MCT: Sunday, May 5, 2019

• Changeable Weather
• Hospital's Future
• Open Studio
• Pets
• AVCSD Awarded
• Seal Walks
• Trail Scam
• Abe Despair
• Yesterday's Catch
• Ab Meetings
• Imperial Swirly
• Party Messages
• Debs Jailed
• Kent State
• MCCF Recognitions
• Biden's Record
• Naval Comments
• Chuck Kinder
• Squeezebox Thugs
• Smokescreens
• Red Maroon
• Marco Radio
• Albion Farmers
• NRA Grifters
• Medical Visits
• Barbara Stroud

WEAK LOW PRESSURE approaching the central coast of California may allow for a couple of isolated showers and thunderstorms to pop up over the mountains of eastern Mendocino and Trinity county this afternoon and Monday afternoon. Elsewhere, dry, sunny and warm weather will continue inland from the coast, where cool marine air and clouds will persist into mid week. (National Weather Service)

POSTPONING THE PIPER

by Malcolm Macdonald

The Board of Directors of Mendocino Coast District Hospital (MCDH), at a May 1 special meeting that lasted approximately three hours, named Steve Miller as interim chief financial officer (CFO). Miller served in the same role from December, 2014 through the late summer of 2015, bridging the gap out of bankruptcy and into the beginning months of Bob Edwards' tenure as Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Much of the three hours appeared to be taken up by closed session interviews with four candidates for the interim CFO post as well as discussion within the board afterward. The board voted in open session on a motion from member Steve Lund to give the job to Miller. John Redding seconded. The vote to approve Miller ended 4-1 in favor. Board member Amy McColley had praise for all four candidates interviewed, but announced that she would have preferred one of the others rather than Miller.

Also in open session, interim CEO Wayne Allen acknowledged that former Bob Edwards has made a public records request for emails from the current MCDH Board members as well as similar communications from members of the board that preceded them. In addition, Edwards is asking for the emails of certain officers and managers within MCDH. In addition, Allen disclosed that coast newspaper editor Chris Calder has filed a public records act request for the current board's emails.

Allen also announced a tentative agreement with the hospital's labor union. No details of the agreement were released pending a vote on the matter by the full union membership.

A look at where MCDH was financially when Steve Miller finished his nine months or so on the job in 2015 and where the hospital is presently can't be completely fair and doesn't reflect on Mr. Miller's short term performance. However, if one glances back at some of the key economic statistics then and now, something basic pops up. Comparing a typical thirty-one day month from 2015 to one from 2019 shows that while total operating revenues have risen as much as a million dollars per month, so, too, have operating expenses. The hospital was losing money four years ago, it is losing money now at relatively similar rates. Same old, same old. That is the problem.

Unless the result of that labor negotiation is a net gain of about $2 million annually the rest of the stats on the monthly financial reports are going to fluctuate mildly month to month, but the same old same old won't work. MCDH must (do I need to capitalize MUST to capture your attention?) procure a second consecutive waiver from Cal Mortgage in order to continue opening the doors for the second half of the 2019 calendar year. Cal Mortgage is the part of state government that provides loans to healthcare entities. Cal Mortgage owns the rights to most of MCDH due to continued indebtedness.

Cal Mortgage gave MCDH its first waiver essentially because of the passage of Measure C, a parcel tax which has brought in about $1.5 million this fiscal year. Yet, even with this new tax money MCDH's bottom line is about a half million in the hole. That can't be all that inspiring to the folks at Cal Mortgage as they ponder whether or not to grant another waiver for MCDH to continue to exist.

Of course, finances are not the only consideration when it comes to hospitals. First, let's slightly backtrack to emphasize that the economic structure of a hospital is not the same as a typical business. One can't judge individual departments at a hospital on the same criteria. Obstetric (OB) and Emergency Room (ER) departments are not going to rake in profits like surgeries will. Clinics can't be judged purely by the in and out the door numbers, there are peripheral monetary benefits. So blame for financial losses or plaudits for gains cannot be easily assigned by department or modalities within departments. Secondly, the bottom line at a hospital is never going to surpass or even approach the break even point for a significant amount of time when the quality of service is sub par or is perceived to be sub par by the community it serves.

There are hardworking employees at MCDH. There are some good doctors and nurses still providing above average care at MCDH. However, the overall quality of service at this hospital is inconsistent. That might be a charitable assessment.

Given the current overall economic situation on the Mendocino Coast the chances of recruiting doctors and nurses, who would provide a significant upgrade to the quality of service, remains somewhere between slim and none. Combine student debt of young doctors and nurses to the exorbitant cost of housing, and the lack of affordable housing, and we are left with dim prospects of replacing the aging physician population in this area.

This leads to a bigger socioeconomic issue. Statements like, “This community can't survive a hospital closure,” were used as propaganda scare tactics during the campaign for passage of Measure C and one can hear similar phrasing thrown about quite often at hospital committee and board meetings. A corresponding propaganda tactic is the canard that property values will collapse if MCDH closes. There needs to be a special quadrant in Hades for those whose first concern about a hospital is the real estate value of their property and for those who have and continue to use that excuse to prey upon people's fears.

The coastal side of Mendocino County is no longer the province of fishermen. It barely supports a greatly diminished logging business. The Mendocino Coast survives today on a tourism economy. When someone goes to Yosemite or Yellowstone they don't travel based on whether or not there is a thriving hospital in the town of West Yellowstone or in Yosemite Valley. They are going to play in a park. And that is what the Mendocino Coast has become, a playground or park.

Increasingly it is becoming a playground for the economically well-heeled. The high cost of housing is testament to this. The wealthy are buying up property in coastal Mendocino County environs and have been for decades. Look at the town of Mendocino. How many people who wait on your tables or clean the rooms of bed and breakfasts or clerk the stores actually live in the town, let alone own the property they live at. The only ones I know of are a tiny handful who have hung on to houses or properties they inherited. The Mendocino Coast is week by week becoming the playground for the wealthy. If MCDH closes, the people with more money than sense will scarcely notice as they flit back to the Bay Area and on to their other vacation home near Tahoe or Aspen or Jackson Hole. The property values will not drop, they'll continue to rise as the even filthier rich buy it up to possess their chunk of paradise. The ultra gentrification of the Mendocino Coast will be complete when the super rich have forced out the hardworking mechanics, plumbers, construction workers, etc. No problem, they will simply fly in their own plumber, mechanic, and personal physician.

At present we are living in a time when many of the retiree property owners living on or near the Mendocino Coast spawn from the slightly upper middle class. A lot of them spent decades at bureaucratic jobs, toiling at government work for a county, state, or the feds, perhaps at a college or university. They rely on MCDH as a kind of healthcare security blanket, but when they get a serious malady or two they go to Santa Rosa, Davis, San Francisco, or Stanford to see specialists. There were generations of retirees like them before, cycling through coastal homes from the 1970s on, slowly but surely driving real estate prices ever so genteel-y upward. The latest generation is aging out, the ungodly rich are starting to buy up their property, not as a decade or two of retirement, but as a plaything. Those bureaucratic retirees still here are frightened because their security blanket of a hospital, whose financial survival they pretty much took for granted, is very much endangered. The small handful of these bureaucratic retirees who actually attend hospital meetings apply what they learned to the problem. They call for long range strategic plans, accompanied, of course, by a well-paid outside facilitator of their choice. Meanwhile Cal Mortgage is coming with a foreclosure notice right frickin' now.

There are those who think with a new version of an electronic health record system and some belt tightening this hospital can continue on an independent financial future. That same show has been playing, with ever so slightly different musical riffs for interludes, at MCDH for a decade and a half.

We're pretty much down to painting the sow and calling it a cow. But how do you get beef prices for pork at the county fair?, you might rightly ask.

Back to the subject of real estate. Location, location, location. MCDH already performs minor affiliations with Adventist Health as its geographic neighbor in Willits and Ukiah. Adventist Health might be the partner with deeper pockets MCDH requires to survive and the Adventists already possess an affiliation of their own with the UC Davis Medical Center, which could be useful as a means of infusing young doctors into MCDH.

Another player lurks in the hospital affiliation mix. That is Sutter Health. Geography plays a role in this equation as well. Raise your hand if you knew that Sutter operates medical facilities in Lake County as well as in Crescent City. They might want to triangulate and plant their healthcare flag in Fort Bragg while giving the straight arm to Adventist at the same time.

The current MCDH Board of Directors has two members with direct and/or indirect knowledge of Sutter and Adventist's operations. While living in Fort Bragg Amy McColley works part of the week with Sutter in San Francisco. Jessica Grinberg's orthotics business has offices in Fort Bragg as well as Willits, where she works with orthopedist William Bowen. Dr. Bowen is not a direct employee of Adventist Health, but an independent contractor. Naysayers, and believe you me, there are strategic naysayers, might claim that McColley and Grinberg's interests are conflicted, but a more reasonable outlook might well view their situations as opportunities that give them unique insights into the inner workings of Sutter and Adventist. Such insights may prove invaluable in a potential affiliation scenario.

Of course, we will have to wait until the end of June to officially know if any other hospital group has interest in MCDH. If no affiliation partner arises then somebody better throw so much coin and paper from the clear blue sky onto the deck of the Titanic, so that the weight from the profits forces the good ship onto a new course free of icebergs.

UKIAH SHELTER PETS OF THE WEEK

It's official: kitten season has arrived! Jasmine is a 2 month old, female, black and white kitten. Like most kittens, she naps a lot and loves to play with toys. Jasmine lives with two of her brothers and one sister who are also available for adoption. Can't adopt? Consider fostering a litter of kittens until they are old enough to be adopted. For more information on our foster program please call 707-467-6453.

Sweet and easy-going, Nemo is a laid back, lovely dog. During his evaluation and meet/greet, Nemo was introduced to several dogs and was well mannered and appropriate with each of them. During his photo shoot, gentle Nemo was a breeze to leash up and walk. He takes treats very gently. He can be a little cautious and shy but all of a sudden, Nemo plopped his paw in our volunteer's hand-- he knows SHAKE! Nemo is a 3 year old, neutered male who weighs 64 pounds. He's ready to walk out the shelter doors with you today!

The Ukiah Animal Shelter is located at 298 Plant Road in Ukiah; adoption hours are Tuesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday from 10 am to 4:30 pm and Wednesday from 10 am to 6:30 pm. To see photos and bios of the shelter's adoptable animals, and the shelter's programs, services and events, please visit us online at http://www.mendoanimalshelter.com For more information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453. We'll be in Philo at the Anderson Valley Farm Supply on Friday, May 10, noon to 4 pm, for a Mobile Adoption And Microchip Clinic.

THE ANDERSON VALLEY COMMUNITY SERVICES DISTRICT was awarded $2500 by the Community Foundation of Mendocino County for “…significant contributions to community health and safety through the Anderson Valley Ambulance Service and the Anderson Valley Fire Department.” The special award was to celebrate the Community Foundation’s 25th year of local giving. Kudos to Clay Eubank and Andres Avila and their respective teams. The Teen Center also received a similar award. (AVCSD Board Member Francois Christen)

MENDOPARKS PRESENTS: SEAL GUIDED WALKS at Mackerricher State Park, Saturdays 11:00am

MendoParks is pleased to announce harbor seal guided walks at MacKerricher State Park held every Saturday at 11 a.m. Walk includes a visit to the seal rookery and a talk about harbor seals, sea lions, whales and other wildlife. Binoculars provided. Seal walks begin at the MacKerricher State Park Visitor Center (24100 Mackerricher Park Rd, Fort Bragg) near the entrance to the park. The natural history of harbor seals and other wildlife is discussed before visiting the harbor seal rookery.

$5 suggested donation. FREE FOR KIDS!

About the Seals: Pacific harbor seals range from California to Alaska and are found year round along the Mendocino Coast. MacKerricher State Park is fortunate to boast a harbor seal rookery where pups are born every year in April and May. Come learn about the effects of sea level rise on the rookery and the seals that live there. What do harbor seals eat and who eats the harbor seal? Harbor seals generally haul out and rest on the low lying rocks and beaches at low tide. This is a unique opportunity to view the harbor seal’s natural behavior in their natural environment.

For more information call Kristin Gordon at (707)964-8898

GREAT REDWOOD TRAIL SCAM TAKING SHAPE

by Mark Scaramella

That wasn’t the exact title of a recent Santa Rosa Press Democrat story which began: “A 300-mile walking and bicycle trail envisioned along the North Coast and linking the San Francisco Bay with Humboldt Bay has gained some financial footing through the state’s budget process, boosting the chances of realizing the grand project.”

Promoters of the “Great Redwood Trail” include the Press Democrat and its co-owner, ex-Congressman Doug Bosco. But the PD has now even stopped mentioning parenthetically that their owner stands to gain two-plus million as the Trail Scam “gains some financial footing…” as they conveniently pretend that anybody but Bosco and his political allies really want a “300 mile walking and bicycle trail … linking the San Francisco Bay with Humboldt Bay.”

See, under the scam “envisioned” by Bosco there’s this pent-up un-met need for bikers and hikers to link the two bay areas.

“The transportation subcommittees of both houses of the state Legislature have approved Gov. Gavin Newsom’s request of $3 million to continue the lengthy process, advancing the plan introduced in a bill by state Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, and signed into law last year,” the PD notes, quoting McGuire: “This begins the beginning of the end for the NCRA [North Coast Railroad Authority]. It’s time to start focusing on a new chapter with the Great Redwood Trail and close a long and unfortunate chapter in NCRA’s checkered history.”

“Long and unfortunate”? Yes, millions of dollars wasted on a train system that never shipped much, but shunted a lot of those millions into Bosco’s pockets for years is “unfortunate” — for the public anyway; not for Bosco.

Bosco is a co-owner of the Northwest Pacific Railroad, which is owed a lot of money by the Railroad Authority which Bosco, with big assists from the Northcoast's insider Democrats, helped breathe into existence in the late 80s and which until recently was managed by Bosco’s well-paid former political staffer Mitch Stogner. But now the next generation of Bosco Inc. is “moving forward” to the renamed but still insider boondoggle “Great Redwood Trail” to keep the money flowing and Bosco reimbursed for the money his NWP Co. is owed to rehab and maintain the track on which trains have never and will never run. Unfortunately.

“With the expected passage of the state budget in mid-June, $500,000 from the general fund would go toward completing an audit of NCRA’s finances, which are likely to show debts totaling at least $12 million. The other $2.5 million allotted by Newsom would be spent on reviews of the defunct railway’s right-of-way boundary and property easements for future buildout of the trail, which so far has no estimated cost.”

So not only is the groundwork is being laid to set aside the money for Bosco, but now they’re talking about “property easements”! Apparently, the track right of way isn’t enough for the “Great Rail…” er, “Great Trail” Scam.

How much do you want to bet that the easements will turn out to be on property owned by Bosco et al? And that some of that easement property will be toxic dumps that the state will assume responsibility and liability for so that Bosco and his fellow NWP owners are off the hook for clean-up?

In fact, this very likihood was also mentioned, albeit indirectly, in the same recent PD article: “It’s a very fragile countryside with a very polluted rail line,” said Patty Clary, executive director of Californians for Alternatives to Toxics. “The reason we fought it was it’s a toxic mess from end to end. If the Legislature is now spending money on a trail, the state shouldn’t balk at doing the right thing about environmental remediation.”

Knowing that at least some minimal public support will have to be ginned up for this alleged “link,” State Senator McGuire has announced a series of sales jobs up and down the Northcoast in the near future: “We want to include the communities on every stretch of the line throughout the North Coast,” said McGuire. “We’ll start bringing focus to the Great Redwood Trail vision, with the most important part of the events being advancing communitywide conversation about where we’ve been, where we’re at now and where we’re going with the trail.”

We doubt that McGuire will mention how much Bosco and his friends will get out of wherever they’re (not) going with the Great Redwood Trail.

The true route isn't the old railroad; the true route runs from the state capitol to Bosco's fat bank account.

CATCH OF THE DAY, May 4, 2019

MARK BEARDSLEE, Ukiah. Grand theft, taking vehicle without owner’s consent, petty theft, controlled substance, suspended license (for DUI), probation revocation.

THOMAS COOK, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

LESLIE FIELDS, Willits. Domestic abuse.

LLOYD MAGNUSON, Cloverdale/Talmage. Controlled substance, metal knuckles.

JOSEPH MAUM, Willits. Resisting/threatening police officer.

JOHN MURPHY, Warrenton, Virginia/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

CHARLES NICKERMAN, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

MICHAEL ORSINI, Penngrove/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

TAMMIE RIGGS, Laytonville. Domestic abuse.

DAYNIECE SHILLINGS, Ukiah. Petty theft with priors, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

ASHLEY SUNDBERG, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

AURELIO URIBE, Laytonville. DUI-alchol&drugs.

ADAN VASQUEZ, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

SAVE THE ABS

On behalf of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC), in partnership with the Ocean Protection Council (OPC), Fish and Game Commission (Commission), and members of the Red Abalone fishing community, we are pleased to invite you to guide the development of the Recreational Red Abalone Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for the North Coast. Your experience and perspective are valued and deeply appreciated.

Background

Following a scientific peer review of two management strategies under consideration for the Recreational Red Abalone FMP in 2018 (here), the Commission made the following recommendations at its December 2018 meeting: (1) address peer review recommendations to integrate the two proposed management strategies; (2) develop a de minimis (i.e., managed/restricted access) fishery option; and (3) develop a more comprehensive process and timeline to engage and consult with stakeholders.

To accomplish this, a series of public meetings (anticipated both in-person and teleconference) will be hosted over the coming months where members of the abalone fishing community, Tribes and tribal communities, and other interested stakeholders will work with scientists and resource managers (collectively known as the Project Team) to provide feedback and develop recommendations for CDFW and the Commission to consider as they finalize a Recreational Red Abalone FMP.

Upcoming Meeting - May 22, 2019

The first of these public Project Team meetings has been scheduled for Wednesday, May 22:

Recreational Red Abalone FMP Project Team

Meeting #1: Introductions & Initial Discussions: Modeling and Managed/Restricted Access Fishery

Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - Santa Rosa

Justice Joseph A. Rattigan Building, Room 410

50 D St (at First St.), Santa Rosa, CA 95404 (map here)

9:00am-5:00pm

Registration will begin at 8:30am. Light refreshments will be provided; lunch will not be provided and a lunch break will be made available to meeting participants.

During this first meeting, participants will be provided with background information on the fishery and FMP process to date and invited to begin discussions related to modeling to inform the integration of the two management strategies and considering a managed/restricted access fishery, in alignment with the Commission’s recommendations, Marine Life Management Act, and the peer review recommendations. Strategic Earth will facilitate all Project Team meetings, as well as provide administrative support to the Project Team.

While not required, RSVPs are requested to help with planning and can be sent to Strategic Earth Consulting (hello@strategicearth.com) by Wednesday, May 15. We also would be most appreciative if you could share this invitation with your peers and constituents via your newsletters, blogs, social media, and other communications outlets.

Please do not hesitate to be in touch with any questions. An agenda and meeting materials, along with information to request limited travel reimbursement support, will be circulated in the coming weeks. We will be in touch soon!

All our best,

Kelly and the Strategic Earth Team

Project Team Management & Facilitation Support

SLANDERING CORTEZ

Editor:

No sooner had New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez begun framing her political plans as “democratic socialism” than Donald Trump and the GOP labeled her a socialist, one who defends communist dictatorships, Marxism and the abolition of private property. Ocasio-Cortez was pointing to other countries’ free education and health care, but it was too late.

I can now go on Facebook and read 20 or more posts about how voting for Democrats will lead America down the path of failed Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea. Republicans can rightly point to a booming economy and low unemployment figures due to capitalism, but they dare not address the national debt nor how their legislative efforts have swelled a deficit that will eventually cripple this country.

Reports say the budget agreement of 2018 that expanded military and domestic spending, coupled with the 2017 tax bill, will add $420 billion to the 2019 deficit. It’s apparent our economic growth cannot diminish the deficit. Yet all we’ll hear about is how voting Democrat will lead to socialism and our country’s demise.

Democrats will lose due to that Republican mantra unless they prove their policies will correct our looming economic train wreck, not cause it.

Roy Camarillo

Santa Rosa

ON THIS DAY, May 3 in 1895, Eugene V. Debs and six other American Railway Union leaders were jailed for six months for contempt of court in connection with Pullman Palace Car railroad strike.

Debs was jailed in the Woodstock Jail in Illinois. He and jailer, George Eckert, became life-long friends.

KENT STATE 49th ANNIVERSARY

Dear Friends & Supporters of Kent State Truth,

Today is the 49th anniversary of the Kent State massacre where my sister Allison Krause was shot and killed by the Ohio National Guard as she protested the Vietnam War on May 4, 1970. In 2010 during the 40th anniversary year, we launched the Kent State Truth Tribunal.

At today’s 49th Kent State commemoration we invited artist Carlos Jones to speak for Allison. Carlos' speech and his Kent State song.

I am sharing this year’s Kent State Truth Tribunal progress, hoping you will join us, show solidarity and support us as we set out to deliver truth at Kent State from those who were there and complete this effort by the 50th on May 4, 2020.

For the 50th our wish is to create and promote ‘Tributaries of Truth’ from individuals and organizations to be woven into a true history, the people’s history, of the Kent State massacre.

This year there has been good news, significant traction with regard to human rights and we defended our position as Kent State survivors despite University and government interference.

The Good News

In early April 2019 we learned the Kent State Truth Tribunal will participate in the United Nations U.S. 5th periodic review. We will be taking the human rights issues of the Kent State massacre before the UN Human Rights Committee again. At the United Nations we are seeking Kent State accountability, reconciliation and protection for protest and protesters in America.

You may remember our first trip to the United Nations in March 2014 at the U.S. 4th periodic review where the U.S. Dept. of Justice proclaimed, “In 1970, four students were killed, were murdered.” We will be following up regarding that comment, seeking reconciliation and anticipate traveling to Geneva sometime in 2020-21 (hopefully after Trump is out of office!) for the U.S. 5th periodic review.

A Couple of Obstacles

In November 2018 the May 4 Visitors Center at Kent State University created a tribute exhibit about Allison. It was shocking how Allison’s family was not permitted to contribute to the exhibit, nor were we invited to the Allison tribute grand opening.

Months later in March 2019 as KSU president Beverly Warren readied for retirement in July 2019, the University trustees pushed through Warren’s ‘vision’ for the 50th without seeking Allison’s family’s input. Again we were left out in the cold without a say. We are addressing the University’s actions to stonewall the Krause family as we demand meaningful participation in the 50th. We will not be deterred.

And a Breakthrough

A potential partner has emerged in a recent email offering assistance and resources from the USC Shoah Foundation regarding the Kent State Truth Tribunal testimonial archive from original Kent State participants and witnesses. The Shoah Foundation houses a collection of testimonies from holocaust survivors in their Visual History Archive developed in association with Steven Spielberg and the University of Southern California. We hope to collaborate and learn from their experience and methods.

Even with this tremendous forward motion, our >75 Kent State Truth Tribunal testimonials of original witnesses and participants of the Kent State massacre remain in storage, awaiting finalization. The single element we lack to help us bring the Kent State Truth Tribunal archive to fruition is a lack in funding.

From here forward to the 50th Kent State, we must complete our work and get ‘er done:

1) Before the 50th, we will launch the Kent State Truth Tribunal archive of testimonials filmed in 2010 at three truth tribunals held during the 40th year where Emily Aigner Kunstler interviewed original participants and witnesses of the Kent State Massacre.

We will post the >75 KSTT testimonials for public viewing online 24/7 and hope to incorporate search or indexing in the creation of a state-of-the-art research tool into the true history of the May 4, 1970 Kent State massacre. Honoring the stories of those who were there, sharing their voices in this ‘People’s History of Kent State’ and making it available to the public.

2) By the 50th two Kent State documentaries based on truth are already in production. David Zeiger of ‘Sir, No Sir’ is working on a documentary about the Scranton Report, the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, a government report on the killing of Kent State and Jackson State student protesters against the Vietnam war. Another film by Charlie Siskel, a relative of Siskel and Ebert-fame, is filming today at the Kent State 49th commemoration. The Kent State Truth Tribunal supports both endeavors.

3) By the 50th I’d like my book on Allison and Kent State published and in circulation. A political memoir. Currently working on the book proposal and readying to pitch interested publishers. Seeking publisher introductions.

4) At the 50th on Sunday, May 3, 2020 we plan to host all-day teach-ins on Kent State in the town of Kent, Ohio. Reminiscent of the teach-ins from the 60’s, the Kent State people’s event will include speakers, live music and training on nonviolent protest and other topics related to the May 4, 1970 Kent State massacre as we rally together 50 years later.

Our ability to present Kent State Truth Tribunal findings and expose Kent State truth depends entirely on your support, donations and solidarity.

Will you please help grant our wishes for the 50th?

Peace and healing,

Laurel Krause

"Flowers are better than bullets” ~ Allison Krause

---

Saturday May 4th, was the 43rd anniversary of the Kent State Shootings.

On May 4th, 1970 Ohio National Guard troops opened fire on unarmed students who were protesting the Vietnam war & the US invasion of Cambodia, wounding nine and KILLING four. This date serves as a gruesome reminder that the US Government has killed its own people before. The war on terror is our generations Vietnam.

Video of the shootings:

Excerpt from Howard Zinn's "A People's History of The World," Chapter 18: THE IMPOSSIBLE VICTORY: VIETNAM:

"The climax of protest came in the spring of 1970 when President Nixon ordered the invasion of Cambodia. At Kent State University in Ohio, on May 4, when students gathered to demonstrate against the war, National Guardsmen fired into the crowd. Four students were killed. One was paralyzed for life. Students at four hundred colleges and universities went on strike in protest. It was the first general student strike in the history of the United States. During that school year of 1969-1970, the FBI listed 1,785 student demonstrations, including the occupation of 313 buildings."

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinnimvivi18.html

Democracy Now! piece from 2010 honoring the 40th anniversary:

http://www.democracynow.org/…/on_40th_anniversary_of_kent_s…

Noam Chomsky speech at Kent State, on May 4th, 2000 talking about the Kent State & Jackson State Killings:

http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20000504.htm

Al Jazeera Documentary, Four Dead in Ohio:

Mendo Coast Current - On Truth at Kent State & Safe Renewable Energy Solutions:

http://mendocoastcurrent.wordpress.com

Howard Zinn on Kent State & the Truth Tribunal:

http://mendocoastcurrent.wordpress.com/…/howard-zinn-on-th…/

Ohio by Neil Young:

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,

We're finally on our own.

This summer I hear the drumming,

Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it

Soldiers are cutting us down

Should have been done long ago.

What if you knew her

And found her dead on the ground

How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it

Soldiers are cutting us down

Should have been done long ago.

What if you knew her

And found her dead on the ground

How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,

We're finally on our own.

This summer I hear the drumming,

Four dead in Ohio.

UKIAH VALLEY REGION GRANTEES

The Community Foundation of Mendocino County

The work we do, developing opportunities for local giving, culminates in an annual cycle of awarding grants to local non-profit organizations who bring our vision to life. This week we had the opportunity to celebrate our non-profit partners in the Ukiah Valley at a check reception held at the Saturday Afternoon Clubhouse in Ukiah. We recognized the incredible work of

• Alex Rorabaugh Recreation Center

• Cancer Resource Center

• Potter Valley Community Parks & Recreation

• School of Performing Arts & Cultural Education

• Mendocino County Construction Corps.

• Ukiah Valley Trail Group

• Redwood Community Services

• North Coast Opportunities

• Grace Hudson Museum

• Redwood Community Services

• Redwood Empire Aikikai

• Ukiah Senior Center

• Plowshares Peace & Justice Center

• Adventist Health Ukiah Valley

• UC Cooperative Extension 4-H Youth Development Program

• MCAVN

• Soroptimist International of Ukiah

• Mendocino County Historical Society

• Mendocino County Resource Conservation District

• UC Hopland Research and Extension Center

• Economic Development and Finance Corporation

• Junior Achievement of Northern California

• Ukiah Rod and Gun Club

• And a special memorial to Judy Judd for her significant contributions to the well-being of vulnerable people in Ukiah.

Our hats off to you, our Ukiah Valley non-profit community, for the incredible work you do every day to make Mendocino County a better place to live.

THE NAVY COMES TO FORT BRAGG

(A Coast Listserve Exchange)

Went to the Navy presentation tonight and got to have some indepth discussion with Navy spokespeople who were pretty much just there to put on a smiling face. Aside from making them intensely uncomfortable with my questions (which, by the way, they could not answer), what I took away from the evening was,

1. They are going to do offshore testing whether we like it or not, and
2. Their script needs adjusting.

Seriously, though; they admit that they will be dumping 20,000 tons of pollutants, and will be using sonar and other weapons tests that will affect marine life, that they have a 500,000 marine mammal impact limit, etc, etc, yet follow it up with, ‘We will do our best to keep impact to a minimal amount.’

It seems like their job was to gently admit the harm they will do and try to package it up to sound pretty.

Navy to the group: ‘Most of the testing will be offshore in Washington and Puget Sound and even Oregon; here it will be minimal, so you're not affected as badly.’

Me above the fray: ‘WE CARE ABOUT THOSE AREAS TOO!’

I kinda felt bad for them; they are just spokespeople and our community tore them apart. But I was also very proud of our community for taking a stand.

If you have a meeting coming up near you, I encourage you to attend!

---

Strangely absent at last night's Navy warfare training meeting was the so-called "Noyo Marine Center." I guess these folks know which side their bread is buttered on.

---

Someone asked me: "How was the response? Were there enough people in objection? I’m concerned about the issue, but had to work."

Reply: In sum, it was a joke. More like a corporate sales confab. The public was by design divided up, to purportedly go to one of several (6-7) info stations to talk with individual representatives on a variety of issues. There was no public hearing as there should have been. The people who showed up responded by forming a large circle in the center of the room (some 40 people) so they could attempt to hear and speak to each other. This lasted for about ten minutes. Then a group of about twenty formed at the marine mammal info table to ask questions, but it was impossible to hear with the backdrop of competing noises and conversations throughout the room. The meeting was a chaotic fiasco - and a disgrace to our democracy. Shame on the US Navy and their private consultants who perpetrated this farce on the people of Fort Bragg.

---

Maybe they were absent because they knew it would be a waste of time. I perused a science fair type poster that told what a great job they (the Navy) are doing being stewards of the marine environment. It explained how they monitor species. Another poster claimed evidence that no harm is done in any way to the environment or populations in the sea from the training. Another poster explained why we need sonar in the first place. Sad, but true in this geopolitical climate.

---

Waste of time? The Navy comes to town once every five years, to explain some of their plans that directly affect the marine environment, and it's a waste of time for our local "marine center" to be present and accounted for? BS. The Noyo Center should have been there in force.

The Navy is not a "steward of the marine environment." Their mission is to keep the American people safe, and to maintain freedom of navigation, or as they put it repeatedly in their literature "to maintain, train, and equip combat-ready naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression, and maintaining freedom of the seas." So, in reality keeping us civilians safe, much less the marine environment, is not part of their mission statement. Until we end the madness of nuclear sabre rattling, and by extension submarine warfare, through international diplomacy and mutually enforced treaties, no one and nothing on this planet is safe.

If you believe the posters you read at their sales-job last night, you are naive. The Navy lies, and they pay other people to lie. And by the way, "meeting" last night was not even run by the Navy. It con-job was put on by a privatized consulting firm "ManTech" (https://www.mantech.com/about/mission-vision-and-values). All part of the military industrial complex that Eisenhower tried to warn us about.

I agree about the sad state of affairs of the current geopolitical climate, and this is what needs to change, if humans are going to survive.

---

Where was the "Noyo Marine Science Center”?

---

It was First Friday and the Noyo Marine Center was open here in Main Street form 5-8pm.

CHUCK KINDER, novelist who inspired ‘Wonder Boys,’ dies at 76

by Makeda Easter

Chuck Kinder, the novelist who became known for inspiring the central character in Michael Chabon’s 1995 novel “Wonder Boys,” has died. He was 76.

Kinder, whose death was confirmed by friends and associates, died Friday of heart failure in Miami.

A literary force with a larger-than-life personality, Kinder published his first novel, “Snakehunter,” in 1973, followed by 1979’s “The Silver Ghost,” 2001’s “Honeymooners: A Cautionary Tale” and 2004’s “Last Mountain Dancer: Hard-Earned Lessons in Love, Loss, and Honky-Tonk Outlaw Life.”

“Honeymooners: A Cautionary Tale,” set mainly in the Bay Area in the 1970s, was perhaps his most famous work and became something of a myth to those who knew him, as the author is believed to have struggled with it for more than a decade. It tells the story of two bad-boy American writers and is based on Kinder’s real-life friendship with short-story author and poet Raymond Carver.

"[Kinder's] work was and remains outstanding and fresh. He was a born storyteller with an instinct for myth, which was not exactly in favor compared to pared-down modernists like John Updike," said novelist and screenwriter April Smith via email.

Smith first met Kinder in 1972 as a graduate student in Stanford University’s creative writing program and added that "his work is important for its bold original voice and synthesis of elegant literary style with genuine feeling and down home observation.”

The novelist was known for creating a safe harbor for other writers, and often threw parties for fellow writers and other creatives with his wife of more than 40 years, Diane Cecily, at their home. As a teacher and mentor, Kinder fostered the writing careers of authors including Chuck Rosenthal and Gretchen Moran Laskas.

Kinder’s most famous writing student is Michael Chabon, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author whom Kinder taught as an undergraduate in the 1980s. Kinder is thought to have inspired the fictional Grady Tripp, the disheveled, pot-addicted writer and professor at the center of Chabon’s 1995 novel “Wonder Boys.” The novel was adapted into the 2000 film directed by Curtis Hanson and starring Michael Douglas as Tripp.

Born in 1942 in West Virginia, Kinder grew up writing poetry and listening to the great storytellers in his family — his grandmother and his aunts. He began honing his craft at West Virginia University, where he earned a master’s degree in English and wrote the school’s first creative writing thesis. In the 1970s, Kinder lived in San Francisco and was awarded a fellowship followed by lectureship in fiction writing at Stanford University.

Kinder took positions as the writer-in-residence at UC Davis, and the University of Alabama, before settling in Pittsburgh, a city he called “the Paris of Appalachia.” For more than 30 years he taught at the University of Pittsburgh, earning a reputation as a generous, gregarious professor.

On Saturday, former students paid tribute to Kinder on social media.

"When I first came back to Pittsburgh for what I thought would be a one year Hollywood sabbatical, I met a great teacher/writer/human being named Chuck Kinder who embraced me so warmly, it was one of the reasons I felt like staying," wrote Carl Kurlander in a blog post.

"He gathered together people who loved words and storytelling and by his very nature, weeded out the pretentious and those of self-importance," Kurlander continued.

After suffering several health challenges in recent years including two strokes, a heart attack and triple-bypass surgery, Kinder retired as director of the creative writing program in 2014 and settled in Key Largo, Fla., with Cecily.

There he returned to his early love of poetry, publishing several collections including last year’s “Hot Jewels.”

He is survived by Cecily.

(LA Times)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Smokescreens are what we’ve been getting for three years and especially since Trump was inaugurated and even more so since the Mueller investigation started.

It was a foregone conclusion, based on what people in the media had been broadcasting, that Trump colluded with Russians, that Trump was Putin’s man and all would be laid bare. This was the mother of all smoke-screens.

Once again, in the aftermath, it’ll be the media that blows thick fog-banks of misdirection and anonymously-sourced misinformation, with deep-thinkers, pundits, former officials, PBS, David Brooks at his most judicious and reasonable, Judy Woodruff sweating sheens of outrage, Rachel Maddow at her most self-assured, both Judy and Rachel interviewing well-spoken and convincing authorities to make the case, and all will be fore-square behind the – LOL – “perpetraitors” as you so aptly put it (did you make that up?).

The thing is this, will there be a media that can blow the smoke away? It’s not clear to me that they will be.

As to a zealous prosecution, you’re right that it would increase America’s standing, but I think that the prospect of a zealous prosecution or ANY prosecution is just wishful thinking. And you and I both know why; there’s no greater priority than removing Trump from the White House, hobble him if you can’t. Break knee-caps if you have to, ruin people’s lives (like Mike Flynn’s), just get it done. And the miscreants trying to do all this will get a get-out-of-jail pass

But we know the real agenda here. Trump and his supporters represent a threat to a carefully built construct of law and inter-national treaties and understandings that safeguard the money and well-being of a self-appointed few. Trump’s offense was to give voice to the interests of not only American Deplorables but also French Yellow Vests and Brexiters and other Europeans of that ilk.

It may be unbelievable to Judy and Rachel and Brennan and Pelosi and AOC and the campus intellectual avant-garde, but workers have got legitimate interests.

That it should come as a surprise that these grubby, uneducated people would defend those interests doesn’t say much about the intellectual acuity of either ruling oligarchs nor their perfumed, preening, highly self-regarding clerisy.

MARK ROTHKO, Red on Maroon, 1059

MEMO OF THE AIR: Game of throons.

/"Don’t sugar me, cause us is throon." -Walt Kelly/

The recording of last night's (2019-05-03) Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on KNYO-LP Fort Bragg and KMEC-LP Ukiah is available by one or two clicks, depending on whether you want to listen to it now or download it and keep it for later and, speaking of which, it's right here: https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0331

Dr. Zwerling showed up to talk about some of his work. He's fabulously prolific; he's written several books, among them, /Nicaragua: A New Kind of Revolution/; /After School Theatre Programs for At Risk Teenagers/; and /The Theatre of Lee Blessing: A Critical Study of 44 Plays/. His latest books, /The CIA on Campus: Academic Freedom and the National Security State/; and, coauthored with Verne Lyon, /Eyes On Havana: The Memoir of an American Spy betrayed by the CIA/ are what the show's about for the first hour. Then announcements, then poetry, then news and science and stories, one by a woman who grew up in a complicated atavistic religious U.F.O sex cult; and eventually by a little after 4am (seven hours into the show, in case you want to skip straight there, you get the CBC Nightfall radio show production of /The Book of Hell/.

Besides all that, at http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you can find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not necessarily radio-useful but nonetheless worthwhile educational items I set aside for you while gathering the show together. Such as:

Kites.

https://tinyurl.com/CreativeKites

Rabbit punches.

https://tinyurl.com/RabbitPunches

And the power of seduction.

https://tinyurl.com/TEDChenLizra

Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org,

https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

ALBION FARMERS MARKET, SUNDAY, 2-4 PM IN ALBION VILLAGE.

Although Rosa will miss the market this week since she’s sold out of grapefruit, there will be several vendors with fresh sprouts, salad and greens, along with garden starts and various crafts.

THE KIDS

My kids are my rock and my roadmap through all my adventures in waning. There is only a single aspect of their care which can use major attention. We never ever have time to just be and enjoy one another's rushing company. And and all medical conversations I am privy to are rushed. They are never finished.

Each of you have elaborately detailed scheduled for your elaborately detailed lives. Kids. Demanding professional lives. Talking of my medical deterioration when you're driving. You get to complete all of the conversations, but I never do. So if you are to give my demanding situation the due it requires, you need to sort out what you need to do without me in the car.

At the doc's appointment yesterday, all the talk was about me. As you went through all the numbers, I got the distinct impression that each of you thought you had grasped what I was to do better than me. I will still follow your instructions. But I get the last word. Please build in time to bring your old man along. Watching him, you will learn how to take your turn when your turn at this dance comes along. Maybe twenty years. Meanwhile, please give me three spacious hours. From dead old dad. Please.

---

NUFF SAID

The medical industry needs to sink slowly over the Marianas Trench, along with their friends and co-conspirators in the pharmaceutical industry. That being said, though, you've got to admire Mexico's ability do this duty day after day after day. They see people at their weakest, their most helpless. Ill. Living (often barely) with the consequences of their lifetime of bad choices.

And they have to preserve a sense of having the requisite knowledge to apply what they know to good effect. Some few emphasize their scientific credentials by wearing labcoats. Most look ready for the shopping mall, though. Even a visit to the doctor.

So here's to those folks who are beautifully with is through the doubt and all the tears, those who must not forget to stop and pick up the candles for Ralph's cake. For when Dr. Whatever comes through those sliding doors, that little bag in his hand better be holding candles and not free food or his clubs in the garage.

Performing this little intimate ceremony seem the least we can to take the doctor's considered advice. For tomorrow we are likely to count on them again. And again, look at who alone is counting.

(Bruce Brady)

OLD MURDERS NEVER DIE

by Bruce Anderson

The nude body of 18-year-old Barbara Stroud was found by a County road crew north of Willits on Wednesday, January 10th, 1973. The honors graduate of Willits High School had been missing since the previous Sunday.

Miss Stroud and her boyfriend, Bob Burke, had enjoyed a movie at the Willits Theater, then, Miss Stroud, driving the sporty blue '65 Mustang convertible her doting parents had given her, had dropped Burke, also 18, at his home in the burgeoning rural suburb of Brooktrails northwest of town.

The only people who saw her after that were the six young men who raped and murdered her.

The Strouds had moved to Willits in 1971 to get their studious only child away from the crime and violence of the San Francisco Bay Area. The Strouds thought bad things were less likely in Willits than they were in San Jose where Barbara, always a good student, had never failed to appear on the Westmont High School honor roll.

The Strouds lived for their daughter, and their daughter was devoted to them, so devoted she had delayed entering college for a year to help her parents manage the Ridgewood complex south of Willits, then a thriving motel and restaurant complex.

Reno Bartolomie was Sheriff, Micky Chapman his ace investigator. Ernie Carlson was principal of Willits High School where Ruth Rockefeller taught ambitious students, Barbara Stroud among them, the finer points of composition. The principal described Barbara as “a very fine young lady who was quiet and reserved, and mainly interested in her classes." Ruth Rockefeller described the diligent Miss Stroud as"honorable," by which the elderly Rockefeller seems to have meant that the girl's earnest, well-mannered demeanor was more like the young women of Rockefeller's generation than the raucus youngsters she now saw roaming the halls of Willits High School.

Having dropped off her boy friend in Brooktrails a little before 11, the last non-lethal person she would see, Barbara drove her collector car Mustang back down Sherwood Road to Highway 101 where she unaccountably turned north towards Laytonville rather than south towards Ridgewood where she lived.

Or did she?

Her Mustang was found north of town, she lived south of town.

It is speculated that the girl was sideswiped then abducted somewhere on Sherwood Road. The seemingly abandoned Mustang was soon observed by a Sheriff's Department deputy parked on the shoulder of 101 north of Willits. It was midnight, maybe an hour after its young owner had been strangled to death just up the road. The doors were locked and the keys were still in the ignition. The girl’s purse, coat and shoes were in the vehicle. The convertible's canvas top had been sliced open. The driver’s side of the perfectly maintained Mustang was dented. The Sheriff's Department immediately announced they were looking for the green vehicle whose paint remained on the battered door of Barbara's car.

A petite girl weighing little more than 110 pounds, Barbara's body had been thrown over a fence near a grove of trees a few yards from a railroad siding not far from where her Mustang was found. A hundred yards from her body was a small cabin, a green truck parked in its driveway.

Mr. and Mrs. Stroud were so distraught at the unimaginable loss of their only child that young Bob Burke, the bereft boy friend, had to identify Barbara's body. 35 years later, October of 2008, Mr. and Mrs. Stroud still live in Willits. They are much encouraged by the cold case diligence of Andy Whiteaker, a detective with the Mendocino County Sheriff's Department. Whiteaker seems to have the goods on the killers.

The police had the goods on the six killers in 1975 when they arrested them.

The case was wrapped up.

Or should have been wrapped up, but the killers walked.

The Sheriff's Department and the Willits Police Department had known within days who'd been involved, and arrests were duly made. Although the killers put the fear in their friends and associates, many of whom were also "known to law enforcement," informants were lining up to tell the cops who did it — six unrepentant young men, one of them so casually depraved he went home to his cabin a hundred yards from his dead victim, his green truck parked out front.

Phillip Wood had testified against his fellow killers and rapists in exchange for immunity from prosecution. The Sheriff's Department and the DA's office had injected Wood with sodium amytal, truth serum as it's been called, to help Wood's memory.

A judge said the chemical memory enhancer was illegal, and the killers, Mr. Wood among them, went free.

Randy Rowan, Larry Phillips and his brother Milton Phillips, Dennis Weeks, and Harold "Puff" Harrington were named by Wood as the killers. Wood exempted himself from responsibility. He said the others had cut thought the ragtop of Miss Stroud's Mustang to open her locked car door from inside so they could pull her from the Mustang and throw her into their green truck.

Wood said he was following in his car. He said he could hear the girl screaming, and he could see her clothes flying out the window of the green truck, but he said he didn't see the rapes or the murder. The other guys did all that, he said. Wood had merely looked on.

Two of the killers — Weeks and Rowan — are still alive. Weeks lives in South Dakota, Rowan in Oklahoma. It is these two that Detective Whiteaker hopes to bring back to Mendocino County and try for murder.

Again. They got away with it 35 years ago, as Whiteaker says, "Back then, all we had were fingerprint cards and magnifying glasses."

Deploying DNA testing and other contemporary investigative tools, Whiteaker thinks he may at last have the slam-dunk evidence from the Justice Department lab that will put Weeks and Rowan in prison for whatever life is left to them.

The other four killers?

In 1989 in Montana, Milton Phillips shot his brother Larry to death. Milton eventually died of liver cancer, a painful way to go but not painful enough given the dismal facts of the man's life. Wood and Harrington are dead from the dual ravages of drugs and alcohol intensified, perhaps, by their memories of that cold January in Willits, 1973.

A much colder case began five years before Barbara Stroud was murdered. No one is working on it. Most of the people who remember it remember it only in the bizarre context of the Manson Family because it's mentioned in the books on Manson, and it's mentioned in these books because the Manson Family lived in the Anderson Valley at the time.

On the rainy morning of October 14th, 1968, six miles south of Ukiah, a seven-year-old boy ran out of his trailer home and found his mother dead on the wet ground outside the front door. The boy ran for his grandmother's trailer nearby. She was dead too, garotted like the boy's mother with a pair of long leather boot laces.

The dead women were Nancy Warren, 64, and her granddaughter, Clyda Jean Dulaney, 24, wife of CHP officer, Don Delaney.

Clyda was 8 months pregnant.

The seven-year-old was Johnny Ussery whose younger brothers Lane, 5, and Brett, 4, were still asleep. The three boys were from Clyda's first marriage to a logger named John Ussery of Eugene, Oregon. Clyda had left Ussery for Don Dulaney, a Ukiah-based CHP officer twice her age. She was pregant with Dulaney's child when she was murdered.

Clyda's former husband was quickly eliminated as a suspect when it was verified that he'd been in Medford, Oregon, at the time of the murders.

Finding his mother and his grandmother dead, Johnny had calmly returned to his trailer to get his younger brothers dressed, then, his two little brothers in tow, the three boys trudged south to the home of Don Torell where Johnny told Mr. and Mrs. Torrell that “Mommy and Grandma are dead.”

A swarm of deputies led by Sheriff Reno Bartolomie was soon on the scene.

The sole witness to the previous night's mayhem, which occurred in a driving rain that obliterated the footprints assumed to have surrounded Clyda Dulaney's outdoors corpse, was Mrs. Warren's miniature dachshund.

The two dead women were fully clothed. They'd both been brutally beaten about the face before they'd been strangled with brand new hightop leather boot laces, two turns of which had been pulled tight around the neck before the laces were knotted in back.

Mrs. Warren operated Nancy’s Antique Sales on Highway 101 south of Burke Hill on the two-lane portion of the highway about where the strawberry fields and sales stand are today.

Clyda Dulaney was a graduate of Ukiah high school who, only months before, had left her husband for officer Dulaney, 49, a man several years older than her father.

Clyda's former husband had been engaged in a bitter custody dispute with Clyda for his three boys. Mr. Ussery said Clyda had deserted him and the boys for Dulaney, evidence, he insisted, that Clyda was unstable and therefore not a fit mother.

Robbery was the apparent motive. A metal cash box had been rifled and left on a table although a plastic box and glass jar containing approximately $300 in cash rested in plain sight in a closet of the older woman’s trailer.

Officer Dulaney lived in Ukiah with a teenage daughter from his previous marriage while Clyda and her children lived on her grandmother's property at the south end of Burke Hill. Dulaney said they lived apart while he looked for a house in the Ukiah area that would accomodate him, his pregnant new wife Clyda, her three boys and his daughter. When Clyda gave birth to their child, Dulaney would be supporting a family of seven, and he said he wanted a house big enough for all of them.

Dulaney was in Sacramento for a special CHP training course when his new wife and her grandmother were found dead. The investigative assumption from the beginning was assuming that the two women were murdered after he was either in Sacramento or on the road there.

The CHP officer told the Sheriff’s office that he dropped his wife and step-children at Nancy’s Antique Shop at 9:30 the previous night with the intention of continuing on to Sacramento. But, he said, he'd forgotten his uniform, so he returned to his Ukiah apartment, picked up the uniform and continued on to Sacramento via Highway 20 east where he signed in at the Academy at 1:45am.

A neighbor said she saw a blue pickup truck leaving an orchard near the antique shop about 8:15 the morning the women were found. She said five persons "wearing hippie-type clothing" were in the vehicle.

Dulaney, 49, who was described as genuinely distraught by investigators, quickly returned to Ukiah.

“The only information I had was what I had read in the newspapers," Dulaney told the Ukiah Daily Journal. He said he and his expanded family had been watching The Wonderful World of Disney at Dulaney’s Ukiah apartment before he, Clyda and the boys headed south for Clyda Dulaney's trailer six miles to the south. The family had left Ukiah about 8:45. Dulaney said he dropped his wife and the three boys off at their temporary home and headed for Sacramento where he was scheduled to begin a CHP refresher course the next day, Monday morning. Dulaney said that he had reached Highway 20 before remembering that he had failed to bring his uniform. He then returned to Ukiah picked up his uniform and resumed his trip to Sacramento where he logged in at 1:45am.

Dulaney hired Timothy O’Brien, a Ukiah attorney who often represented law enforcement people. O'Brien, who soon afterwards became a superior court judge, said that Dulaney had been "deeply concerned over any false impression which might have been gained regarding his cooperation with the Sheriff’s Department following the death of his wife and child."

O'Brien helped Dulaney with his statement for the police. “When the statement was completed, I signed it,” Dulaney said. “There was no lack of consideration.”

Sheriff Bartolomie said he interviewed 35 suspects, referring in one newspaper account to "the hamstrings of Warren Court " which, the Sheriff suggested, had prevented him from detaining a trio of roaming purse snatchers who'd robbed a Ukiah matron in the days prior to the Burke Hill murders. The Sheriff thought the three transients could well have murdered the two women, but, lacking evidence to hold them, sent them on their intinerent way.

A year later, in 1969, following the gruesome killings of Sharon Tate and friends in Los Angeles, Bartolomie said he thought the Manson Family may have also been responsible for the unsolved murders of Clyda Dulaney and Mrs. Warren. The Sheriff said both the Tate murders and the two murders south of Ukiah were “in the senseless category.”

And the Manson Family had been in Mendocino County at the time of the Dulaney and Warren murders.

Seven persons belonging to a nomadic cult were arrested on drug charges in Navarro in the Anderson Valley on June 22, 1968. Susan Denise Atkins, 19, aka Sadie Mae Glutz, was among those arrested. Additionally, “Several Mansonites were guests of a Ukiah man at his home off Boonville Road,” reported the Ukiah Daily Journal.

But there was never any evidence linking the Manson Family or Dulaney or Clyda Dulaney's former husband to the crime. Someone or someones came in off 101 in the night, took the money they could see, strangled the two women they found there, and continued their journey to whatever unlucky destination called them. (Research by Deborah Silva)

---

Barbara Stroud's prize-winning story

(From the Press Democrat in the 1972-1973 timeframe, shortly before her death)

---

BARBARA'S STORY OF "WILLY B."

by Barbara Stroud

It was two in the afternoon and Chuck and I were on our way back from a reasonable facsimile of what might be called a picnic. Neither of us was talking. We'd had a fight over something not worth the trouble and the silence inside the car amplified the road noise to well past deafening.

"I've gotta stop at a gas station, man. I'm running up of petrol."

"Okay. I'd like to make a rest stop anyway. Besides, I really need to take an aspirin."

"Oh, don't give me that headache jive. I'm in no mood for that. Just shut up and let me drive, huh?"

"Yes her commanding officer, sir.” I didn't say it but I was thinking it. I just shut up and let him drive. We pulled into a small roadside Chevron station and Chuck rolled down the window. A little baldheaded man wearing blue and white came out of the office.

"Fill ’er up?"

"No, just a couple bucks worth. Hood’s okay."

"Yes sir." The man seemed pleased as he unscrewed the gas cap and ran the gas into the tank.

"Well, uh, I’m going to get out and walk around. You stay here.” Chuck got out and slammed the door. He disappeared around the corner of the building so I sat and tried to amuse myself watching the gas fumes rising from the tank.

I was beginning to think my headache was affecting me more than I knew when I started hearing what I thought was a guitar. I knew it wasn't the car radio because it had never worked.

The little man had just finished putting the $2 worth of regular in Chuck’s Chevy and when he came to the window, I questioned him.

"Excuse me, sir. Do you have a radio playing in the back somewhere?"

"No ma'am. Sure don't."

"Where is that music coming from?"

"What music?"

"That guitar music. Can't you hear it?"

"No ma’am, sure can't."

I couldn't let that man make a fool out of me so I got out of the car and went hunting for the source of music.

I went into the garage and found the guitar player sitting on the lube rack. I came closer and sat down on the other end of the rack to listen. He was tall and his long curly black hair fell into his face when he tilted his head. He smiled a lazy smile and just kept on playing "American Pie."

When the song was finished he sat up straight and just looked at me. I looked right back and there was something very strange and familiar about his easiness. I felt that I knew him or had seen him before.

"Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"

He tilted his head and smiled that lazy smile and said, "Yeah, I'm Willy B."

"Where was it? Fort Bragg? No. I know. Lake Mendocino… last summer."

"Yeah. I'm Willy B." He picked up his guitar again and started playing. Time passed, but I wasn't aware how much time until Chuck came stomping into the garage.

"I told you to stay in the car. What are you doing sitting in here? Now come on. I've been waiting for you out in the car for 15 minutes."

"Okay. I'm coming. Goodbye, Willy B. It was Lake Mendocino, wasn't it?"

I went and he smiled a smile and just kept on playing. Chuck and I walked out and I looked back. Willy B. looked up and nodded.

We pulled out of the gas station and down the service road to the highway. Chuck floored th accelerator and we shot from the stop sign into the flow of traffic.

"I thought you were in the bathroom taking that aspirin."

"I forgot about my headache when I heard the guitar."

"What guitar?"

"Come on, Chuck. You saw him in there playing the guitar."

"In where? What are you trying to come off with?"

"At the gas station. The guy with the long black hair and a guitar."

"Golly, you finally flipped."

"Don't tell me you didn't see him. You heard me talk to him."

"There was no one there."

"I know there was. He played his guitar for me. His name was Willie B."

"Nope."

I was beginning to wonder where my head was so I asked Chuck to take me back to the Chevron station where I knew I'd seen Willy B. Although it was illegal, Chuck made a u-turn on the highway and we headed back. I wanted to see if he was still there, but even if he wasn't, the baldheaded attendant would surely confirm that he had been.

"This is a waste of time and gas, man. I shouldn't let some chick order me around. Don't say I never did anything for you."

"Look. I don't ask you for many favors, but please, it's important to me."

"Why? You in love with this guy?"

"Be reasonable, Chuck. You think I'm crazy as it is."

As we pulled in again the same little man came out.

"Fill ’er up?"

"We just came back to settle an argument. Was there some long hair here with a guitar?"

"Long hair? With a guitar?"

"Yeah. Name of Willy B.. My girlfriend here thinks she seen him. Claims he was playing his guitar for her in there. You see him?"

"No sir. Sure haven't."

I couldn't let this man make a fool out of me a second time, so I got out of the car and went into the garage. Willy B. wasn't there.

"Didn't you see him leave?"

"See who, ma'am?"

" Willy B."

"No ma'am."

"But he was here?"

"Come on Polly. Let's go. Thank you for your time and patience, mister. We appreciate it."

The ride home was silent again because I was too upset to talk and Chuck was too mad. His foot on the accelerator got heavier and its odometer was touching 90.

"Chuck, slow down, please, I'm scared."

"Shut up and don't bug me, woman."

"Chuck! Look out! There’s Willy B. You're going to hit him!"

"Where?"

"In the middle of the road!"

I saw him standing frozen, with his guitar at his side and grabbed the steering wheel from Chuck’s hands.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Don't you see him?"

"Polly, no —"

There was no time. Our rate of speed made this looming horridness seemed to grow before us. I struggled with Chuck for control of the wheel, swerving to the right just in time to avoid hitting the guitar player who played "American Pie" so well. We missed Willy B. but the bank swallowed us up.

The Chevy burst into a spectacular mushroom of red and black flames and I can still recall that satisfy a crackling sound as we watched it burn from inside out.

Willy B. was standing by the window looking in. He picked up his guitar and started to play and for the first time Chuck saw him too.