SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS:
PSPS Forecast (as of 9am Monday Nov 18)
Mendocino County is scheduled to be included in Time Period 1 with Colusa/Lake/Napa/Solano/Sonoma/Yolo.
Wednesday 4am - shut off
Wednesday 7am - wind event arrival
Thursday 8am - all clear
Some time after inspections - restoration
Only 70,391 customers are included in the Time Period 1 outage, including just 3,076 in Mendocino County. We're awaiting maps and remain aware that PG&E stories change. South Coast should prepare to be included. There is still considerable uncertainty regarding the strength, timing and humidity levels with this system.
WE SCURRIED off to PG&E’s website to check the Boonville zip code to see if we are going dark. The site said, “Pending.”
Pending chaos if we get a repeat of the last “wind event.” An hour later, the site was up and we learned that Anderson Valley and much of Mendo will NOT go dark. “The County of Mendocino has been notified by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) that power may be turned off in our area due to high risk weather conditions on November 20, 2019. At this time approximately 3,000 Mendocino County customers are estimated to be effected in the following areas: McNab Ranch south through Hopland to the County line and the Gualala area along the coast approximately half way to Point Arena.”
LAST TIME AROUND, not a leaf stirred in the Anderson Valley but plunged we were into the cold and the dark anyway. Here at the Boonville weekly, where the flame of hope is never extinguished despite all contrary evidence, our layout person and our printer were also unable to function off-grid. Monday morning, as we put together our weekly assemblage of local news unobtainable any place but here, not to mention our cutting edge opinions and deep dish insights, we anticipate another semi-lost week to go along with increasingly erratic postal delivery of our paper-paper. Used to be when our whole show was done by hand we were little affected by power outages. But since we’ve all been herded into these vast cyber-dependencies we’re all prisoners of what we were sold as progress.
THE HOLIDAY COMMUNITY DINNER: SUN. DEC. 8 5:30, AV GRANGE. Yes folks, it's coming up sooner than we all think. Sponsored by the Foodshed and the Grange, our yearly FREE gathering for one and all. Started in the late 80's it's become a wonderful tradition. Come have a delicious dinner, turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing provided by Grange and Foodshed and all the extras provided by everyone else, ie. a monster potluck with you bringing desserts , salads, drinks, vegetarian options and if you can swing it your own utensils. There's a kids zone, Lynn on the white grand piano with dinner music and perhaps some caroling, and a long line where you get to hang out with friends and neighbors. As always there is much need for volunteers to cook the turkeys, mashed potatoes, gravy and stuffing before the event AND folks to pitch in, run the kitchen, serve, set up, decorate, clean up and on and on. Helping out is a great way to meet and greet both new and old members of our community. If you want to help out before or during the event please call or email Cap Rainbow 895-3807, captnrainbow@pacific.net Don't be square, be there! All are welcome.
ACCORDING TO A UDJ ARTICLE by Lindsay Peak about the last power shutoff, “Many report insurance companies won’t cover their losses. Why? The outage was announced in advance. No mandatory evacuation was declared in Mendocino County. … One restaurant tried to make light of the situation. The Bewildered Pig of Philo broadcast on social media that the owners’ family was heading to the restaurant to eat what was left in the walk-in before it spoiled. ‘Thankfully we have three teenage boys as part of our eight-person household!’ read the post. All jokes aside, the power outage occurred in what they advise to be their busiest month of the year. ‘We’ve been hit very hard by PG&E in the past like many others. They are not in any way helping the public or small business regain losses,’ explains chef and co-owner Janelle Weaver. The 2017 and 2018 wildfires also impacted the restaurant’s net profits. A faulty meter added to their grief, causing the business to lose power intermittently until it finally burned out this last Fourth of July. In total, Weaver estimates business loss attributable to PG&E’s actions at upwards of $65,000.”
FAIR BOARD. To run for the board you gotta get on a participation roster prior? Whoever heard of such a cockamamie process outside of the Anderson Valley? It’s a County fair, not a secret society. Truth is the Fair Board, like the Cemetery Board, is the last bastion of the old, old timers who, at one time, feared a “hippie” takeover of Boonville’s elected boards. A community swimming pool was shot down back in the early 70s because hippies might go for a dip, which meant respectable people would certainly be subject to all manner of disease, from pellagra to leprosy. Whew. That was close. Why even I, veteran, business owner, husband and father, was once denied Grange membership! And it has recently occurred to me that having achieved the very last column of actuarial tables I might now be denied burial at Evergreen Cemetery!
RECRUIT NIGHT at the AV Fire Department: Drop in from 4 to 7 on Thursday the 21st and have your questions about joining us answered. Full disclosure: you'll go home with an application! Olie is on grill duty, cooking up tri-tip so bring the fam. No presentations, no speeches, just open doors, dinner, and shooting the breeze.
MILL AND MAIN! Karen Ottoboni brings this welcome news: "Good food and support our local homeboy Jared Titus at the new restaurant Bistro, corner of Mill & Main in Ukiah, he's in the kitchen and upstairs tending bar at The Office."
PAUL McCARTHY NOTES: The “Sacred Cow Sandbar” is in place at the mouth of the Navarro River but the 0.10”-plus of rain that fell on the river’s drainage basin saw no appreciable rise in the river — although it does look “high” near the mouth. The upstream gauge had the level pegged at 1.80’ Friday @ 4:15 pm - no threat to flood to say the least. But, as we remember all too well - Hwy 128 can be shut down at milepost 0.18 when we get enough rain and the sandbar doesn’t breach.
MR. M. describes the annual sandbar at the mouth of the Navarro as a sacred cow because, in bygone days, way gone unfortunately, locals would either hand-dig a big hole in the sandbar so the salmon and steelhead could get upstream or bring in a small dozer to push the sandbar outta the way. When the river stays blocked, as it seems to do longer into the winter every year, the whole ecology of the river is thrown off. The migrating fish cluster in frustration at the blockage, the seals feast on them, the fish don't reproduce because they can't get upstream to lay their eggs.
BUENO YABBELOW, hosted by the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, is back! It has been a rough fall for northern California, hasn’t it? If you could use some TLC administered by the sounds of classical guitar, with and without a beautiful vocal, then please join us for our one and only fall event “A Bard Meets a Guitar.” Grammy-winning guitarist Manuel Barrueco and Grammy-winning singer, Tony Arnold, will be on hand, richly assisted by a studio of their top students, the next generation of talents who hail from the US and abroad, including Spain and Latin America. We will also have a surprise appearance by a local favorite and his colleague (Hint: Might have had something to do with a… silent musical…?), and the emerging composer fellows enrolled in GLFCAM. As always, our musicians are warm and generous, happy to tell a tale or two in a space where they can actually see each member of the audience (instead of playing to an anonymous blackened-out theater.)
You are very warmly invited!
Sunday, November 24th, 7pm (Doors open at 6:30pm)
Anderson Valley High School Cafeteria
$10 at the door
Free for 18 and under; students of AV High and their families
For more information, please visit www.glfcam.com
ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE WEEKLY UPDATE
Question: Do you use or know of a good "life alert" type system (a pendent or watch that you wear and press if you have fallen and can't get up) that works well in Anderson Valley? Please let me know so I can share this info with our members and the rest of the community.
Below is a link to all of the calendar events for the next two weeks that are hosted by The Anderson Valley Village as well as events in our community at large. Plenty to keep you busy! Note: We try to maintain this calendar as events change, especially AV Village events. Other events listed here are subject to change without notice so contact the particular organization or venue for the latest information.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us:
Anica Williams, 707-684-9829
andersonvalleyvillage@gmail.com
https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/index_list
The AV Village is looking for local Tech people - who can help our senior members with basic things like their computers, cell phones, printers and TVs. We are looking for both volunteers and folks who do this for a fee. We hope you can help - it shouldn't be too much work and it'll be a fun way to meet new people! If you are interested in helping to ease technical frustration - contact us andersonvalleyvillage@gmail.com
Note: if you are doing this for a fee we are just collecting your info and adding you to our list of local service providers for our members to access - the AV Village is not hiring you but our members might.
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