Letters (March 4, 2020)

• Remembering Pickle
• The Great Wipe-Down
• Ukiah Trump Attack
• Rails With Trails
• No More
• Ill To You Liberals

REMEMBERING PICKLE

AVA,

On Saturday, February 22, 2020, 100 odd citizens of the Albion Nation gathered in the Mendocino Community Center to celebrate the life of one of our own, Michael Gehrke, aka ‘Pickle.’ He was a joyous anarchistic woodsman and fisherman and growers who spread good vibrations all his days. His pal, Gary Moraga, put on a photo display of his smiling presence. 

The gala event had a superlative feast laid out and a huge bottle bath of Red Sea Ale (Pickle’s favorite). As Captain Fathom noted, “Pickle will live as long as the Albion Nation.” Amen 

Alan ‘Captain Fathom’ Graham

Albion

THE GREAT WIPE-DOWN

Dear Safeway, Raley's, Kohl's, Home Depot, and any and all food handlers, stock clerks, and people that touch things that we purchase.

May I please have your attention. California has the most cases of coronavirus of any state in the U.S. They are currently monitoring over 8,400 people here. I believe that it is now time for you all to be more proactive in helping to curb the spread of this virus. All employees touching food or putting cans on shelves should be wearing nitrile gloves.

Restaurants, please clean and disinfect your menus and your tables more frequently. Encourage all employees including cashiers to wash their hands much more frequently.

All stores, please hand out clean-wipes at your entrances, as well as hand sanitizers made available. Don’t just stock it in the front for purchase. Put it in the front for public usage.

Look, how would you feel if your dentist started reaching in your mouth with his hairy hands, right after he saw the patient before you?

Well, the stock person that put out the lettuce today at a local food store was not wearing any gloves, and as far as I am concerned, his hands touched my mouth via the lettuce. Gross. Sure I rinse it off, but I am asking for a higher degree of concern and protection for the general public, from you all.

And the stock clerk that might unknowingly be infected that puts cans up on the shelf one by one, could be infecting shoppers one by one.

One of the hugest issues around coronavirus is how easily it gets transmitted. I am asking for your help in this.

And customers, if you see some employee touching food or other stuff without nitrile gloves, I’d speak up.

Be nice when you suggest to them to wear gloves. You’re helping them as well as yourselves, and others.

We must all be on the lookout for things that improve the degree of our personal safety as well as the general public's safety.

Johnny Keyes

Ukiah

UKIAH TRUMP ATTACK

Editor,

Upon leaving Home Depot Saturday with a purchased countertop hot plate I noticed across the parking lot a guy with a woman walking away from the back of my car with what looked like a shit eating grin on the youngish man’s face. 

Hmm? My trajectory would have taken me across the front of my car but I veered left to go around behind expecting to maybe find some form of vandalism to my Bernie 2020 bumpersticker. 

It wasn’t a key scratch or marking pen overscore, but a Trump bumpersticker large enough to completely overlay my man Bernie. 

Hmm! Again I thunk and without saying anything I started trying to peel off the offense. “Hey don’t take it off,” I hear and look up to see the guy heading back toward me with that same ear to ear grin. “Fuck you!” I spouted somewhat dismissively without any real thought or anger that I might have had if I was younger. 

For his part the guy’s body language didn’t signal anything violent but after just a few steps he hesitated, twirled and rejoined his female companion. I didn’t hear anything but I suspect that she said something to him that turned him around. 

Darn it. It took probably 15 minutes for me to get that plague of a man’s name off my man Bernie with me hoping that a cop would come along so I could charge the guy with vandalism. 

What can I say but:

Bernie Sanders for president. Please!

David Severn

Philo

RAILS WITH TRAILS

Editor: 

All the noise concerning SMART has obscured the fact that the public is in real danger of losing its other railroad due to legislative action by state Sen. Mike McGuire in concert with action being taken by state officials. I’m speaking of the segment of railroad between Cloverdale and Willits. Plans at the state level envision conversion to a trail without rail. This ignores the fact that the railroad isn’t abandoned (a very strict term in railroading) but out of service pending repairs.

These repairs were contemplated when the North Coast Railroad Authority deployed over $70 million to reopen freight service as far as Windsor. Shippers from Cloverdale north are pressing the NCRA for restoration of service. There is also real potential for a tourist train on those tracks.

As shown by SMART and NCRA’s previous action (over 10 miles of rails with trails in Healdsburg, Willits, Eureka and Arcata), the two modes are compatible, and there is no need to destroy a railroad in favor of trails. The North Coast Rails With Trails Coalition is the only current advocate for preservation of the rail corridor and intends to vigorously oppose abandonment between Cloverdale and Willits.

Allan Hemphill

Chairman, North Coast Rails With Trails Coalition

Santa Rosa

---

ms notes: Mr. Hemphill is a former chairman of the NCRA Board and staunch defender of Doug Bosco’s Northwest Pacific Railroad, operator of the non-train which Bosco claims is owed millions of dollars for unecessary track maintenance on unused rails in the McGuire-sponsored closure of the NCRA. Mr. Hemphill needn’t worry about the rail corridor becoming a trail anytime soon if at all since the whole thing is another Democratic Party Boondoggle to waste money on something that’ll never happen except in the minds of the grant grabbers who are trying to set it up while bailing out Bosco et al in the process.

NO MORE

To the Editor:

I am urging all citizens within the Ukiah Unified School District to vote No on Measure A for the following reasons:

-Taxes Increase when local bonds are approved. Property owners are already paying on a previous UUSD bond. Measure A would increase taxes paid to UUSD by over 35 percent!

-Rents increase when local bonds are approved. Although renters do not pay property taxes, property owners do pass along increased costs to their tenants. When renters vote for local bonds, they are not getting something for nothing!

-If the schools have leaking roofs and other deterioration, why did the administration of UUSD decide to spend money on a new office building for themselves instead of prioritizing the health and well-being of our children/their students?

It seems to be a characteristic at all levels of government to spend taxpayer money on things that would not pass the bulletin board test and ask for tax increases on things for which the average citizen has sympathy. The case seems pretty clear with Measure A.

D. E. Johnson

Ukiah

ILL TO YOU LIBERALS

Editor,

Governor Gruesome Newsom has taken our 10% tax money which was supposed to be for infrastructure and roads and bridges and dams and put it in climate change of which there is none. Another sneaky way for Democrats to take money for other situations. It makes me sick to my stomach that a man like that could be our governor. He hides criminals in our own state defying law-enforcement from doing their job; he wants open borders; wants to give liberal aliens driver’s licenses and medical care at our expense. 

Climate change is the biggest joke that ever hit the United States just like global warming. Newsom's not just a dictator, he's a tyrant! The people of California failed to recall him because they couldn't get enough votes in on time because the Democrats hindered people from casting their votes. I hope President Trump spends the next four years of his term getting even with Gavin Newsom and straightening California out. I hope Republican votes are not robbed and stolen by the dirty rotten illegal Liberal Democrats. They are foul people just like the media, dirty and foul. Sad. 

The rotten lying media and liberal Democrats have accused President Trump of being responsible for the so-called coronavirus and starting a great big panic attack on our president. The coronavirus is just the flu, which kills thousands of people every year but that's never brought up. The flu attacks old and weak people with low resistance. It kills them! It kills people who don't take care of themselves, like drunkards and dope addicts who get sick and die from it. It's ugly that the media and the Liberals start rumors like that. President Trump did everything he could to corral the so-called coronavirus, which is no problem at all and yet they still attack him! 

It's sad that law enforcement can't do its job because of liberals. Federal judges are rotten to the core. President Trump’s administration is suing the rotten liberal miserable no good New York Times, a bunch of lying rotten people with low morals. I hope he puts them in their graves along withi the other liberal newspapers. It would be great if he crippled them so they couldn't lie anymore. 

God bless Donald Trump, God bless Donald Trump, God bless Donald Trump, God bless Donald Trump. 

Jerry Philbrick

Comptche 

PS. The governor takes the law into his own hands and vetoes what people vote on like when they voted not to let death row inmates live out their terms. He vetoed that. People lost their loved ones. These animals on death row can now live out the rest of their lives in luxury. It's a shame. Of course a lot of you people don't care, you could care less what he does as long as you get your beer and your food and other stuff, you're happy. 

PPS. Mary Nichols at the Air Resources Board has taken our trucks from us. Anything before 2012 is outlawed. We paid taxes and weight fees for years and spent thousands of dollars and now we can’t use our trucks. Sad. Sick. Nothing wrong with any of these trucks in Northern California. No problem. It’s sick. Shame on the CHP for enforcing it and the Motor Vehicle Department for not licensing our trucks. I wish the rotten Democrats running California the worst luck in the world. I hope they and their loved ones all catch the coronavirus or worse and suffer for the rest of their lives.