Off the Record (September 8, 2021)

DUAL REALITIES or the onset of schizophrenia? Half the country assumes Biden is out of it, a half-step from ga-ga. The other half, as represented by the big-toothed weasels at CNN and MSNBC won't even, in their weasely way, discuss the possibility that Biden is incapacitated, a hollowed-out hollow man from the get anyway. So, a coupla nights ago there he was half live at five to tell the South to prepare for the storm about to hit them, nevermind that they've lived with these disasters since they were born. Biden slurs through statements of the obvious then, as he turns to totter off, he pauses, apparently stopped by a shouted question: “I'm not supposed to take questions, but go ahead.” The lady reporter went ahead. Biden snapped, “I'm not going to answer Afghanistan now.”

“I’M NOT supposed to answer questions?” So, who's in charge here? Seems something sinister is afoot. Biden's anon handlers obviously know their faux president is in no condition to respond extemporaneously to questions, let alone run the country in a time as fraught as this time, but they keep shoving the old guy out there in lieu of. In lieu of whom? Kamala? Not ready for the big leagues, and wildly unpopular even with millions of Democrats, not to mention the frothing Maga millions. With no leadership of the adult, capable type anywhere prominently out there… Well, we can't say we don't live in interesting times.

SO, who are you Mr. 82-year-old editor to be talking bad about poor old Joe? I'm confident I could handle the media feebs the prexy can't be trusted to back and forth with, but I'll admit to occasional tottering, especially after long seated sessions in front of the magic box. And I also have to look up the spelling of words I used to know how to spell. And I have trouble with short term memory stuff like remembering the diff between the supervisors and the last five eggs in the carton. But all-in-all I'm available to replace poor old Joe if the Democrats need hurry-up help from the bush leagues.

YOU KNOW how bad Hurricane Ida was? David Muir came in on Sunday to report it for ABC!

ATTN CASPAR, an on-line comment: “If you’re living in or around Caspar, make sure to note that the Department of Forestry has locked two gates across your emergency evacuation route during peak fire season. This is just another example of the Department of Forestry’s incompetence and lack of public safety awareness. Road 500 runs the north border of the Caspar 500 Timber Harvest Plan (THP). To keep the community out of the area, the Department of Forestry installed a logging gate on the West and East ends of the THP. Because this road is an emergency evacuation route, the gates were closed, but left unlocked with 24/7 “security” guards on site to open the gates as necessary. This meant that in an emergency, anyone could open the gate and drive through. NOW, the security guards have been dismissed leaving bags of trash scattered by wildlife, and the gates shut and locked. There has already been one fire close to Caspar this summer and another could happen any time. This is not safe.” 

NO PARADES OR YELLOW RIBBONS but most Americans, including this one, held the view that the people who fought and died in Vietnam were sent there by the lying, cynical leadership of the country. And please don't trot out that disproven canard that Vietnam vets were spat on and called baby killers when they came home. "The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam is a 1998 book by Vietnam veteran and sociology professor Jerry Lembcke that definitively slam dunks that one. Lembcke could not verify a single instance of spitting or insults ever happening. How did the myth start? With the political right, of course, to discredit the millions of people who knew that, Vietnam was a lie, and to discredit the lib-left generally in furtherance of the interests of the rancid legions who profit from wars, as they have just recently in Afghanistan.

POLICE CARS raced through Boonville last Thursday morning shortly before noon. "Red Beard sighting," we agreed. Then we got word that a vast area between Albion and Greenwood ridges had received nixle alerts explaining the reason for the heavy police presence in the Albion Nation. Above it, too, in the form of at least once circling helicopter, according to our source. Was the fugitive run to ground? Shot? Shot and killed? 

RED BEARD has been roaming the Navarro watershed since January when he was caught on a home security camera provisioning uninvited at a Cameron Road home. He has been hunted ever since with a number of clever tech devices and, on the Memorial Day weekend, a massive, multi-jurisdictional search. The Beard has eluded all these strategies and, predictably, has become something of a folk hero in the more estranged neighborhoods in the Albion area. As we wrapped up Thursday night, he was still out there.

REDBEARD, an on-line comment: “A number of years back, in Maine, there was another guy whose story was similar to that of the Redbearded Burglar. This guy —the Maine Hermit, he came to be known as — had been doing his thing for years before they finally caught up with him. He’d go into these people’s homes and take things, but nothing of tremendous value. A lot of times it would be just food items, so he could eat. When they eventually found him, he was camped out way back in the woods. On cold winter nights he’d even forego lighting a fire, so as to avoid detection. A little bit like Theodore Kaczynski, except that even Ted owned his place and lived in a proper shed. In the end, he was given probation, part of the terms being that he either get a job or go to school. I don’t remember which he chose.”

PLUNGING THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: Biden said last week that the evacuation from Kabul was an “extraordinary success” as he blamed Trump for the fiasco. “My predecessor, the former president, signed an agreement with the Taliban to remove U.S. troops by May 1, just months after I was inaugurated.” Biden said Trump's deal with the Taliban got 5,000 Taliban prisoners released last year, “including some of the Taliban's top war commanders among those that just took control of Afghanistan. By the time I came to office, the Taliban was in its strongest military position since 2001,” Biden said, going on to claim that he was left with no viable options but to pull out over the weekend.

COL SCHELLER, USMC, had blasted his command structure for their handling of the Afghan exit, for which he was relieved of his duties. He has now resigned his commission, effective September 11th, after the Marines ordered him to undergo a psych exam. “Guy's gotta be nuts,” was the Pentagon's reasoning, “to criticize us.” Scheller, rightly insulted, promptly resigned. 

THEN THE MARINES, aware of the colonel's popular support, announced, “The Marine Corps is taking appropriate action to ensure the safety and well-being of Lt. Col. Scheller and his family. As this is a developing situation, we cannot comment further at this time.”

BUT SCHELLER commented in a way that has me wondering how many junior military officers are thinking coup. The Magas would then have the leadership they need, and, and, and, … Well, here's what Scheller said as he exited the Corps: “We the people seek change. We the people seek leadership. We the people seek accountability. We the people WILL take it. Every generation needs a revolution.”

THE SUPERVISORS found themselves in the middle of a bizarre dispute Tuesday. What began as a routine appointment of Assistant Auditor Chamise Cubbison to fill out the remaining term of retiring Auditor Lloyd Weer, saw DA David Eyster, in full bluster mode, zoom in to claim that Ms. Cubbison was “wrong” in requiring documentation to accompany a grant claim. Ditto for several DA staffers’ claims for training-related travel.

MS. CUBBISON had rejected the claims for not being accompanied by the proper paperwork backup, and already taxpayers should fall in love with this lady for scrupulously guarding the public purse against windy big spenders like the DA who, incidentally, plays the CEO like a bass viola, getting whatever he wants from her like, for instance, a half-dozen or so investigators to investigate the three crimes a week committed by Mendocino County's master criminals.

EYSTER, though, insisted that the Auditor’s requirement didn’t apply to the DA’s office, and submitted various documents to allegedly prove his point.

BUT THE VALIANT Ms. Cubbison held her ground. She said she was simply following county policy, and as an independent auditor she was duty-bound to impose the local, state and federal rules as necessary.

UNACCUSTOMED to such impertinence from another county office, Eyster continued to insist that he was correct. Ms. Cubbison's predecessor also drew the DA's ire on occasion for simply challenging expenditures and categories of expenditures. The Auditor is supposed to be a nickelnoser. We should be grateful to this lady for challenging every dime these outback Caesers claim reimbursement for.

THE PEOPLE'S PROSECUTOR went on at length about how wrong Ms. Cubbison was, adding that her unapologetic wrongness disqualified her from being appointed interim Auditor.

THE WUSS QUINTET functioning as Supervisors seemed flummoxed by the dispute, and clearly didn’t like being put in a position to rule on the validity of the arguments of the two opposing officials, one of them Mendocino County's lead law enforcement officer.

AFTER several rounds of back and forth between Cubbison and Eyster, neither of whom budged from their positions, the Board punted, deciding to continue Ms. Cubbison as “acting” Auditor in the absence of Weer, but with maybe a pay increase to go with the “acting” position.

THE SUPES then discussed consolidating the offices of Treasurer and Auditor into a larger “Finance Director” job at a later date whenever their $75k-plus Strategic Planning consultant comes up with her undoubtedly clueless “strategic” plan.

A READER WRITES: “The DA’s internal dollars and cents person, whom I know and trust, tells me that the acting auditor is a zealous paperpusher who focuses too much time on inane rules and regulations. A bureaucrat already in the making. She like Weer is coming in via the backdoor because she doesn't have the qualifications the job description requires. What is with the board rehiring Weer as ‘special help’ if in fact his hand-picked successor is qualified? Mendocino has the legislative right to create a Chief Financial Officer, and it should. That is the way to recruit and hire a qualified individual to oversee the people's finances, kind of like a GAO. We don't need one more bureaucrat slowing down the process over nickels and dimes.”

A READER REBUTS: “Chamise Cubbison is a friend of mine, so I am probably biased. By the way, this is just my opinion from what I have heard, not Chamise’s. I know that Chamise is a sharp bookkeeper and the “accusation” that she is a nitpicker could indeed be correct from the perspective of those with what they consider to be nits. Chamise is also quite capable of standing up for herself and her interpretation of basic accounting rules. Except for the complaints from the DA, I am not aware of anyone else with public complaints about her performance. I suspect that she has somehow gotten on the wrong side of CEO Angelo and, considering the timing, this dispute between Chamise and the DA is another example of CEO Angelo’s behind the scenes orchestration of people who the CEO views as not under the CEO’s thumb. Like the Treasurer-Tax Collector, the Auditor is an independently elected office and not hired or fired by the CEO. The Auditor is also responsible for the very important revenue side of the County’s budget. The CEO needs the Auditor to play ball to make the budget appear ok. On top of that we’ve seen an increase in finance and budget staffing in the CEO’s office lately and a very understaffed Auditor’s office. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to imagine that the CEO is taking the opportunity of Mr. Weer’s retirement to take more control of the revenue side of the Budget and slow the process of filling vacancies in the Auditor’s office so that the CEO can have more control of the financial numbers and what is presented to the Supervisors. Then we have the District Attorney, a personal friend of CEO Angelo, whose complaints magically arise just as Chamise is up for the Interim Auditor appointment. And we have the CEO conveniently reminding the Board (through the County Counsel’s office) that they have an option of creating “Finance Director” position which would combine the independently elected Auditor and Treasurer positions into another unelected, high-salary manager for the CEO to hire and fire. (Did you notice that during the exchange on Tuesday, after the CEO riffed on the desirability of the “Finance Director” idea, the DA went out of his way to add with great fanfare: “CEO Angelo speaks the truth!”?) So I support the idea of an independent Auditor and the appointment of Chamise and I hope the Supervisors take immediate steps to make sure the Auditor’s office is fully staffed.”

BRIAN WOOD: “It’s always been my opinion that county salaries and benefits should be on par with what working residents earn at regular jobs in the county. I know that doesn’t happen anywhere but that doesn’t make it right. I suspect a lot of county “work” never gets done anyway.”

MY OPINION, TOO. And at all levels of government, which would make government much more sensitive to the needs of the governed if government had to live like the governed, the wolf at the door or even at the kitchen table all day every day. The Limo People at the loftier levels, and even the public job hacks and hackettes here in Mendo invariably claim, the dumber, less competitive ones anyway, “I could make a lot more money in the private sector.” Such selflessness to deign to pass up all that private money to “serve” us. But I'll bet that young crew of private sector managers at the Ukiah CostCo, given free rein, could have the SS Mendo off the rocks and sailing free, fast and full steam ahead for two thirds the money we pay our public sector managers.

SUPERVISOR MULHEREN: This is my statement from the 42 minute mark of the meeting: “I realize that Dr. Coren is the Public Health advisor I just want to be clear that businesses should not be the public health police. If you are choosing to move forward with this order it should be made very clear to the businesses what their expectations are for verification and which businesses are affected. Our small businesses are specifically targeted because they are honest and trying to support public health and the economy. This doesn't take in to consideration the people that refuse to cooperate with the contact tracing. Instead of placing this restriction on businesses public health should be encouraging testing and masking while indoors at restaurants and bars. I realize that large cities have been able to implement this policy but placing Mendocino County businesses in this position while surrounding counties have not adopted this policy puts our local residents and their businesses at risk of not being able to survive this roller coaster. I'm not in favor of deviating from the CDPH and CDC guidelines, it creates confusion amongst the public.”

VAX MANDATE

(from John McCowen)

The mask mandate is already in place. What Coren proposes to do is slap a vax mandate on restaurants and bars. More restrictive than any I have seen, it would require employers to require vax proof of every employee unless they have a verifiable medical reason not to, in which case proof of recent testing would be required. Other vax orders have allowed proof of testing for anyone who didn't want to be vaxed. 

“INCREASING hospitalizations and ICU admissions are stressing our hospital, and now we are seeing an increase in the number of deaths, mainly younger people, those who are unvaccinated,” Dr. Andy Coren told county supervisors on Aug. 31. (Press Democrat)

THE ABOVE GRAPHIC wafted out of cyber-space and on into the magic box of the Boonville weekly. It's a common trope among the Magas that liberals are interchangeable with communists and Marxists who, in the Magas vague understanding are behind everything the Magas think has gone haywire in the land. 

NOT to be too pointy-headed about it, and on the off chance some one among these hysterics is amenable to reason of the fact-based type, the New York Times, on its best days, is a conservative liberal newspaper pretty much reflective of the views held by the conservative liberals of the Democratic Party all the way down to Mendolib and their conservative liberal elected stalwarts, Huffman, McGuire and Wood. There are very few communists in America, maybe a half-million, and many of them holed up in faculty lounges rattling their teacups with the other castrati. General Milley, of all people, got it right. Paraphrasing, “Well, gee, knowing something about Marxism should be part of my general knowledge since the subject does come up. But knowing something about communism doesn't make me a communist just like knowing something about Islam doesn't make me a Muslim.”

KIM KARDASHIAN has millions of followers, and she's a lot more dangerous in her unrelenting advocacy for decadence than a handful of crackpots who think North Korea is the way to go. But there are millions of libs, me among them, who want to see, at last, Fair Play for Cuba, which doesn't mean we're uncritical of the Cuban government or want to see more than two — Cuba and North Korea — pseudo-Leninist dictatorships.

THE RIGHTWINGERS who deliberately conflate communism and liberalism do it on behalf of their billionaire paymasters, people like the Koch Bros and Elon Musk and Bezos who want to prevent fair taxation and a fair distribution of wealth that might give us saps a few of the civilized amenities enjoyed in the rest of the first world and much of the second world. (Malaysia and Indonesia offer a form of single payer medical care for all their citizens, as does Cuba and, I believe, Mexico.)

THE NYT as a communist newspaper also misunderstands contemporary China where The Great Helmsman is in almost total eclipse in favor of “to grow rich is glorious” but with socialist programs for its techno-captive population. China is more of a fascist state of the type dreamed of by Hitler and Mussolini than an imperial communist state of the old Russian type. China is not a communist country, you Fox-saturated morons, can you at least understand that much?

PLEASE EXCUSE the pontification coming out of Boonville today, but libs-as-communists annoys hell outta me. Me! You hear me, Magas? You want me to come over and drag you out of your naugahyde recliner and kick those iron-haired fat bastards on Fox in their TV pusses until you're able to make a few basic distinctions? 

“INCREASING hospitalizations and ICU admissions are stressing our hospital, and now we are seeing an increase in the number of deaths, mainly younger people, those who are unvaccinated,” Dr. Andy Coren told county supervisors on Aug. 31. (Press Democrat)

SO WHAT DOES COREN DO? He slaps masks on restaurants and bars without calling off the Boonville Fair or making masks mandatory at the big box stores, several of which, like CostCo, have the sense to require masks on their own. Does it even have to be said that singling out some venues while ignoring others is very unfair to the moms and pops of Mendocino County?

FROM MENDO'S post-modern Hindu, Craig Stehr: “On my way back to the room with the food, two women dressed to the nines in black leather offered to handcuff and flog me in the middle of Fremont Street, but before they got to the price, I started chanting the Hare Krishna Mahamantram, which caused great laughter all around, and we parted company smiling.”

TO WHICH MIKE KALANTARIAN NOTED, “Interesting that the ladies’ first instinct was to whip you, Craig.”

FRAUD OF THE WEEK, and typical of the three amigos, Huffman, McGuire and Wood, and their stenographers at the Press Democrat where, over the past coupla days, the stenos have re-written breathless press releases from our “lawmakers” titled, “Secretive plan seeks approval to ship coal from Wyoming and Montana to Humboldt Bay on SMART tracks and abandoned North Coast rail line” and “Lawmakers gearing up to battle toxic coal train proposed for North Coast line.”

FIRST OFF, if these guys ever gear up for anything it's free meals from lobbyists and their own re-elections. Second, to claim that coal or anything else will ever be shipped by rail to the port in Eureka along the abandoned Northwest Pacific rail lines is pure fantasy or, coming from these three characters, pure cynicism of the type they routinely trot out for us saps in lieu of anything useful. This coal shipping scare story is from the same fake genre as McGuire's Great Redwood Trail. It will never happen. The old rail line will probably never even get a train to Cloverdale, let alone through the Eel River Canyon. Both this conjured coal hysteria and The Great Redwood Trail are insulting, and one more example of the low esteem our elected officials hold us in.

A READER WRITES: “I looked up the Coal/NorthCoast Railroad story and found that the Lost Coast Outpost had done a big story on it. There are links within the story that do suggest that something is up with reviving the old rail line. The North Coast Railroad Company LLC does exist as a Wyoming corporation. There is not a clue who owns or is behind it. Maybe more filing papers will reveal that in time. I'm not going to pretend that I read the whole thing and understood it. It was early in the morning when I looked it up and I didn't want to ruin so many brain cells that early in the day! Apparently, it involves the Native American Crow tribe and coal stores in Montana. The Crow tribe has always been about the coal according to the article. I get the feeling that McGuire is acting pissed that someone is trying to screw with his grand plan of a Great Redwood Trail which is to be developed on the unused railroad right of way. So, someone had the great idea to seemingly throw a monkey wrench into McGuire's plans by invoking the dreaded coal. It could be a bait and switch concocted by friends of McGuire to ensure the Great Redwood Trail gets done. Don't quote me on that because I'm just spouting off!” 

ED REPLY: I think you're correct about McGuire's interest in perpetuating his Trail scam, but both are pie in the sky because the 60-mile length of the track in the Eel River Canyon has either slid into the Eel or is now covered in enormous slides. The last time I was in the Canyon probably 20 years ago it was almost impossible to get over the numerous slides without scrambling. It would cost billions to get a train through there again, and for what? A comparatively paltry return on transporting coal to Eureka's deep water port? Won't happen. The Crow coal barons could, though, bring coal by train to Novato and truck it north from there, and then McGuire could take credit for a great compromise. The Northcoast Democrats own the track, and how that original scam was pulled off would require team-research for the next fifty years. However and whatever, we have been encouraged by comment from people who know that we're on the right track (sic) about all this.

https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2021/sep/2/aiming-ship-coal-out-humboldt-bay-shadowy-corporat/

PLEASED to see Craig Bell's name in a recent ICO story by Bryan Cebulski about the resuscitation of the Garcia River whose revived health Craig was of course involved in…"the Garcia River is now the southernmost small coastal river to have a run of wild Chinook salmon.” Bell's a modest, self-effacing guy who always deflects credit from himself to supporting groups, but make no mistake he's almost always the prime mover, and mos def a local hero for his work saving what's left of the natural world.

WHILE WE'RE out on the MendoNoma coast, we also think the ideas of the Aranas, father and son, re the Arena Cove parking lot, propose the most sensible way to proceed, not that the proponents of the grant-driven scheme are likely to back off on expansion of the parking lot, but as the Arana say, “More beach, less parking lot!”

A STRETCH of the Merced River has been closed where a young couple, their 1-year-old and their dog, were found dead in August. Water samples from the river turned up extremely high levels of toxic algae. The bodies of John Gerrish, Ellen Chung, their daughter and family dog were found August 17th on a hiking trail in the Sierra National Forest along the river. “These algal blooms can produce toxins that can make people and pets extremely sick,” Elizabeth Meyer-Shields, a Bureau of Land Management spokesperson said in a statement. The cause of death for the family has not been determined but foul play has been ruled out.

UH not so fast. It seems most peculiar that a young couple with an infant no less would go hiking on a hundred-degree afternoon. I believe the toxicology report is still pending, but it seems highly unlikely that anybody would enter an algae-infested stream, let alone drink the water. Check that: about a week ago I saw a young family with small children merrily splashing in the algae-ridden, stagnant Navarro beneath the Greenwood Bridge. Still and all, I think the Merced episode is highly suspicious. 

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK

[1] I am not in the business so maybe someone can enlighten me about why so many are constantly lamenting marijuana prices.

$500-$700 PER POUND seems pretty lucrative.

A ton of Mendo grapes – 2000 lbs – brings anywhere from $800-2500.

Tomatoes, $5 lb

Almonds $10 lb

Peaches, $15 lb

Ground Beef $7 lb

Wheat to make whiskey is like $7 per bushel – how much in a bushel? 40 lbs?

When you look up most lucrative crops, cannabis tops opium and cocaine. It dwarfs grapes and wheat and everything else you can think of.

[2] “Have you heard about the free covid vaccine?”

Yes, I have. I got two shots months ago. Zero adverse effects, though an anti-vaxxer has now informed me that I will be keeling over in the Fall. I cannot wait to get my booster shot. Predicting people are going to “keel over” from vaccination “in the Fall” is like predicting the economy is going to collapse, or peak oil is going to arrive, or nuclear war is going to annihilate us, or Japan is going medieval, or John Durham is going to put Hilary in jail, or Trump is going to be reinstated as president, or the UN is going to declare Islam a global religion, or Biden is going to resign, or there is going to be a second civil war in the USA.

It is all pure fantasy. Evil fantasy. Perverted fantasy. Sick fantasy because enjoying propagating such predictions, just waiting for apocalyptic things to happen, is a twisted cheap misanthropic thrill …

Instead, just enjoy each day as it comes without the need to terrorize others with visions of dysfunctional futures, instead of accusations of “normalcy bias”… instead of spreading fake news and conspiracy theories, instead of insinuating that those who are vaccinated will be “keeling over.”

Or not. Carry on. It is entertaining.

[3] So the unvaccinated chuds I see dying in droves in my flyover country icu are a PsyOp of some sort?

Look, I know the testing is flawed. I know the numbers aren’t as high as Fauci says… but believe me when I tell you the scoreboard this winter is going to show a bloodbath has occurred in the blowhard MAGA-clod demographic.

They’ve decided to believe that the risk of the vaccine is greater than that of Covid… and to my eyes they’re being proven wrong one body bag at a time.

In five years when all of us vaccinated are throwing blood clots and succumbing to rheumatological diseases, maybe you’ll be able to have been proven smugly correct.

But I’m betting not.

[4] Time is never on your side. Something comes up that needs doing and you think, well, I have time. Except that no you don’t have time because as sure as can be, something else happens and the time you thought you had dissipates like early morning mist.

As for pulling the rug out, in wide areas of the country, and other countries too, it’s already been done, collapse isn’t something to deal with in the murky future, it’s here and now and has been for years. In my hometown and the towns nearby, once full of factories, all gone. Fifty years ago on Friday and Saturday nights the downtowns were full of people. No more. I walk from the bus station to my mother’s place and in that 20 minute walk – half of it down Main Street – I see some cars going by but not a single soul on the sidewalk. .

My sister and I moved away a long time ago. Had to. My mother is moving in a couple of months a few minutes from my sister. Only things left are graves, my dad’s and grandparents’, some friends and a few other relatives. Graves, that’s it.

[5] IT HAPPENED IN WILLITS. On August 9th, the listed agencies responded to the 500 block of Cropley Lane in Willits to serve a search warrant at a property regarding an unlawful marijuana/cannabis operation. On arrival, law enforcement encountered a large marijuana/cannabis processing operation which was contained within a large warehouse.

Law enforcement officials encountered and ultimately detained twenty-nine (29) individuals. Twenty seven (27) of the twenty-nine (29) individuals were determined to be from Southeast Asia and Laos.

At the time of the search warrant service law enforcement officials were uncertain if this particular marijuana/cannabis operation was engaging in human trafficking.

Due to a language barrier, a Deputy Sheriff from Butte County was transported by helicopter to the search warrant location for interpretation purposes. This interpretation process determined all detained persons on the property were at the location on their own free will and were employed laborers.

During the detainment of several of the individuals, large sums of U.S. Currency were found at the location. A total of $230,632.00 cash was seized pursuant to asset forfeiture laws and later turned over to the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office.

A total of 9,447.9 pounds of processed/packaged bud marijuana/cannabis for the purposes of sales was located at the location. All marijuana/cannabis other than what was retained as evidence per 11479 HS was destroyed at the scene.

At the completion of this investigation, a criminal case will be filed with the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office for potential criminal prosecution 

[6] We used to live atop the Maacama fault in Talmage. I only discovered that because one day a group of geology students from Mendocino College were walking up our long, somewhat elevated driveway. The elevation, I was told by the professor was actually the uplift from the fault. He told me that this was one of the most active faults in the Bay Area. Ironically, we were once visited by the son of the people who built our old house. They were Italians who came to San Francisco around the turn of the century, only to flee the area following the 1906 earthquake. So they moved to Ukiah and built their home smack dab on top of an active earthquake fault! The floors in that house were wonky as heck. One small 4.0 quake there about 20 years ago threw us to the ground! Apparently we’re heading into a more active phase.

REDWOODS, AN ON-LINE EXCHANGE:

(1) It saddens me that someone who buys a property with beautiful redwoods upon it would then not feel responsible for the guardianship of those trees. Wanting to trim them is understandable but removing them seems selfish. They were there long before your ownership of the property which, in the greater scheme of things, is a mere blip in the life of a redwood. Enjoy them!

(2) It has been my experience that most of what is made by the sale of the logs is spent paying the people who do the logging. It is largely a wash. There is very little “money” in it. The only thing that does happen is that one essentially gives someone permission to log one's property, one gets a bit of a “tip”...& one's property loses significant value. Healthy redwood trees on property generally increases the value of that property. It is almost always best to leave them alone, other than keeping them trimmed if close to structures.