Valley People

LONG TIME Valley resident Dee Thurman has passed away in Ukiah where she'd been taken from her Boonville home in Airport Estates for emergency care. Well into her 80's, Dee Thurman was a pioneer female pilot. A much fuller account of her life will appear next week.

PATCHES, a well-trained and affectionate Navarro pit bull belonging to Pam Cartright and Pam's daughter Clemintina, bit a neighbor fellow called Stringbean back on the 24th of December. Stringbean was in Pam's yard when he got bit. Stringbean was not injured, but his family thought Patches should be formally checked out for rabies. With Pam and Clemintina fully cooperative and committed to doing the right thing, Patches was duly quarantined at the County's animal shelter in Ukiah where he was checked out for rabies. Being a fully licensed animal, and intensely loved by Pam and Clemintina who'd raised him from a pup, Pam and Clemintina fully expected to retrieve Patches when he was cleared to return to his happy home in Navarro. But… But Patches was dead. He'd been put down by Animal Control the very morning Pam and Clemintina were scheduled to pick him up. A mistake had been made, Animal Control said. They were sorry, they said. They offered Pam and Clemintina $500 for priceless Patches. Pam and Clemintina refused the money, and all they're left with is the memory of the best dog they ever had.

OLIVIA ALLEN, the vivacious AV High senior from Philo, was first runner-up in Saturday night’s “Miss Mendocino” contest, narrowly losing out to Ukiah High senior Herron Spence. Olivia’s flawless performance of the wistful “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” from Phantom of the Opera wasn’t as perky as Ms. Spence’s sentimental monologue called “From the Mouths of Babes” extolling the wisdom of eight-year olds. As first runner-up, Olivia, headed for Stanford, was awarded $4,700 in scholarships. —ms

KATHY BAILEY told us last week that the state's Department of Parks and Recreation has said in public as well as private that a non-profit proposal will be given first call if they think the proposal is credible. Kathy said that getting Parks to think that Anderson Valley might be able to run Hendy Woods rather than see the Woods turned over to an outside concessionaire, has been difficult, “but fortunately Save-the-Redwoods is helping us and it's hard to find a more credible outfit in the world of parks. It's not over yet by any means."

THE GREENWOOD Creek Bridge at Elk, age 56, is being replaced. The new bridge, which will include a walkway, will be finished, CalTrans says, in the fall 2014 and cost $20.5 million.

BRUCE PATTERSON has not changed his name to Bruce Pattersoner. The er caboose on Patterson was a typo in last week's paper, nicely matching the jumbled off the record items a page over. It gets late, it gets hectic, crazy people call, crazier people stop by in person, the deadline approaches, all of the above seem to intensify, mistakes are made, which is what happens when two people do four jobs.

THE CHRON'S outdoors guy, Tom Stienstra, says ticks are bad this time of year and seem doubly bad this year. “If a tick gets its hypostome into you or your dog, make sure to get all of it out, especially its claw-like mouth, for which tweezers are sometimes necessary. Then apply Campho-Phenique, Neosporin or similar treatment on the bite. If you're worried about Lyme disease, rare but debilitating, put the offending tick in a Ziploc bag for doctors to test later, if necessary. Within a few days, if you see a half-dollar size discoloring around the bite area, the usual warning sign, head to the doctor. Quick treatment with antibiotics is the remedy."

THE COUNTY'S two top law enforcement officers, DA David Eyster and Sheriff Tom Allman, drew a large crowd to last week's Unity Club lunch in Philo. The ladies, by all accounts, were wowed by Mendo's top cops. Eyster explained his pot prosecution policy which, boiled down, consists of going after the big trespass grows while fining the little fish, proceeds going to make up budgetary shortfalls in the Sheriff's Department. The Unity Clubbers thought, and think, this is a sensible strategy in a county where it seems about half the citizens are in the marijuana business. Sheriff Allman spoke briefly to say that his funding looks good for the rest of the year and on into 2013. Allman also said he's bought a bloodhound for use by all the County's police departments.

OF INTEREST to Valley people, especially people along Mill Creek at Nash Mill, Gene Herr asked DA Eyster what restitution might be made in the Plowright case. Eyster explained that he could not comment on the Plowright matter because he had been Plowright's defense attorney prior to being elected District Attorney. Thomas Ryder III (no relation to our Terry Ryder) has been convicted of several of the criminal charges including grand theft and some of the drug charges; he'll be sentenced in March. The disposition of the civil charges, mucking up the stream bank, diverting Little Mill creek on neighbor's land, septic into stream, etc. are all yet to be acted on by the State Attorney General's office.

DEPUTY WALKER has submitted a report on what is described as an assault that occurred on the high school grounds two weeks ago. The episode, predictably, has been unnecessarily complicated by high school principal Tomlin and, as is, is headed to the school board for a hearing.

PEBBLES TRIPPET thinks her marijuana patient's signs erected in two places on 128 by CalTrans are being taken down by local persons hostile to Pot World. I think it's much more likely that local kids are taking the signs because they think they look cool in their bedrooms.

SPRING seems to arrive earlier every year, and here we are in the very first week of February as the first daffodils appear with the narcissus cheered on by the flowering quince.

CATHERINE “KIT” ELLIOT, the formidable Ukiah-based attorney, is representing the Valley woman accused of embezzling PTA funds.

NOT TO EMBARRASS the modest and always self-effacing Mike Crutcher, but the guy's a genius. He can fix anything, and you practically have to mug him to get him to take payment. When my Toyo heater conked out, mystifying not only the outfit who'd installed it but everyone else who tried to fix it, Mike, laboring over two days as he systematically eliminated one disabling possibility after another, got it up and blasting again.

STEVE TYLICKI, former Anderson Valley grape grower and vineyard manager now living in Ukiah, stopped by last week to update us on his organic olive oil business. Steve's finest is called “Oleo de Mendo,” and from the bottle Steve laid on us we're here to say it'll be hard to go back to the bulk stuff. Oleo de Mendo is still young, and Steve says olive production was a little off from last year, but with more olive trees coming on line, with a whole orchard of them in Yorkville alone, supply should be plentiful. “It takes years for olive trees to become productive,” Oleo's maestro informed us, adding that he plans to develop a spin off market for eating olives as soon as he can find a processor. Tylicki says for several years now he's sold all the four-gallon cases he's produced.

IT'S A LITTLE early for dope overflights, but that sure looked like a narc chopper flying low and slow over Bell Valley the other day.

A CALLER ASKED, “What did you think of the Super Bowl?” I said, “Pitchers and catchers report in 33 days.” My football season ended when the Niners lost to the Giants.

GARRETT MEZZANATTO'S knee surgery went well, his mom, Renee Lee, reports. The kid, who was under the knife for almost 7 hours, is a standout three-sport athlete at Anderson Valley High School. He was injured in the final football game of the season (and his high school career) at Point Arena. Garrett's uncle, Derek Wyant, Renee's brother, and also a standout Panther quarterback, suffered a serious fracture to his ankle in his last high school football game, that one for the small school regional championship. Local sports fans are still lamenting both that injury and the loss that ensued because Wyant, who should have started the game but didn't because, ah, the coach favored a much less talented athlete.

THE 19th ANNUAL Sierra Nevada World Music Festival and the sixth in Anderson Valley is set for the weekend of June 22-24 at the Boonville Fairgrounds. “We look forward to another peaceful and uplifting weekend of music, dance, arts, and crafts,” festival organizers announced last week. “All of us at SNWMF are very excited about our annual summer solstice and peace celebration and another top notch lineup of world music and reggae. With two stages, a late-night dancehall, three days of the very best in Roots Reggae and World Music, a global village of arts, crafts and food and an extensive children's program, SNWMF is a fantastic way to kick off your summer. The list of performers already confirmed with more to come includes: Luciano, Third World, The Twinkle Brothers, Lutan Fyah, Johnny Osbourne, Romain Virgo, David Rodigan, Perfect, Locos Por Juana, Zion Train, and Dub Nation.

A READER ASKS: “Did you know we are supposed to run our vehicle's A/C for 5 minutes every month, to keep things lubed in there? Yes, through the winter, spring and fall. Once things dry out it's too late.” I didn't know that, and what's more, I'm not doing it! Another thing: Since my so-called SmartMeter was installed my PG&E bill is up about ten percent.

THE LADIES volleyball team from Point Arena, over here for a tournament in the Boonville gym, call themselves The Big Wave whose motto is, “Vis Bellus Celeritas,” which translates as “Strength, Beauty and Speed,” of which the PA team had enough to defeat their Boonville hostesses.