Mendocino County Today: December 6, 2020

High Pressure | 40 New Cases | Escaped Burn | Garcia Waterwheel | Philo Giftshop | Pet Togo | Joaquina Captured | Operation Neck Tat | Moss Hyperbole | No Prohibition | Ed Notes | Equipment Operator | Massive Failure | FB Rally | Narcan Save | Tourist Garage | CA Lockdown | Yesterday's Catch | Education Disaster | Mendo Barber | Worker Needed | Quieter Time | McCardle House | Small Thing | Breed's Apology | Pencil Revolution | Covid Joke | Marco Radio

HIGH PRESSURE building into the area is expected to bring mainly dry weather for the work week. Mid to late in the week there is a chance for a few periods of light [precipitation] in the north. High temperatures will generally be above normal. (NWS)

40 NEW CASES of Covid were added to Mendo's tally yesterday. The "Ukiah Area" ratio of infection has now slipped under 1 in 30.

AV FIRE CHIEF ANDRES AVILA: The fire on Ray's Road in Philo on Tuesday was an escaped control burn. It was a very routine burn pile with nothing necessarily out of the ordinary but it escaped under the right conditions. Even though we had some rain in November and we are having cold nights, the current weather conditions can very easily support vegetation fires during the middle of the day. This fire managed to get the right ingredients for supporting its escape since it was on a south facing slope, it was located near grassy fuels, and there was a gentle breeze. Fire conditions during the morning hours dramatically change during the midday which is what happened here. The current burning conditions are excellent for clean and efficient burn piles but on the other hand, folks need to be extra vigilant with fire safety and closely watch the microclimates that they are in. In the end no damage, just some scorched grass and briars.

PLEASE CONSIDER STOPPING INTO SMITH STORY [PHILO] for your gifts needs. The room is loaded with vintage home items, new and old poetry and cookbooks. A handful of Christmas cards and holiday wrapping paper etc. Located in Philo, the space in the very front of The Madrones. Our wine is also available for purchase without tastings. We open around 11am and close around 5pm. One person/group inside at a time, masks on of course. Take care, Ali Story

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

Togo is a happy-go-lucky kinda dog--upbeat and delighted to meet everyone, especially if going for a walk is tops on the agenda. Togo enjoys playing with toys and is especially fond of squeaky stuffies. During his evaluation, Togo reminded us of a big puppy. This good-looking and good-natured guy will benefit from basic canine training in his new home; also daily exercise. Togo is a year old and 60 very handsome pounds. 

For more on Togo, go to mendoanimalshelter.com. While there, read about the services, programs, events, and updates regarding covid-19 as it impacts the Mendocino County Shelters in Ukiah and Ft. Bragg. And of course, check out all of our adoptable dogs and cats! Visit us on Facebook at: For information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453. 

JOAQUINA JOAQUIN CAPTURED IN RICHMOND (DIDN’T TAKE LONG)

Agents from the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation OCS (Office of Correctional Safety) Fugitive Apprehension Team and personnel from the United States Marshals Office Southwest Regional Fugitive Task Force have been assisting Sheriff's Detectives in locating/arresting Joaquina Patrice Joaquin in connection with this case.

On 12-05-2020 at approximately 12:30 PM, personnel from these fugitive teams were following up on investigative leads when they located/arrested Joaquina Patrice Joaquin at the residence in Richmond, California.

The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office would like to thank the personnel from these fugitive teams for all of their assistance during this investigation.

Arrangements will be made to get Joaquina Patrice Joaquin transferred back to Mendocino County for prosecution purposes.

OPERATION NECK TAT

On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 3:00 P.M. the Mendocino County Multi Agency Gang Suppression Unit (MAGSU) conducted an operation in the Mendocino County inland areas.

The MAGSU members consisted of law enforcement personnel from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office, Fort Bragg Police Department, Mendocino County District Attorney's Investigators, Mendocino County Probation, California State Parole and Mendocino County Special Investigations Unit (Welfare Fraud Investigators).

MAGSU members went to a residence located in the 400 block of Mill Street in Willits.

MAGSU members contacted Diego Spaggiari, 27, who had an active felony arrest warrant. Spaggiari was arrested and booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was held in Lieu of $50,000 bail.

MAGSU members went to a residence located in the 100 block of Court Street in Ukiah.

MAGSU members contacted Roy Sanchez, 26, who was on active parole. MAGSU members collected evidence and developed probable cause to believe Sanchez was in violation of his parole terms. Sanchez was arrested for 3056 PC (Felony Violation of Parole) and booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was held with no bail.

MAGSU members went to a residence located in the 8000 block of East Road in Redwood Valley.

During a probation search, MAGSU members located two firearms and indicia belonging to Douglas Whipple, 34. The MAGSU members continued their investigation and developed probable cause to believe Whipple was in violation of 29800 PC (Felony Felon in Possession of Firearms), 30605 PC (Felony Possession of Assault Weapon) and 30305 PC (Felony Felon in Possession of Ammunition).

Whipple was not at the location at the time, resulting in a stop & arrest BOLO (Be-On-The-Lookout) for Whipple's arrest in connection to the above listed crimes.

TAMMY MOSS WAFTS AWAY

Proclamation of the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors Honoring Tammy Moss Chandler For Her Years Of Service As Health & Human Services Agency Director For The County Of Mendocino

WHEREAS, Tammy Moss Chandler came to the Health & Human Services Agency (HHSA) in May 2016 from Placer County Health & Human Services Agency; and

WHEREAS, Ms. Moss Chandler’s commitment to public service consumed untold hours of her time while she represented HHSA at several regional, state and national conferences and meetings; and

WHEREAS, Ms. Moss Chandler managed a large and diverse budget including funding from federal, state, local, foundation and private funding sources; and

WHEREAS, during Ms. Moss Chandler’s career, vast improvements in technology and information management demanded many progressive changes within the organization; and

WHEREAS, under Ms. Moss Chandler’s guidance, HHSA improved client services by means of creative financing initiatives, including the establishment of Mendocino County’s Whole Person Care program which provides support to vulnerable community members with partnering organizations, bringing millions of dollars of additional funding to the County through state and federal sources; and

WHEREAS, under Ms. Moss Chandler’s direction, the 2017 Disaster Recovery Team increased fiscal leveraging strategies to help rebuild a more resilient, sustainable community, and created an effective disaster mitigation plan during one of the most stressful times in our county’s history; and

WHEREAS, under Ms. Moss Chandler’s leadership, several shelters were established year-round, with the help of community partners, for those displaced by floods, extreme weather, and by wildfire; and

WHEREAS, Ms. Moss Chandler spearheaded employee safety and social worker protection protocols, ensuring ergonomic needs were met, and reduced Workman’s Compensation claims; and

WHEREAS, with Ms. Moss Chandler’s support, HHSA developed departmental quality assurance and improvement measures that included streamlining the employee hiring process, enhanced personnel problem solving, training, and ensuring all business technology and equipment needs were met; and

WHEREAS, with Ms. Moss Chandler’s support, Mendocino County Public Health tackled local response to the COVID-19 pandemic, while maintaining, and in many cases improving HHSA’s services to the public; and

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Board of Supervisors of the County of Mendocino, hereby recognizes and honors HHSA Director Tammy Moss Chandler for her years of service, dedicated leadership and commitment, and further, that this Board extends to Tammy its congratulations and best wishes for continued success on the occasion of her retirement.

Signed,

John Haschak, Chair, Mendocino County Board of Supervisors

---

Mark Scaramella Notes:

Funny, there’s no mention of Ms. Moss-Chandler’s role in the abrupt firing of Public Health Director Barbara Howe and the subsequent unlawful termination lawsuit (and accompanying expensive outside lawyer costs) that ensued after the judge ruled that Ms. Moss-Chandler’s bogus request for a restraining order wouldn’t hold water.

For this rather undistinguished tenure for which the County couldn’t come up with a single specific accomplishment or any statistics, Mendo paid Ms. Moss-Chandler over $270,000 in pay and benefits per year and Mendo is going to be paying Ms. Moss-Chandler around two-thirds of her base pay, or around $120k per year for the rest of her life. So at least in that sense she certainly has achieved “continued success on the occasion of her retirement.”

ED NOTES

AN APPRECIATIVE READER: “I am especially thankful for the new ava format when going back to previous issues that I missed. The archival lineup is great, the old pictures and stories are incredible, the whole design, and content: incredible! Congratulations to all involved.” 

ED NOTE: One guy involved, the brilliant Mr. Kalantarian of Navarro, who got 'er done by himself. In all modesty, and thanks to Mr. K, the AVA is the county's sole repository of much of county history in all its manifestations, from the blandly factual to the unique-to-this-place. 

THE HELD-POAGE is another trove but less (how you say in Ingress?) eccentric in the better sense of the term. This newspaper's letters-to-the-editor, random bits of opinion, local government's deceptive agendas, the endless accounts of ever increasing levels of the cruder crimes — all of it — combine to give a sense of what this place is like in this time. And given that this time is the acceleration of the great slide into… I'd guess fascism first, then regional set asides, and finally banditry followed by medieval-like strongman fiefdoms. Coastal Mendo will eventually consist of a more or less benign feminist-oriented dictatorship perpetually at war with The People Over The Ridge, where primitive tribes more or less headquartered in Ukiah and Willits are led by high school linebackers who are constantly beaten back by the superior tacticians of Boonville, Mendocino and Fort Bragg. Hopland and Laytonville become like the borderlands between Scotland and England, circa 1100 to the 15th century, eternal victims of annual pillaging by both sides but antipodal homes to the area's fiercest, most remorseless fighters from their of necessity warrior cultures.

CONSUMER ADVISORY: The men's socks at CostCo. I'm tellin' ya, boys, the best socks at the best price I ever bought. Made in China, unfortunately for the nationalistically inclined, but this globalist is so pleased with them I've kept a package of four still wrapped and propped up on my desk as a kind of shrine to inexpensive foot comfort. Four pair for $7.99! Probably hand knit by Uigur prisoners, but with imports from wherever you know you're seldom getting goods voluntarily produced by non-captive people. 

THE QUESTION before the house was, “Why so callous about old people?” Mr. Harvey Reading of Outback, Wyoming wins the Most Negative Comment Ever registered by the Boonville weekly, whose editor had always thought he ruled supreme.

TAKE IT AWAY, HARV: “Easy for me to understand. I’m old. I’m part of the reason the country is so screwed up. My generation didn’t stand up to Reagan and the other fascists; instead we let them walk all over us; let Reagan fire the PATCO air traffic controllers; shrugged when blow-job Bill ended Aid to Families with Dependent Children; did nothing when the fascist Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, “Patriot” Act, REALID, etc. were enacted; did nothing when wars based on lies were waged with cannon fodder provided by an economic draft; did nothing when the wealthy got tax cuts while we got the shaft; did nothing when privatization of Social Security almost happened (under Clinton, later Bush 2). And on, and on. The world would be a better place if people my age had never existed. I get so sick of people glorifying, even pretending to “honor” old people, and particularly sick when they feel that we “deserve” special treatment, like bringing us unsolicited meals on one or two fall holidays (how the hell do they think we manage through the other 363 or 364 days of the year?). We were young once, and we screwed up, TOTALLY. Our major accomplishment was to keep the course for the planet pointed straight toward oblivion, and soon.”

I'M WITH HARV on one point; the special set asides for the elderly. In an upside down society like this one it's no surprise that the elderly get a lot of funding, accompanied by unending boatloads of pure mawk as if they're children which, of course, many of them are, the child being the father to the man etc. And all because they vote. The bulk funding ought to be at the other end of the age spectrum, especially given the millions of children springing up out of sub-feral dens. The Russian commies did a few great things — they shot economic criminals and, given the high percentage of drunks in their imposed society, out of social necessity, they instituted round-the-clock childcare centers, which are one of the many civil institutions this country has needed since 1967, the onset of the Great Unraveling. 

BIDEN got off a uniquely rare, reality-based speech over the weekend, accurately describing the social-economic state of our society as bad going worse by the day. The question for him and his team of Clintonians is Will They Go Big Enough?, with the sub-question being Are They Capable of Going Big Enough? Given their econ assumptions and big money allegences I'd be surprised. 

THEN, in an interview with Biden and Harris, CNN's nuzzlebumming Jake Tapper asked how the two handle disagreements. It was the pair's first sit-down interview since their election. Here's the president-elect: “But like I told Barack, if I reach something where there is a fundamental disagreement that we have based on a moral principle, I'll develop some disease and say I have to resign.”

HUH? On first read I assumed it was just the latest confirmation of Biden's obvious senility, but thinking about it, the odd response may mean that Biden is aware that he's past it, has discussed his past it-ness with his handlers and, at some point when he's unable to read the teleprompters he'll turn the reins over to Kamala, a succession that will explode white heads from coast to coast.

KAMALA? I wish you would tone down your constant chuckling, which seems to me to border on hysteria. No one laughs all the goddam time. I'm old enough to remember when the political class said what they had to say without all this false bonhomie. Bring back solemnity! And spare us, please, all references to and appearances of “first husband,” or whatever cutesy designation the bulletheads advise. With the Biden Gang it's already like being stuck in some kind of vast post-lobotomy recovery ward.

ABOUT THOSE Incense Cedars our fave historian, Katy Tahja, wrote about in the last issue… A wonderful but long out-of-print book called “A Flora of the Vascular Plants of Mendocino County” (1990) reports they also have been identified on Yale Creek near Fish Rock Road, Red Mountain near Cummings, at the confluence of Fox Creek and the Eel River near Branscomb, and at Eden Valley, Mt. Sanhedrin and Anthony Peak. These cedar clusters are a long way away from their native Sierra habitat.

MEDIA NOTE

CNN interview of Biden/Harris

CNN to Biden:

• "How does it feel to have finally made it?"
• "What explains your overwhelming popularity amongst the American people?"
• "Tell us about your dog. How important is having a pet in these troubled times?"
• "What is your favorite color?"

CNN to Harris:

• "What should we call your husband? The first dude? Honey?" (laughter)
• "Do you realize the great historical significance you present to young girls across the country?.
• "What is your favorite color?"
• Ahahahahaha ahahahaha ahahahahaha!!

Yes, I expected fawning, asskissing sycophant adulation on the part of the MSM, but I didn't think it would be this glaring, and this obvious.

SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS

We have a [cannabis] regulatory scheme virtually nobody can complete. Making outlaws out of good and bad players hinders enforcement. I don't support plastic, regular water shuttling or environmental damage of any type. Illegal pumping of water from the creeks and rivers is within the domain of the Sheriff and I support funding of the effort.

“How you will be able to enforce an expansion when you can't enforce what's happening now?”

By fixing the regulatory model to one which cultivators can complete. Under the current state deadline, 99% of cultivation in Mendocino County will be illegal come Jan 1, 2022. Before we can demand participation in a regulated market, there must be a path to compliance.

Imagine if nobody in Mendocino County had a valid state driver's license and we asked the Sheriff to enforce driver's licenses. The current ordinance doesn't work for the cultivators, community members with legitimate concerns, environmentalists, county tax collection — it's all intertwined with a faulty ordinance.

Without any expansion, outdoor cultivation will become 99% illegal in a year. The state has a hard deadline for state licenses. Cultivators in Mendocino County do not hold state annual licenses. They are operating on temporary licenses. These expire.

Show me a state-licensed farm causing havoc on the environment and neighborhood. The truly legal market isn't the problem. Transitioning all cultivation to legal and regulated is the solution. Creating outlaws has been attempted and the result is a massive failure.

---

Also from Supervisor Williams: 

We are scheduled [to discuss Measure B] for the December 15 BoS meeting. County departments have stepped up on ownership of the various Measure B projects. I see the oversight committee as less of a bottleneck now. Voila.

ANOTHER NARCAN SAVE

On December 2, 2020 at approximately 7:49 PM, Corrections Deputies were performing routine cell checks on inmates housed in the Mendocino County Jail facility. An inmate began summoning deputies to their cell.

When staff arrived, they noticed one of the two inmates in the cell was on the floor. Deputies entered the cell and saw that the inmate, a 32-year-old male, was unresponsive and was turning blue. Deputies immediately summoned on-site medical staff to assist with the non-responsive inmate and emergency medical personnel were called.

While waiting for medical staff to arrive, the deputies repositioned the inmate and noticed that his breathing improved slightly. Additional correctional staff arrived bring an automatic external defibrillator and oxygen. Jail medical staff arrived, performed an immediate assessment and administered oxygen. After reassessing the inmate, a single dose of Narcan was given. The inmate’s condition began improving immediately after the Narcan was given.

Emergency medical personnel arrived and the inmate was transported to an area hospital by ambulance. He was returned to the jail after receiving a medical evaluation by emergency room staff.

The inmate involved in this incident had been in custody for a substantial amount of time. It is suspected that the inmate may have been able to obtain some form of narcotic from another inmate that was recently housed. Persons arrested often hide drugs and other contraband in body orifices when they are brought into jail making it extremely difficult for staff to detect and recover.

LOCKDOWN, DROUGHT AND POST ELECTION THOUGHTS

by Jim Shields

You could see this coming a million miles away.

Governor Gavin Newsom has by now established a pattern of telegraphing his next, immediate move. A few days preceding the action to be taken, he gives a warning or hint of things to come.

On Monday, Nov. 30, the Sacramento Bee reported that Newsom warned that a new stay-at-home order would be necessary if COVID case rates didn’t decelerate. At the time, he said the state’s modeling showed intensive care units would be overrun by mid-December if viral transmission wasn’t curbed.

I knew then it wouldn’t be long before the warning would be transformed into decree.

On Thursday, Dec. 3, Newsom issued what many consider a draconian revision of his original Stay at Home Public Health Order signed in March.

Among other things, the Order sets out:

• Health officials will track the state by five regions: Northern California (includes Mendocino County), Bay Area, Greater Sacramento, San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. 

• Regional Stay at Home Order took effect Saturday, Dec. 5; affects regions with less than 15 percent ICU availability. 

• If a region falls below the 15 percent ICU threshold, it will have 24 hours to implement the Stay at Home Order.

• Regional Stay at Home Orders will require Californians to stay at home as much as possible, close operations for certain sectors and require 100 percent masking and physical distancing in all others. 

• Regional lockdowns would last for three weeks minimum.

• Schools currently open can remain open and retailers can operate indoors at no more than 20 percent capacity to reduce exposure risk.

“We are at a tipping point in our fight against the virus and we need to take decisive action now to prevent California’s hospital system from being overwhelmed in the coming weeks,” said Newsom. “By invoking a Stay at Home Order for regions where ICU capacity falls below 15 percent, we can flatten the curve as we’ve done before and reduce stress on our health care system. I’m clear-eyed that this is hard on all of us — especially our small businesses who are struggling to get by. That’s why we leaned in to help our small business owners with new grants and tax relief to help us get through this month. If we stay home as much as possible, and wear masks when we have to go to the doctor, shop for groceries or go for a hike, California can come out of this in a way that saves lives and puts us on a path toward economic recovery.”

With exception of the Bay Area, Newsom said the other four regions could lock down within the next couple of days based on their respective ICU shortages.

According to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), these are the current available ICU capacities by region:

• Northern California 18.6%

• San Joaquin Valley 19.7%

• Southern California 20.6%

• Greater Sacramento 22%

• Bay Area 25.4%

Since Mendocino County is grouped with the Northern California region — the one closest to hitting ICU capacity — we can expect to shortly fall under the new order.

Back in March, former County Public Health Officer Dr. Mimi Doohan said there were only 45 ICU rooms with ventilators in the county. She went on to say that even if the county were given an additional 100 ventilators, they couldn’t be used because more hospital beds, doctors, nurses and technicians would be required. Once Mendocino County maxes out its ICU capacity, its only option is to transport COVID patients to out-of-county hospitals, assuming those counties aren’t overwhelmed.

The real problem with the new Order is are Californians going to comply with it?

Prospects are not good for that outcome given that for the past three months far too many people have been nonchalantly ignoring Public Health Orders, especially restrictions on travel and group gatherings during recent holidays (Labor Day, Halloween, and Thanksgiving). 

And with Christmas just weeks away, we’re probably going to see a continuation of the same behavior.

The other side of the compliance coin is enforcement. Most law enforcement agencies throughout the state, either by policy or passivity, exercise a hands-off approach to Public Health Orders and show no inclination to penalizing residents who don’t follow them. Simply stated, I would say cops are busy enough on a daily basis dealing with real criminals.

Good luck with your new Order, Governor, we’re all going to need it.

Drought Deepens

The latest data from the U.S. Drought Monitor shows about 90 percent of California remains in persistent drought conditions ranging from abnormally dry to extreme drought. The only areas designated as non-drought (normal) are a small portion of Orange County and nearly all of Riverside County, both ironically located in SoCal.

Here in Mendocino County, the eastern half is categorized as “extreme drought” while the western sector is in “severe drought.”

In northern Mendo, usually super-saturated annually with 60-plus inches of rain, Laytonville has registered just 3.50 inches of precipitation to date. That’s 19.4 percent of our normal rainfall on December 3rd of 18 inches. Historically, Laytonville receives about 67 inches, annually.

And just like everything else in this bizarre year of 2020, we still have to contend with the threat of wildfires in December. 2020 has been a devastating and record-breaking year for wildfires in California. Tinder dry landscapes coupled wintry windy conditions make for perfect firestorms.

Post Election Thoughts

I look at the Nov. 3rd Election as a tale of two elections: Presidential and everything else.

The Dems won the White House by about 6 million votes with Joe Biden garnering 80 million to 74 million for Trump. 

But in nearly all the other elections, the so-called “down ballot”, where you find governors, state legislatures, and Congressional elections, the GOP gained ground or held on to what they had previously controlled. Most pre-election polls predicted big wins all down the line by Democrats.

So what happened?

It appears that quite a few Republicans and Independent voters switched horses by voting for Biden in the Prez Election, but then remounted their old steeds and voted GOP on the down ballot.

Clearly the presidential election was a referendum on Trump’s performance, otherwise we would have seen a Democratic clean sweep on the down ballot.

So voters sent a message with their bifurcated ballots: We really don’t like Trump but we really don’t trust Democrats to have total control of government at all levels.

This split vote just about guarantees a general standoff or gridlock of the governing process on most issues. However, I believe that with Trump no longer in the picture after January, both parties will be able to come together to work out bi-partisan deals on the big problems such as an economic recovery plan, unemployment relief for record numbers of the jobless, and a unified front on fighting the Pandemic.

The GOP picked up seats in the House of Representatives, including winning four held by Democrats here in California.

Overall, Republicans flipped nine seats in the House of Representatives, despite pollsters forecasting that Democratic control of the House would be boosted. That never happened. Interestingly enough, seven out of those nine seats were won by female candidates. Another sign that Girl Power is here to stay.

We’ll know what the U.S. Senate scorecard looks like in early January when the runoff elections results for Georgia’s two Senate seats will be known. Democrats would need to win both Georgia's Senate races to split the Senate chamber 50-50, with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, starting in 2021, having the tie-breaking vote. Republicans need to win one seat to maintain their Senate majority. 

One final thought on the election, redistricting: Every 10 years, after the census, congressional and state legislature districts are redrawn to account for population changes. This gives whoever is drawing the maps the power to maximize the number of districts that favor their party — a tactic in its extreme form known as “gerrymandering.” The 2020 election represented the last chance for voters to weigh in on who would draw those maps. Both parties went into the election with a chance to draw more congressional districts than the other, but the end result was just about the best-case scenario for Republicans. According to Ballotpedia (a nonpartisan digital encyclopedia of American politics and elections), Republicans are set to control the redistricting of 188 congressional seats — or 43 percent of the entire House of Representatives. By contrast, Democrats will control the redistricting of, at most, 73 seats, or 17 percent.

As the old saying goes, “Elections have consequences.”

BCC’s Lori Ajax Retires

Last week, Bureau of Cannabis Control Chief Lori Ajax announced her retirement after nearly 27 years of state service. After spending 21 years at the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC), Ajax was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown as Chief of what would become the Bureau of Cannabis Control in February of 2016, and retained by Governor Newsom when he took office in 2019. 

I thought Brown missed the boat when he set up legalized pot under the newly created BCC. He should have slid it under the jurisdiction of ABC where they have decades of experience in administering a regulatory framework for a drug.

Prior to Brown naming Ajax as the first Ganja Czarina of California, she was well known here on the Northcoast when she headed up the Santa Rosa Office of ABC.

Assistant Chief Counsel Tamara Colson has been appointed to serve as Acting Bureau Chief beginning this week. Colson has served as Assistant Chief Counsel for the Bureau of Cannabis Control since May of 2016. Her general knowledge of cannabis issues and experience with the Bureau should prove helpful through the transition to hire a new Pot Czar.

With tongue half-way-in-cheek, I say whoever gets the job should give serious thought to placing Mendocino County’s failed Pot Program under state trusteeship since they have no one in the County seat capable, willing, or qualified to administer a regulatory framework. What a mess. What a failure. Only Mendocino County officialdom could create all this chaos out of order. It’s their specialty.

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, and is also the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org)

CATCH OF THE DAY, December 5, 2020

DAVID DORMAN, Ukiah. Protective order violation, resisting, probation revocation. 

JOAQUINA JOAQUIN, Covelo. Murder, kidnapping, conspiracy, parole violation.

JOHN LEON JR., Sunnyvale/Ukiah. DUI. 

BRADLEY MAXFIELD, Willits. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

BRANDON MCCUTCHEON, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

CHERRAL MITCHELL, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

SAMANTHA NOVO, Willits. Failure to appear.

TODD RAMOS, Ukiah. Controlled substance, contempt of court, probation revocation.

REBECCA RODRIGUEZ, Covelo. Under influence, controlled substance, interfering with police communications, probation revocation.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

You can see the abject failure of the educational system (including colleges and universities) in the workplace. You see it especially in the younger set who spell very badly, can't construct coherent sentences, can't do cursive, don't know the multiplication table, are abysmally ignorant of elementary geography and history. It's depressing, all that money spent and all those years in the classroom and what the hell for.

GOOD WORKER NEEDED:

I need someone to work for me on the South Coast, 1-2 days per week, or as much as you can work. (Days, hours, flexible).

Please be reliable, honest and kind.

Burn brush (when it rains a bit more), chain saw work (hope you have a saw), and other outdoor land work. haul brush, gardening, etc.

Thanks for any leads you can offer me. I live between Point Arena and Gualala, so you need to be local, please, and have good transportation.

Please call Yasmin, 707-884-4703, and let it ring 5 times.

“I WAS FOURTEEN YEARS OLD in nineteen and thirty-three and there wasn't a nickel in the world.” The silence of that time before traffic and leaf blowers and the boisterous shouting of television was embedded in his character, and he spoke little, finding it hard to drag out the story. The noiselessness of his youth except for the natural sound of wind, hoofbeats, the snap of the old house logs splitting in winter cold, wild herons crying their way downriver was forever lost. How silent men and women had been in those times, trusting to observational powers. There had been days when a few little mustache clouds moved, and he could imagine them making no more sound than dragging a feather across a wire. The wind got them and the sky was alone. 

— Annie Proulx, Family Man

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #2

I have a couple friends who do not believe much in the virus and think masks are stupid. Yet they wear their mask when going into stores. I ask them why? They say “Hey- if it makes the old people less afraid then it’s a small thing to do”. Basic decency, good neighbors…It’s really up to us to treat each other well. Screw the political hype and just be kind to your neighbors…

SF MAYOR LONDON BREED'S APOLOGY

"As I said yesterday, it doesn't matter if I was technically, if I wasn't technically violating local health orders, because I know that as mayor, I should hold myself to a higher standard — I understand that," Breed said. "My job just isn't to lead by the letter of the law, but to lead in the spirit of it. I understand that and I'm committed to doing better."

"This pandemic has been hard on all of us," Breed added. "There's no playbook for this. I know that none of us thought that in 2020, we'd be in the midst of a global pandemic. Who would have thought that this would have ever existed in our lifetimes? The impacts we've all experienced on our mental and emotional health have been tremendous, and that includes me. Every day, I do this job. I think about the people whose lives I'm responsible for, that the decisions I make impact people's jobs and their families. And I'm doing my very best for this city. No one is perfect, and certainly not me.

"As I've said, the criticism I've received is fair and I understand my responsibility, and I've learned from this moment," Breed continued. "I want everyone to recognize that people all around you are trying. They are trying to follow the orders. They are trying to hold it together. We are all trying, and it is hard, people are losing it. But we can't lose it on each other. We can't turn on each other. This isn't about me, I can take the criticism. I wouldn't be in this job if I couldn't.

"But to your neighbors, to your coworkers, to the people you see walking down the streets to the bus drivers, to our city workers — they're trying to keep us safe and healthy. So please, have a little understanding. The coming weeks are going to be even harder than ever before, but what we can do is to make sure that we get through this safely."

Friday's speech is Breed's first public comment on the French Laundry controversy aside from a similar statement she issued on Twitter Thursday, where she shared a San Francisco Chronicle editorial that criticized politicians who have been recently caught flouting their own COVID-19 policies.

"What I especially regret is that the urgency of our public health message in this moment has never been more dire and my actions have distracted from that," Breed said Thursday. "We're in a much different place than even just a few weeks ago and we need everyone to do their part, starting with me."

---

Breed was at the French Laundry on Nov. 7, the day after California Gov. Gavin Newsom dined at the restaurant for a small party. Eight people, including the mayor, dined together at a small birthday party for a friend on Nov. 7, Andy Lynch, press director for the Office of the Mayor, told SFGATE. The friend was socialite Gorretti Lo Lui, who was celebrating her 60th birthday, the Chronicle reported.

(SFgate.com)

PENCILS INSTEAD OF BAYONETS

by Angelique Richardson

‘The elections in the United States have been watched with an interest rarely felt in the domestic concerns of a distant country,’ Walter Bagehot and Richard Holt Hutton’s National Review declared in 1857. ‘Not for the first time – perhaps for the last – the terrible problem of Slavery, long the secret haunt, has become the open battle-field of American politics.’ The 1856 presidential election had ‘emphatically declared in favour of extension of slavery’, with ‘disregard of positive engagements both national and international’. Armed bands in Kansas had carried the polling booths ‘at the point of the bowie knife’ and laws had been enacted ‘on behalf of slavery’, ‘suppressing all liberty of speech, of the press, or of political action’. The review feared that Europe (where slavery had come from) was unaware of the gravity of the situation: ‘this very hour’, a special committee was reporting on the ‘reopening of the African slave trade’.

The London periodical press continued to express concerns about American elections after the Civil War, often drawing parallels with Britain. Fraser’s Magazine observed in 1872 that ‘the system of representation prevailing in America and in England throws the whole representation into the hands of the dominant party’, and that gerrymandering was not exclusive to America. In 1876, when disputed returns in three Southern states made it impossible to know who’d won, the Westminster Review reported that Black people were being actively disenfranchised. Sketching the hostile and violent environment, with descriptions of floggings and chain gangs, it observed that the law was ‘in the hands of the whites’, drawing on testimony from a judge who had seen many Black people accused and many hanged ‘but none convicted on trial’. It warned of elections stolen by ‘stuffing ballot boxes’ in favour of anti-Black candidates, of few or no polling places in Black districts, and cases where ‘hundreds of blacks who came to vote were told they must go elsewhere, when it was too late to do so.’ Present-day parallels are striking.

Urging the British in 1895 ‘to watch closely the progress of events in the United States’, the Economic Review warned of registration fraud, voter intimidation and racist murder: ‘It is difficult to believe that in this end of the 19th century a Kansas mob would hang a negro for theft; that ten thousand people of Texas would torture one with red-hot irons, and then burn him to death.’ In a 1903 article on white racial violence, the Nineteenth Century observed that, since Federal troops had withdrawn from the South in 1877, the Fifteenth Amendment had habitually been disregarded. Black Americans were told ‘they would not be allowed to vote, and whites with revolvers lined the polling booths; or else in quieter states the registers were falsified, the ballot boxes were “stuffed” with bogus votes, or negro votes were simply not counted.’ ‘In order to maintain white supremacy’, constitutional amendments were being used to place new restrictions on the franchise, from property qualification and poll taxes to education tests. ‘The entire Negro electorate – all native-born citizens – of the South is disenfranchised by force or fraud,’ the Review of Reviews declared in 1906, reporting ‘an average of three lynchings a week’ in the previous ten years.

Not that British elections were any better. ‘The present Tory government, or that botched piece of cabinet-work which now stands for a Tory government, first obtained office in 1895 on the strength of a social programme they have since made no real attempt to carry out,’ the Westminster Review remarked in 1904. (Campbell-Bannerman had ‘very properly’ termed it a ‘fraudulent prospectus’.) ‘Were the law strictly carried out’, the Edinburgh Review declared in 1853, scarcely a single MP ‘could retain his seat’. And it is still possible, more than 150 years later, to win an election – or a referendum – based on lies. You can also be fined for breaking electoral law, without it having any effect on your right to form a government.

Electoral reform and public trust were live debates around the time of the 1832 Reform Bill. But it was also, as George Eliot wrote more than thirty years later in Felix Holt, the Radical, a time of great hope, ‘when faith in the efficacy of political change was at fever-heat in ardent Reformers’. ‘I hold it blasphemy to say that a man ought not to fight against authority,’ Felix says, stating his intention ‘to work all my life long against privilege, monopoly, and oppression’. Felix’s friend Rufus Lyon, a radical minister, remarks that ‘it is our preliminary work to free men from the stifled life of political nullity, and bring them into what Milton calls “the liberal air”.’ John Stuart Mill similarly urged the moral and cultural imperative of giving people ‘an interest in politics and in the management of their own affairs’.

The secret ballot was demanded by the Chartists from the 1830s. ‘The accounts from the distant counties prove, to all who attend to what has been going on during the late elections, the hopelessness of obtaining real reform in the electoral system, without devising some remedy against the oppression of landlords,’ a ‘Friend to Purity of Election’ wrote in the Examiner in 1833. Large landowners ‘exact from their slaves and vassals (for as such they regard their dependents) the most implicit political obedience’, and any dissenter was a ‘marked object of dislike to the whole body of the aristocracy’. The secret ballot was not, however, adopted until 1872, when it was contested by Mill (initially a supporter) and other radicals, as they thought it would unleash more intense forms of surveillance and suspicion on the part of landlords and employers, and remove accountability for the less vulnerable, ‘shutting the door’, in the words of one of Eliot’s characters, ‘against those influences whereby the soul of a man and the character of a citizen are duly educated for their great functions’.

Some Victorians looked for progress to come from outside Parliament. ‘A new novel,’ the Westminster Review had declared in 1844, ‘is sometimes a political event.’ In 1891, having just published Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy remarked that the welfare of the people was ‘never once thought of’ by hereditary peers and politicians. He regretted that ‘the offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years.’ Max Gate, his house in Dorchester, was an anti-imperialist base from which he launched his anti-imperialist poems, entertained radical ideas and people, and placed inverted commas round the word civilised when describing the West. ‘Why should not Africa be free, as is America?’ Emma Hardy declared in 1899.

In Britain, suffrage has historically been restricted not by race per se but by class, with a property requirement from 1430 (when it was 40 shillings) until 1918 (for men) and 1928 (for women). The first Black Briton to vote in a British election was Ignatius Sancho, in 1774, when Britain had a Black population of at least 20,000. It was women and the working class – of all ethnicities – who were excluded, though there were plenty of white British middle-class women who petitioned against their own enfranchisement – 20,000 of them by 1909. Many also signed up to eugenics, secure in their privilege, and allied more with their class, and with imperial notions of white supremacy, than their gender.

A long history of marginalisation and oppression now finds expression in a racial democratic deficit in both the UK and the US; organisations such as Operation Black Vote and the Movement Voter Project are seeking to address this. Trump’s unfounded challenges to the election result over the last month have targeted the Black vote, including postal votes at a time when Black voters have opted in higher numbers than usual to vote this way because of the pandemic. Trump also sought to deter millions of Black Americans from voting in 2016.

Democracy has long co-existed with forms of racial exclusion and oppression, as this history shows. It is not a history that Trump wants taught in schools, and the British government, too, has made moves to suppress the teaching of past and present racial injustices, erasing history even as it purports to be on history’s side. Britain has claim to having invented the whole sorry fiction of race – the separating of human beings according to skin colour for the purposes of capital.

For the most vulnerable, the right to representation can be a matter of life and death. And it is always an act of empowerment. When the Tories lost spectacularly in 1906 – the Liberals took four hundred seats, and 29 members of the new Labour Representation Committee became MPs – Hardy observed that it was ‘a revolution in which the weapons are criss-crosses & black-lead pencils instead of bayonets & barricades’.

(Angelique Richardson is an English Professor at the University of Exeter in England. London Review of Books)

HO, RO, THE MISSILE-O, THE MISSILE IN THE SI-LO!

The recording of last night's (2020-12-04) Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on KNYO-LP Fort Bragg is right here: https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0413

From a very short way into the show and lasting forty-five amazing minutes is Doug Nunn's, Ken Krause's and Marshall Warner's Snap Sessions project Hey! The Irish Persons: the Disappearance of a Storied Folk Group. It's made of Hit and Run Theater material going all the way back to forty years ago when this baker's dozen of talented people were just starting out and the world was literally their oyster. 

Furthermore, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not necessarily radio-useful but nonetheless worthwhile educational items I set aside for you while gathering the show together. Such as: 

Wednesday was the 36th anniversary of the 1984 poison-gas negligent mass-homicide of an entire city in India by the Union-Carbide corporation. The death estimate varies between 3,800 to 16,000, because when everyone in town is occupied going blind, coughing up their lungs and drowning in their own erupting bodily fluids, no-one's going around counting each other, exactly, and afterward there's the problem of what do we do with all these stinking corpses of poor people? Bulldoze them into trenches, funny you should ask. In all, 600,000 people were poisoned. Here's the story of how it all came about in a chain of dominoes, each domino representing another point of appalling thoughtlessness on the part of Union Carbide (now Dow Chemical) who still hasn't made it right to the survivors, many of whom had good cause to envy the dead. (1 hour) https://nagonthelake.blogspot.com/2020/12/december-2-1984-was-ordinary-day-at.html

All about asteroid strikes. "The thing that most closely resembles a meteorite impact is a very large nuclear explosion." https://boingboing.net/2020/12/03/are-asteroid-impacts-preventable.html

And this. I can't stand this. LOOKATTHEROAD! LOOKATTHEROAD! LOOKATTHEROAD! It's bad enough when in a movie or teevee show the driver turns to speak intently to the passenger, eye to eye, while the car continues at speed. This is ten times as bad as that. This is /crazy/. https://www.bitsandpieces.us/2020/12/03/mexican-tour-bus/

p.s. If you want me to read on the radio something that you've written, just email it to me and that's what I'll do on the very next Memo of the Air. That's what I'm here for.

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