the Griz, fearsome creature once found everywhere in the state.

EASILY THE MOST ANNOYING story of the week anywhere appeared in Sunday’s Chronicle. Called “Anderson Valley Grows Up” the two-page provocation was complete with color photos of a portly sybarite called Burt Williams, a wine bigwig relocated from Sonoma County to Boontling country. Another pair of newcomer Sybs, Peter Knez and Anton Filiberti, are also pictured, as is a wholly obscured Mexican toting a load of grapes, the last visual saying all you need to know about the industry. The thing rambles on for a thousand clunking words haphazardly strung together by Jon Bonné, accent mark over the ‘e’ of course, and is all about how these really cool wine people have arrived in Anderson Valley to grow us up. Bonné writes, “Ever more vineyards are being sold to those who live afar.” Afar? Blonk clonk gronk. “Anderson Valley was once California’s little secret, a remote Mendocino nook protected from the sea but still drawing in the coastal chill.” Nook? Cronk stronk fronk. Not a word anywhere in all this bushwah that so much as hints at how a clear majority Valley residents really feel about the wine invaders which, I daresay, ranges from skepticism to outspoken hostility. Forty tasting rooms and counting? Vineyards on precipitous runoff hillsides? Industrial scale application of dangerous chemicals? Wholesale raids on the finite waters of The Valley’s battered streams? It there something to celebrate in all this, this, this disproportion?

STEVE SPARKS WRITES: “I am hoping to interview the five candidates for School Board over the next few weeks before the election on November 8th. I have a number of questions already prepared but if anyone wants to add their own please contact me at upinthewoods@earthlink.net and I shall certainly consider all reasonable suggestions for inclusion. Thanks in anticipation.”

THE SIXTH ANNUAL Anderson Valley Film Festival invites film submissions for the festival in January 2012. These must be in DVD format and requests submitted before October 31st, 2011. Contact Steve Sparks.

REPUBLICANS! You are not alone! Stan Anderson of the Mendocino County Republican Central Committee invites you to join the other three at Jensen’s Restaurant, North Ukiah, 7-9pm, on Wednesday, October 19th.

MARY PAT PALMER of the Anderson Valley Chamber of Commerce tells us that Jim Taylor Roberts of The Madrones at Indian Creek, Philo, has lived in the Anderson Valley for 22 years. Roberts’ Madrones iteration, however, is new. The graceful Spanish-style compound houses four wineries as well as Jim’s store, Sun and Cricket. Sun and Cricket offers garden implements, books on gardening and related subjects, foraging items, and even antiques. “The compound itself,” Mary Pat says, “reminds me of a California Mission or a Spanish hacienda.” The wineries and Sun and Cricket are open Thursday-Monday. Contact Jim at info@madrones.com (still room for one more shop!) or jtroberts@me.com. Mary Pat Palmer, AV Chamber of Commerce Secretary.

ADD BOB MAKI to your long list of local heroes. At all hours, weather fair or foul, Bob is there with his Triple A rig to fire up your dead battery or give you a tow and condolences. Thank the goddesses for this guy.

COMPELLED to do some lunchtime entertaining last week with dessert being my responsibility, I hustled over to the Boonville General Store where I bought four gallettes which, until about a year ago, I thought was pronounced “I’d like one of those, please.” Anyhow, one of my guests asked, “These things come from Frisco?” Nope, Boonville, I said. “No way,” persisted the skeptic. “Boonville?” Boonville, I repeated, Mendocino County’s most happening community. Come on over and taste for yourself.

HAD TO LAUGH at the statement by organizers of Tuesday night’s school board debate that the Brown Act would be a focus of questions. California’s open meeting laws have been routinely violated by the Boonville School Board for many years. Ditto, I daresay, at every other school board in the County. It’s very simple, really: the public’s business is supposed to be conducted in public. It often isn’t, and it seldom is in Boonville. Things are simply presented to the school board by the administrators the boards theoretically employ and supervise, and the school boards vote 5-0 for whatever their administrators hand them.

NOT EXACTLY a prevalent rumor yet, but we hear Laura Hamburg’s healing center will soon find a home in Yorkville.

INTERESTING story in the SF Chronicle of September 28th described the efforts of an “ethnobotanist” named Jolie Egert to promote the acorn as a sustainable food source. Which it was for ten thousand years among Native Americans. “A mature oak tree can produce 300 to 500 pounds of acorns per season,” Ms. Egert says, and the 20 species of that hardy tree grow in every part of the state.

IT LOOKS like there may be a chance of football playoffs after all in our newly formed eight-man league. Coach John Toohey says: “We need to get as many people as we can to go to the game this Friday night! Spread the word. The commissioner will be in attendance to watch the game. If he likes what he sees, he is going to organize a 4-team playoff between our league and the league down in the CCS. We need to see a lot community support. Please tell your friends and family to make it to the game.”

COLLEEN SCHENK WRITES: “The Anderson Valley Community Action Coalition will hold a Candidates Night for the two open school board positions on Tuesday, Oct. 11 beginning at 6:30pm in the high school cafeteria. All three new (Ben Anderson, Don Harris, Ernie Pardini) and the two incumbent (Marti Bradford, Dick Browning) candidates have agreed to attend. We have asked everyone to speak for up to three minutes on their qualifications, why they are running, and what they bring to the board. At the conclusion of these comments, we will have a Q&A session. We ask that people submit questions ahead of time so that we can avoid duplication and have an even balance of the type of questions to represent all interest groups. There will also be an opportunity to submit questions during the event. If you have a question(s) that you would like to have asked, please send to Ms. Schenk via email (cschenck@mcn.org).”

EDITORIAL COMMENT, if you will indulge me, and not that you have any choice. But here at your friendly community newspaper we always welcome an argument. I think it started at candidate forums organized by authoritarian elements of the County’s Democratic Party apparatus, or maybe with the otherwise blameless League of Women Voters, but for years now these candidate events have been so chastely vetted by organizers that they’re blanded down to where they’re a complete waste of everyone’s time. “Tell us why you want to be elected and why you’re a wonderful human being.” Citizens should be able to question candidates directly without writing their questions down so they can be censored by the organizers of these events. What’s so hazardous about allowing people to simply stand and state their questions?

AND NOT to be too grand about it, but I hope I’m not the only person angry that highly paid school administrators can so blatantly attempt to stuff their boards of trustees with persons handpicked by those administrators. Thousands of Americans have died to defend democratic practices, and it ought to give us all pause that not only here in Boonville but all over Mendocino County school bureaucrats stuff their alleged boards of supervisors with their own stooges. A board of trustees is supposed to supervise their administrators, not join them. It has been at least thirty years since a Boonville school board conscientiously supervised its administrators. The whole point of public schools is supposed to be to teach young people to read well enough that they can intelligently participate in a political democracy. But if you have school administrators who have no respect for democratic practices, well, it’s not right.

WE NEED better schools in this County, and we certainly need better schools in this community. It’s easier to wish for than accomplish, especially in the County where every single school administrator save one signed a letter drafted and approved by Paul Tichinin, superintendent of all the county’s schools, and also approved by MCOE’s school attorneys based in Santa Rosa (!) that declared ‘niggardly’ a racist slur. Does anybody out there think that a school leadership that doesn’t have a grasp of basic vocabulary is going to hire lively, intelligent, inspirational teachers? They are not. They’re going to hire people exactly like themselves — dummies and time servers. (cf the Ukiah and Point Arena school districts.) The one school administrator who didn’t sign the niggardly letter but never complained about it? Ms. Love, the black superintendent of the Ukiah schools.

THE NEXT MEETING of the Anderson Valley Community Action Coalition Steering committee is Wednesday, Oct. 5th, 5pm in the Family Resource and Career Center at the High School. “We will update on the deputy dog, the Medical Marijuana Dispensary and working on developing a coalition elevator speech (a short speech any of us can deliver in 30 seconds or less about what and who the coalition is). Hope you can join us.”

AS OF TODAY, and thanks to Monday’s drenching rains, we can again apply for burn permits. CalFire, however, points out that Fire Season has not yet been declared officially closed, so don’t just run out there and start torching your burn piles without a permit. Check for details with CalFire or Boonville Fire Chief Colin Wilson at 895-3323.

CELEBRATING his 85th birthday Tuesday with a tuna sandwich at Mosswood Market was Mark Scaramella of Boonville, and darned if the guy doesn’t look a day over 95!

BARBARA GOODELL reminds us that on Friday, October 28th, there will be a pumpkin carving pizza party at the Boonville General Store from 5:30 to 8:00 pm, complete with seasonal food specials and stone-baked pizza.

WE’VE RECEIVED reports of flagrantly visible marijuana grows of hundreds of plants in the Anderson Valley and elsewhere in the County that are not being pulled up because 1. The recently concluded Bassler search has taken up lots of scarce local law enforcement resources, and 2. Grows in the mere hundreds that aren’t trespass or public land gardens are not high priority with law enforcement. There are simply too many of them. In any case, this week’s substantial rains have brought Pot Season 2011 to an end. It is now Home Invasion Season.

THE PRESENT JUMBLE of pot laws add to the confusion. You can spend thousands of dollars for zipties and permits and inspections and get official permission to grow up to 99 plants. Or you can spend nothing and take your chances on getting caught which are 1. Almost nil if you’re small time, and 2. And even if you aren’t small time and are caught you can plead out to a misdemeanor, forfeit this year’s crop and pay eradication fees, a much more attractive proposition than lawyers, courtrooms and trials.

THE RAIN Saturday night put Valley weed farmers in a desperate scramble. Hammers resounded off the hills all night as tarpaulins were hastily tacked up over the ripening bud. The crop is running a little late this year, the summer heat was somewhat low and late, the spring rains having lasted well into June played havoc with the first planting, many of which had to be abandoned and re-started. The Annual Celebration of the Autumnal Equinox at the Caretaker’s Garden on Lambert Lane in Boonville apparently did little to appease the Goddess of Weed because the rain came cracking on right on schedule regardless.

A FREE HANDOUT at all the Valley businesses this past weekend reads: Complimentary Wine Tasting for Two. Come by and taste our newly crowned Gold Medal Winner ’09 pinot from the 2011 Wine Competition – 15% off wines! Richard Berridge Wine Company located in the Madrones outside Philo at milemarker 23.5.”

KZYX REPORTS (via a Sheriff’s Press Release) that the Aaron Bassler manhunt is costing a king’s ransom in overtime for the sheriff’s office, but they can’t get any definite figures. After all the cost-cutting and wrangling with the Board of Supervisors, this one-man crime wave has pretty much thrown the proverbial spanner into the fine-tuned gears of the already mangled County budget.

AND FORT BRAGG, according to some Valley People who commute there for work, is like a town under siege; tourism is dead, even the business at Sport Dodge is off because nobody’s driving. Sunday was the last day of deer season and many Coast hunters were unable to fill their tags. Bassler’s holed up somewhere in the area northeast of town, well away from Fort Bragg’s many attractions. Nobody should feel beseiged except Bassler.

THE SEARCH for Bassler went high-tech last week, with the introduction of some state-of-the-art surveillance cameras on nearly every tree in the area. Former Coastal Deputy DA Holly Harpham’s “worst nightmare” has come true! In a Fort Bragg trial she once said that the worst possible scenario she could imagine would be surveillance cameras in the trees with people watching her put on her make-up while driving her car.

THE ANDERSON VALLEY Theatre Guild is narrowing down options for next year’s play. Since the actors are aging, they’re looking for a play with lots of senior citizens in it. I suggest Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot.’ They usually do their reading in the fall and begin rehearsals in January, but that was back when Rod Basehore was director, and he could readily assign roles, whereas the new director is going to require auditions. Also, Mr. Basehore used to do all the set design and construction. In short, the theater guild could use some help. Contact the new director Marcus Berringer at the B-Ville Hotel if you’d like to get involved.

SUPERVISOR DAN HAMBURG reported last week that State Parks and Recreation Commission Chair Caryl Hart of Sebastopol “is determined to find a way to keep Hendy Woods open.” Hendy Woods State Park is one of dozens of state parks slated for closure to save the state a few bucks. “Hendy Woods is very important,” said Hamburg. “It’s not only $240,000 [of state money that comes into Mendocino County for operation and maintenance] but the spin-offs from that park revenue are felt throughout Anderson Valley.” Hamburg said he’s “trying to see if there’s some creative ways that we can keep these facilities going to whatever extent is possible” which might include non-profits, volunteers, grants and fund-raising. “Water system maintenance is a big issue,” added Hamburg, “as are pot gardens, illegal timber harvesting, homeless encampments, and other health and safety issues.” Supervisor John Pinches had a couple more suggestions: “Maybe we could have nearby Calfire stations pick them up in some way” for any parks which are near a Calfire station, said Pinches. “And maybe there’s a way to put some of these non-violent inmates [that the state is returning to County jurisdiction] to work on park maintenance.” Hamburg added, “In some cases CHP officers can stay overnight in state parks.”

SOME OF THIS is obviously far-fetched. Given the very limited capabilities of these officials and the sclerotic nature of state bureaucracies, even if some of these ideas are pursued it won’t be any time soon. And the more conventional ideas (non-profits, grants, etc.) will be very slow in coming, if they arrive at all.

BORN on Tuesday, September 20th in San Francisco to Jessica [nee Anderson] and Ryan Lafrenz, a son, Anderson Xavier Lafrenz, 9.3 pounds at birth. Grandparents include Robert and Margaret Lafrenz of Portland, Oregon and Bruce and Ling Anderson of Boonville.

AT THE APPLE BOWL, the Anderson Valley football team ran into the toughest opponent they would see all season: themselves. Jumping out to a big lead early against visiting Point Arena, the Panthers let the Fog Eaters back into the game with multiple turnovers in their own territory. A game which started out with signs of being a runaway victory for the Panthers, ended up in an embarrassing loss for a team with championship aspirations. (— Coach John Toohey)

LAST FRIDAY, the Panthers looked to clean up their mistakes and get their confidence back against the always tough Laytonville Warriors. 76 points later, they did just that. With touchdowns coming from seven different players, it was a true team effort. While 76 points were scored, the offense had only 300 offensive yards to show for it. So the return game must have been on fire — and it was. Omar Benavides, AV Football’s player of the week, ripped through the Laytonville return coverage team, scoring once, having another score called back, and crossing midfield on every return. Two key game-changing interceptions on defense, coupled with a rushing touchdown and a ten-yard per carry average on offense, made Omar’s contributions to this total team effort stick out just a little bit higher than the rest. Marcos Espinoza had 18 tackles on defense — an absolutely ridiculous number — while Jason Sanchez had 13, and two receiving touchdowns on Offense. Chava Gutierrez also added two receiving scores of his own, and Junior Scotty Johnston had two more on the ground. Senior Linebacker Eduardo Torrales contributed with a strip of the ball from Laytonville’s QB returning it for a defensive touchdown, and Quarterback Garrett Mezzanatto finished the day 7 of 9 for 188 yards and four TDs, with a QB rating of 159. The Panthers will take their show on the road to Potter Valley to take on the Bearcats, this Friday night at 7:30pm. (— Coach John Toohey)

DEPUTY WALKER agreed that this year’s County Fair was pretty quiet. “Maybe a drunk kid or two,” said Walker, “but that was it.”

DEPUTY SQUIRES remains out on medical leave with a bad shoulder. All those years of rasslin’ drunks and bad guys have taken their toll. He can remember when the Boonville Fair featured drunks fighting in the middle of the highway and every other place with a large contingent of cops hustling into the wee hours breaking up combatants and picking up the pieces. Farther back, in the early 1950′s, Slim Pickens, then a rodeo caller, said Boonville was the toughest little town he’d ever worked in. We seem to have evolved.

ED SLOTTE has had to put a job on hold near Northspur, that area being where fugitive killer Aaron Bassler is assumed to be hiding out.

PHILO RESIDENT Gene Herr wrote last week: “For those of you with an interest in the proposed marijuana dispensary in Boonville (between Lauren’s and the Live Oak Bldg.), the Board of Supervisors will hear a recommendation: “To adopt a resolution directing County Counsel to draft an urgency ordinance pursuant to Government Code §65858 prohibiting the establishment and operation of new marijuana dispensaries in the unincorporated areas of the County, for the next Board agenda. County officials are working on amending the zoning codes and developing dispensary regulations but these provisions are not yet complete. The adoption of this resolution would direct County Counsel to draft a temporary, urgency ordinance pursuant to Government Code Section 65858, to protect public safety, health, and welfare until the County enacts dispensary regulations. Passage of any urgency ordinance requires a four-fifths vote.”

“The actual resolution says in part:

“WHEREAS, the Board of Supervisors believes that the distribution of medical marijuana impacts the public’s health, safety and welfare in local communities and requires careful consideration of appropriate zoning and related operational standards; and

“Whereas, the development of guidelines and zoning regulations for the establishment and operation of medical marijuana dispensaries in the County has just commenced and is not yet complete; and

“WHEREAS, based on the foregoing, the Board of Supervisors finds and determines that the current and immediate preservation of public health, safety and welfare requires that a temporary ordinance prohibiting marijuana dispensaries in the unincorporated areas of the County be enacted as an urgency measure pursuant to Government Code Section §65858 and take effect immediately upon adoption.

“NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors directs County Counsel to draft a ordinance pursuant to Government Code §65858 which will prevent the establishment and operation of new medical marijuana dispensaries in the unincorporated area of Mendocino County.”

Best available information is that the measure will be heard around 10:00. However, if you wish to speak, you would do well to get there a little early, as sometimes the schedules are flexible. Having this proposed as an urgency ordinance sets the bar high, as four-fifths approval is required. Scuttlebutt says probably McCowan and Carre Brown will support it, Hamburg likely to recuse himself. Apart from his family connection, what are his views on regulating pot sales? of pot? Pinches’ prior comments indicate he might oppose additional regulation, and Kendall Smith’s position is believed to be wafting somewhere between Honolulu and Fort Bragg, entirely subject to the Japanese tides.

AVA CONTRIBUTOR Will Parrish has been asked to make a presentation to the Anderson Valley Senior Government Class about the environmental effects of the wine industry, date not yet set. More later.

THE HIGH SCHOOL re-roofing project is complete. It sprung a significant leak over the winter and needed immediate attention. Funding for the new roof came out of the district’s $15.25 million bond fund because, apparently, the roof was scheduled for replacement in the District’s original modernization plans. The District also announced last week that the Rancheria continuation school to the rear of the Elementary School now has a new septic system. PS. The cost of advertising for bidders for the roofing project in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat was $1,179.96.

AT LAST WEEK’S meeting of the School Bond Oversight Committee, Superintendent J.R. Collins said the District “has no plans” for modulars.

AN APPROXIMATELY $2 million contract was awarded to Advance Power Inc. in Calpella for the school district’s new solar system. According to the analysis provided by Sage Renewables Consulting who reviewed the bids, the District will save almost $2.5 million over the next 25 years from the new solar system. Advance Power was selected over three other area solar contractor-bidders, which greatly pleases us because we’ve seen their work and it’s first rate.

ACCORDING TO bond consultant Caldwell, Flores, Winters out of Emeryville, $6.5 million of the voter approved $15.25 million in total authorized bond funds have been sold so far. Another $8.3 million will be sold in three smaller chunks starting in 2015 and continuing to 2021. Therefore, the school modernization project schedule looks like it will drag out into well past 2021. Complicating matters somewhat is the consultant’s claim that based on the assessed value of property in Anderson Valley, the district has approximately $6.3 million worth of “remaining capacity” before it reaches its bond debt limit of 2.5% of overall assessed value. The total bonding capacity of approximately $12.7 million is about $2.5 million short of the $15.25 million the voters approved. This means that some of the projects the district originally hoped to include in the modernization project will have to be reconsidered or rescheduled. In addition, as mentioned above, only $6.3 million of the $15.25 million has been sold to date and is available for projects over the next four or five years — not counting the $2 million solar project. Don Alameida, the District’s newly contracted-for Construction Project Manager, said that there is some chance the District could qualify for additional bond funds under Proposition 1D which was passed a few years ago for school facility construction financing. However, many larger school districts in the state are competing for that money as well. and the cut off for applications is next year. Upwards of $2 million could be available from this source, Mr. Alameda said. But don’t bank on it, he could have added.

THE UPSHOT is that the school will have to prioritize projects for the initial $6.3 million after deducting various (and potentially significant) administrative and financing costs. So far the district has not said how it will approach this ranking process. However, as things stand we expect that it will be done by the current small group of district insiders who will review the architect’s estimates (along with Mr. Alameida, we assume) and give their opinion as to how the first $6.3 million should be spent over the next four or five years. Presumably, this will focus on the elementary school campus and facilities which need more work sooner than the high school campus. If teachers, students, or the general public expect to have any role in this ranking and prioritizing of projects — as they obviously should — they will need to make their opinions known to the school board at the earliest opportunity so that these priorities reflect more than just the opinions of superintendent’s private, non-public committee.

ERIN BROWN is from Washington DC. But for the next ten months she will be a resident of Anderson Valley, serving at Anderson Valley Health Center and Anderson Valley Family Resource Center. Ms. Brown is part of the larger Community HealthCorps of Northern California, which is primarily a collaboration between community health centers and partner organizations of Mendocino and Sonoma Counties and the federal Americorps program. She will be developing and providing activities for children and families in order to promote healthy eating and physical activity, as well as working towards trying to improve the capacity of the health center to provide quality health services and programs to medically underserved members of the community. “I hope to be able to bring a new view to health and fitness to the community, that it can be fun and enjoyable in many different ways,” Brown said. — David Lavine, Rural Community Health Services, Ukiah

THE COMMUNITY Service District’s Budget Committee voted to recommend to the District board that they set up a bike trail account to receive donations from the community raised by the local bike-advocate group “Cycked.” By next month, the Budget Committee hopes to have received from Cycked a preliminary budget for the project with estimates of donations expected and local projects to be funded. Between now and next March, the bike advocates hope to be ready to submit a grant application to the Mendocino Council of Governments which would finance a planning effort for a Valley-long bike trail.

NICE PIECE in Sunday’s Chron on Steele Wine’s laid back and most pleasant Kelseyville headquarters. Most locals know that Jed Steele began here in Anderson Valley with Edmeades and, doing it the old fashioned way, worked his way ever upward to create his own fine wines.

BETWEEN THE POACHERS and ocean bornel calamities, the abalone seems to be headed rapidly in the direction of endangered species. The Sonoma County coast was visited over the last few weeks by the sudden death of thousands of red abalone caused, it is speculated, by a “virulent red tide.”

A GROUP HOME kid is sent to principal Jim Tomlin’s office for disrupting a classroom. Tomlin tells the kid to sit down. The kid says something like, What if I don’t sit down? Tomlin says something like, What if I get a baseball bat? Now Tomlin may have said that with a great big smile on his face but we doubt it. Two weeks ago the high school disciplinarian distinguished himself by asking a kid, “Are you gay?”

“Everybody pitches in and helps out, Fair Manager Jim Brown says. “We couldn’t do it without the support of the community in so many ways.”

Ruben Thomasson, Anderson Valley Market proprietor, was busy with the Floriculture exhibits at June Hall putting in a pool and fountain, happy as a kid digging in a sandbox. A couple of stalls down I found Christy Kramer helping with the Alexis Moyer Pottery booth; David McCray was there from Minnesota helping out. He said Sam Prather’s prize Columbia rams have won blue ribbons all over the country this summer, from Kentucky to San Francisco’s Cow Palace. They’re odds-on favorites at the Boonville Fair.

“We really appreciate the help from the locals,” Brown said.

I ran into Mike Prescott coming out of the Home Arts Building.

“We’ve got some beautiful entries this year,” he said with reverent awe.

As the grounds crew buzzed around in carts and forklifts putting everything in order, even the ravens looked on in quiet admiration.

The midway carnival rides started setting up later in the day, staking out their areas. The Ferris Wheel was going up right over the always popular Corn Dog trailer, the Kiddie Dragon next; the further back you go the more daring the rides get.

Speaking of daring, one of the carneys went over to the Boonville Saloon Sunday night and told owner/operator Marsha she looked like a pretty tough cookie, or words to that effect. Some loggers seated at the bar wanted Marsha to give them the nod, so they could teach the clod some manners, but she’s learned a lot in the last year and needs very little help as it is.

Fair Manager Brown showed me a minor correction in the schedule — the rodeo actually starts at 8pm, just like in years past — when a woman bustled in to ask “What’s the latest possible minute I bring my flowers in?”

“10pm, Thursday night,” Jim answered. She bustled out to get ready. The fair is always fun, so exciting, so well done. It’s something we can all take a good deal of wholesome pride in! (Bruce McEwen)

REESE MABERY received well-deserved ‘attaboys’ last week from law enforcement and Animal Control when he rescued an elderly female dog wandering around on Highway 128 and took it to Animal Control where it was soon reunited with its owner.

ANNE BENNETT, writing for the Yorkville Community Benefits Association: “To the Anderson Valley Community: Thank you for coming out and supporting this year’s Ice Cream Social on Labor Day! — our largest turnout in 21 years! We also appreciate all those Labor Day travelers who every year stop and enjoy. Without all of you we could not have taken in more than $10,000! Over $1300 in books were sold, most at 50¢ an inch! Can you imagine how many books that was?! A family traveling through are starting a private K to 4 school in San Jose. They perused the books for hours and drove off very happy with a van load leaving their email to be reminded next year! Over 25 cakes were won by happy “cakewalkers”! Very shy young twins about three years young, with much prodding from their family did the walk. One of the girls won a cake! Great Grandmom, Granddad, Mom and Aunt were each encouraging her to pick a different cake — “the yellow one with blackberries,” “the pink one with strawberries.” She determinedly insisted on the smaller chocolate with jelly beans! It took a team to make this happen. The Highrollers joined in the planning and prep deserve credit and all those who so generously donated cakes, salads and goodies and their time to make the 2012 Ice Cream Social such a success. Thank you. And thank you to all the wineries and businesses that are always so generous with their contributions. Special recognition to Hans Hickenlooper and Valerie Hanelt who corralled and organized almost 5000 books in a very few weeks and to Tina Gordon whose re-do of our highway “Burma Shave” signs and colorful posters caught everyone’s attention! You have all certainly raised the bar for next year! PS. These proceeds will go toward a new quick response vehicle and our annual scholarship fund.”

JOSH McEWEN of Boonville and Philo had two pending DUI hearings when he was arrested again recently because he was late for a court date. Keep running into the system and the system begins running into you. As it did with Josh, who’s been in jail for several weeks now with a court date set for September 19. Josh won’t be late for that one.

SCAM ALERT: Deputy Walker warns locals to be on the lookout for a phone scam involving a caller claiming to be a relative who needs emergency money to get charges dropped. One gullible local wired almost a thousand dollars to some anonymous crook to bail out what he thought was a seldom seen grandson. A Yorkville woman got a call like that the week before but had second thoughts before wiring any money. Walker says the best way to deal with any requests for money over the phone is to simply ignore them.

THE DAY AFTER we wrote that item about the scam alert, this email came in from “Laura Hamburg” (or from a yahoo.com email address with her name on it): “Hi! It’s me, Laura. I really don’t mean to inconvenience you, I made a trip to Scotland and I misplaced my luggage that contains my passport and credit cards. I know this may sound odd but it all happened very fast. Please, I’m short of funds to pay for my hotel bills and other miscellaneous expenses. Can you lend me some funds? I’m willing to pay back as soon as I return home. Please respond as soon as you get this message, so I can forward you my details to send fund to me, you can reach me via the hotel’s desk phone if you can. The numbers are, +447045733705. I await your response. Laura Hamburg.”

SOON THIS ARRIVED from the real Laura Hamburg: “Dearest Good Folks in My Address Book, Sorry for the fraudulent plea for help that was perpetrated in my name. The fact is, those silly con artists got the address wrong. I am healthy, happy, still got the luggage and the credit cards, but actually stuck in Ukiah — not Scotland. Please send the money here: 940 N. Pine St. Ukiah, CA 95482. If only the flim-flam guys knew the real story, they would’ve picked a more solvent, high-brown target — as my friends and family don’t have a handful of shillings among them. And if it came time to bail me out or pony up the ransom dough, I’d be a goner. Thank you for the calls and emails though. I feel loved. And that is priceless. — Laura”

TERRY RYDER WRITES: If you could use some help with work at your home or business the High School now has a job board in their Career Center where job opportunities and student qualifications are posted. Community people needing help can fill out a card describing their needs. Students also fill out a form indicating when they are available including afternoons, weekends, vacation days, evenings and summers. At the same time they state what they are interested in or experienced with including but not limited to: Yard work, Lumber work, Babysitting, House cleaning, Retail/Store work,Tutoring, Gardening, Office work, Pet Sitting, Elder care or “other”. If you have work for a student contact Stephanie Gold at the High School at 895-3274.

BENNA KOLINSKI writes: “Heads up to Mo Mandel fans: Starting Wednesday, September 14th, on NBC, Mo will be a regular cast member on the new sitcom, ‘Free Agents,’ an American workplace sitcom The show is based on the British comedy series of the same name that was created by Chris Niel, who also serves as co-creator and producer on this version. The series follows the lives of two public relations executives, a recently divorced guy and a woman trying to move on after the death of her fiancee, who discover that they seem to have an attraction for each other, even after having slept together during a drunk-filled one night stand, while at the same time trying to stay professional at work, where their friends will do anything to get them to re-enter the dating scene. Mo stars as ‘Dan,’ along with Hank Azaria, Kathryn Hahn, Natasha Leggero, Al Madrigal, Anthony Head and Joe Lo Truglio.

THERE’S A NEW Pet Service in town. Joy Marie’s Joyful Pet Care offers “custom housesitting and dog walking personalized to fit your needs. Serving Boonville and Ukiah. All rates negotiable.” Joy can be reached at 901-7744 or joy@joyfulpetcare.com.

CINDY WILDER WRITES: “Apple Tasting/ Foodshed Booth at the County Fair. Please let Rob Goodell know if you would like to volunteer at the very upbeat combined Apple Tasting and Foodshed Booth in the Ag Building for the fair on Friday the 16th (12-9), Saturday the 17th (9-9), or Sunday the 18th (10-6). There is also an opportunity to help disassemble the booth at 6 on Sunday evening! When you call (895-3897) or email (bgoodell@mcn.org ) please let Rob know your preferred and second choice of times. The shifts are usually two hours, but one, three, or four or more are fine too.

SUSAN CLARK WRITES: “Hi Friends. Once again, I will be joining Dean Titus & the Coyote Cowboys at the Mendocino County Fair and Apple Show. We play in the Apple Hall, 9:30-Midnight, after the Rodeo, on Saturday 9/17. The dance is free with Fair admission. If you’ve never been, this is the last of the real country fairs. Come out and show your support. Tell a friend. Hope to see you on the Dance floor!

IT’S A HORSE, of course, a horse many people think needs rescuing. It’s already been rescued once by Marilyn Pronsolino. Marilyn has done everything within her power to revive and sustain Horse Of Course but horse people say Horse Of Course needs more. The debate goes on.

KIRA BRENNAN WRITES: “AV B Well Presents: The Wellness Project 2011 — its first series of classes! Cora Hubbert, a talented dancer and newly licensed instructor will be teaching 2 Zumba classes a week at the Anderson Valley High School cafeteria. The Zumba Class schedule: 8 classes from September 15th to November 3rd, every Wednesday (except first class will be held this Thursday). The Jr/Sr High Health&Fitness Zumba class will be 2-3pm (students only) Zumba — All Welcome from 3:45-4:45pm. $5 suggested donation. Don’t miss this opportunity. A super-fun way to get a great workout! For more info call: Cora, 357-0940 or Kira 877-3479, kibrenn@yahoo.com .”

AFTER LISTENING to about 20 Anderson Valley people who have problems with the proposed pot dispensary in downtown Boonville, Supervisor Carre Brown boldly decided to put the question of a whether there should be a moratorium on new pot dispensaries on next week’s (September 20) Board agenda. It’s hard to tell where this will go — especially since dispensary proprietor Laura Hamburg’s father is Supervisor Dan Hamburg and Supervisor Hamburg will be in the hot seat on whether he even votes on the moratorium question. From past remarks, Supervisor John Pinches is likely to vote No on the moratorium question. Brown might well vote yes. Supervisor McCowen has been scrupulously non-committal so far. And we wouldn’t even hazard a guess about what Supervisor Kendall Smith would do.

ON MONDAY September 5th, people heard cries for help coming from a home on Babcock Lane, Fort Bragg, the last mortal sounds of a man named Jason Blackshear. James Kester, about 40 and recently of Boonville, has been arrested for Blackshear’s murder, which has been subsequently described as a two-stage event with stage one consisting of Kester throttling Blackshear with his bare hands then finishing him off with a garrotte. The two were acquaintances. Kester is a veteran of the state prison system. (I remember Jimmy and his brothers as little kids in Boonville before, as I recall, the family moved to Point Arena. Pleasant little guys, and what a shock it is when a person one recalls as a child without sin suddenly reappears as an adult accused of the ultimate sin.)