Letters (June 26, 2019)

• Not All…
• Finely Ground Cayenne!
• Bohos
• Now What?
• Stable Geniuses
• Insufficient Coverage
• No Roots, No History
• Defend Barbara Howe
• Dyed In The Wool

NOT ALL…

To the Editor:

My name is Savannah Bourne, and I’m a current resident of the homeless population of Ukiah. Three or four nights a week I spend the night in one of the trailers over there on Airport Boulevard with my daughter and her father, who is a 7 year Army veteran, and native of Willits.

The recent article about the current state of things where we live and the removal of trailers and tents, rubbed me the wrong way. I’m not a drug addict. I am a former drug addict, and I’ve been sober for 7 long years. I’m a student at the college, with a 4.0 GPA and the vice president of a student club that encourages and enables peer to peer support for substance abuse, trauma, grief, and so on. I and many others consider myself an upstanding member of this community. To see everyone who lives here purely out of necessity labeled a criminal, is extremely disheartening.

I respect the police in this town because in general, they help us. I know Detective Hoyle comes by and checks on us, and he oversees trash removal each week. Many members of the community, including medical professionals, come through offering aid, food, blankets, clothing, etc. To simplify this issue to drugs and rape is irresponsible journalism. In a small community like ours we have to communicate with everyone, and yet I have seen no attempt to actually interview or even interact, with the people who live here. It’s humiliating and dehumanizing. Please respect that some of us are trying our best in a world that we have to fight through every day. Some of us obviously manage better than others.

I am not by any means saying there is no crime here. I know many of the officers by face and name from frequent contact as I walk to and from the bus stop. I see the drug use, I hear and report domestic violence often. I was not aware there was a rape reported recently, and that makes me feel extremely uneasy, especially as there are many women here who have no other place to go. Including myself.

I beg of you to allow me to speak on this issue. I dont speak for everyone, but I do have a perspective you haven’t gathered as of yet. Please contact me as soon as possible, as the issue is only going to become worse as we get closer to the 17th.

Savannah Bourne, Students for Recovery, V.P.

Ukiah

FINELY GROUND CAYENNE!

Editor,

I had that cat problem myself. I was living in an apartment complex and one of the tenants, an elderly lady, was maintaining a feeding station. As time went on more and more cats came and it became an annoyance. For me the problem was the smell. My solution was to poison the feeding station. Now, I don’t suggest using a fatal poison. That would be wrong. You could poison wildlife or if a cat died from it another animal could eat it. What you need is a poison that discourages the cats from coming around and doesn’t harm them. I found that a little finely ground cayenne pepper in and around the feeding station solve the problem.

Al Martin

Ben Lomond

BOHOS

Editor,

I just read that the Sonoma County supervisors approved security for the Bohemian Club summer encampment this summer.

This group has been around well over 100 years, mostly very wealthy, all men, including many politicians. There are no women allowed. It’s doubtful there any openly LGBQT members. For an organization that has its headquarters in San Francisco, this is mind-boggling.

Could you imagine if President Donald Trump attended this function? I bet almost every major news outlet would be covering it for weeks.

I hope Sonoma County continues to fly the rainbow flag and trying to get equal pay for women, but please practice what you preach.

Raleigh Chaix

Willits

NOW WHAT?

Editor,

It’s sunrise, the supermarket is about empty and I push my shopping cart into the produce department. I see a weathered old wisp of a gal decked out in Levis and leather leaning on her stalled cart and listening as the produce department stock boy—young, earnest and handsome, clean and cut, starch-collared and neck-cinched—wholeheartedly agrees that Jesus did indeed love people and truly did want them to take care of God’s Earthy Paradise. But then Evil came into the world so now Jesus must destroy it.

“What about the animals?” the woman snarls, straightening up. Before the earnest young man can explain that animals have no Everlasting Souls and so are, like Unbelievers, newborns and future generations, expendable, she pulls her cart up into a little wheelie and then nearly runs over the spit-shined toes of his dress shoes on her way out of there. 

Witnessing that little “exchange” was so refreshing I thought I’d share it with AVAers. Now there’s a woman who knows wickedness when she hears it. Jesus as Shiva the Destroyer? Sure thing, boy. Tell it to my backside while I’m getting myself away from your blasphemous ass.

Then I remembered House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declaring “impeachment” verboten while justifying her refusal to acknowledge the obvious, and gone were my rosy feelings. Talk about a summer soldier and sunshine patriot. Does she truly believe she’s the third most powerful person in the Free World (ha!) and so the rightful arbiter of what’s real and what’s not? 

Trump has surrounded himself with a posse of Rasputins are trashing institutions, stealing money and playing musical chairs. The whole posse is a walking, talking High Crime and Misdemeanor. These guys are not just a clear and present danger to domestic tranquility, world peace, the dream of liberty and our sacred Standard of Living, they’re habitual liars and kleptomaniacs, earth rapists, mercenaries and sociopaths. I wouldn’t trust one of them to take care of my housecat. 

Yet here’s our Queen Nancy, and the rest of the Democratic Party’s Palace Guard, tottering up and down their greasy Halls of Power, wanting to leave the solution to us whiplashed voters and, of course, our stinking Electoral College come the next election. An election that’s so far off there may a real National Emergency by then. 

These network shills on the “news” seem to think Trump can start a war anywhere on earth at any time all by himself—no need for Congress, the people, the opinions of the military, the United Nations, International Law, treaty obligations—war as nothing more than a favor done for Himself the Stable Genius and Greatest President who has ever lived. If that’s the case, then the next step will be to gather up all of the printed copies of the US Constitution and throw them in our bonfires made of burning books. 

In a crisis like this, courage is the virtue that makes all of the others possible. Since those doing the damage are living on our tax dollars, and because American law and American tradition are on our side, acting courageously should come easy for us. Everybody believes in self-defense. 

Bruce Patterson

Prineville, Oregon

STABLE GENIUSES

To the Editor,

Reading the list of high level staff of Mendocino County who have been shit-canned over the past few years sounds strangely familiar......Oh....wait! It’s a page outta the management style of our VERY STABLE GENIUS president and his LONG list of former ONLY THE BEST PEOPLE. 

Having recently had a crash course in how the mucky-mucks operate, I can rattle off this formula: communication ceases, hysteria ensues, County Counsel begins an investigation, the iron curtain descends and the poor schnook who has been de-personed is left to twist in the wind. Life continues for the big guns, as worker bees avoid eye contact and ponder the upcoming “Department Supervisor Skills Academy and Performance Management and The Art of Writing a Performance Evaluation trainings.”

Nameless for self-protection

Ukiah

INSUFFICIENT COVERAGE

To the Editor of the Ukiah Daily Journal:

I just read the lead story in the Daily Journal: “Code Enforcement Program Improving.” This was an appalling omission of coverage, and a disservice to the public. Ironically, the main story from Tuesday’s meeting was that the Board voted to scrap the code altogether by “Fast-Tracking” plans for an asphalt plant at the top of Ridgewood Grade.

Your article even did not contain the words “Harris Quarry,” “Ridgewood Ranch,” or “asphalt plant.”

This is disgraceful.

Here is the story your readers deserved:

Board votes to fast-track Ridgewood Grade Asphalt Plant

On Tuesday, June 18, the Mendocino County Board voted to skip the step of requiring a review by the County Planning Commission for an asphalt plant at the summit of Ridgewood Grade along Highway 101 between Willits and Ukiah.

This item was only inserted into the Board’s agenda on the previous Friday. There was no publicity about this, and members of the general public only found out about it on Sunday.

This subject took up several hours of the Board’s time on Tuesday, far longer than any of the items reported in the Journal’s completely insufficient coverage.

The Board used a pretty neat trick to pull this off: they divided the subject into two parts:

In the first part, members of the public were invited to speak, for three minutes each. There were about 15 people who spoke in opposition to this move.

No one from the public was there to support it, only the Northern Aggregates rep and their attorney, Tina Wallace. (I suspect they didn’t expect the word to get out, and so did not anticipate any opposition at the meeting.)

The second part was in the form of an interview between Northern Aggregates’ attorney and The Board. The public was not allowed to respond. This lasted for at least a half hour.

In this second session, Ms. Wallace introduced new points that could have easily been refuted had the public been afforded the opportunity to respond. She pulled out a last-minute red herring by announcing that Harris Quarry would have to close and lay off its 81 employees by July if this were not approved immediately. Later she said that, well, they would have to close down whether the approval was granted or not.

As it was, there was no firm evidence presented, no statistics, no facts, except for when Second District Supervisor John McCowen announced that he did not know what the extra expense of delay would be, but “I suspect it’s several million.” And so he voted according to his “suspicions,” and not the facts.

Fifth District Supervisor Ted Williams gamely tried to get the Board to see reason. His understanding of the problem seemed very clear. He alone voted against this evisceration of the public’s interests. Third District Supervisor John Haschak might have voted against it as well, but he had recused himself because of “conflict of interest.” But that would not have mattered by itself, since the other three supes voted in favor of this proposal.

This hearing was a sham, and the Journal’s coverage of it was less than abysmal. Shame on both. The public deserves better.

Ed Reinhart

Ukiah

NO ROOTS, NO HISTORY

Editor

One of the pleasures of shopping for books at used bookstores is finding books I would never find at a bookstore selling new books. That has definitely been the case for me in regards to California history books, and specifically books about the origins of California place names. 

In the last year and a half I have found three very interesting books on this subject: "California's Spanish Place Names — What They Mean and How They Got There" by Barbara and Rudy Marinacci (1997); a 1930 hardcover edition of "Spanish and Indian Place Names of California — Their Meaning and Their Romance" by Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez; and perhaps the seminal book on the subject "California Place Names — The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographical Names" by Erwin G. Gudde (1889-1969), who was a faculty member in the German department at UC Berkeley. I bought the revised fourth edition of the book published in 1998 by UC Press and revised and enlarged by William Bright, who is professor emeritus of linguistics and anthropology at UCLA. It is a large hardbound book of 470 pages with a plastic-covered book jacket (bought at Treehorn Books in downtown Santa Rosa). There is also a small paperback version of this book by William Bright, "1500 California Place Names — Their Origin and Meaning", also published in 1998 by UC Press. 

I figure many AVA readers would be interested in these books knowing that many Anderson Valley residents have roots in this region or in California, and knowing that Bruce Anderson has written books about Mendocino County history and also knowing that some AVA columnists like Katy Tahja and Malcolm Macdonald write about local history. 

Down here in white collar professional dominated Marin County, quite a few residents are not from Northern California and do not have roots here, they're here for social and economic reasons and don't care much about local history. At the Protestant church in Kentfield I attended from 2012 to 2015 composed of professional class families, the majority of the adult congregation members were from other parts of the country. 

Most likely a good portion of them will eventually leave the Bay Area or California. Realistically, for the remainder of my life I'm probably going to have more in common socially with others from Northern California than "immigrants" from other states (including Southern California). 

Keith Bramstedt

San Anselmo

DEFEND BARBARA HOWE

To the Editor:

On Wednesday, June 19, the workplace violence restraining order case of Tammy Moss-Chandler v. Barbara Howe, became a new low for Mendocino County.

The Honorable Jeanine B. Nadel of the Mendocino County Superior Court, General Civil Limited and Unlimited Civil, and Probate Division, heard this case. It was a clear and fraudulent attempt by the county to get a permanent restraining order issued against the former, and highly respected, director of county public health, Barbara Howe.

A little background. A few weeks ago, Ms. Howe was wrongly terminated, and the county's medical director, Dr. Gary Pace, subsequently resigned in protest in solidarity with Ms. Howe.

As always, County CEO Carmel Angelo was Wizard behind the Curtain.

Ms. Howe's firing was only the latest morale blow to the county's understaffed and overworked public health department which has not had competent leadership for over a decade until Ms. Howe and Dr. Pace. Ms. Howe and Dr. Pace distinguished themselves, among other achievements, in leading county public health through our recent catastrophic forest fires, and in fighting in the opioid epidemic, teen suicide, and child abuse.

It should be noted, the manner in which Ms. Howe was terminated was shocking. She was given no good reason for her termination -- none -- and she was handed a letter of resignation. She was then told she had fifteen minutes to clear out her desk. She was escorted past her staff to the door by security. Finally, the county sought a restraining order and her photo was posted in all the workplace break rooms.

In fifteen minutes, Ms. Howe had become one of the county's Ten Most Wanted.

This "walk of shame" to the door and the wanted poster were designed by CEO Angelo to suppress any rebellion within the ranks of county public health. The director of county human resources, Heidi Dunham, handled the details. Ms. Dunham is a reliable soldier for Carmel Angelo.

In her court on June 19, Judge Nadel suppressed a public hearing on the matter of the permanent restraining order. Reporters were in the courtroom, and naturally the county had a lot to hide. So Judge Nadel hurriedly called the lawyers into her chambers. They stayed there for a long time.

Judge Nadel, it should be noted, was Mendocino County Counsel before being elevated to sit on the Superior Court. And Nadel is a close personal friend of Carmel Angelo. Apparently, Nadel didn’t want the county’s malfeasance issues going on the record in open court. Best to keep Carmel Angelo's bullying a secret behind closed doors. Keep in mind, wrongful termination -- and the fraud, deception, and perfidy used to cover up a wrongful termination -- is an intentional tort.

The lawyers stayed back there in Nadel's chambers a long time. Nadel kept them there.

When the lawyers emerged, Nadel recommended that the parties sign the Standard Settlement Agreement and keep the details private. Nadel was disinclined to put the witness back on the stand.

Dear Lord!

What was Mendocino County hiding? What was County CEO Carmel Angelo hiding?

First, there is recent grand jury report about the Board of Supervisors ceding too much authority to the County CEO. Carmel Angelo runs the county. But she is not elected. 

Then there is the Barbara Howe saga. It appears that the rumors that Ms. Howe was given a letter of resignation to sign and told, “If you don’t sign it and we terminate you, good luck finding a job at age 62. We'll kill your career. You'll never work again.”

I’m glad Ms. Howe stood up to Heidi Dunham and Carmel Angelo. Angelo is brutal, she goes for the kill. She has disappeared many county workers before Ms. Howe, including her own former chief deputy, Alan Flora.

Who is Barbara Howe, you may ask? Let me quote Medie Jesena Parrott, pediatric nurse practitioner in Ukiah, from an editorial that appeared in the Mendo Voice:

"She [Barbara Howe] has eliminated redundant services and improved the department’s capacity to meet the medical needs of citizens in a shelter during a fire; she has pre-deployed air scrubbers to inland schools to protect the health of kids with asthma; and she has made sure that at-risk folks experiencing homelessness got the hepatitis A vaccine. She and Dr. Pace have worked with the Sheriff to bring medical treatment for substance use to county inmates while in the jail, thereby reducing recidivism for drug crimes. Her other achievements include pursuing national public health accreditation, bringing modern epidemiologic surveillance programs here so that Public Health staff can monitor local emergency room data in real time, and committing Public Health financial resources to the county’s Community Health Improvement Plan."

I’m passing the hat to help Barbara Howe pay for a wrongful termination lawsuit against Mendocino County. I’m in for $100.

Ms. Howe’s lawyer is John C. Rarick at 107 West Perkins Street, Ste 16, Ukiah, CA, 95482-4855. Very capable guy. Georgetown University. He will win reinstatement for Barbara Howe. 

Does anyone care to join me?

John Sakowicz

Ukiah

DYED IN THE WOOL

Editor, 

You now have to have a federally okay ID card to buy ammunition. That will take from 3-6 months to get. It costs money. Then you'll only be allowed to get so many shells and that's after a 10 day waiting period and background check. The liberals are now openly and bravely wanting to disarm the American people. The liberals are batshit crazy and they are running this country. It's so sad that the American people have to take this. But they are not going to take it very much longer. The conservative people in the United States are going to rise up at some point and they are going to wipe these crazy batshit liberals out. It's going to happen as sure as the sun rises. 

These people cannot continue to destroy our way of life in this country but they can do it legally because they have forced their way into getting elected. But things are going to change. People are starting to rise up. Every day you see more and more people speaking up about how crazy these people are and I can't wait to see it happen. In fact I want to be part of it. 

There are a lot of people in this country that have guns and they will never take guns away. Taking guns away will not stop random shooting. They will not stop somebody from being wacko, mad or on drugs to kill somebody. That's the way human beings are. It will never change. Never! And these idiots, and I mean idiots!, that think that gun control is going to stop or climate change is going to climate change the climate or global warming is going to change global warming is all bullshit. It's crazier than the professors that smell too much gas when they are over their Bunsen burners trying to figure out how to screw the American public again somehow. I can't tell you people out there how sick I am of hearing the news. These people running this country are so far out on a limb that they will commit suicide once they realize how stupid they are. That Cortez woman, the Omar woman, that rich guy, Adam Rich, the governor of New York and Chicago, mayors, governors of Washington and Oregon and California — these people are all dyed in the wool batshit crazy and all they are doing is trying to ruin the American way of life. Things are going to change to the rule of law. Not the law of liberals anymore, the law of the country, and you liberals better saddle up and ride for cover because the end is coming, believe me. 

God bless Donald Trump, four more years 

Jerry Philbrick

Comptche 

PS. There's a high school in San Francisco that is demanding that the portrait of George Washington be taken off the wall. It was a unanimous decision. That's what our teachers are teaching our kids these days. Does that make you all happy out there? George Washington taken off the wall. The Liberals have gone clear over the bank as far as being rotten and anti-American and socialist and just overall rotten people. This deal was endorsed by Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Kamala Harris, Dianne Feinstein and every other liberal around.