Archive for: December, 2008

Quick Draw Wattenburger

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Quick Draw Wattenburger

JIM WATTENBURGER no longer functions as County supervisor. He decided, he said, to retire after one four-year term. Wattenburger has now attended his last meeting as an elected official. His four years in office paid him $65,000 annually plus an array of perks for himself and his family most Americans do not enjoy. As a [...]

Run For Cover

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Run For Cover

The board of supervisors, two of them departing, held a “strategic planning” workshop on December 15th. The County’s twenty or so department heads attended. The County’s brain trust had assembled to discuss their “accomplishments” and to consider Assistant CEO Alison Glassey’s “action plan” for, presumably, more accomplishments. But County accomplishments, of which there were nearly [...]

Get Out Your Hankies

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Get Out Your Hankies

Mendocino County actually accomplished a couple of things last week, one of which came as quite a surprise to the Board of Supervisors — and us, too. The surprise was the completion of the County’s county-wide microwave communication system, which was declared up and running. Sort of. More or less. Although a few bugs remain [...]

The Leggett High School Sex Scandal

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The Leggett High School Sex Scandal

LEGGETT will probably have to lobby the DA’s office to get the DA to pursue charges against Jeremiah ‘Miah’ Sotelo, Leggett’s “pedi-texter,” as Leggett’s young people describe him. The DA is so far not taking action. A lengthy investigation by the Sheriff’s Department revealed that Sotelo, 25, spent hours in electronic sexual conversation with several [...]

What To Do About Captain Fathom

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What To Do About Captain Fathom

Allan Graham, a long time resident of Albion, a legendary local character who calls himself Captain Fathom, is drinking heavily and making a major nuisance of himself. If he can be confined to nuisance status, if his careening conduct doesn’t again become violent we’ll be spared another round of “What Can We Do With This [...]

Trouble In Leggett

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Trouble In Leggett

Leggett is a small place. If it were any smaller it wouldn’t have its own school system, and everyone wouldn’t know everyone else. But the tiny crossroads community on Highway 101 in Northern Mendocino County is not only big enough to have its own schools, everyone does know everyone else, and it’s big enough to [...]

Whammies Piling Up

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Whammies Piling Up

Former Mendocino County Promotional Alliance chief executive Director John Dickerson first presented his alarming analysis of the County’s total debt load a few months ago. Using Mendocino County and California state records, Dickerson pointed out that in 1993 the County’s total debt was a relatively manageable $60 million; by 2002 it had risen to a [...]

Frank Cieciorka, In Memoriam

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Frank Cieciorka, In Memoriam

Frank was born in 1939 in Binghamton, New York but grew up in nearby Johnson City, a town then dominated by a shoe factory where the artist first experienced the world of work.

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