Mendocino County Today: Monday, Feb. 7, 2022

Warming | Peregrine | LeBaron Retires | Local History | Nadine Boer | Rental Available | Edie 114 | Earl Sisters | Ditch Weed | First Parade | Throwback 1956 | Hopi Women | County Notes | Stupid Hurts | Water Report | Stuffed Kill | Lost Dogs | Restored Welcome | Super Breakfast | Yesterday's Catch | Better Solutions | Piccolotti Book | Nuclear Power | Burgermeister | Lonely People | Fox News | Moving In | Kemosabe | PG&E Meters | Super Patriot | Another Shooting | Family Dog

COASTAL LOW CLOUDS and fog will persist today along with some periods of sun. A building ridge of high pressure and offshore winds will result in warm temperatures for the remainder of the week, with daytime high temperatures rising above 80 across some interior valleys and readings above 70 possible along the coast. (NWS)

GAYE LeBARON, DOYENNE OF NORTHCOAST JOURNALISM

by Mike Geniella 

Redwood Region residents are going to miss legendary Sonoma County newspaper columnist Gaye LeBaron, who never forgot her North Coast roots and returned repeatedly to write about its people, places, and history.

LeBaron 65-year career with The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa put her in the ranks of San Francisco’s Herb Caen and Chicago’s Mike Royko as one of the greatest columnists in the annals of newspapers. LeBaron’s daily column was the most read feature in the PD for decades. Even after LeBaron’s formal retirement from writing daily columns 20 years ago her regular history pieces continued to be a big reader draw.

In short, Lebaron is an icon from an era in journalism when columns were ‘must reads.’

Lebaron concluded her final column a week ago with these words:

“Finally, and you can take that literally, this is my last column. As you can see, it’s just bits and pieces, pretty much the kind of thing I’ve done for this newspaper since the 1950s.

I want to be very clear. I haven’t been fired. I’m not sick, I’m not leaving town. I have just run my course, and it’s time to make room for others.

I could easily have filled the whole column, the page even, with every good thought I have about Press Democrat readers and what they have given me through the years.

But I choose no fuss, no muss. Up there at the top of this piece, I said that it would be odds and ends. This is the end part.

I’ve retired before – 21 years ago to be exact – and now, well, I’m doing it again.

It’s been a remarkable ride. Thanks to all.”

LeBaron knows the ins and outs of Sonoma County like the back of her hand. She’s mingled with everyone, talked history with all, and seldom misses a beat about what is going on in the North Bay. LeBaron enjoyed a long and robust marriage with the late John LeBaron, a former PD photographer and the first instructor of photography at Santa Rosa Junior College. They raised son Tony and daughter Suzi in the same house in old Santa Rosa where LeBaron still lives.

LeBaron was a mentor to dozens of journalists who came through the Press Democrat newsroom over the years, including me. When I researched a story, I always went into LeBaron’s office and asked her questions about the subject. Invariably I came out better informed, and with a note pad full of nuances that made the story even better.

LeBaron speaks fondly of ‘community news,’ and how the rise of ‘gotcha journalism’ seems sometimes to undermine solid reporting about everyday life in communities: local government agencies, business development, law enforcement, housing woes, education issues, the arts, sports, and so on.

While LeBaron was always interested in a community’s bigger picture, she was not afraid to share the works of respected historians about our collective histories.

Before leaving the main newsroom in Santa Rosa and moving with my family to Ukiah to become the PD’s News Bureau Chief for the North Coast, LeBaron handed me her prized copy of ‘Genocide and Vendetta,’ a rare book that is no longer in print. 

“If you are going to live and work in Mendocino County and write about it, you will need to know and understand the history. All of it,” said Gaye.

‘Genocide and Vendetta’ documents a bloody chapter in North Coast history, a ‘war of extermination’ as the first governor of California declared it in 1851. 

The book’s focus on is the remote and ruggedly beautiful Round Valley in northeast Mendocino County. At the valley’s northern end live remnants of five different tribes of native people, some traditional enemies, who were forced to share a federal reservation. In some cases, early valley settlers brutally enslaved, killed and terrorized them. The dark history hangs over the troubled community more than 150 years later.

Yet Round Valley’s unvarnished history is not widely known except in academic circles.

LeBaron is one of the first journalists to write about a documented and chilling history. Among the stories is how hired ranch hands rounded up native women and children, roped them together, and marched dozens through the coastal mountains to be traded for horses in the Sacramento Valley.

In 1979, Gaye wrote this about the valley’s terrible history: 

“No story can match the true tale of George White, the Cattle King of Round Valley, and his henchman, the murderous Wylackie John.

In 1858, White claimed 1,000 acres in the middle of Round Valley. That same year the federal government selected Round Valley as the site for an Indian reservation called ‘Nome Cult.’ 

During the next 18 years the Indians battled for their lives in Round Valley, and mostly lost. The main targets of the white man’s wrath were the Wylackies, a group that lived to the north of the valley.

At Horse Creek in 1859, 240 Wylackies were slaughtered. At Bloody Creek, no one kept count but there were women and children included and the name speaks for itself. After the Mill Creek Massacre wipes out a camp of 80 Wylackies in 1862, the government sent the Cavalry to stay. The entire valley was placed under martial law. The soldiers, naming their outpost Camp Wright, stayed in Round Valley for 13 years, all the while trying unsuccessfully to evict the white settlers including George White. The settlers meanwhile went about the business of building the town which was later named Covelo.

By the time the U.S. government lost the battle of Round Valley, with the passage of the infamous ‘Land Grab Bill’ through the Legislature that cut the reservation back to 5,000 acres and gave claimants at the fertile valley, White owned several thousand acres. Eventually, he would control 100,000 acres in three counties – Mendocino, Tehama and Trinity.”

White’s control was in large part due to the role of Wylackie John, a white man who claimed he was born in Indiana and kidnapped as an infant by native men who killed his parents in a raid on an Oregon-bound wagon train.

LeBaron wrote that from all indications Wylackie John would “kill a man or burn a homestead at a word from ‘the King.’”

LeBaron’s affinity for regional history and the larger world of community news took root in rural Humboldt County, where she spent her childhood. LeBaron was born in Scotia, the celebrated Pacific Lumber Company mill town that Life magazine once described as ‘Life in the Peace Zone.’

In October 2008, LeBaron wrote about a place and time when she was a child in southern Humboldt County: 

“It was two years ago when I first read that Charles Hurwitz, the corporate raider from Texas whose disrespect of the California redwoods had made him an anathema on the North Coast, was offering the town of Scotia for sale.

My first thought was that I wished I was rich enough to buy it. It isn’t every day one gets a chance to buy back a chunk of one’s childhood.

I spent my early years in a very small town called Redcrest, a dozen miles down the road from Scotia. I was, in fact, born in Scotia in the days when there was a hospital in town – a hospital, a hotel, a theater, a bank, and the church where my mother and I worshipped on Sunday morning while my dad read the Sunday paper in the car. And of course, the mill, stretching along the main street the entire distance of the town.

It was my family’s closest ‘big city,’ and we traveled there regularly – for tap dancing lessons Saturday mornings at the Winema Theater; for my big brother’s baseball games at second base for the might Lumberjacks; for visits to The Sweet Shoppe in the basement of the Scotia Inn for a chocolate covered ice cream bar called a Whale, which I haven’t seen since.”

LeBaron always visited her home region during her travels, and she stopped often at her favorite places. Among them was the Grace Hudson Museum in Ukiah.

LeBaron liked writing about Grace Hudson, a remarkable woman artist who captured the culture of the Pomo people on canvas, and her husband, Dr. John Hudson, a Southern-born gentleman who met and married the young divorcee upon his arrival the late 19^th century in Ukiah. Grace Hudson’s father was Mendocino County’s first newspaper publisher, and he was a photographer who documented the county’s early years after settlers arrived.

LeBaron and former Hudson Museum Director Sherrie Smith-Ferri, a renowned Pomo scholar with ties to Sonoma County’s Dry Creek tribe, formed a decades-long friendship. She encouraged Evert Person, the late Press Democrat publisher, to help support the Hudson Museum. Person acquired the first numbered oil painting by Hudson and gifted it to the Hudson Museum. He also underwrote the cost of adding a gallery in honor of Grace Hudson’s family. Evert Person, and his widow Norma Person, to date remain the single largest contributors to the Hudson Museum.

When Smith-Ferri and retired Hudson curator Karen Holmes in 2014 authored a book at Hudson’s turn of the century sojourn in Hawaii, LeBaron captured the essence the artist’s life in her review:

“Grace’s early interest in art brought her to the San Francisco School of Design before her 14^th birthday. That’s where she met Ed Esprey from Eugene, Oregon, who, following his artistic inclinations, was also a student at what was deemed the best art school on the West Coast (precursor of today’s SF Art Institute).

Before long Grace and Ed became – in the language of those gentler times – “sweethearts,” a relationship that would last for the next four years.

Both explored the depth of their talent in a range of artistic disciplines. But Esprey went to study in France, and while the love letters between them continued, Grace had caught the attention of an older man, a widower names William Davis. Against the wishes of her family, she eloped with him in 1884. She was 19. He was 34. It was a brief marriage and ended in divorce in 1886. Grace’s formal art education ceased, and she returned to Ukiah to work with her parents in their photo studio and give art lessons. Her artwork from this period – what little there is – is signed ‘Grace Davis’ and lacks the quality of her earlier, and later work. The three-year ‘down period’ ended when John Hudson came to town.

Hudson was a physician, sent to Ukiah as a railroad doctor when the San Francisco and North Pacific Line reached Mendocino County. He was also an ethnographer, interested in the Pomo population of this frontier town.

The love story of Grace and John Hudson would result in a marriage that lasted well into the new century. It produced not only a new and important form of California art – Grace’s Pomo portraits – but also John’s contributions to the ethnography and anthropology of the region. Both disciplines are well told in permanent exhibits at the museum and the adjoining Sun House, where they lived and worked.”

The vignettes underscore LeBaron’s deep connections to the North Coast, its people, and the history.

She has been a great friend of our communities in Mendocino, Humboldt, and Lake counties, and an informed teacher of their histories. We are in awe of her accomplishments. We will never forget her contributions.

GAYE LEBARON

Editor,

I was honored with a mention once in Gaye LeBaron’s column, when she profiled my accordion teacher, Guido Canevari. That was cool. But what really resonates for me is how she created community (her old-older game) and taught community history.

Because of her, I know so much more about Sonoma County than I ever could have learned from travel guides or coffee table books. I moved here from Calistoga in 1963 (big move for a 7-year-old), and I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t learning from LeBaron’s column, even during her first “retirement.” No one could have made history more interesting, because she made history personal. And because she is a fine writer.

Enjoy your retirement, Gaye. You are one of my beloved-friends-that-I’ve-never-met.

Jan Lappin

Rohnert Park

NADINE BOER

On Sunday Mendocino County youth lost the wonderful Nadine Boer. She worked hard for members of the Mendocino County 4H and FFA. She never looked for recognition. Nadine wanted the youth to shine. She lead 4H groups, organized awards for the Redwood Empire Fair and the Mendocino County Fair, and much more.

You may not have known her, but she knew you Boonville-Anderson Valley FFA. You never failed to impress her with your kindness and work ethic. You do know her pumpkins from Pirate Pete's Pumpkin Patch.

We honor you Nadine! Thank you for everything you have done for the youth of Mendocino County.

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ADMIRERS CELEBRATE 114TH BIRTHDAY OF WILLITS WOMAN, 12TH OLDEST LIVING PERSON

by Chris Smith

WILLITS — If Edith “Edie” Ceccarelli isn’t for sure the 12th oldest person in the world, she’s darned close to it, according to super-longevity researchers.

Ceccarelli on Saturday turned 114 years old, an occasion marked with a grand parade through the small town of Willits in the heart of Mendocino County.

“Thank you,” the fastidiously groomed, classically lovely Ceccarelli said softly. She waved from a chair on the porch of a balloon-festooned Willits care home toward a COVID-distanced procession of police cars, fire trucks, kids on horses, motorcycles and vintage autos.

At one point amid the drive-by salute, the co-owner of the Holy Spirit Care Home, Perla Gonzalez, leaned in closely to Ceccarelli and told her it was her birthday.

“Feb. 5?” responded Ceccarelli, who’s astonishingly vibrant for 114 but lives with advancing dementia.

Though Ceccarelli (pronounced CHICK ah REH lee) hasn’t lived all her life in Willits, she was born there – on Feb. 5, 1908. That same year, Henry Ford produced the first Model T, Wilbur Wright completed the longest-ever airplane flight (2½ hours), and Mohandas Gandhi, at 38, was arrested for civil disobedience the first time.

The Willits girl, born Edith Recagno, was the eldest of seven children of Italian immigrants Maria and Agostino Recagno. Edith’s industrious father worked as a lumberman. He helped to build the Northwestern Pacific Railroad and ran in Willits a grocery store and then a service station.

Edith Recagno graduated in 1927 from Willits Union High School. She was 25 when she and Elmer “Brick” Keenan married in Ukiah on Nov. 17, 1933.

In ’34, the Keenans quit Willits for Santa Rosa, where Brick began a long career as a typesetter with the Press Democrat. The couple lived on Benton Street and there brought up a daughter, Laureen, or “Laurie,” whom they adopted as a newborn. Laurie Keenan Hutchins died in 2003, at age 64.

Her mother told the Press Democrat at her 112th birthday party in 2019 that she liked Santa Rosa, “but it got a little heavy – a lot of people.”

So when Edie’s husband retired from the Press Democrat in 1971, the two of them returned to Willits. Among their hometown’s distinctions are a Skunk Train depot, the state’s oldest continuously running rodeo and festival (Ceccarelli was named the Frontier Days honorary grand marshal in 2009) and a welcoming Main Street arch that formerly graced Reno and declared it, “The Biggest Little City in the World.”

Brick Keenan was 74 when he died in 1984. His widow, who all her life has loved to dance, subsequently met Charles Ceccarelli at a dance at the Ukiah Senior Center. They married in 1986 and spent a good deal of time on dance floors up to Charles’ death in 1990.

Through much of the past 30 or so years, Edie Ceccarrelli was known by many of the roughly 5,000 inhabitants of Willits as the gracious, stylishly dressed and endearing woman who danced, sought out opportunities to assist and savor foster children and other youngsters, gave to local causes, for endless hours tended her garden and strolled regularly about town, stopping into any number of businesses to visit.

She lived alone at her longtime Willits home until she was 107. Since then she has been in the residential care home operated by Perla and Genaro Gonzalez and their staff of helpers.

Perla Gonzalez said Ceccarrelli, who’s been extraordinarily healthy all of her life, can move about with the added stability of a wheeled walker.

Though she can walk that way, Gonzalez said, “Sometimes in the morning, she just wants to sit down and be pushed. I think she’s entitled to that.”

With some assistance from her caregivers, Ceccarelli enjoys her meals, she dresses fastidiously – most often in a shade of her beloved pink – and she brushes her teeth and does her make-up and hair.

Then there’s this: she continues to believe that among the best things in life is a sip of red wine.

“It’s her go-to at dinner,” Gonzalez said.

Among Ceccarelli’s many admirers in and near Willits are five generations of cousins. Cousin-by-marriage Evelyn Persico of Willits, was a constant in her life until 2020, when the pandemic halted visits to the care home.

“I’m so tired of not being able to see Edie. It just breaks my heart,” said Persico, who’s 82. She still makes sure Ceccarelli has everything she needs, but she hasn’t been able to see her in person since a brief, masked visit late last year.

“I don’t think she knew who I was,” Persico said.

In addition to exhibiting memory loss and sometimes a reluctance to stand and push a walker, Ceccarelli now has a fair bit of trouble hearing. But for someone who’s 33 years beyond the average U.S. life expectancy for females, she’s a marvel.

“It makes me feel good that she’s still physically strong,” Persico said. “I just love that little lady.”

It’s not possible to state with certainty where Ceccarelli places among the longest-living people in the world. Scientists who study and track and rank supercentenarians – those 110 and older – can’t be positive that they simply aren’t aware of some contenders for the list. And sometimes efforts to validate the age of someone said to be extremely old are frustrated by difficulties in obtaining records such as birth certificates.

“These rankings are conditional,” said Robert Young, who maintains the Validated Living Supercentenarians list for the Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group.

That list is the world’s official ranking of the oldest known humans, and the Gerontology Research Group is for 22 straight years the official gerontology consultant of Guinness World Records..

The research group has not yet added Edie Ceccarelli to the ranking because it hasn’t secured all of the personal records it needs to fully validate her age. Even so, Young says he has seen enough to have no doubt at all that Ceccarelli did in fact turn 114 on Saturday.

Young notes that Ceccarelli appears in fact to be No. 12 because the group and its partners with Guinness World Records are close to validating that Sofia Rojas of Colombia is 114 and was born Aug. 13, 1907 – nearly six months before Ceccarelli.

If both women are certified soon and added to the ranking, Rojas will be listed as the 11th oldest known person on Earth, Ceccarelli the 12th.

At present, the gerontology researchers have verified that there are alive only 10 people 114 and older. That’s 10 out of 7.9 billion. Quite the exclusive group.

Today, the human being who’s lived the longest is Kane Tanaka of Japan, at 119 years, 35 days. Like all of the elders validated to currently be 113 or older, Tanaka is a female.

Just below her in the ranking are a woman just days short of 118, one who is 115 and seven who turned 114 before Edie Ceccarelli. Of those 10 validated oldest people in the world, three are Japanese, three are American, and one each live in France, Poland, Spain and Argentina.

The three 114-year-old Americans confirmed to have turned that age ahead of Ceccarelli are Bessie Henricks of Iowa, Mila Mangold of Berkeley and Irene Dunham of Michigan.

Ceccarelli is also regarded the oldest native Californian still living in the state.

Just in January, Ceccarelli moved up several notches on the oldest-on-Earth list because of an unusual flurry of deaths.

“January 2022 was a disaster for oldest living people,” said Young of the gerontology group. In that month alone:

The oldest resident of Brazil, Antonia da Santa Cruz, died at 116 years, 224 days.

The oldest person in the U.S., Thelma Sutcliffe of Nebraska, died at 115 years, 108 days.

The second oldest Japanese, Yoshi Otsunari, died at 115 years, 40 days.

Canada’s oldest citizen, Cecile Klein, died at 114 years, 212 days.

And the fifth oldest Japanese, Yoshi Baba, died at 114 years, 215 days.

Though it did not affect Ceccarelli’s ranking, in January also died the world’s oldest known man, Saturnino de la Fuente Garcia of Spain, at 112 years and 341 days. Guinness World Records is in the process of identifying the new World’s Oldest Man, who may be Venezuela’s Juan Vicente Pérez Mora, who’s 112 years and 255 days old.

Women are far more likely than men to reach age 114 or older.

Young said that on average, women age 3% slower per year than men. Additionally, a 2019 study by St. Louis’ Washington University School of Medicine found that women’s brains appear to be about three years younger than men’s of the same chronological age.

That aging gap between the sexes has men tending to die younger, and placing lower on the Who’s Oldest list.

Everyone wants to know: What is it that allows the world’s few supercentenarians to live so long?

Asked often for her secrets to longevity, Edie Ceccarelli has on occasion responded, “Have two fingers of wine, and mind your own business.”

She reflected at her 105th birthday in 2013, “I’m content with what I have. I’ve been blessed and I have lived a life that has given me happiness. I’ve always been honest.”

Some people think good genes are the main contributor to an exceptionally long life. Others tend to think a healthy lifestyle is more important.

Said Young, of the Gerontology Research Group, “The reality is that to live to this age, you have to have both.”

He believes people like Ceccarelli are born with extraordinary genetics, and they build on that congenital propensity for super-longevity by embodying personal qualities that include being forever active, maintaining a healthy weight and diet, and remaining emotionally stable, interested and engaged.

Young also observed that the people who live the longest “tend to be self-directed individuals. They maintain the idea that they are in control of their lives.”

It also helps, the authority on aging said, to live in a temperate climate, like the one in the Sonoma-Mendocino region of California. “It just seems to be easier on the body,” he said.

Despite its amicable weather, the area has in recent decades celebrated only a few supercentenarians, among them Santa Rosa’s Ann (Pisenti) Beach Burow, who turned 110 in October of 2015. She died the following April.

Elsie Rich, who fled Vienna ahead of the Nazis in 1938 and became a chicken rancher in Santa Rosa, was 110 when she died in December 2011.

In Willits on Saturday, the day she turned 114, an impeccably dressed Edie Cecarrelli stood to accept a framed acknowledgement of her birthday from Assemblymember Jim Wood, D-Healdsburg. Wood said he learned of what was happening for Ceccarelli and thought, “I just have to go.”

It was no ordinary birthday celebration that Wood and all the others took part in Saturday in Willits. It was history.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

POT ON SALE AT THE PRICE OF KALE

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

Remember back about two years ago when legalized marijuana had not yet turned into the colossal white elephant bust of today, and Flow Canna came to town to the musical accompaniment of bugles blowing, chorale groups singing and the occasional gong?

Ah, so yesterday.

Today Flow Canna, which took over the old Fetzer property just north of town, has crawled back to wherever it came from, taking its invisible profits and promises along with it.

The dishonest propaganda from loud weed advocates has at last delivered legal cannabis straight into the reality they helped create. It ain’t a pretty picture. Marijuana prices haven’t been this low since Wavy Gravy was in third grade selling classmates ditchweed at $5 a lid.

Down Hopland way the old Solar Living complex, once a mysterious confection of hippie dreams made semi-practical, sold what remained of its soul to the gods of marijuana a few years ago. Today the whole thing is empty weedy acreage, and not the weedy they’d hoped.

Marijuana excess is being sold off by growers hoping to recover their trimming costs, which is like Budweiser cutting the price of a six-pack down just enough to pay workers on the bottling line. Anheuser-Busch could do that for a few fiscal quarters; Flow Canna couldn’t.

FURIES ON THE LEFT 

When “hate crimes” became punishable and “hate speech” became a target, we didn’t have to look too far down the road to see the eventual grotesqueries the practices would morph into.

Hate Crimes enhance penalties based on what the defendant was supposedly thinking at the time he took a swing at the victim. It was quickly obvious only members of certain demographic segments could possibly be charged with a hate crime. And Hate Speech was, from Day One, a weapon unleashed against ideas progressives found offensive, meaning ideas progressive didn’t like.

Today our liberal friends would do themselves, and society, a favor by taking a minute to examine where “Hate Speech” accusations have brought us. A recent opinion piece in the UDJ from former County Supervisor John McCowen (as sane and sober a local politician as we have) dissected the tenure of Carmel Angelo and found it wanting. (Note: Ms. Angelo is soon to retire with an annual pension far north of $100,000 a year.

McCowen’s thoughtful piece has been attacked as, of all things, “Hate Speech.” (Inside Tip: Carmel Angelo is a tough old broad who can stand up for herself and go toe-to-toe with John McCowen. Or anyone.)

It’s well past the time for reasonable Democrats to draw the line on the dangerous censorship and preposterous accusations their leftist allies espouse. A politician criticizing another county politician is out of line?

Well then, what isn’t?

FIND AN UGLY QB 

Dear wife Trophy was swooning and sighing at the sight of the helmet-less ‘49er quarterback, Jimmy Garoppolo, during last week’s televised game with the Rams. So dang cute, that feller!

It brought me to wondering whether an ugly quarterback exists in the NFL today, or has ever. My guess is an emphatic No, sort of. 

All quarterbacks, from Otto Graham and Bart Starr to Joe Namath, Joe Montana, Bobby Layne, Steve Young, Bernie Kosar, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Kenny Stabler, Roger Staubach, Joe Burrow, Patrick Mahomes and Mathew Stafford score high on the Good Looks-o-Meter. (But, then, Y.A. Tittle.)

Why this is true is a mystery, given that the job is a cold, hard, stats-driven meritocracy. But I suggest having your wife or girlfriend review rosters of Major League Baseball players, apply the same standards, and the results will be similar. Almost every one of the 25 players on the Giants or A’s, Tigers, Yankees or Rockies will be handsome, probably on average not much different from that of male Hollywood movie stars.

(This is not the reality for accountants, journalists, school teachers, Walmart employees, cops, college professors, plumbers or other random professions.)

MINI-LIBRARIES

One of the nicer developments around town has been the proliferation of boxes of books on sticks in front yards all over the west side. I’ve been a frequent borrower but a lousy donor over the years but I’ll soon do better. I’ll only take books in the future.

I’d often wondered if the boxes more or less retained their owners’ original stamp in maintaining a certain genre in their libraries, but with few exceptions I don’t think so. Up on West Standley is a box with a small plaque honoring Richard Kaderli, “A Science Fiction Enthusiast” but on a recent visit there were no sci-fi books. 

Further up Standley, on the opposite side, is a library heavy on romance, plus one with the double deadly combination of authors Oprah Winfrey and Bob Greene.

On the Rail Trail stands another box loaded with romance fiction and their interchangeable covers, while the West Side Market has mainstream stuff by John Grisham, James Patterson, David Baldacci and Derek Jeter (?).

(Tom Hine says not to worry, he’ll stuff books into boxes just like always in 2022. TWK, illiterate, only reads books with pictures.)

R.D. BEACON, LATE 1950s, ESCONDIDO, CALIFORNIA

My first parade, borrow the horse from George Skillings, he was the owner of the Palms Motel resort south of town. The shirt that I'm wearing has insignias of the Apple Valley Inn on it. Today I’m giving the shirt back to one of George's daughters. I've had the shirt for 65 years and now it's time to return it.

WILLITS MOTHER OF FOUR STANDS TRIAL For Murdering Husband During Argument, Jury Selection Begins —MendoThrowback

Combing newspaper archives, MendoFever will work hard to provide a MendoThrowback every day of the calendar year to remind residents of days long gone. 

The Ukiah Daily Journal's Monday, February 6, 1956 edition gave a glimpse into a Mendocino County murder trial born from a domestic argument turned deadly. The jury that would determine whether 29-year-old Willits woman Imogene Yokum murdered her husband was being selected that day.

Yokum reportedly admitted to investigators she shot her 32-year-old husband Donald Yokum one December evening when the couple was drinking with friends and an arguement ensued over religion

The 29-year-old housewife and mother-of-four was said to have grabbed a 30-30 caliber rifle firing one shot which struck her husband in the neck, severed his jugular, and killed him almost instantly. This crime reportedly occurred in front of guests, 40-year-old Vernon Schuster and 38-year-old Marie Lancaster.

Mendocino County Sheriff Reno Bartolomei reportedly said the argument ensued from Yokum wanting her children to attend Sunday school, but her husband objected.

The Ukiah Daily Journal characterized the day of jury selection as a "challenging experience." Yokum, which the UDJ described as the "dark hair and attractive defendant" sat next to her attorney John Golden.

District Attorney Merle Orchard and Golden spent the day vetting potential jurors in the case. Golden asked questions like: "Do you have any feelings regarding the charge of murder in a trial?"

The jury candidates reportedly represented a cross-section of Mendocino County including "farmers, retired persons, and housewives."

Fifty spectators were in court that day to hear the "quiet voices of the attorneys" as the jury candidates offered "softly spoken answers."

(Courtesy, MendoFever.com)

COUNTY NOTES

by Mark Scaramella

MENDO MEXICANS REJOICE!

For the first time in County history, the CEO report is now being translated into “El Informe Del CEO”!

That’s right! You heard it here first. The Mendocino CEO Report will now be unreadable and uninformative in Spanish as well as English. Mexicans can read about “Agricultura,” and “Services Sociales,” and “Juntas y Comisiones,” and “Salud del Compartamiento,” and especially “Directivas de la Junta de Supervisores,” and so much more. 

IN OTHER CEO REPORT NEWS, we find a sterile attempt at a Budget vs. Actual report with raw numbers by department for mid-fiscal year (July-December). Running down the unannotated list we see that three departments are showing significant overruns at this point: the CEO’s office (75% spent only half way through the year), County Counsel (73%), and Transportation (74%). Of course there’s no explanation. The Sheriff and Jail are both right at 50% of their budgets. 

Although there’s no attempt to explain the CEO’s or County Counsel’s large overruns, the CEO couldn’t resist taking a little parting dig at Interim Auditor-Controller Chamise Cubbison, noting at the bottom of the budget rundown: “As of the running of the report 1/27/22, the Auditor‐Controller has yet to close December. Actuals may change once December has been finalized.” 

Maybe the Auditor’s office is too busy because of understaffing caused by the CEO’s slow-walking of recrutments for the Auditor’s office. Maybe they’re too busy with the huge property tax system conversion/upgrade. Maybe they’re busy trying to figure out how to consolidate with the Treasurer-Tax Colletor’s office… We’ll never know because if Auditor Cubbison has an explanation, it’s certainly not going to be included in CEO Angelo’s report. 

BUT BUDGET COMPLIANCE by the Sheriff didn’t stop the CEO from issuing a “purchasing violation” notice to the Sheriff:

“The Sheriff department was issued two separate memos regarding purchase violations that exceeded Policy No. 1 - Section 3.1 Goods. Violation has been noted and documented and per policy being reported to the Chief Executive Officer in this report. Specifically, Policy No. 1 - Section 3.1 Goods, reads as follows: “County Code Sec. 2.32.060 ‘Purchasing Procedures’ requires that in the event the Purchasing Agent or designee purchases any individual item (as distinct from the total contract) costing more than Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000) without securing competitive bids or quotations thereon, the Purchasing Agent or designee shall report such action to the Board of Supervisors through the Chief Executive Officer, with his/her reasons therefore; and provided, further, that if the Purchasing Agent or designee does call for competitive bids or quotations and accepts any bid or quotation other than the lowest upon any individual item costing more than Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000), the Purchasing Agent or designee shall likewise report such fact to the Board of Supervisors through the Chief Executive Officer.’ All purchases over $10,000 require an Exception to Bid or must follow competitive bidding guidelines; the two violations issued were for purchases exceeding $16,000 each, for a total of over $32,000.”

OMIGOSH! No competitive bids for two purchases of over $32,000! The Sheriff wasn’t given an opportunity to respond or explain, of course. 

What’s funny is, the CEO has never issued a purchasing violation notice or justification for her annual non-competitive gift of $20 million or so to Redwood Community Services (RCS), despite Supervisor Williams asking years ago that the RCS contract be broken up so that it could be competitively bid. But the Sheriff buys a couple of specialized things for a few thousand dollars without a second bid and the CEO jumps right on him with a violation notice.

Matter of fact, the consent calendar for this same week that the Sheriff’s violation notice was issued proposes to award yet another “retroactive” $75k to RCS “to Provide On-Call Drivers to Transport Mendocino County Residents on a 5150 Hold from Mendocino County to Out-of-County Psychiatric Hospitals.” Apparently Camille Schraeder and her crew at RCS are the only people who who can provide such a specialized service as driving 5150s to Vallejo etc., although it’s never explained why nobody else can do it. There’s no evidence on the record that anybody even attempted to get a competitive bid for this seemingly ordinary service contract before it was ALREADY awarded. After all, CEO Angelo would never issue a violation notice to herself and make herself look bad just before she goes back to San Diego next month. The Sheriff though? Oh, he’s fair game. 

* * *

CEO’S OVERLY COMPLEX PROPOSAL TO “REIMBURSE ITSELF”

(What could possibly go wrong?)

Tuesday’s Board meeting agend item 4a): “Adoption of Resolution Declaring Mendocino County’s Intent to Use Proceeds of Indebtedness to Reimburse Itself for Expenditures Related to the Jail Expansion Project 

“Resolution Of The Mendocino County Board Of Supervisors Setting Forth The Official Intent Of The County Of Mendocino To Reimburse Certain Expenditures Related To The Development Of The Jail Expansion Project From Proceeds Of Indebtedness 

WHEREAS, the County of Mendocino (”County”) intends to enter into a lease financing to finance the costs of construction, improvement and equipping of the Jail Expansion (“Project”); and 

WHEREAS, the County has paid or expects to pay certain capital expenditures (“Reimbursement Expenditures”) in connection with the Project prior to the issuance of the indebtedness for purpose of financing such costs on a long-term basis; and 

WHEREAS, the County reasonably expects debt obligations in an amount not expected to exceed $4,000,000, will be issued and that certain of the proceeds of such debt obligations will be used to reimburse the Reimbursement Expenditures; and 

WHEREAS, Section 1.150-2 of the Treasury Regulations requires the County to declare its reasonable official intent to reimburse prior capital expenditures for the Project with proceeds of a subsequent borrowing. 

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors as follows: 

Section 1. The County finds and determines that the forgoing recitals are true and correct. 

Section 2. This declaration is made solely for purposes of establishing compliance with the requirements of Section 1.150-2 of the Treasury Regulations. This declaration does not bind the County to make any expenditures, incur any indebtedness, or proceed with the Project. 

Section 3. The County hereby declares its official intent to use proceeds of indebtedness to reimburse itself for Reimbursement Expenditures. 

Section 4. This declaration shall take effect from and after its adoption. 

Section 5. This Resolution shall take effect from and after its adoption.”

QUICK WATER & WEATHER REPORT

by Jim Shields

Currently, Lake Mendocino has 43,232 acre feet behind the dam with an overall capacity of 118,000 acre feet, which means it’s about 37 percent “full.”

According to this press release from the Sonoma Water Agency, (and believe it or not) “Lake Mendocino’s watershed is in a “normal” water supply condition and hence we have to meet increased minimum flow requirements in the Russian River — that means we have to increase flows out of Lake Mendocino. We beg to differ with our water rights permits, and thus in mid-November petitioned the State Water Resources Control Board to change that so we can save water in Lake Mendocino during this continuing drought. The State Water Board approved our petition and beginning on Feb. 1, the water supply condition will almost certainly change to “dry” unless a big storm comes our way before then — which is not forecasted to happen. So, long story short, Sonoma Water acted proactively late last year to save water in Lake Mendocino based on our water rights permits and we will continue to proactively work with our regulatory colleagues to save the water for our community in our reservoirs!”

It appears the next possibility of rain is mid-February when it might snow also.

Our current rainfall in the Laytonville area for the year is 36.90 inches compared to the historical average of 38.60 inches at this time of year. The historical annual precipitation for Laytonville is 67 inches. On this date last year during the historic drought, we had 19.55 inches of precipitation, and ended up with a total rainfall of just 29 inches, the lowest on record. Previously we knew that our aquifer would recharge if we received half, or approximately 32 inches to 33 inches, of our historical average of 67 inches of precipitation. Last year it recharged at 29 inches, which is new data and also good news because we already have nearly 37 inches.

JESSE GERMAINE (ON-LINE COMMENT)

Re: Doggy Dorie

I think the people who try to help “lost dogs” on their way back to SF or wherever are the same types who bag up their dog shit religiously and leave it bagged on the ground at various points along the coast. I see them (the laden bags) in weird places all the time; the road down to Greenwood Beach, never at Navarro Beach except on the ground right next to the garbage can. There’s always, repeat always, AT LEAST one by the guardrail on highway 1 at the trailhead to Buckhorn Cove. Mendocino headlands has more of these than benches, and considerably more than there are garbage cans. People leave them everywhere. They’re most commonly translucent green, second most common is black. (The bags).

It must have been 5 or 6 years ago that a post showed up on msp (rip paul), a family in Santa Cruz wanted to find the home of a dog they had found “lost” walking on Cameron Road. I vaguely remember that it was a German Shepherd. Turns out the Floodgate was closed and the robot rerouted them to Greenwood-Philo. So they stop “in the middle of nowhere” to “rescue” this “lost” dog. Dog is nice and jumped in. Dog didn’t get to her preferred destination, or back home that night. They took that dog to Santa Cruz from Elk, with the best (if misguided) intentions.

Only a few months before, I had a knock on the door from a distressed couple from Caspar. They had lost their dog Luna something like 3 weeks prior. When they advertised “lost dog” with pictures and everything they had no response. When I saw them they had somehow come up with $1000 reward, and the response was immediate. The responding party chose to hang up a (you can’t make this up) bedsheet draped on huckleberries saying “you’re dog here” on Cameron Road. When the interested party drove by my place they thought the silvery tour bus (you know it if you ever drive 3 miles up Cameron) was the sign.

It wasn’t, but those poor people found their dog and went home in tears with her.

Driving through Little River on 1 everyday, I had to squeeze my brakes! Here’s this old woman blocking the highway, trying to fit dogs into her car that don’t fit. Whatever, I’m mad at her. “Dyeneedhelp?

I pull over and start to help with the roundup. I learn that these dogs are not hers. She wants to help by driving them 300 miles away. She can’t see the goats eating poison oak in the cemetery. She doesn’t care about the goats or the poison oak. She doesn’t want help anymore. She is going to the airport now.

RESIDENTS UNITE TO BRING LIFE BACK TO THE ICONIC ROUND VALLEY SIGN

Round Valley residents will find a subtle detail of their lives has gotten a much-deserved restoration. The iconic Welcome to Round Valley sign that greets travelers as they enter from the south has been restored by a collection of civic-minded citizens after a fire took its beauty and luster last year.

mendofever.com/2022/02/06/residents-unite-to-bring-life-back-to-iconic-round-valley-sign/

THE SUPER VALENTINE BOWL

A great way to start your Sunday Feb. 13th.

HEART SHAPED PANCAKES And FOOTBALL FLAPJACKS, gluten free on request, cooked on the gridiron and made with love. Add the Maple syrup or fruit topping, bacon,eggs, juice and coffee...and you got the best way to start your day.

It's the second Sunday of the month and time for the AV GRANGE PANCAKE BREAKFAST from 8:30 to 11:00.

Be mine just before Valentines and Superbowl, no penalties for facemasking, (in fact we all facemask), but watch out for illegal use of the hands.

So c'mon down, bring your own plates and silverware or use the disposable gear at the Grange. Think of it as tailgating for Valentines Day.

CATCH OF THE DAY, February 6, 2022

JUBE BEGLEY, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Unspecified offense (No bond, book & release). 

EMERSON CALDERON, Fort Bragg. Battery on peace officer, evasion, failure to appear.

AUGUSTINE FREASE, Ukiah. Controlled substance similar to toluene, county parole violation.

ANDRES FUENTES-LUCERO, Ukiah. DUI, suspended license, probation revocation.

NOAH HARRISON, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

TERRY HOUSER, Eureka/Ukiah. Under influence, controlled substance, more than an ounce of pot.

BUFFY LYONS, Ukiah. DUI, suspended license for DUI, contempt of court.

ROCIO MALDONADO, Ukiah. DUI.

SANDRA MALDONADO, Ukiah. DUI.

MIRANDA MULLINS, Willits. Tear gas, saps/similar, stolen property, sale of organic drug, probation revocation.

CHARLES RICHARDS, Ukiah. DUI.

CLIFFORD SCARBOROUGH, Sonoma/Ukiah. Trespassing, disorderly conduct-alcohol, disorderly conduct-lodging without owner’s consent. 

DEFAULT VOTE

Editor,

I can respect the spirit of letters about the bumpy road to E Pluribus Unum. But the tired rants about how wrong we are for even mentioning we liked one of Donald Trump’s ideas or policies are another huge miss on the entire picture.

I’m not a minion, or any of the other negative stereotype names hurled at those of us who voted for Trump, not out of love for him or misguided anger, but mainly out of desperation, because of the Democratic-Republican insiders club that owns Washington.

Seventy-four million people are not all right-wing fanatics, cult members or the rest of the ugly list of insults. We used to listen to your side; we simply stopped believing when the results showed up.

Give us better candidates, better solutions, not crazy ideas that only sound good from the Democrats’ star players. And quit excusing the failures of this administration.

Steve McLaughlin

Windsor

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The only real substitute for oil and gas is nuclear with an add-on of electrolysis (fuel cells) running off of the nuclear output.

Renewables will be lucky to get to 50% of needed electricity, where should we get the rest?

Phoenix has a nuclear plant, located about 40 miles west of the city. With all the lousy land in the west, why couldn’t we do nuclear in those areas and run power into the national grid. You do not want to get into an argument about the efficiency of energy generated per acre between wind or solar versus nuclear.

How come France is the best reliable nuclear nation in the world? They are out performing all the renewables oriented for efficiency and cost. Their power output does not fluctuate with the wind speed or cloudiness either. 

It is obvious that we better figure out something and soon. So far, renewables are a sad joke.

THIS IS FOR ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE

Splitting kindling
under a dwindling sun

Leaves on the ground
beneath the trees
Delicious–golden and red

Leaves damp
brown

Redwood and fir snags
Spires on the southern sky
Line after line
reminds me of you
and how far it is between
those twisting trees

Kindling split
in baskets
I never brought to you

Feet up on the porch rail
My favorite self-portrait

Listening to America
the original band
Lonely People
After so many calls, texts, emails

Purple plum branches
bare and gray
Huckleberry flourishing
from an old growth stump
Green moss tempers
charcoal wood

Why do I smile
while America plays
Lonely People
Maybe it's you
Maybe it's a winter's day
winding down
sitting still

Bevy of quail
in the yard
Less skittery than summer
when I let you down
They huddle and cuddle
against the chill
and their tiny movements
crackle the leaves
lying brown
under the trees
Delicious–red and golden
like the state
we're in

America playing
Lonely People
This should be the end
we've come back around

A day is dusking
Still we smile
In the distance
a chainsaw starts
or is it a motorcycle
Too late to start sawing

A day is dusking

A friend texts
to love a photo
of the sea
and the gulls
and the waves
that roll back
to hours ago

Gray clouds
overhead
pushing west
like my ancestor
a hundred seventy years ago

From Ontario
Canada
to Californ
Equines his only companions

He rode a horse with no name
through the desert
without America playing
on an iPhone

How lonely was he?

We smile and ride on
across the centuries
into the sunset
with our narcissistic tendencies

Dusk doesn't turn to gloom
Days don't die
under the stars
They just rest
to brighten
tomorrow

When it'll be alright
and the croaking toads
will hush
to let us pass

on our hike
to that bare spire
at the top
of the hill

That long and twisting trail
while America plays
This is for all the lonely people

And the brown leaves
feed the ground
nourishing the trees
Delicious
red and golden

Flip an iPhone just right
and America plays on
into the dark and beyond

— Malcolm Macdonald

MEMO OF THE WEEK

Hello everyone

We’ve just moved to the Village (we call Mendocino the Village).

We have a new home and are finding that we need some filler furniture and appliances. Slightly used is good (if the prices is right).

1. A sturdy wood desk that can be dismantled and reassembled or will fit through a little smaller than usual doorway. And some indoor office table(s).

2. Large screen TV(s) that we don’t have to drive 100+ miles to get or wait weeks for delivery.

Some patio furniture.

3. Table.

4. Upright but outdoor Chairs.

5. Redwood home styled bar stools for a kitchen island.

6. Redwood tone throw rugs. Large & small.

Again, used is good if the price is right.

I am one of those people that detests paying retail for furniture.

Also if you are a local business that can accommodate our needs please chime in. We are new to the area. AND, we love living here. It has been our dream for sometime.

Suggestions & advice are welcome.

Thank you

Respectfully

Dan & Margaret Rush

KEITH WYNE: Some time ago we were told that our analog, PGE analog meter would be replaced, as we were adding new solar panels. We were told the analog meter would not be able to read the solar panels. We specifically requested a “Digital Meter” …. Not a “Smart Meter.” That was fine with PGE.

What is the difference between a smart meter and a digital meter?

A smart meter is a digital electricity meter that records a home's energy usage in at least 30-minute intervals. ... Digital interval meters can also record electricity consumption in 30-minute intervals, but unlike smart meters, they're not able to communicate that data to the provider.

A “Digital Meter” will still need a “Meter Reader,” unlike a "Smart Meter” that can read and send your PGE usage directly to PGE through their own wireless network. PGE also has permission to share your data with designated, approved, third parties as needed.

If for some reason you need to replace your analog meter, know the difference between the digital meter and the smart meter, and request what you would like. I don’t know or sure, but you may want to check with someone, or the PUC, if PGE can replace your analog meter, especially if you are in the “opt out” program, without your permission.

You might also want to check to see if you have digital meter or a smart meter, or even see if there is a process to request the one you want?

ANOTHER NO-KNOCK SHOOTING

Dear Editor,

On Wednesday morning in an apartment building in downtown Minneapolis another innocent black man’s like was taken by police serving a “no knock” warrant. The young man, Amir Locke, a lawful gun owner was fast asleep in the apartment. Some of the background facts are still being investigated, but what is known is that Locke wasn’t the person (or persons) the police were after.

Locke reacted as anyone might have whose sleep was interrupted by having his or her bed kicked by armed strangers. Apparently in the police body video released by them the next day, he wasn’t about to shoot an officer. 

Three shots killed him. It’s another case like the one in Louisville, KY of police misjudgment which has become so tragically common in America. Locke was well within his rights and now is dead. Whatever happens now, justice is not going to be reached for his grieving family or the black community. 

Frank H. Baumgardner, III 

Santa Rosa

POEM FOR A DYING DOG 

Lay not thy hand upon our family dog, 

Neither do anything to him, 

For now I know I fearest you, Lord. 

Leave our dog in peace to die in his sleep. 

Spare him the sedation injection. 

Spare him the final pentobarbital. 

Spare him the panic he cannot conceive. 

May he wake to a new blue sky, Lord. 

May he wake to a beautiful morning.

— John Sakowicz