Letters (August 28, 2019)

• A Great Rail Trail
• Woodstock Bust
• Core Services
• Dunham Out?
• Live Next Door
• Twelve Pages?
• Look What The Libs Have Done
• Save Yourself
• Fair Play For Patrick
• Why The Delay?

A GREAT RAIL TRAIL 

Editor;

I am writing to let you know that I very much wish that you would take a less negative view of the proposed multi use path along the route of the abandoned Northwestern Pacific rail line between Ukiah and Eureka. I know that this project looks huge, expensive and nearly impossible, but similar projects have been undertaken and completed all over America and they have proven to be both a boon to the communities they connect and a source of enjoyment and healthful exercise for the folks using them. 

Thousands of miles of abandoned rail lines criss cross our country, and their linear nature combined with the easy grade they were built on and their usual separation from highways make them wonderful corridors for trail development. Kathleen and I have traveled to and ridden our bikes on such trails in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, New York, Montana, Iowa, Illinois and Colorado. We meet people from all over America and beyond when we do that; people who are spending significant amounts of money on bikes, travel, food, hotels, restaurants, clothing and gift items. The people who we have met who live on and near the trails we have ridden on tell us how wonderful it is to have the trail there and how beneficial it has been for their community. 

I think that the Northwestern Pacific proposal is possible and that it will benefit the entire North Coast area, and I am asking for your support for it in the Advertiser. If you want to know more about trails like this please check out the Rails-To-Trails-Conservancy, at railstotrails.com. 

Thanks for listening, 

Tom McFadden

Boonville

ED NOTE: Not opposed in theory, but somehow former Congressman Bosco owns a chunk of the line and he'll have to be paid off first, paid royally, I'm sure. So far, the rails to trails project is a cynical scheme orchestrated by the Democrat claque inflicted on the Northcoast to get Bosco and friends paid out of public money. BTW, I've hiked around in the Eel River Canyon. It's impassible, and would cost literal billions to build a trail through because in many areas the rail bed has slid into the Eel. The rail line through there was punched through its sixty miles at a time of combined know-how, cheap labor and without the political cynicism prevalent today. 

WOODSTOCK BUST

To the Editor,

The planned concert celebrating the Woodstock Festival's 50th anniversary (Aug. 16-18) was a Big Bust No Show, but who cares? The media hype focused entirely on Woodstock and failed to acknowledge a more significant music festival that also happened 50 years ago, 9000 miles away in Vietnam, attended by over 500,000 American troops, many wallowing in red gumbo, others grooving to the tunes of Woodstock performers via pirate broadcasts over modified field radios and rear area turntables and tape decks. The 1969 virtual Gunstock Festival was the pivotal moment in Vietnam when a majority of troops turned against the war, refused orders, and fragged superior officers. The brass had lost control of the grunts. Music played a major role in this insurrection, but the good hippy vibes from Woodstock didn't last long on the home front. After Altamont, the disillusioned Woodstock Nation, fragmented by greed and drugs, scattered to the outback to tune out, turn off, drop acid and grow pot. Flower Power faded into the Me Decade. An excellent book on the soundtrack of Vietnam is "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" by Doug Bradley and Craig Werner which was selected by Rolling Stone Magazine as its #1 Best Music Book of 2015.

So it Goes, 

Don Morris

Ghost Town/ Willits

P.S. Regarding veteran pot warrior Pebbles Trippet's inspirational music, it was Chuck Berry, not Little Richard, who is credited as the sole songwriter of "My Ding-a-Ling" after he performed and recorded it at a Coventry, England concert in 1972. Previously, New Orleans songwriter Dave Bartholomew wrote and recorded the song in 1972 and Chuck Berry recorded a similar song "My Tambourine" in 1968. Berry also recorded a raunchy version of his big hit "Reelin' and a Rockn' " that pushed all the right buttons.

CORE SERVICES

Greetings:

I am responding to your invitation to express our feelings about our beloved and essential Coast Hospital. I am a registered nurse. I worked on Station 2 (the medical-surgical unit) for 38 years.

I hate to see our community hospital go the way of so much of America, being bought and sold by corporate interests. But if that is our fate, then there are a few things we should be insist upon.

What do I think are essential services to provide our community? The ambulance, the emergency room, the ICU, basic general surgery services, and orthopedics. Of course, you can't have all that without lab, radiology. Everything else is nice to have, but we can do without all those other services like nuclear medicine, some CAT scan, MRI, mammo specialties, even obstetrics. Those are expensive departments to provide and with that in mind I believe a department by department analysis must be done to determine which department makes money and which is a drain on the bottom line. That seems to me just basic math. If Station 2 is underutilized as an acute care unit, then perhaps those beds should be converted to swing bed-rehab-hospice uses.

Now on to Adventist. Why are they interested in a community hospital that is in the red deeply? Control of medical care within the county, that's obvious to me. And they will reap the benefits as a for-profit entity. I have heard glowing reports about how well they treat their staff, how satisfied their patients are with all the care they provide. I don't doubt any of that. But there is always an ulterior motive in business: what's in it for me? How will I profit?

I was a shop steward for 35 years. During that time we improved and maintain employee's health and welfare benefits, their retirement plan, they're paid time off, and if I read the newspaper articles correctly if there is an Adventist "take over," everything would be status quo for three months — and then what? Reduction in salary and benefits is a real possibility -- anything to help the bottom line.

So I am skeptical. Can't help it. We are dealing with corporate America. Maybe Adventist is our salvation. If so, we need to insist upon a contract of five years, no more, and let them prove they are capable of giving us what we need, not only patient-wise but employee-wise. If they can do that then the voters can decide if the Coast Hospital will become the Coast Adventist Health Care System or some such other moniker.

Whatever happens, we need a healthcare facility that gives us basic services. Not everyone who lives in this healthcare district is a tourist. Many of us are locals, long-time residents. We love living here and we deserve a hospital and a walk-in clinic that meets our needs. Will Adventist honor those needs?

Whatever happens I have to admit that I am very saddened at these turns of events. Healthcare in the 1980s was so different, so much more humane and patient-centric. Now it's all about profit. I love my 38 years at Coast Hospital. It was my family. Corporate America didn't seem to have us in a stranglehold as they do now.

Long live Coast hospital!

Louise Marianna, RN

Mendocino

DUNHAM OUT?

To the Editor:

Heidi Dunham, department director of Mendocino County Human Resources, is gone!

Fired? Forced to resign? 

Does it matter? 

Dunham is only in her mid-50s. Social Security is a good ten years away.

Frankly, I think Ms. Dunham was cut loose by County CEO Carmel Angelo as a result of Dunham's mishandling of the Tammy Moss-Chandler vs. Barbara Howe dispute.

It's clear to me Dunham encouraged Moss-Chandler to lie under oath and make false statements to get a bogus temporary restraining order against Howe. This was very wrong. In fact, making a false statement is a crime. And now, Angelo doesn’t want the blowback. Angelo never does. There's always a convenient scapegoat. 

Heidi Dunham, always out to please Angelo, clearly went one step too far with Moss-Chandler.

Needless to say, the temporary restraining order was not upheld by the court in an open hearing. Judge Jeanine B. Nadel took both parties in her chambers, and the entire nonsense ended.

A word about restraining orders.

The restraining order law is perhaps the second most unconstitutional abomination in our legal system, after our so-called child protection (DSS) laws. The restraining order process is designed to allow an order to be issued very easily, and to be appealed, stopped, or vacated only with the utmost difficulty. It is the product of politically-motivated minds, who have no respect for our traditional sense of justice or of the protections provided in our California Constitution of due process of law. 

It is so ironic that the temporary restraining order backfired on Tammy Moss-Chandler and the woman who coached her, Heidi Dunham. Moss-Chandler vs. Barbara Howe. One woman vs. another woman. And it wasn’t domestic abuse. It was stupid workplace stuff. A tempest in a teacup. Angelo just wanted Howe gone over some policy dust up involving generators and PG&E blackouts.

For their sake, let’s review the law in a nutshell.

A restraining order may be obtained, only after the occurrence of one or more of the following acts between family or household members:

1. attempting to cause or causing physical harm;

2. placing another in fear of imminent serious physical harm;

3. causing another to engage involuntarily in sexual relations by force, threat or duress.

Only in Mendocino County could two county department heads -- Moss-Chandler and Dunham -- have conspired to so totally pervert both the spirit and letter of the law…and do it at the direction of their boss, the County CEO.

It was one of the ugliest chapters in County CEO Angelo's 12 years and three months of total and absolute control over county government. She's a bully. Worse, she's a tyrant. 

Don't believe me? Check the recent Grand Jury report called “Who Runs Mendocino County?”

John Sakowicz

Ukiah

LIVE NEXT DOOR

To The Editor, 

A most interesting headline in today’s Ukiah Daily Journal that read “Housing Project proposed next to Homeless Shelter.” Well now, in my opinion, I think that is just a capital idea, providing that there are a couple of stipulations that need to be followed. First of all, I think that Camille Schrader and her husband who live on a big ranch in Potter Valley, far away from any homeless problem, I must add, and, who have made their fortune catering to the homeless in Ukiah, be required to reside in these proposed apartments. Secondly, I also think that all of the Ukiah City Council, as well as both city managers should also be required to live there. I think it would be a valuable lesson to those who profit from and those who protect the homeless to have to face them on a daily basis just as the rest of us who live in Ukiah have to do.

Thank you, 

David Anderson

Ukiah

TWELVE PAGES?

Open Letter to AVA readers,

A couple of months ago I called Mr. Anderson and posited the scenario of a return to the 12 page format at a newsstand price of $2. Mr. Anderson laughed and allowed as to how the thought had occurred to them, but the reality of current printing and postal costs are problematic and that print newspapers are getting hard to produce. This may be a "tilting at windmills" proposal, but I'm making it regardless.

I am enclosing $60 with this letter and promising to continue purchasing the paper at my local vendor in Laytonville. I am that committed to a print version of the AVA. I encourage folks of similar feelings to follow my action. This publication is worth it. I'm not going to genuflect before the masthead, but I can confidently state that I am never the same person I was after having read an issue, and that is an inexpensive experience indeed. Throw these folks some money and keep the AVA doing what they do best: shining a light on the vermin who exploit us.

Signed, 

A Collective of One

Laytonville

PS. I despise Scott Simon, love Lulu.

PPS. I’d love 12 pages but would gladly accept the status quo, i.e. newsprint and eight pages.

PPPS. Feel free to spend the 60 bucks on a decent bottle of booze. Cheers.

LOOK WHAT THE LIBS HAVE DONE

Editor,

Seattle is one of the biggest disasters in the country and it is a Democrat run city. Portland, Oregon, another disaster, the worst thing that could happen to the Oregon people because of a Democrat governor. Seattle has a Democratic mayor and Democratic governor. Gavin Newsom country, California, is the biggest disaster in the United States starting with Sacramento itself, Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco. Los Angeles is out of control, and is another major disaster run by Democrats. And New York with Deblasio and Cuomo is beyond comprehension. 

Gavin Newsom is the worst liberal in the country. The whole state is run by Democrats and look at the filthy rotten things that have happened here and the stupid rules in the stupid regulations and the stupid asinine democrat liberal anti-American Communist ideas we've got in California. Yeah! That's Gavin Newsom and the governor of Oregon and the governor of Washington and the governor of California and the governor and the mayor of New York — beyond description of being filthy dirty rotten people.

God bless Donald Trump and God bless him for the next four or five years or more.

Jerry Philbrick

Comptche

PS. To Mr. Prender or Prendener or something like that, you liberal communist Democrat whatever you are. I don't intend to take my guns out and start killing people, you idiot! When the time comes when law enforcement gets overwhelmed with you liberal idiots hen I will bring my gun out to help them. But you liberals keep doing what you're doing and it won't be long. You understand that, Mr. Prenter? You liberals are on the verge of committing suicide if you keep it up. And, if you think I want to do bad things to people — the only people who need to have bad things done to them are the people who commit heinous crimes and those people get set free by the liberal judges and that's why they should be disposed of because they will sit in jail for a few years and some liberal judge will let them go back in society. That's the way you people are. And you are admitting your guilt by complaining about what I'm saying because you know it's true. So you ought to just shut your mouth. You people make me sick.

SAVE YOURSELF

Mr. Philbrick:

In a recent letter to the editor I mention your sorry ass and you make me an enemy? You forget I knew you back when you was a gyppo logger and propagandist for the timber pirates. You were one of those canaries claiming clearcutting baby redwoods as if they were Georgia pulp pines equaled a “sustained yield” forever while slandering “tree huggers” and Earth Firsters. I remember you claiming spotted owls were nesting all over the place and that environmental regs were just another part of a vast communist plot to shrink your personal profit margins. If you wish to help the poor, says you, feed us profiteers. As was just done in your Lord Trump’s “landmark Republican” tax bill that—presto—eliminated the 20% of American children who regularly go hungry. If you doubt my word, look around Greater Comptche and you’ll find some of them easy enough. They’ll tell you about all the good Trump’s “tax reform” has done them. As will the children seeking asylum now stuffed into Trump’s gulag being run for profit and “protection” ($700 per head per day, it’s been reported). 

Well I worked a bunch of logging shows in the ‘70s and 80’s, either slinging steel, chasing on landings, felling timber or hook tending yarder—the last two meaning I spent a good part of my time working alone and away from the action—and I never saw a single spotted owl. I also remember all of the promises made by you good old company boys and what we got in the end: somewhere between zero and nothing. 

You’d think you’d’ve learned something by now but you’re too vain. Now, like your holy savior Trump, you’re still at the crap table doubling down even though you ran out of chips so long ago that everybody’s gone and the table’s covered with spider webs. With your weekly demented hate speech and endless calls for fratricide in the name of Guns, God, Gold and Glory, if you had any sense left you’d be watching after your own shriveled soul. As Jesus tried but failed to tell you, evil is as evil does.

Pat Patterson

Prineville, Oregon

FAIR PLAY FOR PATRICK

Dear AVA,

The corruption and unjust of the District Attorney's Office, Mendocino County —

I would like to bring to light the corrupt ways of Deputy District Attorney Scott McMenomey who is handling my full new resentencing hearing.

A little about me. My name is Patrick Noel. For the past 16 years I've been bouncing around the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation prison yards trying and succeeding to survive Level 4 yards they put me on. It's not an easy task. 

At the same time I've been studying and learning new laws that have been passed that directly affect my case.

I've been fighting for my life since the day they accused me at the age of 19 in 2003 for attempted murder, kidnapping and assault which no one was even hurt. It's been an uphill battle because the only real evidence is the "tweaker testimony" they have from scrubs off the streets of Willits. It's crazy to think that District Attorney David Eyster would allow Deputy District Attorney Scott McMenomey to falsify charges and withhold exculpatory and exonerating evidence in my case.

I'm not here to bore you with all the court jargon that I've learned. But I will try to expose the wrongdoings of what Deputy DA Scott McMenomey has done to my case and what District Attorney David Eyster is allowing his office to let happen not only in my case but who knows about all the other cases that have been railroaded because of a corrupt and unjust district attorney office in Mendocino County?

What's up with Monica Vargas down at the Probation department here in Mendocino County? Are they in competition with the District Attorney's Office for who’s more corrupt?

I feel like I've got this target on my back. All I want is what is fair and right when it comes to a trial of this magnitude. I mean, this is my life we are talking about here. Why can't I at least have someone on my team who fights for me and who is willing to take on the District Attorney's Office? These are just some of the questions I have. I go back to court on August 28, 2019, if anyone is interested in the prosecution of the DA’s re-sentencing hearing. I am about to start on that date, so please come down and be a witness to what is to become the fate of my life.

Until next week.

Patrick Noel

Ukiah

WHY THE DELAY?

Editor,

It's Tuesday and I still have not received last Wednesday's AVA. It's interesting that when I subscribed to the Independent Coast Observer last year the paper always arrived at my place on Saturday after having been mailed from Gualala on Friday. Interesting considering that Gualala is even more geographically remote than Boonville, yet it only took one day for the ICO to get to me.

Keith Branstedt

San Anselmo