MCT: Saturday, November 2, 2019

• PSPS Rumor
• Kincade Fire
• Riverbank
• Gofund Bob
• Scroogetown Crachits
• Girls Volleyball
• Outage Coping
• Outage Comments
• Peephole Painting
• Outage Communications
• On/Off
• LakeCo Meeting
• Newspaper Carriers
• Megafires
• Supes Mendocino
• Artpower
• Cadillac
• Previous Catches
• Assange Defense
• Blumenthal Arrest
• Hemp Regulation
• Shop Local
• Olompali Hootenanny
• Whistleblower Unmasked
• Terrorism Racket
• Mussel Quarantine
• Skakespeare Theatre
• Iniquity
• Marco Radio
• Timechange
• PG&E PR
• Found Object

NO TRUTH TO THIS ONE: There's a rumor floating that there will be another power shutoff this weekend. Untrue. Neither NOAA nor PG&E indicate anything in the next several days. (KOZT/The Coast Radio)

KINCADE FIRE (Saturday morning update): 77,758 acres; 72% contained; 4 injuries; 372 structures destroyed. "No acreage growth overnight as fire personnel made good headway in their fire fighting efforts. Because of this progress, repopulation planning efforts are ongoing. Access to the northern part of the fire remains challenging due to steep terrain and narrow roads. Crews will continue their progress as they mop up and construct more control lines." (Calfire)

BOB VAUGHAN is going through some serious health challenges. He is also in need of an affordable place to live come December 1st. Bob has always gone out of his way to help good causes in our community. Now he needs a little reciprocity. Please help if you can.

Bob Vaughan has been having some serious health challenges that are preventing him from working and supporting himself. He recently had abdominal surgery and is now undergoing chemo. As we all know, Bob has always gone above and beyond to help others and good causes in our community - showing up early, staying late and doing the things no one else wanted to tackle. So now Bob needs our help to pay his medical and living expenses until he can get back on his feet. To further complicate matters, he needs to find a place to live by December, so some of the funds will go to helping with moving costs & rent once he finds a place to move to. Please give what you can and share this with others who know & love Bob & want to help.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/bob-vaughan-medical-expenses

(Mary Aigner)

UKIAH PENALIZES FIRE VICTIMS?

Dear Editor,

I like your style. I have it on good authority that the City of Ukiah is penalizing workers who were displaced by the Kincade fire. Workers who could not come to their offices in Scroogetown because 101 was closed and they were under mandatory evacuation, must now expend their vacation time for days missed. They haven't suffered enough, apparently. Enter the City of Ukiah, which has found a way to fix these Crachits for living the high life on the floor of some evacuation center. Taking away their vacation days: now isn't that mean?

Yours truly,

Richard Bucci,

Brooklyn New York

UKIAH MAYOR MAUREEN MULHEREN REPLIES: Thank you! I don't know who they could be talking about but I will follow up. We were able to keep operations running as normal but if an employee needed to use time because they couldn't be at work they should have been able to. Thanks again for sending it over.

AV GIRLS VICTORIOUS!

Anderson Valley Varsity girls volleyball (#11 seed) traveled to Eureka to take on perennial private school powerhouse St Bernards who was selected as the #6 seed in the first round of NCS Division 6 playoffs. The Lady Panthers we’re unable to practice due to the PSPS and came into this game after a full week off. Obviously nervous in the first match, they found themselves down 9-2 but these girls are scrappy and came back to tie the game at 10 and never looked back, winning the first set 25-19. The second set showed the lack of practice and they lost their rhythm and never had control, losing 25-13. The third set made all five AV fans in the stands nervous as the battle continued. Winning that one 27-25 they clearly weren't going down without a fight. The fourth set didn’t go AV’s way and both teams were starting to show signs of fatigue but if there’s anything these girls are good at, it’s letting the other team make the mistakes. They lost the fourth set 25-12. The last set was for all the marbles. It wasn’t a battle of who was more talented, but a game of who could stick to the fundamentals and make less mistakes. AV found themselves up 5-2 but let the Crusaders get back into it and game was tied at 13, and the Crusaders had the serve. Final score, 15-13. Next up! Calistoga (#3 seed) Monday November 4th in Calistoga. This team only brought 7 players, two of whom came from the JV squad. There aren’t any seniors on this team. AV has so much to be proud of in these girls. GO PANTHERS!

(Luis Espinoza)

As you may not know, it is now volleyball postseason, and Anderson Valley won their first game in the North Coast Section Division championship. AV narrowly beat St. Bernard Academy in Eureka on Halloween night. Both teams fought hard, but AV won the fifth match, sealing the win! This is quite the accomplishment considering we only had seven players available, two of whom were bumped up from junior varsity and they hadn’t practiced in a week due to the power outage. Coach Kendra McEwan led the scrappy team of juniors Kaitlin Espinoza, Erika Valencia, and Valeriia Matvieieva; sophomore Brianna Ferreyra; and freshmen Dulce Sanchez, Anika Ellis, and Willow Douglass-Thomas to victory in an exciting game. AV won the first match 25-20, lost the second match 15-25, won the third match 27-25, lost the fourth match 12-25, and won the fifth and final match 15-13. Our girls will move on, traveling to Calistoga on Monday. I’ll keep you posted.

(AV Athletic Director Arthur Folz)

LESSONS LEARNED

by Katy Tahja

While people pontificate about what should or shouldn’t happen to PG&E after this recent potential disaster and power shut off, it was a good wake-up call for small rural communities on emergency disaster planning.

Comptche is a quintessential small town with a store with one gas pump, post office, school, church, and a volunteer fire department. We did OK during the power loss because everyone was doing what they could to help friends and neighbors. You KNOW you live in a small town when the generator goes down at the store at 10p.m. and the storeowner can call on local mechanics who show up and help fix it and get it running.

As a community nobody griped when the store limited gas purchases to five gallons so the 600 gallons of fuel delivered could fuel 120 generators around town. The volunteer fire department opened the firehouse five hours a day for people to recharge electrical devices and people could take four-minute hot showers.

The Halloween Parade from Comptche School to Firehouse Park took place followed by Trunk or Treat which is trick or treating done from car to car in the parking lot. Everyone was sharing adventures minus electricity between passing out goodies to ghosts and goblins.

While we didn’t open our emergency shelter, all of us who are working on its organization were keeping mental “what if?…” lists of things we need to consider in our community. Who needs power to run a c-pap machine at night? Does anyone use an electric power lift to get from their bed to a wheelchair and if so, what’s powering it? Is there anyone in town who relies solely on electric heat in their home? Does everyone know to keep generators some distance from the house and not on the front porch? If the high-low siren the County sheriff’s office talks about went off could Comptche folks spread out along innumerable dirt roads hear it? On this last point we KNOW our volunteer fire department would be out on those roads alerting homeowners in case of emergency.

Think of the Boy Scout’s motto and “Be Prepared.” Everything you’ve read about Go-Bags and stocking emergency supplies is true. If you have a generator and you can’t get gas, what do you do next? If you don’t have a landline telephone (and even they don’t work all the time) how will family and friends know you’re OK?

How will you know what’s happening? That’s where your local fire department comes to the forefront. They DO know what’s going on. Go visit them for info. Better yet give them a cash donation so they can keep being the community information center. Participate in local emergency shelter planning. We were lucky we had lovely weather for a five-day power shut off, even if it was nippy at night.

As a county we all learned something from this non-emergency that could help in the future. If you’re an individual, a family, or a community everyone can learn how to be better prepared.

SUPERVISOR GJERDE: "At Tuesday's meeting in Mendocino, we have the County's initial comments to PG&E and, by inference, the State.

To: William D. Johnson

Chief Executive Officer and President PG&E Corporation

77 Beale Street

San Francisco, CA 94105

RE: PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoff October Events in Mendocino County

Dear Mr. Johnson:

Mendocino County spent months and considerable amounts of monetary and staffing resources planning for and responding to PSPS events totaling $250,000 to date. We anticipate that after thorough analysis of the most recent event, we will spend in excess of $1,500,000 in facilities modifications and upgrades.

The County participated in planning calls with PG&E, the State, and local partners in hopes communication, notification and community resource center responsibilities were clear and the County would be able to get accurate and timely information to support our community during these events. The County continues to struggle with PG&E’s inconsistent and inaccurate communication in each event. The most challenging communication impacts were experienced during the county-wide outages from October 26 – 31 impacting all 90,000 residents. We were left in the dark regarding restoration timelines and how we would be affected by two back to back events.

The community was incredibly frustrated and panicked, having no real information when power would be restored. The PSPS event has drastically damaged PG&E’s credibility with the County and community.

I would like to recap some of the events of the four Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) events that occurred in October of 2019, and that severely undermined the County’s efforts to coordinate with our first responders and local government partners to protect the public health and safety of our community:

Unacceptable scope and duration

o Areas in scope well out of the wind event

o Lack of redundancy in PG&E’s power distribution system unnecessarily expanded the scope

o Entire County, including every major city, was out of power for 5 days, over 120 hours

Poor Communication

Terminology was not universal throughout the events

Areas of impact were often convoluted and unclear

County was listed in multiple time periods in several events, but no clear delineation of geographic locations (Mendocino South vs. Mendocino North vs Supplemental A), negated any usefulness of reported data

No consistent messaging pre-prepared by PG&E to provide to the public - not timely

The website not up to date

Outage information was communicated in less than 24 hours, leaving little time for communities to prepare

Portal for single point of contact was never updated and the interface was archaic or Inaccurate

County was informed that power would be restored between the October 26 and 29 events, but this never occurred and no explanation was provided

De-energization timelines provided by PG&E contradicted the website, the portal and verbal discussions

o Uninformed liaisons and PG&E line staff were not empowered to release meaningful information to the County

o Social media beat PG&E and local governments in releasing information quickly and consistently

Undue burden on vulnerable populations, particularly our oxygen-dependent and senior populations

o Difficulty obtaining life-sustaining oxygen supplies, particularly in our assisted senior facilities and in-home care patients

o Rural patients had difficulty accessing charging stations to charge medical equipment, flooding hospital emergency rooms

o Extreme cold, putting the elderly and homeless at risk for hypothermia, necessitating the County to open a cold-weather shelter for our residents

o Loss of food and income for low income/fixed income populations, wide-spread food spoilage, emergency re-issuance of State provided benefits, gaps in essential services

o Air quality from fires was poor, but without electricity, residents were unable to run air purifiers

Challenges for local hospitals and EMS providers

o Increased call volumes

o Patient surge of the medically fragile community

o Inability to get oxygen, fuel, and other medical supplies o Delays in service and transfers

Elective surgeries cancelled

Complex emergency surgeries difficult to transfer, risking patients lives due to unnecessary delays

Dialysis patients forced to go to the single open dialysis clinic, or stay in the hospital for extended periods to power life-sustaining dialysis equipment

Services and Community Impacts

County

o Schools closed, causing a dramatic need for emergency childcare options

o Local businesses lost much-needed revenue

o Local restaurants without backup generators were forced to close, give away food and completely restock their food supplies

o Fuel supplies completely depleted, long lines and traffic jams at gas stations, necessitating Sheriff’s escort for EMS, medical suppliers, communication and fuel providers

o Wide-spread outages crippled communication providers, leaving residents without internet, landlines and emergency communications, particularly rural/remote residents o Water and sewer services were compromised

Numerous water districts did not have generator power to pump water

Many residents ran out of water for consumption and sanitation

Sewage backup in multiple locations

o Lack of light, increasing risk to pedestrians

o Increase in crime, particularly theft and vandalism, the County had four vehicles vandalized and many businesses had generators stolen or destroyed

o Safety of employees, both public and private, operating long hours in dark buildings, often on generators employees may be unequipped or uninformed on how to use properly

o Interruption in both public and private services, delaying access to government services, construction and maintenance projects, legal services and financial institutions o County wide animal populations, particularly in shelters, were put at risk

House fires from use of generators, candles and outdoor camping equipment.

The County has acted to the best of its ability in the public’s interest to mitigate harm, particularly to vulnerable populations, reduce the economic impact of the PSPS and ensure that the public is informed and aware of the impacts and consequences of your PSPS decision.

Unfortunately, the County is dependent on PG&E to provide accurate, updated information that can be shared with the public and PG&E failed to fulfill their responsibility.

Moving forward, it is critical that PG&E adhere to their promises to provide transparent, accurate and consistent notifications/information to local government officials, increase PG&E staff capacity to allow faster response times to counties, provide adequately equipped Community Resource Centers, and to plan for and met the needs of your vulnerable and medically fragile customers.

Sincerely,

Carre Brown, Chair

Mendocino County Board of Supervisors"

INVESTIGATE PG&E'S LACK OF COMMUNICATION IN POWER SHUTOFF

by Frank Hartzell

Dear Supervisor Dan Gjerde, Assemblyman Jim Wood, Senator Mark McGuire, CPUC Executive Director Alice Stebbins and Governor Gavin Newsom:

Our cities, counties, assemblyman, senator and governor must look into what may be violations of law by PG&E’s upper management and the public relations division in the most recent power outage.

Among “broken links,” down websites, contradictory information and endless ambiguity, the most serious charge may be that PG&E made so little effort at communication with government and the media that this could be legal abrogation of their corporate responsibilities. Our public officials need to press this issue in supervisor chambers, at the CPUC and in the Legislature.

I listened to every radio station in the area and PG&E public affairs never came on the radio to explain what was going on, have a press conference or in any way inform its ratepayers. To me, it looks as if PG&E management does not know how their company works, how it can be shut off, what towns are tied to what and where the risks in the system lie. It is incomprehensible and inexcusable that they did not study more on how their own grid worked, at least after the Tubbs fire. I could be wrong, but that’s how it looked and PG&E did nothing to counteract this picture.

Their own lack of knowledge about their own company is the only explanation I can see for the lack of specific information during the recent PG&E caused economic disaster.

The information that they did give to radio people seemed to be given reluctantly and to be appallingly ambiguous from my standpoint as listener. If local reporters didn't make enough of an effort, that is NO EXCUSE. I have heard the sheriff and fire officials barge in and insist that lifesaving information go out.

I got 6 calls from PG&E in my 5 days without power, none of which told me anything specific (or anything useful whatsoever). The calls said wind conditions were forecast which “may or may not” result in my power being out. When they called me 3 days into no power and told me once again my power “may or may not be turned off” and fired another insulting bunch of ambiguity at me I was truly fed up and asked to be taken off the call lists. Are they intentionally insulting us? It sure seems like that from here.

Each call provided a 12-13 digit number I was supposed to copy down and enter in on their website. The person speaking had B’s that sounded like D’s and M’s that sounded like N’s. The code was not repeated.

I also got emails with the same information. Fortunately, those had a link. But when I clicked the link it was the exact same useless, non specific information as I had heard on the phone. For the life of me, I cannot imagine why they did not use this link to provide explanations for what was going on.

It COULD BE that there is a reasonable explanation for some or all of this. If so, they really blew it. Once in the 9th grade I got a C on a history essay. I told the teacher I had a lot more than I had written in my paper but didn’t think I needed to tell that part. It was obvious sir teacher!”

He said, “If you don’t tell us about it, it doesn’t exist.”

That’s how we must grade everything PG&E did during this, and the only grade is an F for failing to inform us when we needed the most, even if they had good reason, a premise I am not at all convinced of.

Radio news didn’t criticize PG&E. The radio folks were rightly worried about unhappy customers taking the power outage out on PG&E workers. Jerks!! PG&E workers are among the victims of the upper level management with the rest of us. They were not told the big picture either. The upper management uses these fine workers to hide behind (see all the TV ads featuring lineman, inspectors etc.). The only specific information I got was posted by Supervisor Ted Williams, but this was clearly pried out of PG&E. WTF? Why are they not telling their customers what is going on? I am truly blown away by this failure to communicate.

The CPUC undergrounding program to encourage utilities to underground their wires started in 1967. (Cities and counties have a major role in this too and the failure goes beyond PG&E) However, many other utilities around the nation took leadership in undergrounding (and future planning and maintenance). PG&E remained dedicated mostly to profits for the shareholders. Now we have an endless landscape of old, vulnerable above-ground equipment in the middle of the fire zones.

This is a crisis folks! Our economy depends on dependable power and suddenly its gone without explanation? Our elected leaders and the news media need to be invited into every decision and every step if this ever happens again. Our leaders have the right to know what this regulated monopoly is doing and why and now! The public’s right to know is more important than ever in a crisis! This time they couldn't be bothered to tell us the Five Ws while people clung to life on medical machines, while thousands of us lost income, work, food and while many went a bit crazy due to lack of any information.

Remember the way the sheriff kept us up to date on the terrifying situation after Jere Melo and Matt Coleman were murdered (after first day or so). Remember how the sheriff was on the radio helping mitigate scares in town and near schools, how they told us early, often and late? How PR during a disaster is usually one of the most important aspects.

Remember how the fire departments took the media along for the terrifying lightning complex fires in 2011 and offered round the clock coverage of what was going on, what they were doing and why?

You might think PG&E people were all busy working on the lines and didn't have time to inform us? The company has an entire division devoted to community relations, public affairs and communications.

High Winds?

While record high winds were forecast, they never came to be as predicted. And they never came at all to the Coast, which was freezing cold, humid, damp and wind free.

Must we be prisoners of forecasts as well as weather?

Was ANY effort made to keep these power cutoffs to areas that might be impacted? Can PG&E simply turn off power at their whim? If there is a real reason to shut down the entire grid for Sonoma fires, that would have been great to know. But we WERE NOT TOLD anything about that either. We have the technology to explain this all in real time in the year 2019!

There were at least a dozen times this summer that these shutoffs for the Coast would have made more sense that this one. Are we now going to have a dozen weeks of the year with power out? Will every fire in Marin, Lake, Napa or Humboldt counties will now require cutting off the power to all of Mendocino County? How will we know? We need to know the plan! There needs to be criteria spelled out that the media and our elected leaders can use to evaluate PG&E. We need specifics, not bland and vague statements like those we got this time, that could apply to anywhere, which is all we got for five days. We need press conferences, explanations, and up to date maps. PG&E told Tom on the Coast that the maps were unreliable because they were generated by a Bot.

So get some new maps with that PR Platoon you have!.

Another VERY disturbing part of this is PG&E seems to have changed its policies in a way that could have major impacts on the future of our area. They no longer turn power back on at night???? They also now no longer provide time estimates for power restoration????. WHO GAVE THEM THIS KIND OF POWER? For decades they have turned my power back on quickly in the middle of a big storm in the dark of night and often provided estimates while doing so. Was there something different about this power outage that made it impossible to work at night and also made it impossible to make restoration efforts? How can this be true? Please, leaders, get PG&E to explain!

Lots of people here were panicked. Rumors said it would go on for weeks. The fights in the gas lines were real.

Next time, our officials need to demand that some news reporters (not selected by PG&E) be given access and the ability to ask questions. Ratepayers could send their questions to the reporters and/or public officials. Our elected leaders MUST be given a role in the decision making on these voluntary outages. To me there is only one long term solution-

TURN the corporate charter off for PG&E and shut the company down in bankruptcy court. Send the shareholders home. Sorry it’s rough, but so is the destruction of the entire Northern California economy with fire causing equipment that should have already been replaced and with blackouts PG&E can’t be bothered to explain in real time. I will never get that week back. Zero income this time of year instead of my contract job will be hard to recover from. With an explanation, I might chalk it up to global warming and necessity. But not without.

Have a court supervised state run takeover of PG&E and replace this company with a NON PROFIT utility owned by the ratepayers

Retain line workers and make them owning members of the non profit/cooperative along with ratepayers.

Float a state bond to cover critical undergrounding, upgrading equipment massive fire prevention measures (some of which will require suspension of environmental laws) and insurance reform. Nearly all will require use of eminent domain to force logging companies and other private property owners to comply with fire prevention)

The state should also use the bond to step into fire insurance the way they have for earthquakes. The state should offer lower cost insurance to those who practice fire prevention. Insurance companies in just the last five years have begun doing the worst possible thing for fires- ignoring all fire prevention efforts when issuing insurance. Now, they are all relying on robotic cost saving programs that use a google earth type map to make decisions.

Our jobs, economies and often lives are at stake with a company that isn’t interested in telling us anything. We need explanations right now and then an active role in our fates for our elected leaders.

I remember the many PG&E calls and letters and explanations I got when I had commercial PG&E at my warehouse at 900 N Franklin Street when they had to shut off power for a day, closing my business. I was given exact times, which were done in a way to have as little impact as possible.

Why cannot some of this kind of polite planning and communication happen during a PG&E made disaster that made thousands suffer huge losses in income or in some cases their breath and health?

Yes, don’t blame the blue truck people, they are great people (I never saw any in Fort Bragg during the power outage and I did see at least a dozen ATT and a half dozen Comcast trucks). I never saw a helicopter either, perhaps because there was no wind or fire danger in our moldy, damp area?

I don’t think people are yet seeing how catastrophic it will be for our economy if power has become unreliable and if there is no way for us to even get a reasonable explanation of what is going on or know the gameplan that results in a huge area being shut off that isn’t even at risk. Elected leaders- please help.

Frank Hartzell

Fort Bragg

BETSY CAWN REPORTS FROM LAKE COUNTY:

The County of Lake Board of Supervisors, City of Clearlake and City of Lakeport City Councils, and county “management” staff conducted an emergency meeting yesterday at the county supervisors “chambers” that can be viewed at the following link, when the video is posted: https://countyoflake.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx.

Alternatively, see the currently available 4-part postings on the County of Lake’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/lakecountycagov.

PG&E’s Manager of Public Affairs John Costa (out of the Sacramento office) told everyone that he had “volunteered” to attend, and calmly ingested the hours-long invective and piling on of all participants — officials and members of the public — that obviously penetrated not one angstrom of his cast-iron skin, but the officials made some excellent points, and the packed chambers were appropriately shocked by some of the incredibly awful facts provided by our new Public Health Officer, Dr. Gary Pace.

Worst report of the day was the agonizing effort made by our Lake County Sanitation District and Community Service Area sewer and water services workforce, reported by Special Districts Administration Director Jan Coppinger — retelling how close we came to having water system failures and sewage spills, due to continuous generator problems.

I did not stay for the entirety of the meeting, and will have to watch the rest on video to catch other pertinent facts for the upcoming Sunday afternoon broadcast of the Lake County “Long-Term Recovery” hour and its companion program, “What’s Next?” (disaster preparedness, response, relief, and mitigation updates), on KPFZ (88.1 fm, Lakeport).

And I will be compiling a synopsis of the key points for a newsmail to the “Friends of Clearlake” who join us on the air regularly, hoping to send out on Saturday so that you can publish in the Sunday edition — but making no promises on that account. Our Lucerne seniors come first, after the extended shutdown resulted in closure of our senior center there, and the unexpected evacuation of a senior housing apartment building due to sprinkler system flooding on October 23, causing 31 residents to need housing in nearby motel accommodations (one individual was admitted to a skilled nursing facility due to their medical needs).

Meanwhile, we have appreciated Ted Williams outreach and accessibility to the public he serves quite ably (listeners to KZYX reported his presence on a radio broadcast in regard to the PSPS “event,” available — I’m told — from the stations archive called the “Jukebox.”

And are so grateful, as always, for the endurance and persistence of the Anderson Valley Advertiser’s relentless editors and writers. Arrigato gozaimasu, always with love from Upper Lake, California.

GEORG SCHOLZ (1890-1945) “NEWSPAPER CARRIERS”

SUPERVISOR TED WILLIAMS: A friend took me to see another perspective of the county this morning and it jogged my memory to a thread we had going a year ago. I recommend watching the video in light of changing climate conditions in what was a fire adapted forest.

facebook.com/groups/Mendocino5thDistrict/permalink/1418177294981625/

MENDOCINO COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS TO HOLD NOVEMBER 5 BOARD MEETING IN THE TOWN OF MENDOCINO

11/01/2019 1:11 PM

On November 5, 2019, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors will hold an offsite regular meeting at St. Anthony’s Church Parish Hall, 10700 Lansing Street, in Mendocino. The Board meeting is scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m.

Carre Brown, Board Chair, shared the following comments: “Meeting in the districts outside of Ukiah gives our residents an opportunity to attend the Board of Supervisors meetings in person and to participate. The November 5 agenda has several items of interest to Coastal communities and Supervisors do need to hear directly from constituents on the coast. We anticipate and hope that many members of the public will attend!”

The public is welcome and invited to attend every Board meeting. Board meeting agendas are posted online at https://mendocino.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx. For more information, please contact the Executive Office at (707) 463-4441.

CADILLAC

He always wanted a Cadillac

A symbol of his success

Jet black with red interior

A state of the art stereo

He saved up all his money

He put pennies in a jar

Never bought a round on payday

He waited for interest to accrue

Well, he finally got his Cadillac

And he smoked a big cigar

It was only a matter of weeks

Before his Cadillac was just a car

— Mark Andrew McGovern

CATCH OF THE DAY (through October 31)

CHAD AVILA, Ukiah. DUI.

NOAH BEARD, Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse, false imprisonment.

LUIS CEJA, Ukiah. False personation of another, false ID, failure to appear.

JILL CLARK, Gualala. DUI.

DANIELLE COMPA, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery.

GREG COTE, Walnut Creek/Redwood Valley. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

LEVI DABNEY, Redwood Valley. Assault with firearm, brandishing, fugitive from justice, felon-addict with fiream, ammo possession by prohibited person, large capacity magazine, failure to register, false ID, criminal threats, resisting.

JEVON EAGLESMITH, Lake County/Ukiah. Resisting.

MIRANDA ELLINGWOOD, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

JESSICA ESQUIVEL, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

VINCENT GALVAN, Fort Bragg. Trespassing. (Frequent flyer.)

RICHARD GARCIA, Redwood Valley. Harboring wanted felon, felon-addict with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person, large capacity magazine, resisting.

ADRIAN GONZALEZ, Willits. DUI, no license.

BENJAMIN HOFF, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JENNIFER HOPKINS, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JEFFREY KOSTICK, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

BRADLEY MAXFIELD, Willits. Vandalism, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

JASON MILLER, Fort Bragg. County parole violation, suspended license.

COLE PARKIN, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JENINE QUINLIVEN, Ukiah. Controlled substance.

ANDREW RIFFLE, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

NATALI RODRIGUEZ, Ukiah. Domestic abuse, failure to appear.

LUIS SANCHEZ-MORFIN, Redwood Valley. DUI.

SERGIO SANTOS-LOPEZ, Concord/Redwood Valley. DUI.

ROXANNE SCARIONI, Santa Cruz/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

LINDA SHAWGO, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

DAVID SIMPSON, Ukiah. Domestic battery, controlled substance, disobeying court order, probation revocation.

JENNIFER SMITH, Willits. Controlled substance, paraphernalia.

KELLY STANTON, Ukiah. Trespassing, probation revocation.

CHRISTOPHER THOMAS, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

JASON THOMAS, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

BRANDON WAGNER, Boonville. Failure to appear.

DARIEN WASHINGTON, Mendocino. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

IN DEFENSE OF JULIAN ASSANGE.

A purchase of this book supports his defense fund. We cannot give up hope or give up helping him which is really helping ourselves.

https://www.orbooks.com/catal…/in-defense-of-julian-assange/

(Patricia Dowling)

Arrest of Gov’t Critic and Journalist Max Blumenthal Signals Escalation in War on Alternative Media

HEMP REGULATION, IT'S ALL ABOUT TESTING/SAMPLING

cdfa.ca.gov/plant/docs/IH4940-1/RevisedText-of-the-Regulation-IH4935.pdf

SHOPPING LOCAL

While writing the staff report on whether Fort Bragg should regulate formula/chain stores, I read an article that proclaimed loss of foot traffic as the biggest threat to independent businesses - not formula businesses. Loss of foot traffic is blamed on online retailers. The theory was that buyers visit stores, malls and shopping districts less frequently and that formula businesses actually attract shoppers to shopping centers where they stop at or are lured into independent businesses next door or nearby.

I am not asserting that formula stores are the answer but the article made me think about my changing spending habits. In my twenties and thirties, I worked in pedestrian friendly downtowns and loved shopping at lunch or on the way home or to the transit stop. Most of my wardrobe from shoes to coats came from my lunch time or after work outings. In fact, most of my shopping took place on these walks. Obviously, I work downtown now but I realize that I don’t pop out at lunch very often to look and buy. I admit these days, I am more likely to surf the internet after work at home for my purchases.

I have heard from a good number of merchants how financially challenging this year has been. Councilmember Morsell-Haye recently closed her shop. As a community, we talk a lot about tourists and getting people here but locals are part of local business vitality. Shopping local supports our community, especially the independent local businesses. It puts money in the pockets of our neighbors, friends and families, which they in turn spend here in our community, supporting other local businesses and so on. It supports our local, county and state governments through sales taxes. While no one loves paying taxes, I would rather support my local government rather than another community or state government.

Yes, my salary is supported by those local taxes, and so are the other City employees. Like me, they live locally and hopefully spend much of that salary here supporting their favorite local businesses. Not everything can be purchased locally, but I am making that effort to think about where I spend my money and what happens to it when it leaves my hands.

The tenth annual Small Business Saturday is November 30, 2019, but I encourage all of us to treat most days as small or local business day.

(Tabatha Miller, City Manager, Fort Bragg)

OLOMPALI STATE HISTORIC PARK is a 700-acre (2.8 km2) park on the Marin Peninsula, 3.5 miles (5.6 km) north of Novato, California, which overlooks the Petaluma River and San Pablo Bay. In the 60s it was the location of many love-ins and related countercultural happenings.

HALLOWEEN IS OVER & THE JIG IS UP

by James Kunstler

And so Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff take the Republic into a dangerous defile on a dark day as they engineer a House resolution with rules for a medieval-style inquiry on the existence of phantoms. The phantom du jour, of course, is the fabled “whistleblower,” a CIA ectoplasm identified by everybody and his uncle in Swampland as one Eric Ciarmarella, 33, a former Joe Biden staffer, Obama White House low-level NSC holdover, and John Brennan “asset” deeply involved in Ukrainian pranks during the 2016 election and subsequent disinformation leakage to the media since the early days of the Trump administration.

The “whistleblower’s” trail winds through every shadowy turn of RussiaGate to the current phantasmagoria of UkraineGate, and connects the principal misdeeds carried out along the way including Hillary Clinton’s devious operations with Fusion GPS, the Comey-led FBI’s illegal entanglement with CIA spying on US citizens (including occupants of the White House), and lately the mendacious maneuvers of House Intel Committee chair Mr. Schiff.

The notion that Mr. Ciamarella’s identity will remain officially hidden much longer is a joke, since his “complaint” lies at the center of the impeachment process underway, and sooner or later he will be compelled to make public testimony — unless Ms. Pelosi’s House majority votes to rename the USA the Haunted Forest of North America. And when this unmasked phantom finally faces legitimate cross examination his mischief will be plain for all to see. Do you also suppose that Mr. Ciamarella’s revealed adventures in perfidy have not been noticed by the attorney general, Mr. Barr, and his deputy John Durham?

It seems obvious that the Democrats’ mad rush to this wholly irregular impeachment happened in direct, proportional response to the encroaching danger to them posed by the DOJ inspector general’s imminent report and the news a week ago that the AG upgraded his “review” of all things RussiaGate to a criminal inquiry, with grand juries assembled to process indictments.

In the meantime, Rep. Schiff’s secret proceedings in the House basement seem to have produced little besides evidence that contradicts the premises of his wicked enterprise. One by one, his witnesses have been busted — Mr. Taylor, Col. Vindman, Mr. Morrison, and all the rest — in Mr. Schiff’s quixotic effort to demonstrate that the transcript of Mr. Trump’s phone call to Mr. Zelensky says something other than what can be read plainly in its pages.

It’s hard to feature how the House might convey their garbage barge of obvious falsehoods to the Senate — the risks are so perilous — but if they dare to, I hope it leads to an actual trial, where due process of law will obtain and, for the first time, a long list of malicious actors in this epic of treachery will actually have to answer for their treasonous activities. Much of what has been documented the past two years about the coup to oust Mr. Trump never made it to the pages of The New York Times, WashPo, and the cable news networks, and may come as a shock to people who read and watch nothing else. For instance, the reportage of Paul Sperry about Mr. Ciamarella at Real Clear Politics this past week, which ripped the mask off this fake pimpernel, has been utterly ignored by those news outlets.

You could read the desperate anxiety on Speaker Pelosi’s fright-mask face in her various fleeting public statements since August. She might suspect that this long-running enterprise of sedition leads to a political fiasco more violent than anything seen in the USA since the Civil War. Or just perhaps she is foolishly oblivious, misinformed, and badly advised. If we are fortunate, the damage to come can be confined to the death of the Democratic Party. It’s hard to imagine how they will survive the emergence of the truth about exactly what has gone on at their bidding since the primary elections of 2016.

The House of Representatives goes on hiatus now for about ten days. There’s a pretty good chance the DOJ IG Horowitz’s report will drop before they return. There’s also more than a fair chance that it will contain a load of damning information about matters connected one way or another to the impeachment inquiry. I doubt the mainstream media will be able to evade reporting on it. There are also indications that the long ordeal of General Michael Flynn’s prosecution is about to end in a debacle for Mr. Mueller’s gang of attorneys, who have been concealing their turpitudes from Judge Emmet Sullivan’s court since last December. When that case blows up, the reverberations will thunder through every cranny of Washington DC and everything on the battlefield will look changed to the people of this land.

(Support Kunstler’s writing by visiting his Patreon Page.)

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ON LINE RESPONSE:

God bless you Jim [Kunstler] for sorting through all of the bullshit for me and us and telling the tale as it ought to be told. I have been witness to much of the same at the local level of government myself, where pompous, arrogant incumbents long ago began believing the fantasies they spin and now dwell in the houses of their own twisted imaginations. The democrats bitch, moan and whine as they dig their own graves with anti-Trump offensives while the republican losers, exposed as the fools they all are by DJT in 2016, whimper in the wings and do nothing in the way of what they are paid to.

In the end the decay shall only grow deeper and the rot will eventually bring it all tumbling down on all of their heads. If our body politic was an average American family, Dad would be hanging by the belt around his neck in the garage as Mom lay on her back upstairs being serviced by the Oakland Raider football team and little Jimmy and Janie smoked crack and shot up in the home theater below deck. Even Sparky the dog might meet his own demise while peeing on an overloaded electrical outlet behind the Playstation 3.

It has all become such a sad, sorry mess that it is embarrassing for critical thinkers to even be associated with it any fashion. Lord give me patience and lots of it!

MUSSEL QUARANTINE

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) announced today the statewide annual quarantine on mussels gathered by sport harvesters from California’s ocean waters ends at midnight on Thursday, October 31, 2019, for all coastal counties except for Humboldt and Mendocino counties.

The annual quarantine on sport-harvested mussels, which typically runs May 1 through October 31, is intended to protect the public from shellfish poisoning caused by marine biotoxins. There have been no reports of shellfish related poisonings in California during this quarantine period.

CDPH has also lifted the September 4, 2019 shellfish safety notification related to sport-harvested whole scallops and all clams in Sonoma County. The safety notification was issued due to dangerous levels of naturally occurring paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) toxins that can cause illness or death. However, recent testing shows that PSP toxins have decreased to safe or undetectable levels in this area.

CDPH previously issued a safety notification warning consumers not to eat mussels, clams, or whole scallops from Humboldt and Mendocino counties: this advisory remains in effect. Dangerous levels of domoic acid have been detected in mussels from Humboldt and Mendocino counties, making them unsafe to consume. Domoic acid and PSP toxins remain at low or undetectable levels along all other portions of the California coast with the exception of razor clams in Humboldt and Del Norte counties.

These warnings do not apply to commercially sold clams, mussels, scallops or oysters from approved sources. State law permits only state-certified commercial shellfish harvesters or dealers to sell these products. Shellfish sold by certified harvesters and dealers are subject to frequent mandatory testing to monitor for toxins.

CDPH’s shellfish sampling and testing programs issue warnings or quarantines when needed. Local health departments, various state, federal and tribal agencies, community groups and others participate in the monitoring program. Residents and community groups interested in volunteering to assist with the testing program should email RedTide@cdph.ca.gov or call (800) 553-4133.

Updated information about current conditions is available by calling the Shellfish Information Line at (800) 553-4133. More information can be found on the CDPH Marine Biotoxin Monitoring Web page or the CDPH Annual Mussel Quarantine - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Web page.

THE MENDOCINO THEATRE COMPANY presents Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor’s William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (Abridged)

Production Dates: November 14 -December 8, 2019

Opening Night Gala: November 16, 2019 at 7:00 pm

Mendocino, Ca— Hear ye, hear ye, good gentlefolk of the Mendocino coast! The Mendocino Theatre Company presents William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (Abridged) by Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor, directed by the venerable Ricci Dedola (The 39 Steps, Bob: A Life in Five Acts), in which three actors play over forty-seven characters in just ninety minutes! This hilariously irreverent mash-up of the beloved Bard’s entire canon has witches, wizards, masters, servants, lovers, fairies, lasses, perverts, monarchs, twins and even a bear. Watch the mischievous fairy Puck (Mija Biggie) and the airy spirit Ariel (Nicole Traber) use Shakespeare’s characters as chess pieces in an epic battle of magic. Will Puck out-fairy Ariel? Will Ariel out-Puck Puck?

“I love Shakespeare, I love the stories, the characters, the meter," says director Dedola, who also performs in the piece. “I’ve been doing this for years, taking characters from many of his shows and putting them into new form. I have taken on a challenge over the years to make Shakespeare accessible to all. This play gives me the opportunity to do my favorite kind of theatre!”

As well as director Ricci Dedola, the performers include Nicole Traber and high school student Mija Biggie, who is making her MTC mainstage debut. The consulting director is Linda Pack and the stage manager is George Bishop. Assisting the actors backstage are Patti Fereira, Isa Traber, and Katan Sosnovec. “I am so pleased to be working with this cast and crew that span the ages of 11 - 83,” says Dedola. “Please sit back and enjoy this romping-fun evening of theatre!”

Alas! Due to the coast’s recent power outage, and in order to bring audience members the best show possible, the opening of the production, which was originally scheduled for the weekend of November 7th, has been postponed and will now open on November 14th. The company hopes to add two Sunday evening performances during the run, so do check their website for updates! As an added feature, on November 13th, the theatre will feature Terra Taylor Knudson’s very personal--and very funny--performance piece Willy’s Lil Virgin Queen, which connects Shakespeare’s classic characters with real-life circumstances, providing an opportunity to see them in a contemporary and more accessible light.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S LONG LOST FIRST PLAY (Abridged) plays Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 pm and four Sundays (11/17, 11/24, 12/1, and 12/8) at 2:00 pm on the Mendocino Theatre Company stage, 45200 Little Lake Street in Mendocino, November 14 through December 8. Tickets are $25 for adults and $12 for youth 22 and under. Local high school students get in free (just show your student i.d. at the door). For tickets and information, please contact the MTC box office at 707-937-4477 or go to mendocinotheatre.org.

SPECIAL EVENTS

Preview Performances are on November 14 & 15. Tickets are just $15, or $7 for youth under 22.

There will be a post-show talkback on Friday, November 15th.

The theatre offers a two-for-one special on Friday, November 23rd.

Two-for-one tickets are available with the code “2FER”, online or through the box office. This offer is limited to one per customer and subject to availabIlity.

Opening Night Gala, which includes champagne and food prepared by Terilynn Epperson, is on November 16th. Tickets are $45.

"AND BECAUSE INIQUITY SHALL ABOUND, the love of many shall wax cold." - Matthew 24:12

HOW ABOUT WAVE ENERGY?

Take over PG&E!!! and Good Night Radio tonight!

Jacquelyn Cisper wrote:

I agree! We need a micro grid, plenty of sun and wind here we could use to generate electricity locally.

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Marco McClean Replies:

Jacquelyn, this reminds me: waves. A few years ago a serious group applied to put up a test generator just off the coast, just north of Fort Bragg, like the ones going into the water in Europe. Waves wave pretty much all the time. That would replace the power plant that the lumber mill used to operate, that provided all of Fort Bragg's power by burning everything left over from the process of sawing trees into lumber (and also a few things that shouldn't have been burned in it but were). But the local boomer-age anti-technology gang rose up in their tie-died masses against ocean-wave electric generation, in the wake of the oil hearings, and that was the end of that. Apparently there was some concern that a tourist might be able to see something out there about the size of a row of fishing boats and it'd spoil the view from Ten Mile Beach, and also a fish might bump its nose on a float from underneath, being too stubborn to go around. Or the Goddess might become wrathful and smite a fellow.

Most of our electricity here already comes from hydroelectric generation. It's water falling, inland, not water sloshing, outland, so it'd be the same goddess to deal with, but the mob having spoken prevailed.

There are other options. There are companies that will install a solar electric system for your house, or houses, at little initial charge to you and then you pay them off like paying a regular electric bill, and the lights and teevee and water pump and so on are always good because of battery storage, even when the sky is black with alien ships, even when the grid goes down for a month. But you can't use that for heat; it's not enough. You still have to burn something somewhere. "Heating with electricity is like burning violins to keep warm."

I've read about new reliable safe self-contained nuclear power generators the size of a shipping container for remote outposts and islands and very little towns. If ocean wave juice is not welcome here then atomic juice is probably off the table.

IN OTHER NEWS: Good Night Radio tonight!

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio, 9pm to 5am tonight on 107.7fm KNYO Fort Bragg (and 105.1fm KMEC Ukiah, and via KNYO.org), live from KNYO's still-Halloween-festooned studios at 325 N. Franklin, next door to the Tip Top bar.

Visit KNYO if you're in town after 9pm tonight. Bring a project or an idea to show off. Deadline to email your writing to be read on the air tonight is 6pm or so. If you're not done by then, send it whenever and I'll get it when I get home from the radio station tomorrow morning and read it on the air next week. Or phone tonight and read your work in your own voice: 962-3022. (Jacquelyn Cisper, see above, among others such as Paul Modic and Jay Frankston, so far, sent poetry for tonight's show.)

Meanwhile, here are a few educational amusements for while you wait for night:

Gun Shop, a high-speed documentary. The flashing is sinuous and smooth, so it's safe for epileptics.

https://robotmafia.com/gun-shop/

Testing the new robot soldier. This sort of testing is not as cruel as it looks. Think of the robot as a toaster. Though that's how it starts.

http://misscellania.blogspot.com/2019/10/new-robot-makes-soldiers-obsolete.html

And the skeleton dance.

http://misscellania.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-skeleton-dance.html

Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org, https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

PG&E AND THEIR PUBLIC RELATIONS FIRM -- SLOANE & COMPANY

November 1, 2019

A person is defined by their enemies as much as by their friends. I’m okay with that. More than okay. And the reason is because I refuse to lie down for bullies.

I hate bullies.

Bullies like Mendocino County CEO Carmel Angelo, who makes a total compensation package of over $350,000 a year with generous benefits, while our home health workers make minimum wage with no benefits.

Bullies like Flow Kana vulture capitalist Jason Adler, whose plan for monopolizing the cannabis supply chain is reminiscent of sharecropping cotton or tobacco production in the post- Civil War South…it was the most impoverished level of the tenant farming.

And bullies like PG&E.

I refuse to lie down for PG&E. I refuse to take their wildfires and power outages without fighting back.

So I’m buying a block of PG&E stock. Why? So I can attend and be heard at PG&E’s 2020 Annual Shareholders Meeting. I will also join other shareholder activists in a protest demonstration.

Until that time, however, I’ve tried having my voice be heard in the usual manner of calling PG&E’s corporate headquarters and organizing a letter writing campaign.

This is what I’ve learned.

PG&E has a huge public relations apparatus. No surprise there. But as big and lavish as its in-house public relations department is, the serious money is spent on the professional liars and spinmeisters at Sloane & Company.

Here’s what Sloane says about themselves.

“Sloane & Company: Strategic Communications at the Intersection of Valuation and Reputation.”

Curious.

Sloane puts a big emphasis on stock valuations. A big emphasis on corporate reputation and the reputations of C-level executives. But not a word about corporate customers. Their safety and well being. Their customer satisfaction.

Not a single word.

Sloane continues.

“Sloane & Company is an industry-leading strategic communications firm. We are known for our intelligence, intensity, creativity and focus on getting results. Whether the situation calls for developing and delivering the right messages to the audiences that matter or advising on high-stakes deals or crises, our goal is the same — to drive winning outcomes for our clients.”

Equally curious. Not a word about the things that really matter. Honesty. Truthfulness. Integrity. Not a single word.

I’ve also learned the contact information for the people at Sloane handling the PG&E account.

Dan Zacchei / Sarah Braunstein – 212-486-9500

dzacchei@sloanepr.com / sbraunstein@sloanepr.com

I did a little digging.

Dan Zacchei is a managing director at Sloane.

He represented Franklin Templeton, Oppenheimer Funds and other major creditors, including the PREPA Bondholder Group, in ripping off the people of Puerto Rico in Puerto Rico’s $72 billion restructuring.

Mr. Zacchei also represented the drug wholesale company, AmerisourceBergen, around opioid-related issues and litigation.

He also busted balls in Detroit representing Financial Guaranty Insurance Company, Detroit’s largest single creditor, during Detroit’s Chapter 9 bankruptcy. This included an attack on the city’s public pension system.

Meanwhile, Sarah Braunstein is a senior associate at Sloane.

She worked with the bad guys in the mortgage servicing industry who brought you the global financial crisis by helping them lowball their CFPB settlement. Ms. Braunstein also worked with the bad guys at major bank on a SEC settlement.

God help us!

Dan Zacchei and Sarah Braunstein…as Primetime Emmy Award-winner John Oliver likes to say, “Ladies and gentlemen, I present this week’s Worst People in the World.”

Let’em know how you really feel!

I know I will.

John Sakowicz, Candidate, Mendocino County 1st District Supervisor

c/c Dan Zacchei and Sarah Braunstein

William D. Johnson, CEO and President, PG&E Corporation; Director, Pacific Gas and Electric Company

Andrew M. Vesey, CEO and President, Pacific Gas and Electric Company

Nora Mead Brownell, Chair of the Board of PG&E Corporation

Jeffrey L. Bleich, Chair of the Board of Pacific Gas and Electric Company

John Sakowicz

Ukiah

FOUND OBJECT