Mendocino County Today: Saturday, Oct. 23, 2021

Rainy Nights | 19 New Cases | Faulkner Park | Moratorium Talk | Kits | Yorkville Posole | Atmospheric River | Burn Permits | Vineyard Color | Jacith Trumpower | Commercial Logging | 11 Digits | White House | Sheriff Shrugs | Masked | Fingerprint Biz | FB Desal | 5-10-15 Store | Scott Dam | Ball Visit | Leaky Roof | Horror Film | Code Enforcement | Equity Grant | Yesterday's Catch | Jalopy Joe | Humpty | Town Hall | Nixon-in-Law | Nullity Harris | Gould Disciples | Archangel | Corporate Ag | New Low | Ant Diner | Media Uproar | Booktower | Dem Club

A SERIES OF STORMS will bring rain and periods of gusty winds through the weekend. The heaviest rains and strongest will occur tonight and Sunday. Wet and unsettled weather will continue on Monday and Tuesday of next week, followed by drier weather late in the week. (NWS)

19 NEW COVID CASES reported in Mendocino County yesterday afternoon.

FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS OF FAULKNER PARK near Boonville are mobilizing to stop a massive removal of old growth redwoods at the Park under the guise of making the PG&E lines more safe. Undergrounding the line instead makes much more sense. It’s only 2/10s of a mile. The power line is adjacent to the Manchester Road.

CAL FIRE STAFFERS ARE MEETING with representatives from McGuire and Woods office to discuss a potential moratorium!  They must hear from the people! CALL TODAY to make your voice heard and let them know the public demands an immediate moratorium on all logging in JDSF.

• Wood's Mendocino office number: (707) 463-5770
• Wood's state capitol number: (916) 319-2002
• McGuire's Mendocino office number 707-468-8914
• McGuire's state capitol number 916-651-4002

SATURDAY LUNCH (TODAY) AT THE YORKVILLE MARKET

We are in for a wonderful rainy weekend!

Today/Saturday we will be serving pork posole (a hearty soup) with all the fixin's from 12:30- 4:30 or until sold out. Join your neighbors and friends for this hearty lunch at the Market or take it to go and enjoy at home.

Look forward to seeing you soon!

Best, Lisa Walsh

EFFECTIVE MONDAY, October 25, 2021 at 12:01 am, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) Mendocino Unit will be lifting the burn permit suspension

CAL FIRE Mendocino Unit Chief George Gonzalez is formally cancelling the burn permit suspension and advises that those possessing current and valid agriculture and residential burn permits can now resume burning on permissible burn days. Agriculture burns must be inspected by CAL FIRE prior to burning until the end of the peak fire season. Inspections may be required for burns other than agriculture burns

Burn Permits are now available online from CAL FIRE at: https://burnpermit.fire.ca.gov

IMPORTANT. CALFIRE Burn Permits are only for residents who live in the State Responsibility Area (SRA), or where CAL FIRE has jurisdictional authority. It is the responsibility of the landowner to check with local fire agencies to determine any additional permits that might be required and if there are any additional burning restrictions for their area.

Burn Permits can be obtained by mail by calling CAL FIRE Mendocino Unit Howard Forest Headquarters in Willits, 8 am to 5pm, Monday through Friday, at (707) 459-7414. All CAL FIRE Mendocino Unit offices are closed to public access, until further notice, to prevent the public and our personnel from unnecessary exposure to COVID-19.

Burn Permits can also be obtained from the following local agencies (note: the following agencies can only issue permits within their respective districts), Anderson Valley, Laytonville, Little Lake (Willits). Redwood Valley-Calpella, and Brooktrails Fire Departments, Monday through Friday 8 am to 5pm. Please call these agencies to determine their COVID-19 burn permit procedures,

Before you burn, call Mendocino County Air Management District at (707) 463-4391 to confirm that you have all the required burn permits and to ensure it is a permissive burn day Burning can only be done on permissive burn days and is prohibited on non-burn days.

RAIN APPROACHES THE NAVARRO WINERY

AUTHORITIES DETERMINE THE IDENTITY OF THE WOMAN WHO JUMPED OF UKIAH BRIDGE

by Matt LeFever

Last Friday, October 15, 2021, an eyewitness watched a woman jump off the Ron Ledford Memorial Bridge on Talmage Road east of Ukiah. Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Captain Greg Van Patten told us the woman remained unidentified until yesterday when investigators determined the woman to be Jacith Trumpower, a 37-year-old from Ukiah, California.

mendofever.com/2021/10/20/authorities-determine-the-identity-of-the-woman-who-jumped-of-ukiah-bridge/

END OF AN ERA: Starting Sunday, You Gotta Dial ‘1-707’ Even If You’re Just Calling Someone In Town

by Hank Sims

Gather ‘round, kids, because here’s a story we old-timers tell.

Back in the day, when you wanted to call, say, the radio station, you’d walk over to the telephone appliance installed in your home, perhaps consulting the “phone book” on the way, and, after picking up the “receiver” and waiting for the “dial tone,” you’d either dial or tap out seven digits — 7, 8, 6, 5, 9, 7, 8 — depending on the type of appliance you owned. 

Those first three numbers — 786 — meant that you were calling a location in Ferndale, which might have meant that you were calling “long distance” and would incur extra charges. The last four numbers represented the particular telephone owner you were attempting to reach.

Believe it or not, some people still communicate this way!

And as of this coming Sunday, they’re going to have to change up their routine. On that day, they will have to start dialing four additional numbers before the traditional seven. Those numbers are “1” and “707,” the latter of which you may recognize from local cannabis-themed clothing products.

Why must you dial 11 digits now when you had only to dial seven before, you may ask as the rage turns your face purple and you feel yourself drowning in despair?

Take it easy, grandpa, because it’s for a good reason — specifically, the rollout of the national suicide prevention hotline, which people in need will be able to call by simply dialing three digits: 988. That rollout is hindered by the fact that there is already a 988 prefix — Whitethorn — in the 707 area code. Imagine it: If you don’t dial the “707” first, the system won’t know if you are experiencing a crisis or just trying to reach your friend in the hills.

The FCC explains it here.

But why must you start dialing the “1” first, in addition to the local area code? You know, that’s a great question. Because they told us to, I guess? In the old days the “1” meant you were calling long-distance, and it seems as though “1” has been deprecated on cell phones for a long time now. But dial the “1” you must. Here’s the California Public Utilities Commission on that.

Still on the horizon: The introduction of an “overlay” zone on top of the 707, in which new numbers in our traditional territory will be assigned to a different area code entirely, leaving 707 itself to us high-status OGs.

(Courtesy, LostCoastOutpost.com)

SUPES NOTES: SLOUCHING TOWARDS CLARITY

by Mark Scaramella

An awkward moment arose at last Tuesday’s Supervisors meeting after the highly bureaucratic agenda Item 5h arose: “Discussion and Possible Action Including Adoption of Resolution Amending the Position Allocation Table as Follows: Sheriff’s Office Budget Unit 2310 - Add 1.0 FTE Network Systems Analyst II (Sponsor: Human Resources)” 

Budget unit 2310 is the Sheriff’s department. But the “sponsor” was Human Resources.

The agenda item’s background info couldn’t have been more intentionally opaque. 

“Previous Board/Board Committee Actions: On June 22, 2021, the Board of Supervisors adopted the Master Position Allocation Table for the FY 2021-2022 Budget, Resolution Number 21-090. On August 31, 2021, the Board of Supervisors directed Human Resources to work with the Sheriff's Office and bring back a recommendation at a subsequent meeting. The Human Resources Department is charged, as part of the overall maintenance of the classification and compensation plan, to evaluate current classifications, create new classifications (including appropriate salary levels), reclassify positions, examine requests for salary grade adjustments, analyze allocations, and make recommendations for additions, modifications, and corrections.”

After that useless bit of info, they muddled on: 

“On August 31, 2021 discussion ensued over the November 2019 request by Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) to reclassify (add/delete) vacant Public Safety Dispatcher to a Network Systems Analyst II, in Budget Unit 2310.”

Wait a minute. This started in November of 2019? Why now then?

“This request was the result of the retirement of a Public Safety Dispatcher [back in 2019] who had been assigned duties in support of the Sheriff’s Office IS [computer system] staff and the Sheriff’s Office’s belief that their needs would be better met with a Network Systems Analyst. In accordance with Policy 22, Human Resources sought the approval of Information Services (IS) leadership to add an IS position to a department other than the centralized Information Services Department.”

Hold on, again: “Information Services leadership” had to approve the Sheriff’s personnel request? Why?

“After a series of meetings and emails between November 2019 and September 2020, in which IS recommended an Information Systems Specialist be allocated to the centralized IS Department…”

Ok, as all this is translated from English-to-Albanian and back to bumbling bureaucrat-speak, a logical question arises: What “series of meetings and emails” took almost a year which “recommended an Information Systems Specialist be allocated to the centralized IS Department”? Recommended by whom? Centralized IS? And who, exactly, is Central IS? Janelle Rau?

We’re now slowly drifting into an unintended clarity which leads into the Sheriff’s sensible self-defense in his lawsuit asking for his own attorney regarding computer system autonomy and security.

But why now? Something very odd is going on here.

“Budget Unit 1960 (Information Systems) [is] to provide dedicated support to the Sheriff’s Office, [so] there was no further discussion or direction given to Human Resources.” 

Oh yes there was. This now looks like the initial a reference to the CEO’s attempt to take over the Sheriff’s computer system.

“The request was not submitted to the Board for their consideration/adoption.”

Probably because the Sheriff and his computer people balked at the CEO’s attempt to move computer people out of the Sheriff’s Office and into the CEO’s information services collective.

But since so much time has now passed:

“The Public Safety Dispatcher position is no longer vacant as it was in November 2019, nor does the MCSO have a vacant position to put forth to help cover the cost of funding. Therefore, the Sheriff’s Office will require a budget adjustment to fund the addition of one (1.0) Full Time Equivalent (FTE) Network Systems Analyst II Budget Unit 2310 [The Sheriff’s Department.] The current year fiscal impact and annual recurring costs [of about $98k] reflect wages at Step 5 (including cost of benefits) of 1.0 FTE Network Systems Analyst II for the rest of this fiscal year.” And about $158k per year thereafter. So “Budget Adjustment will be needed.” And “The Sheriff’s Office will work with the County Budget Team on a budget adjustment.”

When it was time for Board discussion, Supervisor Ted Williams immediately blurted out: “I support this. How do we pay for it?”

Meaning, we assume, he’s for letting the Sheriff’s keep his own computer system and staff, but only if the Sheriff figures out how to pay for it out of his already disputed budget.

Sheriff Kendall calmly explained that the necessary dispatch position has been filled so there are no vacancies or budget available to cover the cost the computer staffer. He then noted that his 2019 attempt to hire the computer staffer was “shot down” so the Dispatch position was soon filled. Kendall said he still needed that position because dispatch needs every slot they have nowadays. But Kendall had not brought it forward, Human Resources had.

Supervisor Williams then inadvertently revealed what was behind the whole item: “If we say no due to lack of funding, will we be sued?”

Kendall replied: “I have not sued anyone, I simply asked for an attorney.”

Yes, but the attorney was asked for because the Sheriff thought the Board was unlawfully infringing on the Sheriff’s department’s operations, particularly his Computer system and his budget and he wanted a solid legal opinion to back him up.

Supervisor Haschak then inanely asked Assistant CEO Darcie Antle: “Do we have $158k lying around unallocated?”

Apparently the Supervisor, like his colleagues, has no idea what their own budget situation is and they still don’t even have the close out numbers from last fiscal year which ended on June 30, almost four months ago.

Ms. Antle didn’t know either, so she suggested that they bring the item back “at first quarter and discuss it then.”

But because of the budget team’s failure to manage their budget, that “first quarter” report won’t be presented until December. If any departments are having budget problems almost half the year will be up before they even get a glimpse of it, much less have time to deal with it.

Sheriff Kendall has been operating without the computer staffer this long so he shrugged and agreed to bring it back in December.

Meanwhile, the Sheriff’s lawsuit demanding an attorney to clarify how much the Board can meddle with his department languishes in Superior Court Judge Ann Moorman’s chambers where it’s been for over a month now.

RE: TRENT JAMES’ FRIDAY DUMP.

So, Hendry has been placed on administrative leave. Now it’s time for Randy Johnson to be relieved of his post at Child Support. What a scam, require finger printing for Cannabis Permits and then open a fingerprint business in your wife’s name. He was allowed to retire without charges so now he gets his retirement from the Sheriff’s office and a big paycheck from Child support, not including what he brings in at his fingerprint business or from his current marijuana grow at the Johnson compound.

(James Marmon)

IN THIS CALIFORNIA COUNTY, ONE TOWN HAS NO WATER. ANOTHER HAS ENOUGH TO SHARE.

by Scott Wilson

FORT BRAGG, Calif. — This town took a big step toward making fresh water along the rocky, wild North Coast of California. As its wells ran dry this month, town officials looked to technology as an emergency measure, hoping to keep both residents and a lifeblood tourism industry with running faucets. The town spent $335,000 on a desalination plant, a small machine of tubes and pumps that officials christened earlier this month. Turning brackish water into useful water, the plant now provides a quarter of the local supply....

washingtonpost.com/national/in-this-california-county-one-town-has-no-water-another-has-enough-to-share/2021/10/21/a04df778-2b92-11ec-9e50-971e1983edc6_story.html

FORMER SUPERVISOR MIKE DELBAR (POTTER VALLEY): 

Trust the science. We see and hear this a lot lately. The Potter Valley Project isn't rocket science. It's not even political science. It's basic science. It supplies water for fish in two river systems, green power, fire suppression, and for over a half-million people in Mendocino and Sonoma Counties. Yet it's amazing that there are numerous elected leaders that can't seem to grasp the basic science surrounding a system that is the lifeblood to homes, farms, and economies on the North Coast.

The other day I saw a post with a photo lamenting a dry stretch of the Eel River and it expressed how desperate the river looked. These days one can look at Lake Mendocino and its dry lakebed and see the old Coyote Valley, its bridge and roads, and the domestic and agricultural water intake for Redwood Valley high and dry. We are amidst a drought. A serious drought. But what we are seeing today is what we will see every summer if we lose the water that originates from Lake Pillsbury and flows down the upper Eel River, to the Russian River. 

The diversion from the Eel to the Russian was built in 1906. Not long after, Scott Dam was built creating Lake Pillsbury, a recreational lake for Lake County and others. This simultaneously created a year-round water supply of which a small portion is diverted to the Russian through a mile-long tunnel. For the last 100 years, this water has created green, pollution-free power and provided the literal lifeblood for Potter Valley and the Ukiah Valley through to Northern Sonoma County. 

Removal of the dam means we are faced with losing Lake Pillsbury and with it a critical water supply, mainly because PG&E has decided to walk away from the Potter Valley hydroelectric power plant. The power plant’s federal license is up for renewal, and PG&E (despite the pleas from Mendocino and Sonoma Counties) has decided that they would rather walk away than work with those who depend upon this resource. Mendocino and Sonoma Counties stood with PG&E during their last relicensing battle that lasted over 30 years. Several studies were required for that relicensing and those studies resulted in a reduction in the diversion of 50% percent. That reduction has been in place for the last 15 years. Those below the diversion have learned to adjust to that reduction in water flow, but it has been a challenge and has resulted in impacts to water rights holders and multiple years of Temporary Urgency Change Petitions with the State Water Resources Control Board for modified minimum instream flow requirements on the Russian River. 

Now the relicensing process is before us again, but it is much worse this time around. When I was elected to the Mendocino Board of Supervisors, water issues, and the Potter Valley Project in particular, were front and center on my agenda. The bulk of my 12 years of service were spent trying to find solutions that worked for everyone on this project. It's extremely disappointing to me to see that 13 years later our current representatives are so willing to walk away from this issue and worse yet, dismantle a system that has been in place for a century.

Congressman Jared Huffman created the Two Basin Solution that included select environmental groups but excluded the County of Lake in which Lake Pillsbury sits. Lake Pillsbury is a major recreation draw and economic driver for Lake County. Congressman John Garamendi recognizes the importance of retaining Lake Pillsbury. He is one elected representative that understands the science, and he should be roundly applauded for that. 

However, Lake County was denied a seat at the table in the exclusive Two Basin Solution group by Congressman Huffman. State Senator Mike McGuire was initially adamant that Lake County be included in this group; however, Congressman Huffman strongarmed Senator McGuire and Senator McGuire backed away from his support, caving to Huffman. Lake County continues to lack representation in this exclusive group that is making decisions that will impact the future of its lake…unbelievable! This isn't rocket science. But it appears that it's a very poor version of political science.

This is a critical and pivotal time for Mendocino County and Sonoma County. During my tenure on the Board of Supervisors, our relationship with the Sonoma Board of Supervisors was very strong. I worked closely with its members and the Sonoma County Water Agency to develop solutions that were science-based and considered what was best for the local economy. While I am no longer involved in county government, nor are many of those who worked on this during my tenure, it appears that the coalition is still strong, and I hope that is true. 

We have a lot in common. Yes, we have our differences, but finding a solution that works for all is critical. A solution that continues to provide water for our fisheries, water for our agricultural crops, water for our households and industrial users, and water that feeds our economy and our quality of life is possible. However, the trajectory upon which Congressman Huffman is proceeding to tear down Scott Dam, and with it destroy Lake Pillsbury and eliminate the water supply, is extremely short sighted. It will decimate the economy and with it the livelihoods of over half a million people. And what is truly baffling is that most of these folks are his constituents!

Congressman Huffman loves to tout the Two Basin Solution, yet a primary goal of this exclusive group was a feasibility study to determine whether Scott Dam should be removed based on the environmental and economic impacts of doing so. That study has yet to be conducted, and Huffman has done nothing to seek the funding necessary to carry out this type of study. Why would that be? Could it be because he lacks the clout in Congress to secure the funding? Or more likely, could it be that he does not want the study to proceed? 

Should a legitimate feasibility study be conducted on the removal of Scott Dam, it could likely find that the sediment stored behind the dam released into Eel River system following the dam’s removal would choke the river to death. It could also find that the lack of water coming out of Lake Pillsbury would cripple the economies of Mendocino and Sonoma counties. Facts of this nature could hinder someone's perception of science and this might be too risky for Huffman. 

So, Huffman, skipping the studies altogether, has jumped to the conclusion that Scott Dam must be removed. He has posted on his social media and stated publicly that decommissioning the Potter Valley Project and removing Scott Dam is the way to go, science be damned.

Huffman’s constituents run from the San Francisco/Marin County line to the Oregon border - a district that was created to sustain his position as a representative in U.S. Congress. He appears to be either ignoring or is oblivious to the needs of those in Mendocino and Sonoma Counties. Instead, he is focusing solely upon the misguided demands of those in Humboldt County and his radical environmental constituency in his home county of Marin. I sincerely hope that Congressman Huffman comes to recognize the actual science behind the Potter Valley Project. That he comes to the reality that without Scott Dam and Lake Pillsbury, there is no water supply to run through the lower Eel River in the summer and late fall to augment natural flows when necessary (as in the last droughts of 2014-2016). Without Lake Pillsbury, there will be no clean energy created by the hydroelectric power plant that in turn supplies the water that supports half a million of his constituents. 

It's basic science. It shouldn't be political science. But if it were political science, any political scientist will tell you don't ignore the needs of the bulk of your constituents. In doing so, you will fail to protect the very people who elected you and have put their trust in you to represent them. 

It's time for all of us – let me say that again – ALL OF US to express our thoughts, concerns, and outrage over the notion that a 100-year-old water supply system should be destroyed at the whim of one elected representative. It is time for all of us to step up to the plate and contact Congressman Huffman, along with every other county, state, and federal elected official to help them understand how important this water supply is. They represent us, and we must call upon them to stand and defend this water system. It is time to trust the actual science and quit playing ridiculous games in political science.

* * *

ED NOTE: I mostly agree with Delbar. The overall impact of dismantling the diversion system would be too hard on too many people, but prices of water for ag, especially unnecessary ag like grapes, should be raised, and Mendocino County, screwed since the installation of Coyote Dam, should renegotiate the wildly unfair water arrangement with SoCo via which SoCo gets our water so inexpensively they make millions selling it down south from which Mendo basically gets zilch.

---

CRAIG STEHR WRITES: "Due to a publishing error in the Saturday online edition of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, you were sent incorrect information in regard to Betty Ball's California visit.  Here is the correct information: Betty Ball, co-founder of the Mendocino Environmental Center still located at 106 W. Standley Street, in Ukiah, California, will be making a rare California visit.  The public is cordially invited to a potluck and get-together on Monday, October 25th from 4-8PM.  EARTH FIRST!!"

DO NOT GO GENTLE…

Ellie:

I'm an 87-yr. old woman, partly disabled, living in government housing in Fort Bragg & at 5am this morning, I have WATER all over my dining room floor, from dripping through the roof! Mind you, last Spring, a couple of guys replaced a section of my ceiling, sprayed plaster all over the place fixing it, & SUPPOSEDLY fixed the roof! Am I really supposed to live like this? I had to move a dining-room chair to a different place in the living room, NOT easily done with my disability, & I managed to lay down two bath towels, to try to soak up the water. But it's going to continue to rain for several days, & what the ... am I supposed to do? Live in this? I can't even sleep, cause I keep worrying that the ceiling could just COLLAPSE over me! What would YOU do?

* * *

Susan: 

Ellie, Call your landlord. Call social services. Put a bucket under the leak. If you haven't alienated your neighbors, NICELY ask one of them if they could empty the bucket for you each evening.

As for the bed situation. You already went on a whole trip to get a mattress that obviously didn't work. Give it up and sleep on the couch. Who are you trying to impress? Put the pillows in the bedroom and throw a blanket, bedspread, etc. over the couch and call it done. Use your bedroom for a guest room, or some other activity.

I am 75 and have many elder friends in your age group. As people age, especially when they are alone and don't have plenty of money or family to help (which I ever gratefully have) they often need to rely on the generosity of the community.

The one and only dividing factor on whether that works for them is attitude. That old expression, "you catch more flies with honey," is so true. The question is not whether you are "supposed to live like this." Hundreds of people right here on the coast are a hell of a lot worse off than you -- out of water, homeless, under leaky roofs, hungry, ill, with chronic pain...

There is no "supposed to" for life. Some of it, we manifest; some of it, we are dealt. It's how you deal with it that matters. Start by getting your head out of the entitled, poor me thought process. Yes, you are 87 and partially disabled, yet you obviously have a home, albeit with leaky roof right now, a computer and a phone.

I hope you can get a roof fix arranged and have a lovely nap on your comfy couch. 

CODE ENFORCEMENT NEWS

Redwood Valley, Ukiah, Hopland & Willits - Month of October 2021 - Multiple non-permitted commercial cannabis locations identified; plants abated after Code Enforcement engagement.

In the month of October 2021 the Mendocino County Code Enforcement Division conducted investigations regarding non-permitted commercial cannabis cultivation at the listed locations below in the Redwood Valley, Willits, Ukiah and Hopland areas. Any cannabis cultivation over the Medical or Adult Use exemption limit (as defined in Mendocino County Code Section 10A.17.030) is considered to be commercial cultivation. Please see the Mendocino County Code (MCC) Section 10A.17 for additional information.

Code Enforcement investigations confirmed that commercial cannabis cultivation was taking place at these locations without either a County Cultivation Permit or a State Cultivation License, and/or cultivation was taking place in violation of MCC Sec. 10A.17 requirements. It was determined that there were significant community quality of life concerns in these neighborhoods. The responsible parties abated the cannabis plants after Code Enforcement engagement.

10/6/21 - 9000 Block of East Road - 36 Cannabis plants abated

10/7/21 - 950 Block of Highway 175 - 112 Cannabis plants abated

10/12/21 - 650 Block of Jefferson Road - 62 Cannabis plants abated

10/13/21 - 36000 Block of North Highway 101 - 26 Cannabis plants abated

10/13/21 - 1800 Block of Vista Del Lago Road - 200 Cannabis plants abated

Code Enforcement intends to take additional action as needed to achieve compliance with any non-permitted structures at these locations.

The Code Enforcement Division receives all Cannabis and General Code Violation complaints within the unincorporated areas of Mendocino County. Complaints can be made by visiting our website at https://www.mendocinocounty.org/government/planning-building-services/code-enforcement and filing an online complaint. You can also file a complaint by email at codeenforcement@mendocinocounty.org, or by phone to (707) 234 6669. Cannabis specific complaints can also be filed by calling the Cannabis Complaint Hotline at (844) 421-WEED(9333)

EQUITY GRANT PUBLIC MEETING - OCTOBER 27TH

Greetings, 

The County of Mendocino Cannabis Program in partnership with Elevate Impact Mendocino will be hosting an Equity Grant Public Meeting on October 27, 2021 from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. (PST). Registration is required and must be submitted prior to the start of the meeting. 

To register for this event please click the following link: www.mendocinocounty.org/cannabiswebinar.

Sincerely, 

Mendocino Cannabis Program Staff 

CATCH OF THE DAY, October 22, 2021

CHRISTOPHER FRANCE, Willits. Burglary.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ, Dalton, Georgia/Ukiah. Cultation of over 6 marijuana plant, for sale, conspiracy.

MATTHEW ROSS, Fort Bragg. DUI.

TERRANCE YOUNG, Willits. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

WHAT AM I DOING? HE ASKS

by James Kunstler

If you want a picture of things converging toward an unfortune outcome, imagine “Joe Biden” playing chicken with the future of the nation. Trouble is, the future is a very big thing — so big, you can’t see where it ends — while “Joe Biden” is one mere mortal, small and feeble… and the old jalopy he’s driving looks like it’s veering off the road….

The net effect is that life will go on in ways as-yet-undetermined upon this land-mass between the great oceans, but the vehicle “Joe Biden” is driving will end up a smoldering wreck, upside down in a drainage ditch with the phragmites and discarded Bud Lite cans. The passengers in the back seat are the economy and the social order of the USA, lying motionless with eyes Xed out in the twisted wreckage.

Ol’ White “Joe” did a “Town Hall” performance Thursday night, staged to demonstrate that he was in command of things, with a roster of carefully-vetted ringers chosen to pitch him softball questions on events du jour. Whose idea was that? And what sort of desperation prompted it? Answer No. 1: the claque of puppeteers watching the death-spiral of their wicked schemes to consolidate power forever; and No. 2: a manifold collapse of the scaffold barely holding up something that resembles normal life in the USA.

The Leader of the Free World wandered the stage, sometimes oddly circling his interlocutor, Anderson Cooper of CNN, who had to step in and rescue the maundering “Joe B,” when he lost himself in thickets of talking points that no amount of rehearsal could avail to untangle. “What am I doing?” he asked more than once, but no one on the scene volunteered to remind him. The “president” frequently assumed poses that signified some kind of gross cognitive dysfunction: head turned down to the floor with his eyes shut… strange, mincing steps in the direction of a fugitive thought… fists balled like a two-year-old resisting some simple instruction… There was a robotic quality to the act, too, as “JB” repeated his place-holder phrase “Here’s the deal” to preface each flight into the murky jargon of Build Back Better.

It fell short of convincing anyone about who was in charge of the nation’s affairs at a very sketchy moment in history, and at the end Ol “Joe” just ran down like a three-dollar gyroscope. In his most lost moments, such as when AC inaptly tried to prompt him on the border crisis — “I guess I should go down,” he admitted dolefully — the “POTUS” directed the cameras to his wife in the audience, saying, “Jill’s been down there!” We were supposed to conclude that she’d fixed all that for us.

The exercise was also obviously designed to turn up the heat on the two renegade senators, Joe Manchin (WVA) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) who are disinclined to vote for the trillions of dollars in pending proposed legislation to drop money from helicopters all over the land and save the economy — and impose all manner of janky surveillance measures and vote-rigging scams on the country. The Obama-led claque behind all the White House fakery wants to cram this down the country’s craw before things go so far south that Americans start to think they’re living in Tierra del Fuego.

I doubt that the Townhall stunt helped on that, and then there is the crucial Governor’s race in the Beltway state of Virginia, where swaybacked Democrat war-horse Terry McAuliffe made the possibly fatal error — in a state tormented by school-board politics — of saying, “Parents shouldn’t tell schools what to teach.” You can’t overstate how damaging that utterance was to the whole Woke Democrat hustle. All that monkey business is in the rumble seat of the jalopy that Joe Biden is driving into the ditch.

The public’s view of this panoramic debacle is apt to flip starkly in the days ahead as five years of mind-fuckery ends in this national drunken driving incident. China may postpone the Evergrande unwind a few weeks longer, but its economy is foundering on the more fundamental energy quandary — it doesn’t have enough fossil fuels to run the joint — and there’s no prospect the situation will improve, meaning that the world will get less of all of the stuff that China was making. In short, Globalism is winding down, and standards of living are sinking with that. The capital markets are gravid with terror over it.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Biden's CNN "town hall." Twenty-first century America is a shadow of its former self, so its politics have become a shadow play of propaganda. This, really, is merely the political version of advertising, and that was an art that twentieth-century America invented and taught to the world. The CNN town hall was arranged to manage the public’s perfectly accurate perception that this administration cannot tie its own shoelaces. The less convincing the performance of our leaders, the greater their insistence that we must believe — and the more we see that they are false and incompetent, even if we cannot afford the cost of saying it out loud.

AS BIDEN’S AGENDA DISINTEGRATES in real time, it’s clear that Kamala Harris is the most useless vice president since Dan Quayle. She doesn’t even play the role that Pence perfected of obsequious yes-woman. She’s a blank, “a nullity,” as Lincoln’s first VP, Hannibal Hamlin mordantly described the post. 

— Jeffrey St. Clair

THE MULTIMILLIONAIRE DISCIPLES of Jay Gould — that man who in his brief life rotted the commercial morals of this nation and left them stinking when he died — have quite completely transformed our people from a nation with pretty high and respectable ideals to just the opposite of that; that our people have no ideals now that are worthy of consideration; that our Christianity which we have always been so proud of — not to say vain of — is now nothing but a shell, a sham, a hypocrisy; that we have lost our ancient sympathy with oppressed peoples struggling for life and liberty; that when we are not coldly indifferent to such things we sneer at them, and that the sneer is about the only expression the newspapers and the nation deal in with regard to such things. Before Gould Americans loved money, but he taught them to kneel down and worship it. 

(The Autobiography of Mark Twain)

CALIFORNIA GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM is placing new restrictions on the residents (watering lawns and washing sidewalks and driveways), but is doing nothing to tighten the spigots of the state’s biggest water hogs, corporate agriculture. Consider that during the worst drought in more than a century, California’s almond harvest will be the second highest in the state’s history. It requires 1,900 gallons of irrigation water to grow a pound of almonds. 

— Jeffrey St. Clair 

INFLAMMATORY ‘NEWS’ 

Dear Editor,

One of the most disturbing recent trends is the use of mass media cable networks like FOX News to castigate politicians on the opposite side of the political aisle. Today Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson smeared Rep. Eric Swalwell, who happened to be a liberal representing the East Bay. Rep. Swalwell took a position in favor ot the criminal charging of Steve Bannon for his refusal to comply with a Congressional subpoena to testify in the Jan committee investigation.

As soon as Carlson ended today's broadcast, Rep. Swalwell’s office received a death threatening phone call from one of Carlson’s listeners who, according to the representative, used racial epithets threatening not only Rep. Swalwell’s life but also the lives of the representative’s wife and children. Hasn't politics reached a new low?

Representative Swalwell is calling for an end to the kind of dangerous hate-inducing vitriole that Carlson spews out almost every day (on MSNBC, N. Wallace's show). While Carlson may have great intellectual gifts, if the results of his broadcasts are civil unrest where police officers and, probably next time, lawmakers’ lives are taken, is this worth it?

Frank H. Baumgardner

Santa Rosa,

CANCEL CULTURE TAKES A BIG “L”

by Matt Taibbi

The press tries and fails to hype a crisis into existence over Dave Chappelle's new Netflix special

First, there were the numbers. Over the course of the last week, news commentators predicted a huge demonstration of Netflix employees in protest of comedian Dave Chappelle’s The Closer special, with Yahoo! typifying coverage. “Reports say that one thousand Netflix employees — nearly 10% of the company’s workforce,” they wrote, “are planning an October 20 walkout to protest the Chappelle special.”

The Hollywood Reporter did say “at least one thousand” were planning on participating in a “virtual walkout,” whatever that is, but noted the story first came out in The Verge, which talked about a “company-wide” demonstration. Others followed, mostly without any hint that any of the reporters involved talked to anyone at Netflix but the demonstration’s organizers. 

Nobody checked, because everyone liked the narrative as was. As a result, “at least one thousand” became gospel, via headlines like Gizmodo’s“1,000 Netflix Employees Are Reportedly Planning Walkout to Protest New Chappelle Special,” or The Independent inviting us to “watch live” as “more than one thousand Netflix employees are set to walk out of their jobs on Wednesday.”

By this Wednesday, October 20th, the day of the planned walkout, the story became “hundreds of Netflix employees and supporters are expected” to show up (CNN). Then, as the event started, it became “hundreds of protesters stood in solidarity with” Netflix’s employees, per The Daily Beast, for instance. Then NBC told us “Hundreds rally outside Netflix,” where protesting employees who lined up outside were “met with roaring applause.” 

How many employees walked out? Not one news organization put the real number in a headline, and only a few had the guts to even tweet that the actual protest was reduced in the end to the famed Arrested Development meme “There are dozens of us! Dozens!”

Even the op-ed wrapups couldn’t avoid sounding like parodies, with the Washington Post talking about the “crowd of dozens” gathered outside the company’s West Hollywood offices being evidence that the popularity of a comedian whose show already gained over 10 million views was colliding with a “growing movement to protect the rights of transgender people” (how a comedy set could be a violation of “the rights of transgender people” was not explained, of course). 

Coverage across the board was ridiculously one-sided, with story after story quoting nothing but activists and woke Twitter personalities denouncing Chappelle’s “alleged jokes.” Journalists not only felt no responsibility to accurately gauge how many protesters might turn up, or balance out the outraged tweets with any of the millions of commenters who felt differently (or indifferently, as it were), they routinely mischaracterized the show’s content. For instance, Chappelle was regularly accused of having “defended” the rapper DaBaby in the special, an example being New York Times guest columnist Roxane Gay writing:

One of the strangest but most telling moments in ‘The Closer’ is when Mr. Chappelle defends DaBaby, a rapper in the news for making pretty egregious homophobic remarks.

You have to be high, or having a psychotic episode, to hear “defending DaBaby” in The Closer. For those who don’t know the story — I didn’t — DaBaby, described by Chappelle as “the number one streaming artist until about a couple of weeks ago,” went onstage in a concert in Florida in July and went on a half-coherent rant. He told “fellas” in the crowd: “If you ain’t sucking dick in the parking lot, put your cell phones up!” Some in the crowd went along. 

“Now you know, I go hard in the paint, but even I saw that shit and was like, ‘God damn, DaBaby,’ was Chappelle’s first comment. Then he went on:

Can’t do that. Can’t do that. But I do believe and I’ll make this point later that the kid made a very egregious mistake. I will acknowledge that. But, you know a lot of the LBGTQ community doesn’t know DaBaby’s history, he’s a wild guy. He once shot a n*gga… and killed him, in Walmart. Oh, this is true, Google it. DaBaby shot and killed a n*gga in Walmart in North Carolina. Nothing bad happened to his career.

Do you see where I am going with this? In our country, you can shoot and kill a n*gga, but you better not hurt a gay person’s feelings.

You can definitely infer from that bit that Dave Chappelle does, in fact, think it’s worse to shoot and kill a person than to make homophobic remarks. That regularly came out translated in op-ed pages as “defending DaBaby.” Such blithely insane, proudly dishonest mischaracterizations have become a regular feature of national media commentary, and Chappelle mocks the habit repeatedly in The Closer (to the delight of audiences around the world, it might behoove press people to notice). However, that’s not where he was going with the DaBaby bit. 

Chappelle became a star in the first place in part thanks to his extraordinary talent for diving into the most uncomfortable/enraging material and emerging with a routine that forces even the most dug-in, reluctant, in-denial audiences to see something they otherwise wouldn’t. Often he used an approach that was a lot more genial and forgiving than his audience deserved. 

I know I was in awe. Years ago, I wrote a book called The Divide that searched for ways to show affluent white readers especially that America has two different justice systems. One chapter told of a black bus driver repeatedly arrested and fined for obstructing pedestrian traffic — literally, for standing on the sidewalk outside his home. That story appeared side-by-side with a tale of five rich white guys who were found guilty of defrauding stockholders out of $600 million, but allowed to remain free pending appeal because a judge was moved by character testimonials like, “He is a God-fearing family man who refuses even to swear, drink, or jaywalk.”

Guidelines technically allowed the judge to impose life sentences in the latter case, and prosecutors only asked for seven years, so what did they get in the end? Nothing. An appeals court ruled that in their crisis-era trial, the rich white dudes had been “prejudicially cast… as causing an economic downturn that has affected every family in America.”

I spent three years and hundreds of pages writing that book. Chappelle did the whole thing a lot better in under just over six minutes, in “Tron Carter’s Law and Order.” (Available on Youtube.)

I don’t know a white person who didn’t find that sketch funny, but you can still watch the real punchline play out any day of the week in any municipal courtroom in America, and it’s far less funny there. Chappelle probably did more to get upper-class white people to grasp the insanity of the American justice system, and push the country toward things like bail and sentencing reform, with one inspired shot of a fictional white suspect looking toward a jury of his “peers” — in the show, a jury box full of grimacing black dudes — than a thousand earnest activists. 

White audiences couldn’t get enough of laughing at institutional racism as described in Chappelle’s Show, but The Closer is something different. Here we’re not talking about meathead cops who shoot your dog, or fat-cat white collar lawyers, congressmen, and federal investigators who kiss the asses of corporate thieves. As I also found out, everyone hates those people, so you can beat on them all you want. They long ago stopped being taboo targets. The Closer goes after racism we’re not yet allowed to discuss.

Fifteen-plus years ago, when Chappelle’s Show was taking the entertainment world by storm, we didn’t yet live in a world where upper-class white people had completed their Apollo 11 mission to enlightenment and planted a flag in racism and discrimination as their exclusive properties. Chappelle had to be freaked out in the early 2000s to look out at packed house after packed house of white faces roaring at his jokes and hurling money at him — “Yeah, we’re racists! We really are! More!” Imagine what he thought when he took time off and returned to find that exact crowd of upscale liberals had decided to cut him out of the deal, and make an industry out of celebrating their own prejudices. They didn’t just laugh a little in their spare time to Dave Chappelle jokes now, they cranked out thousands of books and movies and TV shows on the theme, they took baths in their own shame via books like White Fragility, became credentialed experts in it, gave themselves degrees in its study.

Chappelle walked away from $50 million years ago, probably in part from being freaked out by his own popularity. Now he’s resurfaced in a country where an invisible Cultural Politburo, driven mainly by the same upscale white intellectuals who first made him rich, has decreed racism no laughing matter, a crisis so grave and urgent it can no longer be left to potty-mouth amateurs like him. Moreover, this “Thanks, we’ll take it from here” crew identified 497 additional varieties of impermissible prejudice, under which he, Dave Chappelle, is also a bigot. This is the same comic who once went way out of his way to be as gentle as possible in breaking the news to white America that it hadn’t exactly left the door to Dr. King’s mountaintop all the way open. Now they’re going to tell him what bigotry is? 

Many press accounts characterize The Closer as an exercise in “punching down” on “marginalized groups.” Chappelle repeatedly explains an opposite take:

Any of you, who have ever watched me know that I’ve never had a problem with transgender people. If you listen to what I’m saying, clearly my problem has always been with white people.

[laughter]

I’ve been arguing with the whites my entire career. Just when I thought I had you guys on the ropes you changed all the rules. “Oh yeah?” – Yeah, motherfucker! – “Well.” I am a girl now, n*gger. 

In another scene, he describes being approached by a white woman who wants to lecture him about misogyny. “Sounds to me,” she says, “like you hate women.” He initially replies in civilized-intellectual voice, like he actually cares enough to engage. “Well, you know what, miss? It’s art,” he says. “You are free to interpret this art however you like, but I can tell you as the maker of this art, that I don’t believe that I feel that way.”

Flattered, and accustomed to being taken seriously as all such people are, the woman starts to respond:

And she said, “Well, I think—” 

And I said, “Shut up, bitch! Shut the fuck up! Before I kill you and put you in the trunk. Ain’t nobody around here!”

The whole show is about his ongoing beef with mostly-upper-class, mostly-white intellectuals trying to make him take seriously their self-appointed new status as humanity’s Bigotry Police. In a now-infamous passage about being a trans-exclusionary radical feminist “TERF,” he says, “I didn’t even know what the fuck that was.” Chappelle is like the overwhelming majority of Americans, alternately mystified and enraged at being scolded for violating a confounding and constantly expanding list of social rules he had no say in writing. To be black and lectured in this way, from one’s own former audience no less, has to be doubly infuriating. No wonder he’s pissed. 

Could the jokes in The Closer age badly, a la Eddie Murphy’s Delirious, or Tracey Morgan’s “Born this way is bullshit” routine? Could “impossible pussy” become the next “Mr. T is a faggot?” Maybe, but Chappelle’s point is that it’s the audience’s job to work that out, not a handful of self-appointed moral gatekeepers in the press and on that fake place called Twitter who’ve been claiming veto power over comedy. 

After a mega-demonstration failed to materialize, news outlets continued the pretense that the company had been pushed to the brink. Article after article described Netflix on the verge of collapse, in a “crisis of their own making” as CNN put it, or grappling with “a storm on its hands,” as the eternally overwrought Daily Beast said, or “in turmoil” as GQ wrote. Turmoil? What actually happened was the general public gave an almost unanimous thumbs-up to the show, and the essentially universal condemnation of these media neurotics fell flat as Netflix — whose revenues jumped to $7.4 billion in the third quarter of this year — blew off demands to cancel the show. The press tried to hype a crisis into existence and failed, that’s all.

Pretentious idiots have essentially banned comedy for half a decade or more now, and the public has decided it wants it back, even if it’s tasteless, maybe especially if it’s tasteless. Could America finally be demanding its sense of humor back?

CALLING ALL BUSHANKSYS!

Coast Democratic Club Meeting: Elections 2022

Our Mission Is To Elect Progressive Democrats

Let's Get To Work! What Do You Want To Do?

Come To The Club Meeting On Nov 4, 5:30-7:30 Pm

Jughandle Farm Meeting Room

With Proof Of Vaccination And Wearing A Mask

Doors Will Remain Open For Ventilation And There Will Be Social Distance Seating

Let's Talk About:

Local Races

Candidate Filing Period: February 14 - March 11, 2022

Primary Election Day: June 7, 2022

Board of Supervisors District 5 - Incumbent Ted Williams

Fort Bragg City Council - 4 Incumbent Seats

Jessica Morsell-Haye

Tess Albin-Smith

Lindy Peters

Marcia Rafanan

Hospital District Board - 3 Incumbent Seats

Jessice Grinberg

Amy McColley

John Redding

Mendocino County Sheriff - Appointed Incumbent Matt Kendall

Hold The House/ Hold The Senate

California Congressional Districts

US Senate

Jughandle Farm Driveway is across from the North Caspar entrance on Highway 1 from the South, the next driveway after Fortunate Farm; at the STOP sign, turn left to the meeting room in the green building and park in the field.