Letters To The Editor

BILL MOORES STRIKES AGAIN

Dear Supervisor Hamburg,

This is in regards to case number (CDRES 1-2006 APN 132320-42 and 132-320-43) to be heard on 21 April 2011. On 10 March 2011, Mr. Fred Tarr (Planner II) denied this project due to the following:

The proposed development will not be provided with adequate access roads;

The proposed development is not consistent with the purpose and intent of the zoning district applicable to the property, as well as the provision of the Coastal Zoning Code and does not preserve the integrity of the zoning district;

%The proposed development will have a significant adverse impact on the environment within the meaning of the California Environmental Quality Act.

a. The project as presented represents a substantial alteration of the present or planned land use of the area.

b. The project as presented will cause an increase in traffic hazards to motor vehicles, bicyclists or pedestrians; and

The granting of the exceptions will be detrimental to the public welfare or injurious to surrounding property.

As it was stated, by Mr. Tarr “It appears that the applicant is attempting to overdevelop this subject property and again the staff reiterates that the subject property is already developed to the three lot maximum that was specified in U#18-75.”

I do not believe the community of Irish Beach has changed its position from 7 October 2008 in which we took the stand that if this is authorized “it will greatly impact the reduction of open space to our development and it appears to be in contradiction to the original subdivision map and the CC&R’s for the Irish Beach subdivision.” The community is under strict guidelines of CC&R’s in which are to abide by, why should the developers be exempt to CC&R’s when they instituted them and the community has to abide to them by the letter of the law?

As you may already know, there are approximately 195 homes in Irish Beach with approximately 305 bare lots currently available to be built on. If it were for the fact that there are no longer lots available in which the developers were not able to turn a profit that would be something to consider but this is not the case and, yet, if this even was the case why should the community suffer in not having the open space they were promised? Why shouldn’t this rule be adhered to?

Finally, in 2008 when the original studies took place many things have changed and are constantly changing on the coast regarding restrictions from the Coastal Commission and I believe this should be factored into your decision. In the past, Mr. Moores was indicted and on probation for one year for killing shrubbery on another property owner’s lot because he just didn’t like where it was located. One can only imagine what he would do to restricted botanicals on his own property before it can be officially looked at by an expert. These lots have been cleared approximately three times in the recent past and, again, if this is to be granted I believe there should be no other work done on this property until the Costal Commission has an expert examine them.

I would like you to consider denying this above request.

Respectfully,

Walter A. Rush

Manchester

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ALL A BOARD!

Dear Editor,

The Board of Supervisors Will Meet in Boonville May 3rd.

Sheriff Allman will be back in the Board of Supervisors chambers this coming Tuesday April 26th at about 4pm to report on his budget deficit. Anyone who can attend to support the Sheriff's Office is encouraged to go.

EVEN MORE IMPORTANT is the next Supervisors meeting on May 3rd. The Board will take their show on the road with the Boonville Apple Hall as their destination. They will be talking about Funding for the Sheriff's Department, the future of our Fairgrounds and the General Plan from 9-4 with a lunch recess. Mark your calendars now, as this is a chance to turn out and be heard. Anyone with a comment will have three minutes to speak. In this world of shrinking budgets it is important for them to know what our priorities are. Please check us out on our Facebook page using avcac@mcn.org to find us on the site. We have posted an important survey of community needs for you to fill out and the results will be presented at the meeting.

Don't miss this opportunity to show the Board of Supervisors how extremely interested the citizens of Anderson Valley are in the future of Mendocino County. The May 3rd meeting agenda will be posted on the Mendocino County Government web site Thursday afternoon April 28th at: www.co.mendocino.ca.us click on board of supervisors then click on agenda.

We will post the May 3 agenda at post offices. Come to Apple Hall on May 3 so that the voices of Anderson Valley will be heard. Questions? Call AVCAC at 895-2146.

Colleen Schenck

Boonville

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OUR COMMON DESTINY

Editor:

Ukiah: Taking Control of our Common Destiny — In this time of Peak Oil, Climate Change, and Disaster Capitalism, we Ukiahans will take democratic control of our own food, our money, and our energy resources, or others from elsewhere will surely succeed in taking that control away from us. Disaster Capitalism takes advantage of short-term social and financial bedlam and turns it into long-term privatizing schemes that convert our democratic control of crucial resources and services — such as schools, libraries, water and waste systems, prisons — into top-down, corporate-controlled, long-term cash cows for the very few. These schemes have utterly failed to become more efficient and save tax payers money. How could they? Profit-seeking, constant-growth corporations privatize the profits and socialize the costs to our public detriment. And we citizens, instead of lower-cost, democratically-controlled resources and services, transfer our public money to the wealthy, and pay and pay and pay.

We also find ourselves continuously playing whack-a-mole… fighting off those who wish to impose their private will on our public community, leaving little time to think and act and build a positive inviting future worth fighting for.

There are several things we Ukiah citizens could be doing now instead of waiting for events that force us into decisions not in our common best interests:

1. Corporate Personhood: The state legalizes an activity — such as commercial water withdrawals, or factory farming, or big-box colonizers that take our jobs overseas — and communities are legally prohibited from saying “no” to it. Or, as may happen in our case, we reject by a huge majority vote a zoning change that protects a prime industrial parcel, and also reject by popular demand the closing of our downtown Post Office… but the will of the people is undermined by the will of outside corporate money, subterfuge and bureaucracy… and we lose valuable community assets.

Small towns have successfully passed laws that transition from merely regulating corporate harms to stopping those harms by asserting local, democratic control directly over corporations. Our dear friend, Susan Jordan, along with other locals, was beginning work on this before her untimely death. This project needs energy and legal direction now in order to cope with future monster malls and other assorted horrors.

2. Green Energy/Green Jobs: The Masonite site is prime industrial property to help build our green energy future upon. The City of Ukiah needs to annex this property as soon as possible, and solicit bids to build our own decentralized, solar-driven future with a combination of rooftop and city-owned power. For crying out loud, this is Mendocino County!

3. Local Money: Some baby steps (Mendo Moola) have been taken, but without our own local, democratic, cooperative money system, we are at the mercy of distant economies, centralized power, and undemocratic banking institutions (Bank of America). Crucial to this effort is to have our own, local, progressive Credit Union. I know, I know, we already have some local credit unions, but they are either not locally-controlled (Redwood) or too conservative (Mendo-Lake) to meet our future needs. Instead, we need an aggressive, progressive Credit Union that will help fund and build our future with community development programs, financial education, individual development accounts and micro-enterprise lending. The models I’m familiar with are the Santa Cruz Community Credit Union and the Mondragon Cooperatives.

4. Food Sovereignty: We should “claim the right to define our own food, agriculture, livestock and fisheries systems, in contrast to having food largely subject to international market forces. 99 percent of food consumed by Mendocino County residents is grown somewhere else. Most prime agricultural land is used in the production of a pair of non-essential, non-food crops — ganja and high-end booze — that are grown almost entirely for export.” (Will Parrish in the AVA.)

We have some great farmers, gardeners, farmers markets, and food projects that are setting the pace for our future. But there is one project that we as a community can begin together to take local control of our food and our downtown place. And the structure for it is already here. It’s called the Ukiah Cooperative Market and it could play a central role in our future (see below).

5. Downtown Ukiah: As our recent community engagement with the United States Postal Service has demonstrated, we love our town and we hate the loss of control of our future to outside interests who are unresponsive and uncaring, and who hide behind privatized charters and distant, faceless bureaucracies. We have begun to take back democratic control of our downtown through "form-based zoning" and protection from unfair competition by big-box colonizers, chain stores and franchises who use tax breaks, bribes and monopolies to suck out our money for distant investors and CEOs that would otherwise be circulating locally, building our own economy.

As we move inevitably from a car-based economy to a locally-based culture, freeway malls will begin dying off of their own accord. Retail monopolies kill local entrepreneurial spirit and energy. To live interestingly… to be interesting… what we must not do is replicate what is found in every mall and city in America. By “zoning out” the dumb same ol, same ol, and zoning in the smart and local, we give ourselves a chance to thrive as a creative, entrepreneurial small business community.

But we are subject now to the loss of crucial downtown services — the post office and courthouse — that bring people into town who then patronize our small businesses. We have no local, democratic control over what happens next with those buildings.

In the past, the locally-owned “five and dimes” and department stores “anchored” local commerce along with government services. Those retail businesses are now owned by distant corporations who move them at will to freeway malls that gut and shutter our beloved downtowns.

Our locally-owned, locally-financed, democratically-controlled Ukiah Food Co-op, buying from local farmers and artisans, could be the anchor store that we invite into our downtown to help us build our walkable, bicyclable future around. Keep the unfair chains and franchises out, bring the co-op in, and help finance local, independent, small-business entrepreneurs and cooperative ventures with our own downtown credit union.

Our co-op, together with our own local farmers and farmers markets, local money, local energy, and local entrepreneurial, cooperative, and family-owned businesses, will allow us to step off the tracks of the out-of-control financial and socially-chaotic train that is relentlessly roaring towards us, and instead, secure our future and the future of our children by starting from and with the local.

If we Ukiahans don’t take control of our own destiny, others will dictate it to us. Those outside, moneyed interests who would control our future for us have been clamoring at our door for some time now, and so far we have been successful at turning most of them away. But they are relentless in their pursuit of private-over-public control, and unfortunately they have local allies who would sell us all out for a farthing. To date, we have failed to provide consistent and reasonable plans and alternatives to offset their constant demands.

We must do so now or we could lose it all.

Dave Smith

Ukiah

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DISGUSTING

To the Editor:

We are disgusted but not surprised by the Board of Supervisors' refusal to lead by example and take a permanent 10% pay cut.

The board has approved a permanent 20% pay cut for the Mendocino County Public Attorneys Association and they have demanded that all other units take a minimum 10% permanent pay cut.

The board apparently feels exempt from the economic crisis because, as supervisor Hamburg says, “It's a hard job.”

That is a slap in the face to every county worker who has already agreed to a pay reduction including the public attorneys.

We offered to take a 10% permanent pay cut and the board refused — they have wanted 20% since day one of negotiations.

Supervisor Pinches believes that the salary based for his position should be something to make travel from the North County worthwhile and attract qualified candidates.

It is disappointing that he doesn't feel the same need to attract and retain qualified attorneys to prosecute violent criminals, defend our Constitution, and enforce child support obligations. Many of these attorneys are charged with handling very serious and complex cases. An unqualified attorney could expose this County to financial liability in multiple ways.

Historically this County attracts young, unskilled attorneys because we always have job openings. We then spend our resources training them only to lose them to neighboring counties with double the pay.

Supervisor Kendall Smith wants to maintain the “professionalism of the job.” Hers is a job that does not require a high school diploma or college degree, let alone the doctorate and licensing that is required for an attorney.

The public attorneys understand the severe financial difficulties facing this county and we are willing to share in the burden by taking an immediate 10% pay cut. We have agreed to this despite the fact that we are currently 20% underpaid compared to public attorneys in surrounding jurisdictions. The board's decision to cut our pay by 20% would result in us being 40% below market.

In these difficult times we do not discount the need for everyone to shoulder the burden of debt and unemployment that is plaguing our county. But the leaders of this county should be prepared to make the same sacrifices they expect from the workers.

Carly Dolan, President

Mendocino County Public Attorneys Association

Ukiah

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NOT JUST US

Dear Editor;

I need to correct your statement that I “persuaded the Fort Bragg City Council to sign on to a proposed Constitutional amendment to ban corporate personhood.” I was one of a dozen coast residents who presented the resolution to the city council and testified why terminating the legal concept of corporate personhood would benefit the city and local citizens. Briefly, the background for the nationwide movement we've become a part of is the fact that the US Supreme Court has given corporations the rights of persons and therefore overturns citizens efforts to curtail corporate power like by restricting corporate money in elections. Folks working to restore citizens dominance over corporations have helped scores of cities around the country to get their municipal governments to pass resolutions backing an amendment to the US Constitution that will terminate corporate personhood, so that the grip Big Biz has on our politics can be loosened by laws restricting corporate power.

The Fort Bragg City Council passed the resolution 4-0 (1 absence), and we thank them for this. We need people in our county's other 3 cities to promote similar resolutions, and to also make a county ballot initiative out of it. Readers interested in helping with this effort should check out on the website www.MoveToAmend.org and to contact me at tw@mcn.org  or 937-1113.

Also, I thank you, Bruce, the AVA and Will Parrish for his excellent expose about our ex-Congressman Doug Bosco, and how he and his Democratic Party has continued to work for timber and ag resource extractors at the expense of our environment and communities. This is the truth no other paper uncovers and reveals.

Lastly, the AVA also deserves praise for leading the long and lonely effort to get County Supervisor Smith to repay the $3000 she wrongfully took from the county. Your paper led this fight for honesty in government and is invaluable. We're lucky to have you. Every county in the country needs investigative and hell-raising papers like yours.

Tom Wodetzki

Albion

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STUPIDITY: THE ANTIDOTE

Dear Editor,

In these times of depravity and pathological denial, I've found that inspiration is the best medicine. I'm not convinced that it is an effective remedy but it certainly stands out among other alternatives.

The other morning while taking in the news over a hearty cup of inspiration I got an idea. To celebrate nuclear power and all of its apocalyptic implications I would heat my house with dynamite. I stood up to proclaim my intention to the world but before I could speak the notion was shot down by my arch nemesis: the limitations of the physical world. I had no dynamite nor did I know how to make any nor where to obtain some that had been made elsewhere. Even worse, I lack the resources to gain such crucial information, especially a telephone or a good chemistry book. So I sat down again. But not before I had prepared another cup of inspiration and retrieved my trusty drawing board.

This time around I would start with what I did have and work from there. Using nothing more than a pen, some hand tools, and random trash around the land (especially bailing wire) I came up with my greatest invention yet. I would describe this device to be a home heating apparatus that is fueled by the cheapest and most abundant fuel source there is. I have crafted a stove that burned stupidity!

After working out the complex mathematical and philosophical equations that made this device possible, the construction proceeded quickly and I had a testable prototype complete before lunchtime. (All of the best inventions are completed before lunchtime.)

And so with a thick sandwich to munch I fired up the “dumburner.” All was going according to plan and I had a nice warm current filling the house when I noticed a small leak in the main burner. After a moment's consideration I decided that it was no emergency and could be overlooked. After all, what's a little leaking stupidity in the air compared to a lifetime spent inundated with the stuff? At worst, I speculated that exposure to concentrated amounts might cause symptoms akin to carbon monoxide poisoning — a numbing of the senses, perhaps tiredness, without the accompanying headache. More likely there would be nothing more than an unpleasant odor.

Alas I was horribly wrong. The leak had sparked a violent chain reaction, and eruption! The following events transpired in a frenzied instant far quicker than it takes to read an account of them. I saw the glowing plume billowing out of the leak. I realized the room atmosphere was still filled with a high fuel load and that the reaction might not only consume myself but quite possibly it might spread beyond the house into the world in a fiery meltdown. In my panic, I did what I have come to realize is the instinctive response of most humans to a sudden calamity. I jumped out of my chair and let out a high-pitched yelp while simultaneously tossing my common sense into the air which dispersed as a large puff of glittery dust. I then covered my ears and winced awaiting my inevitable demise. But nothing more happened. When I opened my eyes the room had returned to its original appearance except that the prototype had also returned to a chaotic assembly of its original components.

For a a few brief moments I breathed deeply of an atmosphere free of stupidity. The feeling reminded me of waking from a strange dream or of when the lights come on when the movie finishes at the theater. It was in this aura of clarity that some profound notions came to me. In hindsight I wish that I had directed my mind to solutions of greater problems — perhaps world hunger or a means of shedding the shackles of extractive economics and corporate greed.

But I will tell you what I did realize which was twofold.

First it seemed as though my common sense had somehow neutralized the stupidity in the air or at least significantly dampened the reaction. This is a process worth looking into.

Second, I realized what a powerful alchemist the AVA is. This periodical collects trivial complaints, records stories of tragic crime and hopeless environmental degradation and exposes the clown like folly of people feeding upon the public domain. Then somehow by the conglomeration of all this madness manages to transmute it into some very refreshing, even educational, material. And they sell it for less than the price of a cup of coffee. I would call that pretty close to turning lead into gold. Or at least goldplated lead.

Ironically, lead may be the more needed material in the near future but that exceeds this metaphor.

As for me it's back to the drawing board.

Sincerely?

Name withheld

Boonville

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FRONT PAGE MATERIAL

To Mr. Todd Walton

Regarding “Young Pot Moms” -4/13/11. I'd like congratulate Todd Walton for the most entertaining “late page” AVA article in a long time. This was front page material for sure. However, I would question some of the obvious assumptions. In the first paragraph Mr. Walton assumes Mendocino is, has been, always will be, and should be a mecca for the arts. “Will it all end with us?.” “Us” is referred to as the “local actors and musicians and writers and artists and activists,” who, in his opinion is a dying breed on the coast. Has the coast always been this mecca, I ask, or it just a passing phase after the loggers and fisherman finished their phase?

I don't believe this “young pot mom phase” is at it's early stages, either. The writer explains “the excellent Symphony of the Redwoods plays to audiences of mostly white-haired elders” (such as him and me). Now, Mr. Walton, I hate to go old school on you, but those pot moms (under 40ish I believe you said) are actually pot daughters and the “real pot moms” are sitting next to you at the Redwood Symphony Concert. Your “cute roly-poly snot-nosed five-year-old blond boy wearing black coveralls” is a pot grandchild.

My son once told me “ your art may not be my art.” You go on with, “It is your sacred duty to give your children plenty of Mendelssohn and Stevie Wonder and Mozart......etc.” You could list for 5 pages, but it would still be your (our) list. Wait a minute, really, Harry Potter was “corporate guck.” I thought it was a genius effort at writing to multi-aged audiences.

Please write more, Todd. And please, Editor, put it on the front page.

Jim Young,

Mendocino

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SWAMI CHUCK

Editor,

Ukiah in 20 years — 2031

 

Allman is still sheriff.

 

The Board of Supervisors finally approved Sheriff Allman’s budget at $32.28 for him and the one remaining deputy.

The Board of Supervisors finally approved a law that requires everyone to have 200 marijuana plants per yard.

Planning Commissioner Judy Pruden has finally obtained approval that every home in Ukiah be victorian.

The Ukiah city council has passed a law that no meat be sold in the city limits.

The new “downtown” will be on Airport Boulevard.

Train service still has not arrived.

All social sevices now occupy the entire Raleys shopping center.

(Raley’s moved to Fort Bragg.)

The Ukiah speedway has only radio controlled cars because of the noise.

We now have 4,160 miles of bike trails, but only 47 bike riders.

Every store now must have a mural.

The Ukiah police department has issued its first talking on a cell phone ticket last year (2030).

 

The Ukiah City Council has now passed a law that anyone caught smoking will be shot on sight.

The Board of Supervisors has confirmed opening the 32nd casino.

 

The Ukiah city council has passed enough hot air that we were able to close down PG&E in 2025.

And finally: Ukiah has a new freeway because too many drivers were getting high passing the city.

Chuck Savage

Ukiah

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DIALOGUE OF THE DEAF

Mighty AVA,

Driving along the other afternoon, I turned on the radio to catch the tail end of this exchange (on NPR) betwixt Robert Siegel, Cynthia Tucker, and David Brooks...

SIEGEL: Here is a finding in that New York Times CBS news poll. People were asked about raising taxes on those who make over $250,000 a year. That is ending the Bush tax cuts for the well-to-do. The number who said, yeah, you should do that to help ease the deficit is 72 percent. That is not an insignificant number, but can Republicans in Washington just ignore that?

TUCKER: Well, so far it seems that they are. And while there's plenty of blame to go around here, one of the reasons that the deficit debate hasn't moved at all is because most Republicans have absolutely taken increasing taxes off the table. It is hard to see how we move from where we are, how we get the deficit under control if you say no taxes were raised ever on anyone. And it is another sign of dysfunction, I think.

BROOKS: Yeah, though I would blame the American people a little here. I mean, they want to see other people pay to balance the budget. A poll today underlines, once again, they don't want it to have any pain for themselves. And so cutting defense is popular, raising taxes on the rich is popular. Everything else is unpopular. And unfortunately we really can't make much headway without doing that other stuff.

At this point, I was giving the radio the middle finger, with a spirited verbal accompaniment. Brooks has long been a mouthpiece for the Forces of Evil (Upper Twit Division) at the New York Times. I've read his nonsense before. So it wasn't what he said as much as the sheer brazenness of it. It reminded me of Dick Cheney's dismissive "So?" when told that a supermajority of Americans opposed his never-ending invasion of Iraq. These guys have been in power for so long, they feel invincible, like they can say and do anything they want, and suffer no consequences. Look at Goldman Sachs, outright criminality followed by outsized bonuses. This is the ruling class taunting us, flaunting their absolute power, daring us to revolt.

So here's how the insipid chat concluded...

SIEGEL: And changing Medicare is sort of popular, sort of unpopular?

BROOKS: No, but I think pretty unpopular. I mean that's — there is no education process that's been done by people in Washington or anywhere else to educate the American people about what needs to be done.

SIEGEL: OK. Have a good weekend.

BROOKS: You too.

TUCKER: You too.

Upon re-reading this, what boggles me is the absolute lack of response (from Siegel or Tucker) to the outrageousness of Brooks' declamations. "OK. Have a good weekend"? Is that the best we can do? Why not: Enjoy your extra dose of radiation, compliments of GE, who paid no tax this year! or Have a nice vacation, flying over the polluted Gulf in your private jet! or Don't let all those homeless people out on the streets get you down!

There comes a time to stand and fight. Methinks it approaches.

Mike Kalantarian

Beyond the Deep End (Navarro)

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SMART RHODODENDRONS

Editor,

Monday evening the Fort Bragg City Council followed introducing their new Engineering Tech, Laura Parsons and Police Chief Scott Mayberry (son of past Chief Mayberry), meeting County DA David Eyster, declaring the first week in May National Drinking Water Week, May as National Bike month and recognizing April 24th to May 1st as Rhododendron Week with a consideration of a moratorium or resolution against Smart meters.

In a previous public works Committee meeting for the city, Dan Gjerde and Meg Courtney recognized resident concern via petitions and comment and decided to suggest a moratorium to the full council. Gjerde felt that it was illogical for PG&E to deploy twice even though they had deployed three times in Kern County. The same county where the largest city attempted to sue PG&E in a class action suit for the various errors that the meters have made even though they have tested for “accuracy,” using the Structure report that rate payers paid for via CPUC acceptance. Hey, it is only money, right? Why would some one deploy an entire county with something they were not sure would work? This first system used PG&E power lines to transmit the date back creating dirty electricity, but was not stopped for that reason. It plain did not work. Cue Rod Sterling, strange music, "you have entered the PG&E world."

Imagine Dan Gjerde’s surprise when the fickle Utility returned with no wired versions they were talking about last March and an inflated punishing opt-out that deploys the same meter on Opted out resident homes in so called radio off mode.  City Clerk, Linda Ruffin, began with concerns about how to sunset the “moratorium” and worried about being sued.  The council heard from some 10-11 residents including a PG&E representative, who fortunately was not switched into “how neat our Smartmeters are” mode and was actually restricted to the same amount of time as us in public comment. Many of the resident’s comments where impassioned, one pounding a constitution noting the 4th Amendment right to privacy, and the last was a electrical engineer, who used wireless and noted that the low power of microwave ovens he repaired in his youth made him sick like many of the others speaking previous attested. Then Councilman Mello, who was not part of the public works PG&E “how neat our- … are” filibuster back in March when public comment was severely limited due to the filibuster, asked the two PG&E rep.s to respond to some questions, whereupon we all received the benefits of the necessarily cheap version of monitored meters ala wireless and the opt out that PG&E provided its residents out of concern which really meant because PUC President Peevey finally caved into the siege of calls, letters and demands by many counties, cities and organization plus blockades and demanded PG&E come up with an opt out.  Let us be clear here, PG&E does not give a damn about its ratepayers. PG&E figured that opt outers, would get the same old Smartmeters (finally deployed) in off mode wireless (could the meters possibly accidentally be turned on?) with a hefty charge (naughty ratepayers) and monthly pay up to allow the meter readers to return. I thought the Smart grid was about quick monitoring of the meters (per the CPUC goals.) Incidentally, this gives PG&E the means to bill everyone for the Smartmeters and Smart grid (infrastructure) which is an upgrade to their equipment, saves them meter reading and line patrol costs and logically their cost. The CPUC, our representatives says no, it is our cost. After all we do not want to hurt PG&E's profits.

Meg Courtney said that they had concerns about legal issues and decided to move away from a moratorium with no ordinance to a resolution and a letter to the CPUC and PG&E. Dan Djerde did not give up on his desired to have a wired version bless his heart. Then Mayor Dave Turner, added that there should be no charge for opting out and he wanted it wired. Bless his heart, is there an echo in here?

It was a bad day for Smartmeters on the North coast. I can not say if the resolution is strong because, well, we could not see it as it was not in the agenda nor was it read, but I think it could be strong. The council of 4, Doug Hammerstrom was absent, was unanimous in supporting the resolution and letter to the CPUC and PG&E. My concern though is that the residents of Ft Bragg and visitors may not have much recourse beyond possibly opting out, which means impacted sensitive folks would still be subjected to unconcerned neighbors wireless Smartmeters and the too active access system of antennas for everything in the smart grid. With a moratorium, Fort Bragg could be retroactive with a wired version and no wireless infrastructure.

I did speak and addressed some of the council's concerns. I mentioned that Mendocino County Supervisor, John Pinches told me that he did not understand why Willits did not go for a moratorium against Smartmeters with an ordinance with no penalty cost and felt that Fort Bragg could go that way. I did mention that Grover Beach City in San Luis Obispo county demanded  no "opt out" charge and real notice prior to Smartmeter installation, so residents could opt out instead of the PG&E stealthy light knock on the door and quick change out by carefully two week trade technicians, who have damaged homeowners electricity with unnecessary surges. I mentioned that switching power supplies for the meter will create 24/7 dirty electricity, that can cause cancer.  I also mentioned that Dr. Ole Johansson (2011) of the Karolinska Institute, who was one of the researchers, who helped us avoid radiation from TVs and CRTs that were burning the torso and legs of workers and children, noted from epidemiological research the increase of electro Hypersensitivity from the current 5-10% to 50% by 2017. Post PG&E’s "wireless is the only cost effective way" comments, I managed to say that Italy has a wired monitor meter system (I add here: with few complaints.) Apologies to Robert and his rules and to Mayor Turner (he is a good guy, no sarcasm here) for speaking out of turn.

I did appreciate the support of the council in making a favorable decision. I actually enjoyed the first part of the meeting and think that drinking water and riding bikes is a great idea and even got some good ideas about safe passage grants for bicyclers in Anderson Valley. The Rhododendrons on the North Coast are spectacular and the Festival of the same at Dana Grey is worth your time seeing. I do have to say I always walk away from these meeting wondering why residents get limited response and corporations changing things that make residents unhappy get asked a lot of question and talk more.

Greg Krouse, Cub reporter & activist

Philo