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Letters (February 17, 2022)

By AVA News Service on February 17, 2022

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DUE PROCESS IN FORT BRAGG?

Editor:

How many of you are there? No matter what your politics or how you feel about CANNABIS, two long awaited VOTER INITIATIVE PETITIONS are circulating among registered Fort Bragg voters, waiting for your signatures. One of the Petitions preserves the gravely endangered Cannabis Permit Application Review Process itself; an ordinance which included public input, and which the City spent two years and significant tax dollars to fine tune. The companion Petition calls for neighborhood protective Buffer Zones. Once the required number of signatures have been collected, each certified measure will be put to a vote by Public Referendum. As we locals would say, “this is important.”

Most of us accept the legal right of Cannabis Dispensaries to locate in the CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT (CBD) of Fort Bragg. What we do not accept – is the current attempt by a bare majority of City Council members to cancel the rights of Fort Bragg businesses, residents, and property owners – to participate in how and where cannabis dispensaries should be located within the CBD.

At this very moment a small majority of City Council members are attempting to substitute their PERSONAL AGENDA CANNABIS ORDINANCE in place of Fort Bragg’s existing Inland Land Use and Development Code. The heavy handed group of politicians have instructed staff to radically trash existing code in favor of cannabis permits by “Right” rather than the more prudent cannabis permit by “Review.” This vending machine approach is a reflection of the Mayor and two Council Members’ public statements that cannabis dispensaries should be treated like “any other business.” Assaults like this on Due Process have the net result of removing Fort Bragg’s Planning Commission and everyone else from the sacred right of Neighborhood Impact Review. 

Even more disturbing, the same three public officials have indicated they plan to give the many Commercial Cannabis Applicants the expanded right to CULTIVATION, MANUFACTURE, and LARGE SCALE TRUCKING DISTRIBUTION within the Central Business District. Though previously met with large community opposition, it appears (if the Council’s new language is approved) that the first applicant in line to receive one of these easy to get permits will locate in the CBD’s epicenter (former Floor Store). The site is less than 20 feet from a densely populated residential neighborhood and its children, and around 60 feet from a federal post office, major bank, family restaurant, and popular community grocery store.

CITIZENS TAKE NOTE: By signing these Petitions (there are several floating around town) - YOU THE FORT BRAGG VOTER have the power to stop the City Council from taking away your following rights:

Right of Notification of Proposed Cannabis Businesses;

Right to Public Town Hall opportunities for neighborhoods and individuals to raise concerns or objections to case-by-case (rather than rubber stamp approval) of Cannabis dispensary applications;

Right to have detailed Planning Commission examination of Cannabis applications;

Right of City to deny cannabis applications or impose special conditions on Cannabis applications; and to publicly address neighborhood concerns regarding those applications or the applicants;

Right to environmental (organic and human) impact studies, prior to the issuance of Cannabis permits. 

The pending loss of our Due Process in this critical matter of how and where commercial cannabis enterprises are to be allocated, threatens to disrupt rather than offer an inspiring and sustainable City Plan. 

Please act now. By SIGNING THESE TWO BALLOT MEASURE INITIATIVES - You are helping all Fort Bragg voters to PRESERVE THE ABOVE STATED ENDANGERED RIGHTS. Check it out.

Respectfully,

Jay Koski, Gene Mertle, Dianna Mertle, Bill Mann, Susanne Rogers

Fort Bragg

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GOOD JOBS

Editor,

Thanks, Malcolm, for doing such a good job of bird-dogging the MCHCD board and getting them to be more transparent. So important yet overlooked.

And thanks to the AVA for doing a newspaper’s job of informing citizens about important local public issues, leaders, accomplishments and misdeeds. Hats off, too, to Chris Calder’s and Jim Shields’ persistent coverage.

Tom Wodetzki

Albion

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WATER & GRAPES

Editor: 

Unfortunately, it looks like we might have another dry winter. Because we were asked to cut 20%, over the past two years I’ve spent around $20,000 ripping out my lawn, relandscaping, buying water-efficient appliances and fixtures and installing a rooftop water collection system. My wife and I take fewer showers and watch our toilet habits. We’re up to 30% savings.

Over the years I have read in the Press Democrat about the problems ranchers are having growing feed and about homeowners’ wells going dry. But not a single time are vintners mentioned as having any water issues.

I sent an email to each county supervisor asking how wineries are saving, not managing, but saving water. I had to send it four times to each before I got a single reply. It was basically a news release mentioning how they were “ensuring holistic water usage” by the wineries. Whatever that means.

Well, I’m going to be a lot less judicious in my water usage habits until I hear vintners are doing their part. I’m tired of jumping through hoops and spending money to ensure wineries make their bottom line.

Greg Grubin

Santa Rosa

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GAYE’S ADVICE

Editor,

I read with great interest Mike Geniella’s piece on Gaye LeBaron, which to my ears and eyes read more like an obituary for someone who had passed rather than a news story or a feature about someone still alive. I have known Gaye for about 30 years. I have read many of her columns, appeared on panels with her and once declared her “the conscience of Sonoma County.” She heard me utter those words, raised her eyebrows and made no verbal comment. I think that Gaye herself would be the first person or one of the first persons to recognize and describe her limits and limitations. Her overall impulse was to be inclusive; she was a first-rate observer and had a phenomenal memory that went back decades. Still, she was much better at writing about some people rather than others. Sometimes, Gaye had a long reach. At other times, she wasn’t able to extend herself as far as some of her younger PD readers wanted. Mike says he’s “in awe of her contributions.” Others still to come will have to be a bit less in awe, read her work and evaluate it with more of a sense of balance. Will it last? I’m not sure. The world of her childhood, girlhood and young womanhood doesn’t exist anymore. It’s too soon for me to say whether anyone will want to read or reread her columns about the old days in Redcrest, Weott and Santa Rosa when the upper crust flocked to the Topaz Room. I’m glad she helped Mike along when he was a tyro. In his last sentence he writes that Gaye was a “friend to our communities in Mendocino, Humboldt and Lake.” I wonder why he didn’t include Sonoma, where she has lived and worked most of her life. What I learned most from Gayle is that you aim to let the facts speak for themselves and don’t embellish and exaggerate. When you embellish and exaggerate, she told me your readers don’t really trust you. I’m still trying to live by her advice. 

Jonah Raskin

San Francisco

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PG&E'S TREACHERY

Editor: 

In a 2015 report to Congress, the U.S. military said climate change was a growing threat to national security. Yet with massive California wildfires on a yearly scale never before seen, PG&E continues without change.

Once again, PG&E needs a quick profit influx to cover attorneys, fines, shareholder dividends, grid maintenance and subsidizing clients. Its lobbyists enlisted the California Public Utilities Commission and Gov. Gavin Newsom to tap solar owners to satisfy PG&E’s greed while crippling solar fabrication, installation and jobs. Done and done.

I’m disgusted at PG&E’s unwillingness to change. PG&E fought hard to kill California counties’ clean power initiatives.

Monopolies are not healthy, and this is not a zero-sum game. We can devise plans to increase solar installation and power walls with incentives available to homeowners, apartment building owners and businesses.

Defeating our increasingly warming climate means encouraging solar reliance and production. PG&E is not participating in good faith. Smaller grids must replace monolithic grids and archaic thinking as we create a healthier climate solution. We all deserve decent energy prices.

Other countries have done this. We can too.

Pamela Hom

Santa Rosa

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SAVE ROOFTOP SOLAR

Editor: 

Jan. 27 was the largest turnout ever for public comments at a California Public Utility Commission meeting. Public comments usually last 30-45 minutes. The comment period on Jan. 27 lasted more than 7½ hours. Each commenter was given 60 seconds. More than 99% of them opposed the proposal to allow utilities, including PG&E, to impose an annual average charge of $684 on those with rooftop solar. Only four callers out of 460 supported the utility’s position. 

If the CPUC approves this proposal, it will kill the financial and payback incentives for investing in rooftop solar. It will destroy the solar installation industry and the jobs of as many as 70,000 Californians employed by this industry. This charge for rooftop solar threatens California’s climate change goals and efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. 

The CPUC has postponed a decision until at least Feb. 10. Please call Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office and say, “I oppose the CPUC’s NEM3 proposal.”

Joel Chaban

Gualala

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SHUT DOWN SMART

Editor,

As you know, a cancer continues its proliferation until it overwhelms one or more organs. The various medical treatments either remove the cancer cells entirely through surgery or kill them by various means. No one would ever ignore cancer — or worse, feed it. Yet that seems to be precisely the strategy in approving expansion of the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit lines and the operating management.

Clearly, it was ridiculous to approve SMART in the first place. Passenger projections were obviously exaggerated in hopes of winning support. SMART’s financial statements show that passenger revenues support only 10% of operating costs. Most of the other 90% offset is funded by sales taxes. An extension to Cloverdale won’t fix that.

Recently, SMART acquired a freight line without proper financial analysis. It could ultimately lose several hundred thousand dollars a year. I think it will become a drain on taxpayer dollars. Officials should have analyzed (pre-purchase) the two-sided issue of freight revenue from hazardous-materials storage. They also should have considered the decision to burden the company by outsourcing management.

The current plan is to extend the line to Solano County. Given the record, should we expect this section of the line to be profitable?

These moves do nothing to improve SMART and simply allow this financial cancer to grow. We need to destroy the cancer. Shut down SMART, by whatever means necessary,

Richard Peterson

San Rafael

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KILLINGS BY GUN VIOLENCE

Dear Editor,

Recently a trainee police officer was shot and killed driving his car home on a Bay Area freeway from one of his Alameda County Academy’s final training classes. 

While it appears we, as a state and nation, are making slow, steady progress in dealing with the Covid pandemic, when it comes to curbing deaths and injuries from gun violence, we are losing the battle. Whether one looks at “ARCHIVE Evidence Based Research since 2013” or the “CDC, the Center for Disease Control” the recent facts on gun violence are sadly staggering. 

ARCHIVE lists the total deaths from all causes of gun violence for this year so far on February 7, 2022 at 4,352. This includes homicides/murders of 1,844 and suicides of 2,308. It also includes 30 deaths of children. At this rate by Dec. 31, 2022 the US will have lost 52,224 persons. 

The CDC lists the current California death rate at 7 per 100,000 population. These deaths are preventable since everyone is accessible to calling 9-1-1. Why has Congress done nothing to date to help? 

Frank Baumgardner

Santa Rosa

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FALSE PROMISES

Editor:

The Democratic Party has hit a new low, it seems. President Joe Biden is promising to cut cancer deaths in half within 25 years. How is he going to do that? Is he saying that doctors could have been doing better, they just chose not to? Is he promising scientific advancements that may not come? You can’t just promise scientific advancements that don’t already exist.

And Rep. Mike Thompson is just going right along with it, posting on social media that Biden is going to cut cancer deaths in half. This might be the worst thing I’ve ever heard politicians say. How disgusting to make these promises, knowing that they won’t be in office to be held accountable if it doesn’t happen.

It is incredibly offensive to prey on the emotions of cancer patients and their families. Biden’s not offering the public option that he ran on, he’s not ending support of genocide in Yemen, and he’s not reducing drilling permits, but he wants you to think he’s going to cut cancer deaths in half.

Jason Kishineff

American Canyon

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THE GIUSTI REPORT

Editor,

A few weeks ago the AVA published something saying that I'm in jail for allegedly assaulting a senior citizen. Somebody needs to check the police report. I am 67 years old. At the time of this latest false arrest, the alleged victim, a notorious woman beater, clocked in at 53! So who is the poor senior citizen in this picture? It sure is a poor scene for me sitting now over 22 months in solitary confinement! District Attorney Eyster writing under his pen name states that I deserve the Dumbass of the Year award. 

It has been stated that I am obsessed with District Attorney Eyster. How would that in any way benefit me in my normal life? To the contrary, I'm still trying to figure out why Eyster and hobbit judge Keith Faulder had become so upset with me. They paint me out worse than Billy the Kid. I surmise that obsessed people dig their own graves.

Hopefully Eyster and Faulder have paid their past taxes because I want to challenge them to tell AVA readers how much money they have made in the past in private law practice! Also I would like to know where they got their law degrees, assuming they even have valid ones.

Sincerely,

David Giusti

Detective David Youngcault Crow Scout Giusti

Mendocino County Jail, Ukiah

PS. I got a real gas out of the true-false quiz in the AVA a few weeks ago. A lot of laughs on whether the AVA is a communist newspaper. Why not ask that about Ms. Callahan and the Press Commiecrat. And what's really with the Ukiah Daily Journal? It is a rag that glories in homeless people arrests, cops beating up naked people, constant water and covid 19 scare tactics and a woman who wants to kill her neighbor’s goat! If that ain’t fascist journalism I don't know what is. 

In my opinion we should free all the naked and homeless goats, then after a few years we would have big horn sheep to hunt and preserve more deer, wolves, turtles and bears.

 If it wasn't for the AVA old Redbeard wouldn’t be so famous. I really enjoyed the cartoon where he’s drinking champagne and smoking bud in the hot tub of ex-Judge Nelson. Did the Press or the UDJ even give Burglar Boy much "air time"? He was really downplayed in the fascist Journal to pacify the bungling patrol and canine units which were in pursuit of him. When we read of his capture Redbeard was just tired and seeking a meal instead of leaping fences. Could he really outrun the dogs or did he carry steaks and cocaine or some other secret anti-dog-sniff the formula? Is fighting starvation really criminal?

I enjoy reading Brad Wiley's paragraphs concerning Vinegar Ridge/Hill. He did however leave out the Giusti Ranch, but he did mention my cousins of the Giornettis. My granddad, Big Gabe Giusti, had a license to make wine during Prohibition for family consumption. He made some pretty silver dollars too. There was no logging in the winter, people had to make ends meet. With the apple orchard close to the front porch deer couldn't resist munching out, nearly begging to get shot. I guess it was named Vinegar Ridge Road due to a lot of unsold wine turning to legal vinegar.

I remember hearing some good old stories about my people outfoxing that old wannabe Eliott Ness, Mendocino County Sheriff Byrnes. Yes, I remember my Zia (Auntie in Romana) telling me when that Sheriff pulled like an "Eyster move," cooking his own oyster shell. My granddad's first cousin from Italy moved to Ukiah and brought some grape stock from Tuscany. He and granddad mixed a hybrid with a Mendo grape and invented a luxury type of Zinfandel. I forget the name right now but it's very good and still on the market and very reasonably priced and it's never been advertised being invented during prohibition and all. Anyway, my Auntie Eida was the first Romani born in Ukiah. She passed on (RIP) about 2000 at 101 years old. Anyway, my grandad Zia Giovanni became a citizen and sold wine. I guess he couldn't speak English so he didn't understand prohibition. Here comes Sheriff Byrnes to arrest him for moonshining. All the sheriff could figure was to deport my uncle. My aunt jumped up (they were Ma & Pa Kettle types) and stated they were married so it was illegal to deport her husband. Sheriff Byrnes then stated (my dad couldn't speak much English then either) to my aunt that he had reported her as well. She then showed him her birth certificate and told Byrnes she was born in Ukiah before he was even out of diapers! Handcuffs came off and that was the first and the last Giusti arrested before yours truly came along.

My grand uncle Joe left Greenwood after prohibition in his hot rod and moonshine wages and moved over near Stockton where he built the most famous "Giusti Eatery" in California and eventually was prominent in pioneering California's version of NASCAR!

Also I've been enjoying articles by Sheriff Kendall. How about that other rookie journalist (and obvious police and/or District Attorney informant) who wrote praise for Sheriff Tom Allman. That guy backstabbed all the way to the top and then he was a little cagey when he hoodwinked Mendocino County voters (not a Herculean task) into electing him to an illegal third term! Now Allman is up near Garberville. We call it "Garbage Bucket.” 

Bible verse for you all: Ecclesiastes 10:13 — the beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness; and in the end of his talk is mischievous madness. Eyster and Faulder need also to look up in the Old Testament Exodus Chapter 20, verse 16 and learn to obey it.

Save all the bears and write in J. McMartin for county supervisor!

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Ukiah Police Presser, March 18, 2020

On March 17, 2020, at approximately 12:47 AM, Officers were dispatched to the area behind CVS (155 S. Orchard Ave.), in the area of the loading dock, regarding a report of a male who was bleeding severely from his head. An anonymous male requested a Denny’s employee telephone 911 regarding the injured male.

Upon arrival, UPD Officers located an adult male lying on the concrete floor of the loading dock. The male was lying in a large pool of blood and he was bleeding profusely from his head. The scene indicated there had been an altercation, as there was a large amount of blood on the walls near where the injured male was located. David Giusti was also located in the area of the loading dock and initially denied any knowledge of what happened to the victim. 

Officers rendered first aid and summoned EMS to the scene. While Officers were rendering first aid, Giusti walked away from the scene pushing a shopping cart. As other Officers arrived; Giusti was located a short distance away and was detained. Giusti was covered in blood and had a shopping cart that was filled with his personal belongings. Officers located a blood covered wooden dowel inside the shopping cart. 

The subsequent investigation revealed there had been an argument between the victim and Giusti and evidence caused Officers to believe Giusti was responsible for the victim’s injuries. Giusti was arrested without incident.

EMS transported the victim to Adventist Health Ukiah Valley hospital where he was treated for significant injures to his head. The injuries rose to the level of Great Bodily Injury, would most likely lead to permanent disfiguration and could have been fatal had he not received medical treatment. The victim was later transported to an out of the area trauma center for further medical treatment. At the time of this press release the victim was in stable condition.

Giusti was transported to the Mendocino County Jail where he was booked for the aforementioned violations. Giusti remains in custody with a bail of $250,000.

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LATINX

Editor,

I am opposed to the use of “Latinx” in place of Latino or Latina.

As a former resident staying up on local news, I noticed the term in a recent quote from a UDJ article. Besides being hard to pronounce, it seems unnecessary in a language like English, which is already almost completely devoid of gender. A few remaining vestiges such as the waiter-waitress, actor-actress distinction are being rapidly suppressed.

By contrast, in Latin countries like Italy, France, Spain and Portugal and the entirety of Latin America where romance languages are widely spoken, everything has a gender. All articles, definite and indefinite, and all nouns are either feminine or masculine.

Even adjectives and verbs must “agree.” This is purely a matter of convention. The word planet, for example, is masculine in Spanish and Italian, feminine in French.

John Kress

Tlatlauquitepec (Mexico)

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PEACE BREEZE PLEASE

AVA,

Dark War Clouds infect the airwaves. We pray for divine intervention and think a general strike by the troops and populous would indeed be a godsend. Let us urge with all vigor for the breeze of peace to blow the horror of war away. We want all involved to seek a way out without slaughtering each other.

Alan ‘Captain Fathom’ Graham

Albion 

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HE TALKED FIRST

AVA,

Been a while, almost nine years down and I’m finally on my way to San Quentin! I guess that’ s where everyone wants to end up either to parole from or die, right? It all depends on what you have to lose.

Someone just sent me a copy of the letter that Chris Skaggs wrote to you. He sure has a way with words. But all the stories and long winded excuses will never change the fact that he got arrested the next morning and told on me — period. They had no clue who the shooter was until he told them. I got busted two and a half days later and he had already told them everything. I made some mistakes also, but I was trying desperately to do damage control after his 76 page in detail statement.

That will never change, He told on me first. Ha, ha, ha, laughing like the joker because that face to face he dreams about is going to become a reality!

Take care, “brother.”

Walter ‘Kris’ Miller

Salinas Valley State Prison

Soledad

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TRUMP SPREADS…

Dear Editor,

More than two years back the world first learned there was a terrible new virus spreading misery and death. Its name, Covid-19. Our president tried banning flights from parts of the world having the largest number of cases. Using his “bully pulpit,” he used social media giants like Twitter and Facebook to spread continuous false messages of hope: “This will be gone soon. It’s the China flu.” On a more successful note, he authorized billions to be spent on developing and producing new vaccines.

This part of his campaign worked. Unbelievably, incredible vaccines came out which really work to prevent Covid-19’s respiratory disease. And yet, simultaneously, since spreading political hatred and misinformation paid better than telling the truth, a large part of the world’s population became anti-vacciners.

The power of these believers is evident today in the truckers’ strikes crippling trade with our closest ally Canada. They have the right to protest but shouldn’t have the right to spread the virus. It is their lack of responsibility that has helped to kill over 900,000 of their fellow Americans. In the process they have crushed thousands of doctors and nurses who have left their profession. Covid has brought us face to face with Darwinism: survival of the fittest.

Frank Baumgardner

Santa Rosa

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HATE SPEECH?

To the Editor:

I wonder if any people who object to John McCowen’s critique of the public service of a public official on the grounds that it’s “hate speech” have considered this: if criticism is considered “hate speech,” then isn’t their accusation of McCowen also “hate speech,” directed at him? Accusing someone of hate speech is pretty … well …seriously hateful, don’t you think? Now, if they don’t like John’s critique of the public official, then they should — rightly — criticize his criticism, but not his person.

When a person accepts a position in public government — hired and paid, appointed, or elected — that person is accepting work supposedly in service of The People who they’re sworn to serve, and if they’re paid, it’s The People who pay them through taxes. Those officials are accepting that their job performance will be judged by The People who employ them. To my mind, unless someone criticizing the public official’s job performance in service Of The People strays into making personal attacks on the Public Servant (referring to their gender, religion, ethnicity, personal life, character, etc. in a disparaging way), it’s not called hate speech, it’s called Good Citizenship, or Participatory Democracy.

Without taking sides regarding John McCowen’s critical appraisal of Carmel Angelo’s job performance, I find no trace of his straying into such personally-directed hate speech. If we don’t speak up regarding Our Business, we’re not taking our citizenship seriously. If we’re just calling people names, or accusing them of hateful behavior, then we’re straying into questionable territory, in my opinion. And, we’re avoiding talking about the actual issues at hand by “making it personal.” It’s dangerous to confuse public criticism with personal attacks, thereby denying out of hand the validity of the arguments. It’s anti-democracy.

James (Jamie) Connerton

Ukiah

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SET FOR LAST STAGE OF NOVATO NARROWS WORK

Editor,

After waiting for years, drivers in vehicles on Highway 101 (aka the Novato Narrows) to Petaluma will see construction of the last link of about 6 miles from northern Novato to the Marin-Sonoma county line beginning soon.

Caltrans will open bids for this project on Tuesday. Caltrans allotted $90 million for the work and stipulated that the job be completed within 1,000 working days. When completed, the freeway will have a continuous carpool lane from the Golden Gate Bridge to Windsor.

I support the project and look forward to its completion.

George Juilly

Novato

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