BOONVILLE POSTMISTRESS COLLETTE Hahn is singlehandedly woman-ing the always busy Boonville Post Office, dashing from sorting mail in the back to the counter to wait on people dispatching Christmas packages. We hope she doesn't think we don't appreciate her effort. We do, but we certainly don't appreciate the Post Office's callous decision to run one person ragged doing a two person (at least) job.
JAMES BURNSIDE, 32, of Willits, was the guy who careened a stolen truck into a Yorkville tree near the Sonoma County line after being chased through Boonville by the CHP.
AND STEVE FARRER, descendant of the old-line family who once owned the Farrer Building in downtown Boonville in which your beloved community newspaper is headquartered, is warning Ray's Road folks that he's tempted to place a locked combo gate across the Navarro River end of the road. If Farrer goes with the locked gate there will be no handy public access to the Navarro from the Anderson Valley except at Hendy Woods. Farrer seems to flip at the sight of pedestrians on his stretch of the road, although there are very few of them.
THE TWO juvenile car thieves who fled Boonville's LifeWorks group home in a vintage Saturn have still not been arrested. The two boys snatched the Saturn off Anderson Valley Way and successfully drove it to Hayward where it was found abandoned. Before departing south in the Saturn, the thieves damaged two other Boonville vehicles by jamming their ignitions with a screwdriver in failed efforts to hotwire them.
THE HAYWARD TOW COMPANY in possession of the recovered Saturn informed its owner, Boonville resident Stephanie Adams, that she’d have to pay $700 plus other nebulous costs and fees, to get her car out of the tow company's impound yard. If Ms. Adams merely wanted to retrieve personal items from her Saturn it would cost her a $100. Bay Area tow companies have been getting away with this kind of extortion for years, as many thousands of us have found out the hard way.
MS. ADAMS SON, Jed Adams, approached Jack Graves, proprietor of the group home, to ask Graves to cover these fees. After all, as pater familias, Graves is responsible for the youths placed with him. Graves brusquely refused to take responsibility. Doubly victimized by the incident, the Adams' have since returned the Saturn to Boonville but are out a good 800 bucks with no hope of reimbursement from any of the persons responsible.
AT LAST WEEK’S CSD meeting, newly installed Director Henry Gundling said he’d like to invite Kathy Bailey back to the Board to discuss the looming closure of Hendy Woods. Gundling thinks that The Valley, perhaps under the auspices of the Community Services District, could operate the park, although the state would have to fund the rangers. Gundling is aware that the discussion might be premature since most people would prefer that the Parks Department simply rescind their closure order. If the CSD were to step up now, it might take the pressure off the State to back off closure. When Director Fred Martin asked if CSD funds would be involved, he was informed that CSD tax and assessment funds are limited to fire protection, so Hendy Woods would have to generate its own revenue. Ms. Bailey's invitation to discuss Hendy stands. She is tentatively scheduled to appear at January 18th meeting.
A LOCAL visiting Mexico for the winter writes: "The weather could be warmer and sunnier but it's still nicer than at home! We feel very safe. We did fly, but I've spoken to several people who have driven. They say the main road down is safe and heavily patrolled by the federales."
ANOTHER READER sends along an interesting historical artifact: "Thought you would appreciate this copy of a card that was my great uncle Ralph's. He was Sheriff of Mendocino County off and on for 40 years. In his time he was chasing bootleggers and rumrunners. Today the Sheriff is after big time pot growers. Things haven't changed much except the expense."
THE CARD, on one side, simply reads "For Sheriff Re-Elect R.R. Byrnes. General Election Tuesday, November 4, 1930." On the reverse Sheriff Byrnes makes a simple but strong argument for his re-election by comparing the law enforcement costs of Humboldt and Mendocino County. The profligates to our north spend $1.77 per person on law and order while Sheriff Byrnes maintains order in Mendocino County for 39 cents per resident. Mendocino County's population in 1930 was 23,457. Humboldt had a population of 43,189 and the beginnings of Depression-era labor unrest, which must have driven costs up somewhat. Mendocino County didn't even have a strike until after World War Two, and that was the big one at the Fort Bragg mill.
PEOPLE IN THE KNOW tell us that marijuana trimmers are getting $150 a day and that an experienced trimmer can easily clear $200 for 8-10 hours labor. The finished product is going for $1,000 to $1,200 a pound. "Maybe more if you know what you're doing." The same persons in the know lament "Used to be an old timer could pay his property taxes on a dozen plants. No more. With everyone in the business, prices are down, way down."
STATE PARKS has installed "iron rangers" at Elk's Greenwood Beach State Park, and Norman de Vall, among lots of others, is very unhappy about the unsightly metal pay boxes. Norman says he'll "file a complaint with Mendocino County Code Enforcement on Thursday for the State not having filed a Coastal Development permit for a change of use."
LORETTA HOUCK WRITES: "A big thank you to everyone who has supported Laughing Dog Books, now celebrating its second holiday season! A little reminder to shoppers that the "Give-A-Book" trees still have plenty of titles the Anderson Valley school librarians have requested. Pick a tag and buy a book for the AV High School and/or Elementary School libraries. W.Dan & Loretta hope everyone has a wonderful, safe, and (as W.Dan would say in the Treehouse) interesting holiday season! PS. Just in time for that special gift that really says "Boonville": T-shirts are now available with the Laughing Dog proudly displayed! Ho, ho, ho!"
JACKSON FAMILY FARMS, via Dennis Winchester, has donated a large receptacle for storing the high school's athletic equipment, a gift much appreciated by the school's AD, Bob Pinoli.
THE BAD NEWS is that Garrett Mezzanatto, the talented three-sport guy at Boonville High School, is still suffering from a knee injury he suffered in the last football game of the season with Point Arena. Garrett took a helmet to the knee, and the knee has been out ever since, causing the kid to miss all of basketball season and maybe all of baseball season, and baseball is what he does best and is most interested in playing at the higher levels.
SPOTTED LAST WEDNESDAY at Mosswood, a CalFire lady in full uniform plus sidearm. Why would a CalFire person be armed?
UKIAH'S DERELICT PALACE HOTEL is in the news again. Still the most attractive structure in Ukiah's dying downtown even in its crumbling decrepitude, the Ukiah City Council has just issued its annual threat to begin abatement procedures, again declaring the stately old building a safety hazard. Erected in 1890, the Palace went into serious decline in the early 1980s. A series of dubious characters, including at least one major cocaine dealer, bought the hotel and attempts, at least one of them serious, were made to get it going again. The restaurant and bar on the ground floor also turned over a number of times until Vince Sisco, one of the men involved in the infamous Fort Bragg arson fires of 1987, literally flamed out of the Ukiah bar and food business via one of four suspicious blazes to burn properties of his. A subsequent owner looted the Palace of every single fixture of resale value including the fine painting of Black Bart that hung over the bar. It simply disappeared. An imperious Marin County real estate agent named Eladia Laines bought the Palace at a bankruptcy sale in 1990 for $115,000 and has ever since sat on it, doing nothing beyond issuing occasional statements that she'd deign to accept a cool mil, cash thank you, from anyone wishing to buy it. As the Press Democrat's Glenda Anderson errantly put it, "the hotel runs the length of a city block and is the scourge of downtown improvement efforts." An empty lot would be an improvement? The 'scourge' of downtown Ukiah, more empty storefronts seemingly by the day, is more than one, but in an imploding economy, central Ukiah, first abandoned by previous city councils who approved the big box stores along 101, will continue to crumble. But Ukiah's leading citizens, the people with the money to do the crucial civic good that leading citizens once assumed as an obligation of their good fortune, back in the day when leading citizens cared what their towns looked like. Charlie Mannon's grandfather would have saved the Palace Hotel.
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