Mendocino County Today: Thursday, May 6, 2021

Significant Cooling | 3 New Cases | Walk-Ins Welcome | Help Wanted | Blossomtime | Wildfire Threat | Berryessa | Fire Prep | Vacaville | Federal Aid | Crossing 128 | Crisis Hire | Couched | Water Project | Piano Lessons | Fuzzy Confusion | Library Generators | Raisining | EOC Priority | Former Employee | Alder Glen | Mental Distress | Land Stewardship | Plant Sale | False Advertising | Rental Wanted | Police Reports | Hemp Museum | Art Walk | Yesterday's Catch | Food Costs | Boxing Religion | Waters Effect | Prince Kiss | Castles | Viva Mexico | Love Story | Socialism | Vaccine Patents | Gates Date | Miserly Plutocrats | CA Garnish | Dem Zoom | Katrina Radio

A COLD FRONT WILL BRING SIGNIFICANT COOLING for the interior today through Friday. The cold front will also bring a chance for light rain, primarily for Del Norte and northern Humboldt Counties today. Strong and gusty northerly winds will develop on Friday behind the front. Breezy northerly winds will persist through the weekend, with warmer interior temperatures expected over the weekend through early next week. (NWS)

3 NEW COVID CASES reported in Mendocino County yesterday afternoon (all Ukiah Area).

WALK INS ARE NOW WELCOME at ALL Mendo County Covid-19 vaccination Clinics: Effective immediately, all 1st dose clinics are open to all counties. Anyone who is age 18 and over (16 and over for Pfizer clinics) are welcome to make an appointment or walk in. You do not need to be a Mendocino County resident to receive your vaccination.

mendocinocounty.org/community/novel-coronavirus/covid-19-vaccinations/vaccination-clinics

HAMBURGERS AT YORKVILLE MARKET THIS SATURDAY

Happy Cinco de Mayo!!

Yorkville Market

Today I am remembering all the amazing community gatherings we have had here at the Market to celebrate this fun holiday - great food, music, and cold drinks with wonderful friends. I am hopeful that days like that will return here to Yorkville soon.

As many of you know, Amy has moved back to Santa Rosa, and although she will come and visit and may help for big events she is no longer going to be my right hand woman here at the Market. I am going to miss her help and energetic spirit immensely.

In the meantime I am looking for additional help. Many of you have asked about opening the deli and even hosting Friday night events in the near future, both of which are not possible without more hands - So if you know of a skilled person looking for a fun and interesting job here in Yorkville please send them my way.

Until I can find the right person, I am going to keep muddling along, but in order to keep my sanity I am going to make a few changes to the schedule. For the month of May I am going to be closed on Monday as well as Tuesday. I will also be closed next Sunday, May 9th for Mother’s Day. Our hours will be the same, 11:00am until 5:00pm. I have posted the hours on the front door for reference.

Lastly, (and most excitingly!) we will be serving Hamburgers, Veggie Burgers and Portobello Burgers to order this Saturday, 5/8 from noonish until 4ish. Come enjoy the sun on our outside patio or take them to go. You can call ahead at (707) 894-9456 to place your order, or just stop in chat with fellow Yorkvillephiles while you wait.

Best wishes,

Lisa

PS - Kevin Owens and friends will be playing music on the back patio Saturday, May 22! We will be serving a BBQ that day (TBD) and will have a selection of socially distanced seating for those who want to groove to the funky tunes of The Highrollers while enjoying their lunch. RSVP's encouraged. More info coming soon.

EXTREME WILDFIRE THREAT FORECAST FOR NORTHERN CALIFORNIA THIS SUMMER

by Mary Callahan

Historically dry conditions and temperatures forecast to be above normal this summer mean Northern California residents once again face the threat of extreme wildfires like those that have occurred with increasing regularity over the past several years, according to AccuWeather, a leading U.S. meteorological service.

The grim prediction, though not surprising, brings into sharper view what historic drought and climate change have clarified for residents in recent weeks: catastrophic wildfires, already a regular part of life now for denizens of the west amid extremes in weather, are likely to return in the coming months.

The danger is exacerbated this year by two successive years of rainfall so low in Northern California they combined barely to total a normal year, leaving forests and brush tinder dry, said David Samuhel, senior meteorologist for AccuWeather.

“The forests are drying. They’re turning more brown. There was hardly any new growth over the course of the rainy season, just because it was extremely dry,” Samuhel said, citing findings by the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center at San Jose State University. “That’s one thing we’re really concerned about is just how dry the forests are.”

In addition, inland temperatures are expected to be several degrees above normal for much of the summer across much of the west, contributing to extreme fire behavior.

“The kind of wild card here is what kind of wind events do we see?” Samuhel said.

Another key question is whether lightning storms occur this year such as those that last August touched off hundreds of wildfires across Northern California, including the LNU Lightning Complex in the North Bay and the million-acre-plus August Complex in Mendocino, Lake and three other counties — the largest wildfire in California history.

Samuhel forecast 9.5 million acres of land would burn across the western United States, about 140% of the 10-year average.

(Courtesy, Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

2021: A BAD FIRE YEAR

by Betsy Cawn

This is going to be a monstrous year for wildfire, which has already begun. As of May 2, 2021, CalFire reported that over 1,300 fires have occurred throughout the state.

There were five small wildfires in Lake County during the third week in January. On the afternoon of January 24, on our regular KPFZ disaster coverage program, we began discussing the imminent need for disaster preparedness — including creation of “Temporary Evacuation Points” and “Temporary Refuge Areas” with adequate “community lifelines” (the latter being the highest priority of FEMA’s “National Response Framework”) and support for assisting disabled persons to evacuate from their homes with their personal life-support necessities.

Three lives were lost on March 30, in a rapacious house fire in Clearlake Oaks, and two homes were destroyed on April 18 in the same town, where neighbors reported problems with adequate fire flows to fight the conflagrations. Concerns voiced in the April 19 Community Risk Reduction Authority meeting, regarding hydrant “ownership,” maintenance, and proper replacement, led to the revelation that most of the county-wide fire hydrant systems are in similar condition — having been installed many decades ago, with no budgets available for replacement of failed hydrants, and no clear line of responsibility for any agency to pursue.

During the April 18 event, as fire “escaped” into nearby wildland vegetation, scanner-listener-reporters posted that there were no additional resources available to help the local firefighting team which was already delayed by low pressure flows in ridge-top fire hydrants (but solved by the addition of a “booster” pump, eventually).

Revelations of county-wide infrastructure antiquity and lack of public funding for upgrading or replacing fire hydrants was called to the attention of the Lake County Risk Reduction Authority on April 19, but the conclusion was simply that there is no funding and neither the water district nor the fire district could identify legal citations showing what agency is responsible for ensuring their functionality. [And if that isn’t a state-wide, rural survival issue I’ll be very surprised. Senator McGuire just recently announced that the state will be pouring a BILLION dollars into fire prevention — shouldn’t this funding to the front line defenses of fire fighting agencies serving in the Wildland-Urban Interface realities of our counties?]

Lake County, in 2020, is finally awakening to the fact that fire fighting resources in the “urbanized” areas are more and more the front line of defense for preventing larger wildfires emanating from road-side accidental or intentional “ignitions.”

Just as importantly, the agency responsible for coordinating emergency management events necessitating evacuation of homes located in the highly flammable “Wildland-Urban Interface” — which is most of our occupied areas, where “streets” have been paved for access to highly vegetated hillsides adjacent to the shorelines of our two most prominent lakes — was pressured to create our Emergency Operations Center after FEMA and the California Emergency Management Agency determined that our local systems were inadequate to manage two major fires in 2015: The Rocky Fire in July and the Valley Fire in September.

Our county’s Emergency Operations Plan was then out of date (by nearly 20 years) and our Natural/Local Hazards Mitigation Plan was inadequate by standards delineated in the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000. The County’s (our personal tax-payer) cost of responding to the Valley Fire was not reimbursed by FEMA, because we were not able to track and document those emergency management costs — which is a primary job of the Emergency Operations Center. In 2016, the County of Lake cancelled $12.5M in precious reserves to reimburse local and regional agencies for their response services in 2015.

All of the EOC/EOP requirements are articulated in the National Incident Management System (fed) and Standardized Emergency Management System (state) curricula available from the federal Emergency Management Institute — anyone can become a student, classes are free and mostly available online. Municipal employees are all required to have NIMS/SEMS training at some level, but our Board of Supervisors has not been required to go beyond the most simplified baby steps (Incident Command System 100 and 200).

The State’s Office of Emergency Services has begun extensive training of official agencies through its California Specialized Training Institute (https://www.caloes.ca.gov/cal-oes-divisions/california-specialized-training-institute), and since 2015 both of our incorporated cities have created their own Natural/Local Hazard Mitigation Plans, established their own training curricula (using CSTI), and activated their municipal Disaster Councils.

Does the County of Mendocino not have a state-accreditated Disaster Council, responsible for all these major compliance programs (DMA Y2K, EOP/EOC/OES operations)?

Since the Sheriff is the responsible party ultimately holding the bag for coordinating efficient emergency management response services, and is — in Lake County, anyway, maybe it’s different in Mendo — the Director of our Office of Emergency Services, the County Administration and your elected officials had better ought to address this capacity gap post haste, as it were.

THE AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN ACT provides one-time funding for a two-year period to support health centers funded under the Health Center Program “to prevent, mitigate, and respond to coronavirus disease 2019 and to enhance health care services and infrastructure,” according to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).

In Mendocino County, the federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) funded by the Health Center Program include Anderson Valley Health Center in Boonville, Long Valley Health Center in Laytonville, MCHC Health Centers in Ukiah and Willits, Mendocino Coast Clinics in Fort Bragg, and Redwood Coast Medical Services in Gualala. FQHCs and affiliated rural health centers such as Baechtel Creek Medical Clinic in Willits serve about two-thirds of people in Mendocino County, providing everything from medical care to behavioral health services, dental care, and some specialty services.

Mendocino Coast Clinics Executive Director Lucresha Renteria explained that she and other local health center leaders did what they felt they must do to care for their communities and hoped financial reimbursement would follow. Happily for them, it has. MCC will receive $2.23m. Redwood Coast Medical Services will receive $1.33m. Long Valley Health Center and Anderson Valley Health Center received $971k and $940k respectively.

TEX SAWYER OF PHILO WRITES:

Re Crossing 128. I had a similar experience about 0815 today. I attempted to cross from the Last Resort’s parking area to Lemon’s. As I walked across the southbound lane I saw a car and a pickup approaching up the hill in the northbound lane at a moderate speed. I thought that I had made eye contact with the driver of the car, but as I stepped over the double yellow line, I saw that he was not slowing down. I then stepped back into the south bound lane keeping an eye over my shoulder to the north as the 2 vehicles drove right past me in the northbound lane.

THE NEWLY HIRED AND TRAINED worker for the Crisis Van (aka Mobile Response Unit) starts work this week, Sheriff Kendall said Wednesday. The Measure B Committee approved the funding for three crisis positions last June, but Mendo being Mendo, we’re only now seeing the first one and there’s no one else in the recruitment/training pipeline at the moment. 

THE PLAN is for two more crisis workers, one for the North County and one on the Coast. The idea is simple and should not have taken decades to arrange: A trained county crisis worker rides in a deputy’s patrol car and responds with the deputy on calls involving mental health; many of those calls are for people known to law enforcement. 

RECRUITMENT for crisis workers is moving at a snail’s pace — finding the right candidates isn’t easy, and so far only thhis first one has been approved. 911 emergency protocols have been adjusted to accommodate the new unit’s availability which, we’re told, will be most weekends and late night.

IF A 911 call involves a formal 5150 designation (or the possibility of one) we expect that the number of mental health cases ending up in emergency rooms will be reduced, and here's hoping someone will keep track.

(Mark Scaramella)

WATER PROJECT MEETING MINUTES (April 1, 2021)

Report On Drinking Water Project: Jack Locey reports that he and the Meadow Estates attorney met and it does not appear that there are any substantial problems. The only negotiation left is with the schools and their two wells; one by the Health clinic and one at the elementary school. Andrews is the authorized person to negotiate with the AVUSD. The superintendent is out on leave and there will be a new superintendent in June. Discussion about Locey’s answers about Drinking Water laterals provided to Meadow Estates (and all residential parcels). Hanelt and Lombard agree the terminology needs clarification.

Report On Wastewater Project: Dave Coleman shared that they did some preliminary investigations and three properties look like viable alternatives. They are now looking at the reports of septic tests done on one property and will be doing more extensive soil investigation. Discussion about the questions from Jim Brown requesting demographic information. Hanelt wants to use Brown’s questions as a springboard for future concerns. Coleman feels it is good for the public to have this information to make sure we have our flow estimates correct. As Coleman realized this information hasn’t been given to the District yet, he will provide the data first to the CSD. Andrews will put the capacity issue on the agenda as a new item. Hanelt said the more eyes on this the better. 

Public Outreach: 

Virtual Tour of Smith River MBR: Smith River is the best match to the Boonville MBR. Strong is setting up a video tour for a May meeting. The operator will attend to answer questions. 

Wastewater Power Point Presentation: Strong and Andrews are working on a power point presentation to be shown at the same meeting as the virtual tour of Smith River’s MBR. 

PRIVATE PIANO LESSONS

Wanted to share a local gem. Karen offers private piano lessons at the convenience of your home! (Kids and adults!) Don't have a piano? She is able to advise on strater instruments. We've loved our time with her (pre-COVID) and are excited she's kicking back into full swing next month.

Private Piano Lessons with Karen

Call or text (707) 357-8770

$30-40/lesson

Also open to trades for items or services (she doesn't want anyone to feel left out!)

$500K FOR LIBRARY GENERATORS?

Lew Chichester writes: 

Regarding backup generators for county libraries-

The Round Valley Public Library has a back up generator, new this year, and has already been put into service a few times due to PG&E outages. We have a special situation here in Covelo. Everybody is on wells, when the power goes out anyone with a pump hooked up to the grid is out of water. The Friends of the Round Valley Public Library, the local nonprofit which supports the library in a number of ways, also OWNS THE BUILDING. We, not the county, secured funding for a back up generator. The Friends have a commitment to the community and now have the ability to provide a commercial kitchen, an air conditioned refuge, free wi fi, public restrooms, plus one of the finest libraries in any small town in America, all remaining functional during any extended power outage. I don’t know why the other libraries in the county, which don’t provide these kinds of services, need public money for back up generators. Maybe a good idea, maybe not. We financed ours without any county help.

Excellent points. The way the Covelo community came together to create a space for the library (which also functions as a Community Center) was very inspiring. It made it easy for the Board of Supervisors to welcome Covelo into the library system.

---

Laz of Willits writes: 

The library generator issue brings to mind a Measure B instance. A couple of years ago, during a Measure B meeting, a couple from the coast complained aloud that they could not hear the speakers. CEO Angelo almost immediately put into motion the purchase of a $35,000.00 sound system. She stated all 11 members would be mic’d up, as would any other board sitters, and of course, the speaking public from the dias. All this for a room no bigger than 500 square feet.

At first blush, 35K sounded a little stiff for a medium to a small audio system.

Researching the cost of such things, I found many adequate sound systems for 10K or less. Working musicians I spoke with said, for what Measure B needs, that was crazy money.

Eventually, because of inquires by the public, I suspect, the system was allegedly purchased with County money, not Measure B funds, but purchased, never, the less for 35K.

During the PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoff, PSPS, many generatored up. A grower I know bought high-end equipment and spent 10K on equipment and another 5K for the install. His system could do anything he needed and more. It ran his grow, the house, and anything else that came along.

Anyway, depending on how many libraries there are in the county, spend 50K or less per library, prevailing wages, markups, etc. Unless there are ten libraries, which I doubt, the county could save maybe 250K..

But this feels like inside baseball, rigged. Somebody will make a killing on the deal if it goes through, which it likely will.

Then there’s Covelo, who got power without using County funds. Maybe Covelo should be reimbursed. We all know Covelo needs all the help it can get.

As always,

Laz

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George Dorner:

I recall my father helping found the Round Valley library. At that time, he was volunteering as a library page. When the self-appointed librarian had to move out of Covelo, my father, George J. Dorner, kept the library running single-handed. When I kidded him about becoming the librarian, that humble and modest man declined the title.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #1:

Four years after the Redwood Valley fire and this County doesn’t have a functioning Emergency Operations Center?!

This seems like it should be one of the top priorities for PG&E settlement money.

We have had a month of escaped control burns already and air attack is not yet in place. The BOS should be prioritizing and ramping up emergency operations training already.

Convert the board chamber room to our EOC and let the supervisors continue their zoomathons from home.

NOBODY’S PERFECT

To the AVA Editor,

As a former employee of the County Ag Dept. under Mr. Grewal, I have issue with Mr. Scaramella's article "Welcome to Mendo, Dr. Grewal". The description of the "facts" is extremely one-sided and comes from falsified allegations in Mr. Grewal's lawsuit. The information is far from the truth. Mr. Grewal had a tarnished history in Stanislaus county despite his "credentials (please do your background research next time)". During his time at the Mendocino County Ag Dept. 14 out of 20 employees quit or found other county positions. 13 of those employees were WOMEN. His method of supervision was domineering and misogynistic. Any accomplishments of the Ag Dept had nothing to do with Mr. Grewal or his management. The Ag Dept biologists, who were there before the cannabis program and who are still there today, should get the credit for jobs well done. Those employees are still in their positions, despite the horrible working conditions they went thru under Mr. Grewal, because they love what they do. How dare you list names and heresay directly from Mr. Grewal's erroneous claims? I do agree that too many tax-payer dollars have been wasted dealing with Mr. Grewal and his lawsuit. He should have been fired in the summer of 2018 when the unfair treatment of the Ag Dept. employees began. In the future I suggest that you get the other side of the story instead of publishing one person's version whose allegations are unfounded.

Angela Wartell

---

To the AVA editor, 

I would like to make a change to a part of my previous email regarding Mr. Scaramella's article "Welcome to Mendo, Dr. Grewal". The total number of non-management employees that left the Ag Dept while Mr. Grewal was Ag Commissioner was 11 out of 17 employees, 8 of which were women. In addition, 1 male and 2 female employees left the Ag Dept while Kelly Overton was the Cannabis Program Manager working with Mr. Grewal as Ag Commissioner.

Respectfully,

Angela Wartell

A MENTAL HEALTH CALL ON THE COAST

Redwood Quality Management Company (RQMC) has collaborated with our department to offer mental health resources for calls of services. One instance I would like to bring light to occurred on April 30, 2021; RQMC provided officers with a direct phone number to the RQMC supervisor for questions and concerns while in the field. 

Two days later, officers responded to a call involving an individual experiencing mental distress within the city of Fort Bragg. The officers noticed during the assessment the person's confusion and demeanor was becoming unstable requiring resources experienced in mental health. Officers contacted the RQMC supervisor. Within 15 minutes, the RQMC supervisor immediately sent a crisis worker to the officers’ location. The crisis worker noticed this person’s demeanor was becoming rapidly unstable and placed them on a mental health hold. The officers were able to transport the person, in the patrol car, to the Hospital ER without any physical contact. 

The collaboration of our officers, the RQMC, and Mendocino Coast Adventist Hospital Emergency unit for this call indicates how our department is allocating our resources to improve the safety of our community. 

Our goal for Fort Bragg Police Department is to continue our partnership with RQMC to provide resources, care, and treatment to service calls to individuals living with mental illnesses. 

(Fort Bragg Police Presser)

LAND STEWARDSHIP WORKSHOPS at the Bell Valley Retreat at The Toll House

Hosted by Bell Valley Retreat at The Toll House (not an AV Village program), 12378 Boonville Road, Boonville, CA 95415

Grazing Livestock for Soil Health, Biodiversity, and Productivity - June 5 (Saturday) and 6 (Sunday) 10am - 3pm

Fire season is just around the corner, and managed grazing offers an elegant system that builds soil health and resilience to wildfires. 

Join Bell Valley as we welcome two leading managed grazing practitioners, Ruthie King and Richard King for a two-day workshop on Grazing for Soil Health June 5th & 6th. More info and to register: https://gmail.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=cea1e601922fa82e47579cc80&id=9c50a9d46a&e=358077c1c9

Free Fir Pole Event at Bell Valley - Sunday June 6th from 4pm - 5pm. Come learn about how our land stewardship work has yielded useful building material in the form of carbon-stable, Douglas fir poles, and learn what to do with them! More info and to register: https://gmail.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=cea1e601922fa82e47579cc80&id=5ecdfc89cb&e=358077c1c9

Free Fir Pole Pickup for our community May 21st - June 6th. To access these poles, please respond via this survey: (https://gmail.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=cea1e601922fa82e47579cc80&id=fe73d989f0&e=358077c1c9) with your requests for fir poles by May 14th, 2021, or sooner! More info: https://gmail.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=cea1e601922fa82e47579cc80&id=e9108eb505&e=358077c1c9

A RECENT TOURIST WEBSITE write up about the wonderful benefits of visiting Mendocino County included this picture of Lake Mendocino as the first reason to visit:

We wonder if anyone will complain about false advertising?

HELP!

Long time coastal couple looking for a long term rental anywhere from Cleone to Navarro.

Long time coastal couple looking for a long term rental anywhere from Cleone to Navarro. My name is Terra and my Hubby’s name is Wayne. We have both lived in the Fort Bragg/Mendocino area most of our lives, in fact we met in high school here and have raised our three, now grown and on their own, children here. In fact our two grandchildren are growing up in this amazing area as well. We have recently been notified by our landlord of 9+ years, that his circumstances have changed and we will soon need to be moving out. This has come as a complete unexpected shock and we are in desperate need of finding a new home. Both of us have our careers in this area, not to mention our kids and grandkids. Wayne works in construction and I work as the Lodging Manager at Little River Inn. We are both very responsible, quiet, reliable, none drug users or smokers. We have excellent credit, rental, professional and personal references. 

We are open to almost any type of rental, 1 or more bedrooms. We do have 2 well-behaved (I know everyone says that, but it is true) older, friendly, mix breed, outside only, female dogs. Would like to have some type of outdoor storage for hubby’s tools. If it is a piece of property that has a large yard that needs kept up....we come with a newer ride on mower and enjoy keeping a nice yard. We would also be open to someone with a piece of property that they would rent out with hookups for a nice, larger size travel trailer (we have considered purchasing one if need be). Depending on the place, we are able to pay up to $1,800/mo. 

If you have such a place or know of any leads, please reach out to us. We would be extremely grateful. My number is 707-972-4979 and my email is terraw@littleriverinn.com.

Terra Wagner

HI HO, STEVE-O, OFF TO JAIL YOU GO

On Monday, May 3, 2021 at 12:38 AM, Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to a reported domestic violence incident that had just occurred at a residence on Timberwood Way in Gualala.

Deputies arrived and contacted a 39 year old female who reported her boyfriend had become upset with her, slapped her in the face, then attempted to choke her. The adult female had injuries on her face and neck, consistent with the reported incident.

Deputies checked the property and contacted Steven Ainsworth, 33, of Bartlett, New Hampshire in a travel trailer on the same property.

During the contact, Deputies arrested him for Domestic Violence Battery.

Ainsworth was booked into Mendocino County Jail, where he was to be held in lieu of $25,000 bail.

========================

MIDNIGHT WITH GHOST GUN ON NORTH STATE

On 05-02-2021 at about 12:02 A.M, a Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputy conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle in the 1300 block of North State Street in Ukiah, California.

The Deputy contacted the driver, Anthony Fortner, 32, of Boca Raton, Florida, and a male passenger.

Fortner exited his vehicle and walked over to the passenger side door, appearing nervous and not wanting the Deputy to approach the driver side of the vehicle.

The passenger opened the passenger door and the Deputy saw multiple opened alcoholic beverage containers in the passenger door area. The passenger admitted to having open containers in the vehicle and consuming alcoholic beverages in the vehicle.

A search of the vehicle for further evidence of open alcoholic beverages was conducted.

During the search, bulk quantity of processed cannabis bud was located near a partially consumed alcoholic beverage. While searching beneath the driver seat, the Deputy located a loaded, 9mm semi-automatic handgun.

The Deputy examined the firearm and was unable to locate a serial number. The serial number tab was blank and no make, model or caliber information was present on the firearm. Based on these observations, the Deputy determined it was an unregistered firearm, commonly referred to as a "Ghost Gun".

Based on the totality of the investigation, Fortner was arrested for being in possession of a loaded, unregistered firearm.

The passenger was released from the scene without charges.

Fortner was transported to the Mendocino County Jail where he was booked, to be released after the jail booking process on zero bail pursuant to COVID-19 bail schedule set forth by the State of California Judicial Council.

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BRANDON, AVRIL, PERCOCET, AND A GLOCK

On Saturday, May 1 2021 at about 10:07 P.M, a Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputy conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle in the area of Highway 20 and Marina Drive in Redwood Valle.

The Deputy contacted a male driver (Brandon Gene Maxfield, 28, of Nice) and a female passenger (Avril Wright, 18, of Nice).

It was learned that Maxfield was on probation out of Mendocino County and was subject to search. Prior to the search submitting to the search, the Deputy was told a firearm and percocet pills were located inside the vehicle.

Believing she had an outstanding warrant for her arrest, Wright identified herself as someone else in an attempt to elude arrest. Wright's identification card was found during the search, revealing her true identity.

The Deputy recovered a loaded Glock 9mm caliber pistol from the glove box of the vehicle. A records check on the firearm was conducted. The firearm was listed as stolen out of the Bay Area.

The Deputy recovered several percocet pills from within the passenger area of the vehicle.

Based on the totality of the investigation, Maxfield and Wright were arrested and transported to the Mendocino County Jail.

At the jail, Wright was found to be in possession of suspected methamphetamine and unknown pills, and a methamphetamine smoking pipe, all of which she had concealed on her person.

Maxfield and Wright were booked on charges of:

Brandon Gene Maxfield:

• Possess Controlled Substance with Armed Firearm
• Carry a Loaded Firearm not Registered as Owner
• Carry a Concealed Firearm in a Vehicle
• Possession of Stolen Property
• Violation of Probation

Avril Wright:

• False Impersonation of Another)
• Bringing a Controlled Substance into a County Jail)
• Possession of a Controlled Substance)
• Possession of Controlled Substance Paraphernalia)

Bail was set at $25,000 for Maxfield and $15,000 for Wright.

THE TRAVELING HEMP MUSEUM

To the Editor,

Thank you Willits and Mendocino County folks for supporting this unique cultural history including exhibits for our local Emerald City Counter Culture and the Traveling Hemp Museum. So much fun at our Re-opening on 420 in the heart of Willits!

We are a new jewel in the crown of the Emerald Triangle.

A Big shout out to Pete Swanton and Steve Marston for their continuing generosity making the old Rexall available for our exhibits.

Greg Schindel played music, Chris Moore exhibited vintage Volkswagens, thank you both! And we had speakers and special guests.

This exhibit of our mutual history is for our mutual benefit, to attract tourism and to offer future educational events. Richard Jergenson has offered this gift to us from his many years of collecting “Back to the Land” memorabilia of our area and beyond.

Willits has everything it takes to be a prime visitor spot and tourism location. We hope tourists will love to visit both of our Museums!

Please stop in and see what we have done; this exhibit recognizes Willits as a major historical site of the counter culture, the back to the land movement, and origin cannabis culture. The Traveling Hemp Museum is an amazing collection that encompasses the world. We are also celebrating the 51st. anniversary of the iconic ProtoPipe, made here in Willits, as well as a vibrant 420 Art Gallery showcasing 10 local artists.

Whether you love cannabis or not, it is part of our shared local history. Behind the scenes cannabis has supported our economy for decades, even though we couldn’t see it because it was invisible.

We are losing our legacy farmers since legalization and the overregulation by our county and state, but we can capitalize on our history.

This museum announces to the world that we are indeed The Emerald City of The Emerald Triangle.

Thank you to all who have so generously donated, contributed and continue to support this creation, the Emerald City Museum and 420 Art Gallery. We are located in the old Willits Pharmacy, right downtown, open on weekends — Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. through the end of June.

Annie Waters & Richard Jergenson

Willits

FIRST FRIDAY ART WALK returns May 7th 5:00p-8:00p

After a year-long hiatus the Galleries and Hosts in Downtown Ukiah are excited to welcome you back to the Ukiah Art Walk. We will adhere to current COVID restrictions: masks must be worn at all times and capacity will be limited to 50%. Many locations are forgoing offering refreshments and instead inviting you to purchase a meal, snack or drink from a local restaurant and enjoy it in the "Streeterie: Eatery in the Street" an open air, sanitized outdoor dining area in the 100 block of North School Street. There will be live music with the Canova Records kids and local band Weird Year at the Streeterie.

The Corner Gallery (201 S State St) will celebrate the opening of the High School Photography Show in our front windows and back Art Center Ukiah space. This show will be a retrospective of the best student work of the past ten years. In addition, all gallery members will be exhibiting new work on their walls. The gallery will be open from 5-8pm, with music by Steve Winkle.

Bona Marketplace (116 W Standley St) Bona is excited to welcome the community back to the First Friday Art Walk. They will host Willow Laland-Yielding. Stop by and see Willows new paintings and say hello.

Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate - Wine Country Group (320 S State St) will host Mehan Gunter. She is a local artist who started painting two years ago. Mehan left a stressful job started painting and never looked back. She is a firm believe that art is therapy, and has helped her in every aspect of her life. She tries to paint every day because it makes her a happier person. Mehan describes her art as "fluid art". She uses a lot of techniques while manipulating the paint with anything and everything.

Ukiah Valley Networking Agency (104 N School St) Tim S Poma as our May artist. Tim will be showcasing brand new art as well as some of your favorites and prints for sale. Tim S. Poma is best known for his bright and colorful thrown and dripped paintings of landscapes, poppies, Volkswagens and abstract objects painted with latex house paint. Self-taught, Poma began painting as means of releasing emotions, specifically disappointment and frustration. Through his exploratory out bust of passion and a desire to create, Poma began throwing paint feverishly to alleviate his sadness, and in the process he found a joy he did not know existed. Poma has been painting ever since 2012 in the small Northern California town called Ukiah. Poma’s methods of creation include: dripping, smearing, throwing and finger-painting on canvas to get his desired look. He oftentimes uses tools such as a palette knife or a paint stir-stick to help with the creation of a given painting, and rarely uses paintbrushes but is not opposed. Although Poma was never formally trained as an artist, he has had several influential art teachers in his life who helped inspire his path as an artist. From his Color and Composition teacher at Mendocino College, Paula Grey, to his Ceramics teacher Doug Browe, each left a lasting impression on him that still inspires him today.

Greater Ukiah Business and Tourism Alliance (200 S School St) The Greater Ukiah Business and Tourism Alliances will feature local artists in a pop up display. Art may be viewed at the Ukiah Conference Center. This month GUBTA is proud to showcase the work of: "Makers Make Fun" - 3D Art and Assemblage, Laura Buckner / Robin Goldner / Dorothy Gayle Haas / Karen Haas / Leslie Kirkpatrick. World Renowned and Local Painter - Marco Donner

Grace Hudson Sun House Museum (431 S Main St) Get a sneak preview of the exhibition *Postcards from Mecca* before its official opening on May 8. Reacquaint yourselves with the Grace Hudson Museum’s core galleries. And enjoy a spring evening with a stroll around the Wild Gardens.

We look forward to welcoming you back to First Friday Art Walks in Downtown Ukiah. If you have any questions please call Mo Mulheren, 707-391-3664 or email ukiahvalleynetworking@gmail.com

— Maureen Mulheren

CATCH OF THE DAY, May 5, 2021

JOEL ALVAREZ-LOPEZ, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

DANIEL DODDS, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. DUI, misdemeanor hit&run, parole violation.

EVAN FONTAINE, Rio Dell/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

MICHAEL HASELIP, Eureka/Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

KRISTO OUSEY, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

MELINA SALAZAR, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #2

Speaking about the government, Tuesdays are our food-shopping days. Today’s weekly food bill at Whole Paycheck – I mean Whole Foods – was $262 for the two of us. And we are vegetarians, so we don’t buy meat. But the government has been saying until very recently, that inflation is very low. Luckily, we can afford it and we eat pretty well. 

How can the average person afford to spend so much on food? Inflation has hidden costs besides devaluing the dollar. The family which is struggling, and there’s millions of them, can’t afford high quality food, or even enough food. Instead, they buy unhealthy, Hi-carb meals that temporarily fill them up, but lead to obesity, ultimately diabetes and heart disease. A lot of hospital costs result from poor diets, thereby contributing to more and more government expenditures. All because we are mismanaging every facet of our lives.

Personally, I don’t mind paying a lot for food because I’m very concerned about Jeff Bezos’ finances. He’s down to his last $150 billion. /sarc.

THEY DON'T REALIZE you've got to make boxing a kind of religion. You believe in yourself and you believe in the things you have to do. You never forget them for a minute. Then you get to the top and you think of what you had to go through and you ask yourself, “Was it worth it?” And it should have been. For me, it cost a lot, but it was worth everything.

- Rocky Marciano

PREJUDICIAL REMARKS

Editor: 

Rep. Maxine Waters was not censured for calling on her followers to get more active and get more confrontational if the jury voted to acquit Derek Chauvin in George Floyd’s death. But the trial judge admonished her, saying that her statements could be an issue during an appeal if Chauvin was found guilty.

What happens if her statements result in a retrial? Do the witnesses have to relive that terrible night again, and is a second guilty verdict assured? Also, how do her statements affect the upcoming trial of the three officers who were with Chauvin?

Jon Yatabe

Bodega Bay

THE LATEST TARGET of the woke brigade's self-righteous ire is Disney's Snow White's Enchanted Wish ride at the theme park in Anaheim, California, which has just reopened after 400 days. Changes to the ride, which was originally called Snow White's Scary Adventure and has existed in various forms since 1955 without offending anyone, include new audio and visual technology, laser projections, and a state-of-the-art animation system. Disney said visitors would be 'absolutely blown away by this dazzling attraction and such a sweet storyline.' However, it now ends with the famous scene from the smash hit movie of the iconic 'true love's kiss' between the Prince and Snow White as she sleeps. In a review of Disneyland's revamped Snow White ride, posted at the weekend, two female journalists on SFGate, digital arm of the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, expressed their outrage at the Prince's conduct. Katie Dowd and Julie Tremaine were appalled by 'a kiss he gives to her without her consent, while she's asleep, which cannot possibly be true love if only one person knows it's happening.' My question for the wailing wokies is this: given that the ONLY way for Snow White to come out of her 'sleeping death' is to receive a 'true love's kiss', and given that the Prince is her only true love, and given that he thinks she's dead....if he hadn't kissed her when he did, then she would never have come out of her sleeping death. In other words, she would remain effectively dead. So, the logical conclusion of the woke campaign to stop the Prince kissing her is that they would prefer for Snow White to be dead, and that seems a highly 'problematic' place for these supposed feminist warriors to find themselves. I refuse to let this happen. I stand with the chivalrous Prince and won't let the wokies kill Snow White.

— Piers Morgan

TRAVELS IN MEXICO

by Paul Theroux

The best parts of Mexico for me were the inexpensive meals that were delicious, cheap hotels that were comfortable, and friendly people who, out of politeness, seldom complained to outsiders of their dire circumstances: poor pay, criminal gangs, a country without good health care and pensions, crooked police, cruel soldiers, and a government indifferent to the plight of most citizens. I found that in these circumstances, the people I met overcame these infernalities by either being obstinate and wicked themselves, or, in most cases being kind, in a mood of acceptance, understanding that voicing objections can get you hurt or killed.

A VERY SHORT STORY

by Ernest Hemingway

One hot evening in Padua they carried him up onto the roof and he could look out over the top of the town. There were chimney swifts in the sky. After a while it got dark and the searchlights came out. The others went down and took the bottles with them. He and Luz could hear them below on the balcony. Luz sat on the bed. She was cool and fresh in the hot night.

Luz stayed on night duty for three months. They were glad to let her. When they operated on him she prepared him for the operating table; and they had a joke about friends or enema. He went under the anesthetic holding tight onto himself so he would not blab about anything during the silly, talky time. After he got on crutches he used to take the temperatures so Luz would not have to get up from the bed. There were only a few patients, and they all knew about it. They all liked Luz. As he walked back along the halls he thought of Luz in his bed.

Before he went back to the front they went into the Duomo and prayed. It was dim and quiet, and there were other people praying. They wanted to get married but there was not enough time for the banns, and neither of them had birth certificates. They felt as though they were married, But they wanted everyone to know about it, and to make it so they could not lose it.

Luz wrote him many letters that he never got until after the armistice. Fifteen came in a bunch to the front and he'd sorted them by the dates and read them all straight through. They were all about the hospital, and how much she loved him and how it was impossible to get along without him and how terrible it was missing him at night.

After the armistice they agreed he should go home to get a job so they might be married. Luz would not come home until he had a good job and could come to New York to the meet her. It was understood he would not drink, and he did not want to see his friends or anyone in the states, only to get a job and be married. On the train from Padua to Milan they quarreled about her not being willing to come home at once. When they had to say goodbye in the station at Milan they kissed goodbye, but they were not finished with the quarrel. He felt sick about saying goodbye like that.

He went to America on a boat from Genoa. Luz went back to Pordonone to open a hospital. It was lonely and rainy there, and there was a battalion of arditi quartered in the town. Living in the muddy, rainy town in the winter, the major of the battalion made love to Luz and she had never known Italians before and finally wrote to the states that theirs had been only a boy and girl affair. She was sorry, and she knew he would probably not be able to understand, but might someday forgive her, and be grateful to her, and she expected, absolutely unexpectedly, to be married in the spring. She loved him as always, but she realized now it was only a boy and girl love. She hoped he would have a great career and believed in him absolutely. She knew it was for the best.

The major did not marry her in the spring or any other time. Luz never got an answer to the letter to Chicago about it. A short time after, he contracted gonorrhea from a salesgirl in a loop department store while riding in a taxi cab through Lincoln Park.

BROKEN BARGAINS: How global finance dictates profits of pandemic relief

by Anne Orford

A vital battle is playing out at the World Trade Organization over the temporary waiver of intellectual property rules related to Covid-19 vaccines, treatments and technology. In October 2020, India and South Africa proposed the suspension of the relevant provisions of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) until widespread vaccination has been achieved. The proposal has now been officially co-sponsored by sixty governments and supported by more than a hundred. The waiver has also been backed by more than four hundred civil society groups, the World Health Organization, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the South Center, UNAIDS, thousands of parliamentarians from around the globe, and more than 170 former heads government and Nobel laureates. 

Yet seven months on, the TRIPS waiver continues to be blocked by a small but powerful group of WTO member states, including the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Norway and Switzerland.

The discussion of the resulting stalemate at the WTO has quite properly focused on the spectacle of wealthy states privileging the monopoly rights of their powerful pharmaceutical corporations over the global effort to protect public health during a pandemic. 

While the number of daily deaths from Covid continues to rise, the small group of countries opposing the TRIPS waiver has collectively secured most of the available production of vaccines for 2021. The Economist Intelligence Unit has predicted that 85 countries will not see a substantial roll-out until 2023. There is also a marked lack of transparency about the terms on which wealthy states have been able to secure priority access to vaccine supplies.

Much of the debate takes the existence and legitimacy of the TRIPS Agreement and the property rights it lays down as a given. That’s a testament to the way that enshrining highly contested political positions in international agreements can make them appear necessary and inevitable. 

The TRIPS Agreement came into effect in 1995 as part of a broad new suite of trade agreements resulting from the Uruguay Round of multilateral negotiations that led to the creation of the WTO. The agreements were treated as a ‘single undertaking’. States had to sign up to all of them if they wanted to join the new organisation.

On its own, the TRIPS Agreement was a strikingly bad deal for most countries, especially in relation to the expanded patent regime it established. The design of domestic patent laws had always been a complex political exercise. Patents create property rights in knowledge about inventions and give the patent owner monopoly control over the physical production of material objects derived from those inventions for a limited period. States traditionally designed their patent laws to achieve a balance between two goals: rewarding inventive work and enabling the spread of useful knowledge. They did so by granting patents for only a limited term, requiring that the patent be worked within the country, ensuring that the invention was published in a manner that enabled others to learn how to manufacture it, and limiting the inventions over which patents could be granted to exclude essential commodities.

Many European countries refused to grant patents over medicines until well into the 20th century. The practice became more widespread in the decades after the Second World War, largely under pressure from the US. 

European states that granted patents for pharmaceutical processes or products tended to do so for short periods, and required that the patents be worked within the country so local firms could gain the necessary manufacturing skills. In the 1970s, states such as India and Brazil decided to exclude pharmaceutical products from their patent laws, facilitating the emergence of a successful generic pharmaceutical industry that threatened to expose the inflated prices of medicines in Western markets.

The 1980s saw the beginning of an aggressive campaign by the United States, working with Pfizer and other major US companies, to introduce a US-style patent system on a global scale. The negotiation of the TRIPS Agreement was one of the most important achievements of that campaign. Existing international agreements governing intellectual property were largely unenforceable and maintained a compromise between the private interests of rights holders and the public interest. The genius of the Uruguay Round negotiations was to link global intellectual property rights with the enforcement mechanisms of the new trade dispute settlement system.

The TRIPS Agreement required states to put in place robust patent regimes covering all forms of technology, including pharmaceuticals, and extended the length of patent protection to twenty years. For many in the Global South, it was seen as a form of recolonization, creating new forms of property in seeds, traditional knowledge and medicines. The lack of a requirement that patents be worked in countries where they were registered effectively turned them into mechanisms for securing exclusive rights over global export markets. The agreement included a set of exceptional measures that states could take in the event of a public health emergency, including the capacity to issue compulsory licences allowing someone other than a patent holder to manufacture a patented product. Yet attempts by states to make use of the flexibilities supposedly built into the TRIPS Agreement were routinely met with the threat of expensive litigation at the WTO or investment arbitration. The TRIPS provisions also required member states to engage in cumbersome and lengthy negotiations with newly empowered patent holders, who showed little interest in meeting governments halfway.

Most states had nothing to gain and much to lose from signing the TRIPS Agreement. They did so because it was part of a broader package. The wide-ranging agenda of the Uruguay Round negotiations meant that a loss in one area could be offset by a win in another. States that joined the WTO undertook to resolve their trade disputes through its newly created settlement mechanism overseen by an Appellate Body. The willingness of the US to submit its complaints to that system, rather than continue its heavy-handed use of unilateral sanctions, anti-dumping duties and countervailing practices as retaliation, was a significant factor in the decision of many states to sign up to the WTO agreements.

The US, however, has now torn up its part of the Uruguay Round deal. Both the Obama and Trump administrations blocked appointments to the Appellate Body in protest at a series of decisions with which the US disagreed. The WTO dispute settlement system no longer functions in its original form. The US continues to rely on a raft of threats and economic sanctions to pursue its trade goals and has rejected the limitations on its economic policy-making imposed by the WTO dispute settlement system.

Most states that signed up to the TRIPS Agreement were not swayed by the moral urgency of the claims of pharmaceutical lobbyists, or a belief in the primacy of property rights over all other public goods. They were making a larger bargain. The circumstances in which it was made have fundamentally changed. The US has walked away from the dispute settlement system. Resort to the meagre flexibilities of the TRIPS Agreement has been constrained by Western powers and big pharmaceutical companies. And the WTO is unable to reach agreement on the need to limit intellectual property rights to meet pressing public health needs during a pandemic, as the months-long debate over the Covid-related waiver illustrates.

The current scarcity of vaccines is the predictable effect of a system that allows the use of monopoly rights to control pharmaceutical production globally. The result is a moral catastrophe as well as an ongoing public health and economic crisis. The ability of a handful of powerful companies based in Europe and the US to claim property rights over innovations resulting from the collective processes of modern science, and to use those rights to control the pace of manufacture and thus the price of pharmaceutical products, is not an unfortunate side effect of this system but its specific goal. It’s past time for states to terminate the TRIPS Agreement and the failed model of global monopoly rights that it champions.

TIM COOK, APPLE & RUNAWAY LIMITLESS CORPORATE GREED

by Ralph Nader

David Gelles, the New York Times reporter, likes to report about corporate plutocrats raking it in while stifling or endangering their workers. We’ve all seen those large advertisements by big companies praising the sacrifices of their brave workers during this Covid-19 pandemic. When workers ask for living wages, most of these bosses say “No” but take plenty of dough for themselves.

Gelles reports that Boeing, after its criminal negligence brought down two 737 MAX planes and killed 346 people, went into a corporate tailspin. The company laid off 30,000 workers and its sales and stocks plummeted as it reported a $12 billion loss. 

No matter, the new Boeing boss, David Calhoun, managed to pay himself about $10,500 an hour, forty hours a week, plus benefits and perks.

“Executives are minting fortunes, while laid-off workers line up at food banks,” writes Gelles. Carefully chosen Boards of Directors rubberstamp lavish compensation packages, as they haul in big money themselves for attending a few Board meetings.

It gets worse. Hilton Hotel had many rooms empty due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But CEO Chris Nassetta made sure his pockets weren’t empty. He was paid $55.9 million in compensation in 2020 or more than a million dollars a week!

Gelles goes on to report that with “the cruise industry at a standstill…,” the Norwegian Cruise Line, “doubled the pay of Frank Del Rio, its chief executive, to $36.4 million.” That is more than $700,000 per week. He must have worked overtime counting empty ships and red ink.

T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint got government antitrust approval with the assurance that more jobs would be created with cost savings. Instead, they’re starting layoffs while awarding CEO Mike Sievert over a million dollars a week. Sometimes, CEOs make more dollars from their company than the entire company itself makes in profits. Companies that lay off workers pay their top executives huge amounts, and still have the avarice to demand and get federal stimulus grants.

On March 22, the New York Times reported a new analysis by IRS researchers and academics about tax evasion by the richest 1% of U.S. households. Taken as a whole, these super-rich don’t even report a fifth of their income, according to this study. The ultra-wealthy get away with this heist by offshoring to tax havens and pass-through businesses. Adding to this unlawful evasion is their upper-class power over Congress to rig the tax laws so they can avoid even more taxes.

The Republicans, by starving the IRS budget and audit staff over the past decade, have aided and abetted enormous tax evasions. Curiously, the cowardly Democrats have not made this an issue in their campaigns against the GOP. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year are at stake.

Trump, of course, made matters worse. ProPublica found the IRS audited the poor at around the same rate as the richest Americans.

Big Corporations make out like no mere individuals. Earlier this month, the New York Times told its readers that The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) study revealed: “55 of the nation’s largest corporations paid no federal income tax on more than $40 billion in profits last year.” These companies even received $3.5 billion in rebates from the Treasury Department, so zany are the fine-print tax bonanzas.

Twenty-six corporations paid no federal income taxes since 2017, according to the ITEP study. These included Nike and FedEx.

Corporations get lots of these tax breaks by arguing before Congress that they need them to invest and create jobs. Repeatedly, these promises turn out to be patently false. Some have called them are out and out lies, citing profits totaling over $7 trillion in the past decade being shredded in buybacks of the companies’ own stock.

Apple, whose quasi-monopoly reaps huge quarterly profits, just announced another $90 billion in stock buybacks. Apple doesn’t know what to do with its cash from vastly overpriced computers and iPhones. Apple, not surprisingly, pays very little in federal income taxes to Uncle Sam – despite the U.S. being the land of its birth and source of ample R & D corporate welfare paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

CEO Tim Cook, arguably the most miserly CEO plutocrat in America, turns a deaf ear to health, labor, and environmental specialists pleading with him to address the solid waste of its junked electronic products and pay its serf-labor in China a living wage. These two expenditures would not consume 10 percent of Apple’s enormous profits. To which, Emperor Cook says no dice.

Testifying before the Senate Finance Committee, Kimberly A. Clausing, a U.S. Treasury official, said, according to the Washington Post, that while other wealthy nations typically raise roughly 3 percent of GDP through corporate taxes, in the United States that share fell to just 1 percent following the 2017 Trump tax cut−all while corporate profits, as a share of U.S. GDP, were setting records.

The usual progressive members of Congress issue denunciations of this whole corporate, ultra-rich tax escape racket. Nearly 7 in 10 Americans believe corporations pay too little in taxes, according to Gallup polling. Unfortunately, nothing happens in Congress to address this injustice.

When are the American people going to move on to Congress and their Big Boy paymasters? When the plutocratic class evades taxes, either there are fewer public services, more public deficits, or higher taxes on the middle class. As Joe Biden says – they must pay “their fair share.” People, use your civic muscle to make your members of Congress act and do it, now!

CALIFORNIA KEEPS MILLIONS IN CHILD SUPPORT while parents drown in debt

Half of Stacy Estes’ pay disappears every month before it hits his bank account. Each check is about $500 lighter than it should be, intercepted in the name of child support — which he wouldn’t have a problem with, if it were going to his kids. Instead, only $225 goes to his children. The rest is garnished to repay government debt he began accruing more than two decades ago when he first got behind on child support payments. 

calmatters.org/projects/california-keeps-millions-in-child-support-while-parents-drown-in-debt/

COAST DEMOCRATIC CLUB ZOOM MEETING (May 6, 6-7:30 pm)

Stop The Republican Recall!

Strategic Planning With: Lizzie Heyboer, Organizing Director, California Democratic Party

Request For Audit Of The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office: Andy Wellspring, Mendocino Chapter, Standing Up For Racial Justice 

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HEROES AND PATRIOTS, KMUD COMMUNITY RADIO, THURSDAY, MAY 5, 9:00 A.M. -- Katrina Vanden Heuvel -- Program Hosts: John Sakowicz & Mary Massey.

Editorial Director and Publisher of The Nation magazine, Katrina vanden Heuvel recently wrote for the Washington Post: “The successful campaign to block Matthew Rojansky’s appointment is ominous for Biden’s Russia policy”: “When a new administration comes to Washington, the flowery rhetoric and springtime promises are often less revealing than who is put where to run the place. That’s why many of Washington’s most scurrilous campaigns are backstage fights over potential appointments. And that’s why the successful campaign to block the appointment of Matthew Rojansky as Russia director on the National Security Council is not only a sad reflection of the poisonous state of the debate on Russian policy today, but also an ominous sign for Biden’s foreign policy going forward. …

Katrina vanden Heuvel is vice-president of the American Committee for U.S.-Russia Accord, a group interested in an informed dialogue about improving U.S.-Russia relations. The group recently participated in a talk organized by the Committee for the Republic on the critical issues confronting U.S.-Russian relations.

www.heroespatriots.org 

Heroes and Patriots is a program about national security, intelligence and foreign policy. The show is streamed live the first Thursday of each month, 9-10 a.m. at KMUD.ORG