Showers | Halfway House | Peace Talk | Fatal Stabbing | Sand Stand | Traildoggle | Melody's Cookies | Ed Notes | Timekeeper's Cabin | Cuckoo Update | Marmon Truck | Huffman's Charade | Mediocrates | Drought Response | Yesterday's Catch | No Touching | Eastern Star | Protesting | Hypocrisy Carnival | Mathias Brinzing | Ukraine Trains | Climate City | Mental Health | Boycott List | Office Romance | US Imperialism | Syria Flag | Spiritual Flow | Logging Train | Disappeared
LOW PRESSURE tracking to our south toward the central California coast will bring showers to much of our region today, especially Mendocino and Lake Counties. Showers will taper off later today and tonight, followed by dry weather likely lasting into the weekend. Seasonable temperatures with windy afternoons midweek will be followed by warming into the weekend. (NWS)
YESTERDAY'S RAINFALL (past 24 hours): Yorkville 0.52"- Hopland 0.30" - Boonville 0.29" - Ukiah 0.17" - Willits 0.15" - Laytonville 0.05" - Leggett 0.04" - Covelo 0.00"
UKRAINE, DAY 33:
US president Joe Biden has denied he is calling for regime change in Russia, after he said during a visit to Poland that Putin “cannot remain in power”. When asked by a reporter if he wanted to see Russian president Vladimir Putin removed from office he said “no”. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, had already distanced himself from Biden’s comments, while the UK cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi distanced the UK government from his remarks.
Representatives from Russia and Ukraine will meet this week for a new round of talks aimed at ending the war. Ukraine said the two sides would meet in Turkey on Monday.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy used a video interview with independent Russian media outlets to signal his willingness to discuss having Ukraine adopt a “neutral status”, and also make compromises about the status of the eastern Donbas region, in order to secure a peace agreement with Russia. But he said he was not willing to discuss Ukrainian demilitarisation, and that Ukrainians would need to vote in a referendum to approve their country adopting a neutral status.
The UK Ministry of Defence said Russia is “effectively isolating Ukraine from international maritime trade”, in an update late Sunday. It also said Russian naval forces were continuing to conduct sporadic missile strikes against targets across Ukraine.
Russia’s communications and internet regulator said in a public statement it would investigate the outlets that interviewed Zelenskiy, and has told them not to distribute the interview.
In a separate late-night video, Zelenskiy promised to work this week for new sanctions against Russia and spoke of the impending new round negotiations, saying “we are looking for peace without delay.”
Putin is seeking to split Ukraine into two, emulating the postwar division between North and South Korea, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief has said. In comments that raise the prospect of a long and bitter frozen conflict, General Kyrylo Budanov, warned of bloody guerrilla warfare.
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said on Telegram that online schooling would restart in the capital this week.
The French foreign minister said on Sunday there would be “collective guilt” if nothing was done to help civilians in Mariupol, the Ukrainian city besieged by Russian forces.
The UK government’s top legal adviser has appointed a war crimes lawyer to advise Ukraine on the Russian invasion. The attorney general, Suella Braverman, announced on Sunday that Sir Howard Morrison QC would act as an independent adviser to the Ukrainian prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, Press Association reported.
FATAL STABBING in Wells Fargo Parking Lot, Ukiah on Saturday
Leslie Adelman arrested. Victim and stabber described as “transients.”
Our booking logs show that Mr. Adelman has had numerous prior contacts with law enforcement going back to 2017:
- 09/17 Switchblad in vehicle.
- 11/17: Arson of inhabited structure, possession of destructive device.
- 01/18: Failure to appear
- 03/18: Failure to appear.
- 04/18: Probation revocation.
- 09/18: Probation revocation.
- 02/19: Criminal threats
- 09/19: Trespassing, entering without permission.
- 09/19: Probation revocation
- 05/20: Drunk in public.
- 09/20: Probation revocation.
- 09/20: Camping in Ukiah.
- 03/22: Yelling at store customers, counseled.
* * *
ON LINE COMMENTS:
1. Ukiah spelled backwards is obituary
2. Ukiah haiku
Downtrodden, haven of death
Methamphetamine
ANN SIRI, from the Siris' workshop in the hills above Philo: This is a project we engineered and built a few years ago for an artist (Ned Kahn). It could change tilt, change speed of rotation or stop. He put some sand in the top which would make impressive patterns. There was a big story he had to go with the flowing sand. This 20ft. Dia. creation had to assemble and disassemble to fit through doors in a museum because it was for a traveling museum show.
THE GREAT REDWOOD TRAIL: A BOONDOGGLE BY THEIR OWN NUMBERS
by Mark Scaramella
According to the Oxford English Dictionary: “Boondoggle, n. work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value,” and, “A public project of questionable merit that typically involves political patronage and graft.”
In 2020 State Senator Mike McGuire commissioned the “Great Redwood Trail Feasibility, Governance and Railbanking Report,” which he used to gain Legislative approval for the Great Redwood Trail.
That Report says that “Trail demand projections are also important to consider. Not unexpectedly, where trail use demand estimates are high, they occur in segments within or near urban communities or towns along the corridor. Trail use through the remote center segments (generally between Willits and Ferndale) would be much lower and more oriented to serious, long-distance riders and hikers or visitors driving to remote access points for short day hikes.”
The cost?
“Planning-level cost estimates for fully developing the trail are nearly $750 million in 2020 dollars and over $1 billion in 2030 dollars. If the trail were fully developed, it would be projected to provide economic activity (estimated at approximately $24 million in annual local economic activity) [by whom? based on what?] and health benefits (reduced vehicle trips, vehicle miles traveled, and carbon dioxide emissions resulting in improved air quality) to communities along its route. The costs for fully developing the corridor would not be incurred at any one time. Instead, these costs would be paid over a long period of time, based on project phasing and priorities.”
The Report authors add, “These cost estimates do not include unknown environmental remediation costs that may be required prior to project construction.”
But at the same time their own maps show several known toxic sites along the route. (This was an industrial, heavily used railroad back at the time when concern for dumping waste in rural areas was low.)
So, by their own ridiculous “planning level cost estimates,” the trail will only be used by a few hundred people per day in urban areas for short day hikes. And even fewer “serious, long-distance riders and hikers” outside those areas — the areas that happen to cost the most to rehabilitate.
Their own estimates also say that while the trail will cost at least $750 million, probably much more, it will only bring in at most $24 million annually — a preposterously high number itself without foundation. (Use your imagination and try to figure out what kind of “economic activity” a trail can generate. Then guess how in your wildest dreams how that could generate $24 million annually.)
Granted, the trail surface cost per mile in the rural areas will be less because the trail will not be paved, but such trailbeds will cost more to establish to begin with because of the poor condition of the right-of-way. It will be more prone to erosion requiring high ongoing maintenance costs and periodic closures — none of which are addressed in McGuire’s Report.
That Report also claims that the Trail will “reduce vehicle trips, vehicle miles traveled, and carbon dioxide emissions resulting in improved air quality.” But as quoted above it says, that “long-distance riders and hikers or visitors [will drive] to remote access points for short day hikes,” then walk or ride a bit, then drive back, thus not reducing any existing trips, but increasing vehicle traffic to get to the Trail and back. And if those hikers and bikers go one way, how will they get home?
Summary: $1 billion or more tax dollars for a few hundred hikers and bikers per day (at most) which will allegedly produce $24 million per day in (entirely unsubstantiated) “increased local economic activity.”
You be the judge: Does that meet the definition of a “boondoggle”?
* * *
MEANWHILE, the search for a replacement for former North Coast Rail Authority Director Mitch Stogner’s replacement begins. Millions in trail cash is up for grabs. (PS. Republicans need not apply.) This person will be in charge of handing out millions of consulting and planning dollars to NorthCoast Democrats and affiliated consulting outfits.
Last week the California Coastal Commission issued a “Request For Services: Organizational Development & Interim Executive Director for the Great Redwood Trail Agency”—
This request for services seeks consultant assistance to support organization development and interim staffing of the Great Redwood Trail Authority (GRTA). The goal of this contract would be to support the GRTA with organizational development during a start-up period of two years during which time the contractor would work with the GRTA Board of Directors to establish policies and procedures to govern its operation, to create a business plan, and to hire professional staff for the GRTA.
The Great Redwood Trail Agency owns the rail right of way for the approximately 252 mile section from the Sonoma/Mendocino County line to its end on the Samoa Peninsula in Humboldt County. The GRTA is created to, among other things, (1) inventory any parcel, easement, or contract related to its rail rights-of-way, (2) complete an environmental assessment of the conditions of its rail rights-of-way for purposes of trail development, (3) plan, design, construct, operate, and maintain a trail in, or next to, the rail rights-of-way, and (4) complete a federal railbanking process for the rail rights-of-way.
Specific goals and objectives for this scope of work include:
1. Develop and update agency policies and procedures for new public agency.
2. Provide an interim executive director for two years.
3. Coordinate with the Great Redwood Trail Master Planning consultants and Coastal Conservancy staff to provide review and information to support the development of the Master Plan and rail banking efforts.
4. Develop a business plan for the GRTA, including inventory of real assets, review of existing and potential revenues and expenditures and a funding strategy for the GRTA.
5. Support a hiring process for the GRTA Board to hire staff.
An electronic copy of your proposal should be submitted by email to mary.small@scc.ca.gov. [California State Coastal Conservancy) Submittals should be received by 5pm on May 1, 2022.
Mary Small, Deputy Executive Officer, California State Coastal Conservancy.
ED NOTES
UNSOLICITED ADVICE for candidate Redding as he loses bigly to incumbent Fifth District supervisor, Ted Williams. John, baby, ask Williams specific questions about his stands on purely local issues. Battling Williams on Facebook with ironic replies to his big-think Gotchas won't get you anywhere, especially in these irony-challenged times in this irony-challenged place. I'm pleased you'll at least get a couple of rigged public opportunities to “debate” him. (I say ”rigged” because all questions will be in writing, then culled, by a Democrat hatchet-crone). Anyway, use the scant opportunity you can expect to pop these questions:
1. Are supervisors overpaid given the light demands on them?
2. Given that many line county employees also qualify for food stamps, will you introduce pay raises for them and pay freezes for management?
3. Do you intend to end the pointless beef with the Sheriff?
4. Do you approve spending large amounts of public tax money via the consent calendar?
5. What exactly did assistant county health director, Doc Doohan, do for her $100,000 contract?
6. Why do you (and your colleagues) approve hiring expensive Frisco lawyers to handle routine personnel disputes when the county maintains a staff of 8-10 county-paid attorneys?
7. Do you support State Senator McGuire's Great Redwood Trail even though it will cost over $1 billion by their own estimates?
8. Do you support a new County Courthouse, despite the significant unfunded impact on the affected local departments?
9. Why did you support the CEO's lie that John McCowen had stolen county property?
10. What specifically have you done for the 5th District?
FROM TODAY'S WEATHER FORCAST: “Otherwise, showers will spread across the area this evening, and will continue through Monday afternoon, followed by dissipation during Monday night.” Uh, how about those of us who are too old to enjoy dissipation?
WHEN BIDEN, as usual having trouble reading off the teleprompter, went off-script to say what every non-Russian person in the world hopes — that Putin is removed, Biden's handlers quickly went to Wolf Blitzer et al to say that's not what Biden went. Ironic that the guy makes his first true statement in days and the world comes down on his head. But doddering Joe's true statement only confirms Putin's claim that the US and NATO are after him, also a true perception on Vlad's part but one that's supposed to go unstated.
PUT TO A PEOPLE'S VOTE, ‘Spider Man’ was the best movie of the year. Or was it some other cartoon epic? Power of the Dog was, uh, well, silly and pretentious, I'd say, but silly and pretentious is what the Oscars are these days, what with parades of fuzz brains prattling on about how woke they are, as in Jamie Lee Curtis telling the media pack today that "Putin is a laughingstock." Oh yeah? Who's laughing? Putin's got the whole world in his hands, as the song goes and nobody knows how rational he is.
FOR THOSE OF YOU who missed it, he said with a self-deprecating laugh, here's my updated review of the ho hum movie about to get one 'a them little movie star statues: ‘Power of the Dog,’ a movie by Jane Campion. On the recommendation of Jonah Raskin, my wife and I watched it, both of us concluding it held our interests but also agreeing that the closet case narrative was murky unlike, say, ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ based on the great Annie Proulx's short story. I'd read the story before seeing the movie, but if I hadn't read it beforehand I wouldn't have supposed the two cowboys were going up the hill for a season of sodomy. Anyway, the precious story of ‘Power of the Dog’ is set on a Montana cattle ranch, circa 1920. The acting is so good the implausible story line thing carries us along with it. I remember thinking pretty much the same thing about Ms. Campion's much praised ‘The Piano,’ also a preciously PC film that featured a beautiful deaf babe who persuaded photogenic Maoris joyously humping her piano over muddy hill and dale while she fended off a male suitor before boffing him just before the curtain came down. ‘Power of the Dog’ is a similarly preciously PC-themed filmic statement that homophobia can be lethal, which most of us know, however dimly. So we get a fey kid portrayed as stereotypically, mincingly gay who is drawn to the finer things for which he's humiliated by the closet case who is part owner of the ranch and his homophobic cowboys. I seriously doubt ranch hands would dare insult a lad who is related to the boss but they do in this movie to make the director’s heavy-handed point, and often, too. Where dog power fits here beats me, but it's Old Testament, Psalm 22:20, which reads: “Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.”
JACK FLEW OVER THE RETIREMENT NEST
by Tommy Wayne Kramer
SCENE: Middle age couple pushing wheelchair into hospital, cranky old man (JACK NICHOLSON) aboard. At reception desk is LOUISE FLETCHER.
Jack’s children agree the “Bronze Plan” (least expensive) is sufficient for dad’s food, housing and medical care. He is left in a hallway lined in wheelchairs among frail folks in faded gowns nodding and sleeping while ignoring the troublesome newcomer.
Nurse Louise Wretchit is Activities Director at Final Days Nursing Home, and thinks her new customer a bit too spry, and in need of increased medications. Rec room TV plays only black-and-white Sesame Street re-runs, snacks only available from vending machines, lights out at 8 p.m.
A loquacious motormouth young Native American man, Crazy Quilt, can’t stop jabbering about injustices and how “My People” built Oklahoma from scratch from deserts and swampland, invented deer, and had their Copyright for Fire stolen by Egyptian invaders.
“No Alcohol Permitted on Premises” of course, but Jack adapts by blending cocktails from available ingredients. He sets up a bar on an ironing board in his shabby room; a handwritten sign above the door reads:
NYQUILA SUNRISE $1.00
GERITOLADA $1.50
LISTERTINI $1.50
Women are segregated at the Final Days home (“It’s not like we have OB/GYN facilities here, you know,” says Nurse Wretchit.)
Jack is periodically seen slipping crumpled dollars and small amounts of change to a pair of lively cohorts, and later we see those two fellows sneak off campus, rummaging through Free Clothing Boxes and shopping discount tables at Goodwill.
Field Trips take residents in an old bus to empty lots at boarded-up shopping centers, and to rival nursing homes where conditions are even worse, as Nurse Wretchit happily warns everyone. On such journeys Jack sits on the floor in back of the bus because he is enrolled in the crappy Bronze Plan. His lunch comes in a smaller bag: half-sandwich, no banana.
Jack suggests Music Night to Nurse Wretchit; she reminds him the facility employs a combination Fitness Instructor / Music Director. JANE FONDA leads Tuesday Night Singalongs in “Row Row Row Your Boat” and “Happy Birthday to You” though no birthdays are celebrated and cakes are forbidden as fire hazards. She plays terrible piano accompaniment.
Jack & confederates stage Show & Tell on Sunday night when Nurse is off duty. A trio from the women’s wing sneak in to sing “Downtown” (Mrs. Miller style) while Jack squeezes an accordion, and an old guy plays spoons while his pal juggles. The Finale comes courtesy of a heretofore quiet resident offering to play “Just like at Woodstock,” and BARRY MELTON (Country Joe & The Fish) strums cheap guitar through tinny amp, croaking “Gimme an F!! Gimme a U!!…”
Confused elders in back rows shout “What??” and “Huh??” and “What’s That Spell??” Barry can’t remember either, and fumbles through pockets looking for his script as Nurse Wretchit barrels through the door.
They hijack the bus, and onboard residents hurriedly dress from random clothing tossed at them out of a box by the mysterious shopping pair Jack had funded. In mismatched hats, coats, umbrellas, fancy new Air Jordan shoes and worn out Crocs, the guys go to Hooters while the women attend a Chippendale show.
Jack tries to order from the menu on the wall, is told that he can’t have fries with burger unless it has cheese, which only comes on the Senior Menu. He shows ID card from Final Days Rest Home; woman at register says he can have neither cheese nor fries because he’s on the Bronze Plan. He blows his stack ala “Five Easy Pieces.”
At the end they flee pursuers from both the retirement home and county sheriff. Jack is now driving the bus with directions from Crazy Quilt, who sends him down one narrow road and up another, til they reach Bubbling Waters Native American Reservation.
It turns out Crazy Quilt is a beloved and admired member of the tribe, and all the nursing home residents stumbling off the bus are treated with great respect and appreciation due to their advanced age and accumulated wisdom. And since the property is on federal Bureau of Indian Affairs land the authorities cannot pursue, arrest, detain or interfere in any way with residents or guests.
Accommodations are comfy and plentiful, and the Bubbling Waters Casino is a busy one.
Jack is last seen dealing cards and mixing cocktails.
HUFFMAN’S CHARADE
To the Editor:
On 16 February, 2022 Congressman Jared Huffman wrote a letter to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Glick urging that the process of decommissioning the Potter Valley Project, which would in his view, include razing Scott Dam which forms Lake Pillsbury, proceed expeditiously. There is good news and bad news about this letter…
The bad news is that the congressman in his rambling, inaccurate and replete with false information and lies, thinks nothing of throwing the 750,000 people in the Russian River Basin who one way or another depend on the water coming through the Potter Valley Project, under the bus. He casually discounts the value of the green electricity generated by the Potter Valley powerhouse (enough for 2,500 to 3,000 homes), and falsely claims hundreds of miles of a mythical Holy Grail of pristine spawning grounds upstream of Lake Pillsbury when in fact there are fewer than 50 miles which is less than one percent of the total Eel River watershed. He erroneously warns that when the renewal date for FERC relicensing passes on April 22, 2022 liability coverage will lapse; this demonstrates either monumental hubris on his part, total ignorance of the facts, or worse.
On 18 March, 2022 FERC Chairman Glick wrote him and set him straight. According to law, If the license is not renewed by 22 April a one year license will be issued, and will be continued to be issued until final disposition of the matter is settled. Mr. Huffman rejoices in the notion that PG&E will not take steps to repair problems with equipment at its powerhouse, totally ignoring the fact that PG&E has announced that it WILL do the necessary repairs. He says that, “PVP has outlived its usefulness as a hydropower project…” and he gleefully looks forward to, “environmental justice….” If he were a true environmentalist instead of the bonehead zealot that he is, he wouldn’t support the unbelievably stupid notion of during these drought times, eliminating a lake that holds more than 25 million gallons of desperately needed water. The congressman also brags about his so called, “ad hoc” committee of mostly handpicked members which he says has looked into the matter, a group from which he personally excluded Lake County (wherein lies most of the offending infrastructure including Scott Dam, of the PVP) representatives claiming that they would be, “disruptive,” in the meanwhile not lifting a finger to help gather funds necessary to study the long term effects of the loss of Lake Pillsbury on the Russian River Basin.
So, what can be the good news in all of this? The good news is that Congressman Huffman has finally revealed his woke environmental radical hand. His contention that he, “continue(s) to support both essential pillars of the Two Basin Solution….” Is now shown to be a charade and a lie. One can only hope that voters in Mendocino, Sonoma and Marin will finally realize that the man should be shown the door while the people who actually have done something, built something, responsibly cared for and maintained something can go about their business living a good live that he and his ilk intend to destroy.
Guinness McFadden
Potter Valley
THE DROUGHT - DOING NOTHING IS THE ONLY SURE WAY TO FAIL
by Jim Shields
You can say everybody who’s a politician is getting into the drought act. They’re all coming up with solutions to end all solutions.
It would help if Mother Nature were giving her advice to the office-bearers, and who knows if they’d listen.
After California recorded its driest January and February in more than 100 years of records in the Sierra Nevada, Gov. Newsom announced this week that the state is spending an additional $22.5 million to respond to the immediate drought emergency.
The additional $22.5 million allocation includes more funding for the Department of Water Resources, State Water Resources Control Board, and the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
More than a third of the money — $8.25 million — will be used to increase outreach efforts to educate Californians on water conservation measures and practices.
The funds requested are part of a comprehensive effort by the Newsom Administration to increase water conservation. Earlier this month, the state launched new video ads to encourage Californians to reduce outdoor watering.
On March 1, the survey of the state’s snowpack showed levels were dropping sharply after robust storms in December. Current snowpack readings are about one-third below average. The Department of Water Resources is analyzing the latest snowpack data and has indicated it may revise its current forecast for State Water Project deliveries in 2022.
With the infusion of additional state budget funds, the Save Our Water campaign is gearing up to reach Californians with water-saving tips via social media and other digital advertising, geo-targeting counties with high water use. The campaign also is securing partnerships with retailers and other organizations to urge Californians to reduce water use in the immediate term and also make permanent changes to landscaping to build resilience in the long term.
Northcoast Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Santa Rosa) has introduced AB 2451, legislation creating a dedicated Drought Section within the Division of Water Rights responsible for improving drought planning, drought response and climate resiliency statewide, and directing the agency to conduct drought planning for North Coast watersheds.
Existing law establishes the State Water Resources Control Board (the Water Board) and the regional water quality control boards within the Natural Resources Agency. This Board has two divisions, one for Water Rights and one for Water Quality.
“Drought is not an episodic event and has not been for decades,” said Wood. “They are longer, more frequent, more severe and seriously threaten the health of rivers and streams, the wildlife that inhabit them and the ability to provide our North Coast communities with safe and affordable drinking water.”
This new Drought Section will be comprised of dedicated and appropriately resourced staff responsible for developing drought plans in advance of drought conditions. The bill would require the Board, in consultation with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, to adopt principles and guidelines for diversion and use of water in coastal watersheds during times of water shortage no later than March 31, 2023.
While educating the public on water-saving practices are important, as are measures to improve drought planning, there are other considerations that need to be brought to the front of the stove immediately.
Here’s a couple of ideas.
• Local government water utilities and water districts should be required to have permanent water conservation policies in place year-round.
For example, the utility that I manage, the Laytonville County Water District, since the 2012-2017 drought has permanently restricted outdoor watering/irrigation 7 days a week, between the hours of 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. That rule alone has reduced water usage by 12 percent to15 percent during peak usage months (May through October). Outdoor watering/irrigation is allowed seven days per week. However no irrigation/watering is allowed from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• The state must get serious about immediately increasing water storage capacity.
As discussed in previous columns, California’s dams are showing signs of age. Half are more than 50 years old, and all were designed for the climate of the past. Some improvements can be funded under Proposition 1, a 2014 voter-approved $7.5-billion water bond, but much more needs to be done. For the longer term, California will need to modernize dams where needed and rethink how to operate dams and other flood infrastructure in response to a changing climate.
The thinking now is similar to what folks were thinking in 2014, right in the middle of another historic drought, one of the state’s driest periods in recorded history. The voters in 2014 approved Proposition 1, a $7.5-billion water bond proposal. The vote was a slam-dunk 67 percent to 33 percent margin of victory.
Most voters enthusiastically supported Prop 1 because the politicians set aside $2.7 billion of the $7.5 billion bond for additional water storage in new reservoirs and projects to replenish groundwater basins and aquifers depleted by over-pumping during the drought.
“The modern strategy is to invest more in below ground storage and off stream reservoirs,” Tim Wehling, engineer with the California Department of Water Resources, said. “One of the most exciting off-stream dam projects on the horizon is Sites Reservoir.”
According to Wehling, the strategy of the proposed Sites Reservoir just west of Maxwell in Colusa County would be in wet years, siphon off excess water from the swollen Sacramento River and store it for use in dry years. Since it’s an off-stream reservoir, it wouldn’t block fish navigation like the dams of the 1950s.
Another illustration of meeting the goal of maximizing water storage opportunities is the Los Vaqueros Reservoir. It was built in 1998, paid for by the customers of the Contra Costa Water District. In 2010, the same customers approved an advisory measure to expand the reservoir from 100,000 acre-feet to 160,000 acre-feet, by raising the dam 34 feet.
It should be noted, the project has never been opposed by environmental groups. Part of the reason is that Los Vaqueros is an off-stream reservoir, filled from the Delta, rather than a dam on a free-flowing river.
“They reached out early on to understand our concerns,” said Jonas Minton, senior water advisor to the Planning and Conservation League, a Sacramento environmental group. “They incorporated ways to reduce environmental impacts.”
Like with any problem, you can come up with a thousand reasons for not doing anything.
But you only need one reason to do it.
Doing nothing is the only sure way to fail.
(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, observer@pacific.net, the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org.)
CATCH OF THE DAY, March 27, 2022
LESLIE ADELMAN, Ukiah. Murder.
JESSE CONNOLLY, Redwood Valley. Suspended license, probation revocation.
SKYLER DOTY, Lakeport/Ukiah. Domestic battery, robbery, probation revocation.
DOMINGO FERREYRA, Boonville. DUI.
DAVID PETERS, Clearlake/Ukiah. DUI, suspended license for DUI, no license.
DAVID THOMAS, Miami/Ukiah. DUI.
KATELYN WALKER, Willits. Trespassing, probation revocation.
SAN LUIS POTOSI
by Paul Modic
Okay, that's it: no more hookers.
As I drove into the capital city of San Luis, mapless with still no smart phone, I nudged myself toward the shopping area but ended up at the wrong Home Depot. They didn't have a door knob/lock assembly for a two inch door I found out with help from a nice young woman from another company translating for me. I didn't even bother to get directions to the bigger Home Depot at Tangamanga, just had them call me a taxi. The circuitous route he drove validated my decision.
As he was about to take off I mentioned wanting to find a woman. He told me of a house he knew in his neighborhood, scrawled down the address, and gave me his cell.
They didn't have the lock I wanted at the bigger Home Depot either and I was directed to a big hardware store downtown. I called the taxista and he said he'd be back in twenty minutes. I sat out front in the shade on some comfortable garden chairs and took out my English-Spanish dictionary to study random verb past tenses. (And I really mean “my dictionary,” the one I made thirty-two years ago in Matehuala.)
There were about five or six well-behaved dogs lounging around in the shade with me and it reminded me of the pack of dogs I'd seen earlier that day driving through Cedral. At the time I thought someone should come by and shoot them. Almost every night up in my mountain hideaway I hear dogs barking excitedly and it makes me wonder what's happening in dog-world. Are they running around the mountainside for exercise? Hassling the burros? Fighting amongst themselves? Challenging other gangs of dogs? Mating and having sex? (There are too many dogs running around in Mexico. If anyone has a better solution than shooting them please come on down and work your magic.)
Leonardo showed up on time, we drove downtown, and passed a doorway where he said there were women for hire.
“Stop!” I said. I had the photo of the door knob with me but this was urgent. (Priorities, right?)
There was no answer to my knock so we continued downtown. I had no luck at the hardware store and they directed me down the block to another. Still no luck so I gave up finding a replacement lock for my front door. It was working all right—I just didn't trust the previous caretaker and didn't know if there were other keys floating around out there.
I told Leonardo about the cathouse at Augustin Vera 650 but he thought that after twelve years it would have moved. We debated the point.
“Well, there might be a 25% chance it was still active,” I said. He said after a year they might have changed locations.
“How much extra time to swing by on the way to the one you know?” I asked. He said it would be another half hour in heavy traffic.
“Okay, then let's just go to the one in your neighborhood.”
(I pause in my accounting of this episode the next morning, outside Motel Las Palmas by the pool, wondering why I am putting myself through this? I am doing penance I decide, have another sip of coffee, and continue scribbling in my notebook.)
We got to the house, I pointed out the padlock on the door, and Leonardo seemed ready to quit. I asked him to call a friend for more leads and in a few minutes we were in front of another house. I went through the patio to the door and rang the bell. A woman in a bikini with breasts bulging out the side answered and I knew I was at the right place. She put out the call and soon there were five more women in skimpy tops and bottoms.
“Pick which one you want,” she said. I looked them over and couldn't decide.
“How much?” I asked.
“200 pesos (ten dollars) for twenty minutes, 300 pesos (fifteen dollars) for thirty minutes, and...” I didn't listen to the rest of the prices.
“Medio hora,” I said. (Half an hour.) I picked the only girl who wasn't scantily clad but had the friendliest face and we went upstairs.
There was music blasting throughout the house, a big bed in the room, and a wall of mirrors. I gave her the 300 pesos and waited affixed to a spot in the middle of the room until she came back. We stood facing each other, I started touching her, and motioned for her to do the same.
She objected and said only sexual relations were included, not touching. What?! It would be extra she said so I handed over 200 more pesos.
I took a condom and some vinyl gloves out of my man bag and handed two to her. They were old and kept breaking but finally we each had a pair on. “Has anyone ever given you gloves?” I asked.
“Never,” she replied.
“Well, I'm very careful.”
(Just then the cab driver texted me, said he had an emergency with his kid, and had to leave. I put him off with a text that said I'd be out in fifteen minutes.)
I took her dress off and noticed many tattoos, some of written phrases.
“Gracias,” I said, when the underwhelming transaction was completed a few minutes later. She said the same and I went out to the waiting cab.
We drove in silence for a while then he asked how it was. “Pretty crazy,” I said and told him about the extra fee for touching.
As we drove back to Home Depot I asked him why he didn't buckle his seat belt. “You have a son after all,” I said. He made a garroting motion showing that if he wore his seat belt someone in the back seat could strangle him.
“So that's why you have me up front?” I said. He pointed to a sticker on his windshield commemorating the murder of a taxi driver friend of his and made the gun motion to his head.
“How many cabbies are murdered each year here?” I asked.
He thought about it then said, “About seven to ten.”
When he dropped me off at my truck I looked at the meter. It said 236 pesos. “Will quinientos be okay?” I said. (500 pesos.) He said yeah and I paid him off.
Across the way at Costco I investigated the organic products for an hour and bought way too many vegetables including a huge bag of carrots. I will never be able to eat them all.
It was a nice drive back, the mountains on each side of the highway were green and beautiful, and then it started to pour during the last ten miles so I cut the speed down from 70 to 65. When I got back to Matehuala I showered off the filth of San Luis and the cathouse in my motel room then went across the street for a delicious cabrito dinner.
Later, stoned outside my room, I watched an attractive couple from next door walk holding hands to dinner at the restaurant and once again I'm impressed with the plunge into degradation I'll take to touch and be touched.
THE FOLLOW-THROUGH TEST
Editor
Normally I am a fan of Mr. Kramer; but last week’s rant about protesters is both somewhat insightful (as always) and complete idiocy. There are what we might call “professional protesters” that can always find a protest “du jour”; they are tiresome since they rarely follow through. The AVA might be classed as such though it follows through on many issues.
There are protesters like Linda Perkins and Bill Heil who constantly protest on timber issues, follow through and make the world a better place. Without protesters this county would be even more a bastion of bad government than it is.
Come to think of it, isn't Mr. Kramer calling the kettle black? I seem to recall that most of his columns, entertaining and informative as they are, protest something. It seems to be easier to criticize something than to remedy it.
Peter Lit
Elk
CARNIVAL OF HYPOCRISY
In the long-ago summer of 2010, I found myself in the beautiful harbour of Sevastopol, surveying the rival fleets of Russia and Ukraine as they rode at anchor in the lovely Crimean sunshine.…
TRAIN FOR UKRAINE
Mendocino County’s Skunk Train will be hosting a “Train for Ukraine” event on Saturday, April 2.
The Skunk Train is running two trains to support the Ukrainian cause. One hundred percent of the proceeds from these trips will go to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Trains will depart from both Fort Bragg and Willits, and treats will be on offer. Riders will each receive a special bag of assorted Roshen Ukrainian candy, and there will be specialty alcoholic Ukrainian beverages for the adults.
At the respective turnaround spots, riders will have a chance to disembark for 30 minutes and relax or enjoy a variety of games.
The Fort Bragg train will depart at 4 p.m. (for a 1.5-hour trip), and the Willits train will depart at 4:30 p.m. (for a 2-hour trip). The Fort Bragg Depot is located at 100 W. Laurel St. The Willits Depot is at 299 E. Commercial St.
Tickets are $75 for ages 13 and up, $30 for ages 2-12 and $10 for children under age 2. Tickets can be purchased at https://www.skunktrain.com/train-for-ukraine/
WE NEED CLIMATE LEADERSHIP!
Letter to the Editor –
Release of the UN’s climate change report last month should set off our alarms and inspire everyone to do what we can to mitigate climate change.
Here in Fort Bragg that certainly means moving as fast and aggressively as we can to lower carbon emissions. We’ve known we needed to do this for years, and many in our community have stepped up to move in that direction. We’ve in-stalled solar on our homes and businesses to reduce our carbon footprint and those hated PG&E bills. Some of us have purchased electric vehicles and installed charging stations either on our own dime or by tapping government and utility program subsidies. Many of us have written letters and lobbied political leaders to put electric buses on our streets for public transportation. Good news! It is working, and more of us are installing green energy solutions every day - Yea!
But while Fort Bragg’s residents have been taking action, the City Council has been doing almost nothing! Despite setting goals back in 2019 to lower the carbon footprint of the City’s operations - no new solar systems have been installed on City buildings. Fort Bragg has a grand total of TWO charging stations for electric vehicles at City Hall. And while the County is moving ahead to convert its fleet to cost-efficient electric vehicles, the City’s done nothing. What’s wrong with the City Council?
Fortunately, there is a solution! This November, four of the five City Council seats are up for election. Fort Bragg has a chance to vote in a new City Council majority that’s committed to taking real action to combat climate change and make the City more efficient and effective.
It’s time for new community leaders! Your friends, family and neighbors need you to step forward and become the candidates they elect to lead the City forward. Do you really care about this community and are you willing to be our climate change champions? If so, we need to hear your voices now!
Sincerely yours,
Peter McNamee
Fort Bragg
BOYCOTT PUTIN
Editor,
Tonight, as Vladimir Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine enters its second month, suffering and hardship is immeasurable.
In spite of his strategic incompetence, and catastrophic reversals of Russian arms in the field, Putin shows no sign of relenting. Barring some miraculous Russian comeback, he knows that his days are numbered. Because no one is more aware than Vladimir Putin of the many examples in Russian history when leaders who suffer military defeat are not only removed from power, but often brutally executed.
Yet as certain as his day is coming, the fact is that tonight the suffering on the ground continues. I have found myself wanting to do more to combat Putin and to assist our Ukrainian brothers and sisters.
One way is direct financial donation to agencies that get aid onto the ground in Ukraine. Many of our Mendocino neighbors among us have given money and my hope is they continue to do so.
There is another tool available: withholding of dollars from firms that continue to do business in Russia. Boycott those firms that continue to do business with Putin.
Most firms withdrew or immediately paused their Russian operations after the attack. Yet despite intense and unprecedented international pressure, there are outliers and violators that continue to enable Putin.
The Yale University graduate school of management is tracking all firms that do business in Russia. This group of graduate students and their advisor watchdog the activities of these large multinational corporations - operations like McDonald's, PepsiCo, Nike, and Archer Daniels Midland.
A list is published and regularly updated. Forbes magazine - better known for celebrating oligarchs than bringing them to book - has helped publicize it and it's gained a lot of traction and is having major impact.
The list has three simple categories: 1) Corporations that have done the right thing and entirely ceased Russian operations; 2) those that have significantly reduced or paused their (now-tainted) operations in Russia; and 3) those multinational corporate outlaws, violators and pillagers that continue to enable Putin's butchery by selling their products to him.
The list is readily available online, but I include a link to it here as well: som.yale.edu/story/2022/over-450-companies-have-withdrawn-russia-some-remain
I'm very pleased to have this information because it enables me to take another concrete step to counter this darkness among us.
I hope you agree and join me.
Andrew Scully
Mendocino
THE US IS ONCE AGAIN ASKING US TO SPILL BLOOD FOR OIL, cutting social services to fuel a proxy war they created in the Ukraine. In Yemen, Iraq and Syria, millions have already been killed by U.S. proxy wars while leaving Libya and Afghanistan in shambles.
What we need are jobs at livable wages, we need responsible policies based on science to survive new strains of the coronavirus – almost 1 million people died here prioritizing profits over lives.
Capitalism here is exposed like an open wound. Its proclivity towards war is unacceptable, and today we face an unprecedented challenge to stop a possible world war. We understand that the crisis of capitalism forces imperialist countries to desperately further siphon the surplus value we create and either steal or destroy the productive capacity of lesser capitalist powers like Russia. Their GDP is smaller than that of South Korea, with an almost neocolonial economy dependent on the exchange of raw materials - not the export of capital - to survive.
That’s an important distinction because it explains why the fate of Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Syria, Zimbabwe and other targets of U.S. imperialism would suffer most if the U.S.-led NATO forces are successful in this war – not to mention the threat of another NATO member state on the border of Russia, this time with potential nuclear weapons controlled by a nazi-led military.
Our historic mission right now is to expose how U.S. imperialism’s push in escalating its proxy war in the Ukraine exacerbates the crisis at home. 16 billion dollars going to covid funding was cut to send more billions in weapons to nazi-led military battalions in the Ukraine. When we see a gas station or cities of homeless people, we’re reminded that inflation today is 7.9% mainly due to increases in food, rent and gas – because of that war the U.S. created.
We see a rise in fascist white supremacist groups empowered by this nation, allowing them to take trips oversees to the Ukraine to be trained militarily in how to create more effective January 6th storming's of the capital, this time with even more confederate flags. And we see Biden in Congress aggressively pushing to fund the most lethal white supremacist organization today – the police, whose killings of 1000 people per year hasn’t changed since it began being counted by the Washington Post in 2015, with the greatest percentage being Black and Brown peoples.
We must highlight the fact that the U.S.-led NATO proxy war in Ukraine is an extension of the war against us, so that our working class can understand the source and solution to their problem – and begin the dismantling of the most dangerous threat to humanity today – U.S. Imperialism.
— John Thompson Parker, the Peace & Freedom Party - United States Senator candidate in the June 7 Primary Election
ATTA BOY, HINDU!
Dancing on Light Beams
Warmest spiritual greetings, Following the most intensely insane period of time possible in postmodern northern California, today by comparison is stable, spiritual, and serene. I want everybody to know that the madness resulting from the gangsta situation that developed at my residence in Redwood Valley, which was followed by a productive period at the Earth First! Media Center in Garberville, and then returning to survive in motels in Ukiah, (which ended up with my going to the hospital for a pacemaker implant), and then being admitted to the Redwood Community Services Building Bridges homeless shelter, has shifted to a continuous spiritual flow.
Chanting the Hare Krishna maha mantra continuously, identified with that which is prior to consciousness, going where I need to go and doing what I need to do. ~End of Message~
Craig Louis Stehr
ON BEING DISAPPEARED
by Chris Hedges
The entire archive of On Contact, the Emmy-nominated show I hosted for six years for RT America and RT International, has been disappeared from YouTube. Gone is the interview with Nathaniel Philbrick on his book about George Washington. Gone is the discussion with Kai Bird on his biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Gone is my exploration with Professor Sam Slote from Trinity College Dublin of James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” Gone is the show with Benjamin Moser on his biography of Susan Sontag. Gone is the show with Stephen Kinzer on his book on John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles. Gone are the interviews with the social critics Cornel West, Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky, Gerald Horne, Wendy Brown, Paul Street, Gabriel Rockwell, Naomi Wolff and Slavoj Zizek. Gone are the interviews with the novelists Russell Banks and Salar Abdoh. Gone is the interview with Kevin Sharp, a former federal judge, on the case of Leonard Peltier. Gone are the interviews with economists David Harvey and Richard Wolff. Gone are the interviews with the combat veterans and West Point graduates Danny Sjursen and Eric Edstrom about our wars in the Middle East. Gone are the discussions with the journalists Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi. Gone are the voices of those who are being persecuted and marginalized, including the human rights attorney Steven Donziger and the political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal. None of the shows I did on mass incarceration, where I interviewed those released from our prisons, are any longer on YouTube. Gone are the shows with the cartoonists Joe Sacco and Dwayne Booth. Melted into thin air, leaving not a rack behind.
I received no inquiry or notice from YouTube. I vanished. In totalitarian systems you exist, then you don’t. I suppose this was done in the name of censoring Russian propaganda, although I have a hard time seeing how a detailed discussion of “Ulysses” or the biographies of Susan Sontag and J. Robert Oppenheimer had any connection in the eyes of the most obtuse censors in Silicon Valley with Vladimir Putin. Indeed, there is not one show that dealt with Russia. I was on RT because, as a critic of US imperialism, militarism, the corporate control of the two ruling parties, and especially because I support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, I was blacklisted. I was on RT for the same reason the dissident Vaclav Havel, who I knew, was on Voice of America during the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. It was that or not be heard. Havel had no more love for the policies of Washington than I have for those of Moscow.
Are we a more informed and better society because of this censorship? Is this a world we want to inhabit where those who know everything about us and about whom we know nothing can instantly erase us? If this happens to me, it can happen to you, to any critic anywhere who challenges the dominant narrative. And that is where we are headed as the ruling elites refuse to respond to the disenfranchisement and suffering of the working class, opting not for social and political change or the curbing of the rapacious power and obscene wealth of our oligarchic rulers, but instead imposing iron control over information, as if that will solve the mounting social unrest and vast political and social divides.
The most vocal cheerleaders for this censorship are the liberal class. Terrified of the enraged crowds of QAnon conspiracy theorists, Christian fascists, gun-toting militias, and cult-like Trump supporters that grew out of the distortions of the money-drenched electoral system, neoliberalism, austerity, deindustrialization, predatory capitalism, and the collapse of social programs, they plead with the digital monopolies to make it all go away. They blame anyone but themselves. Democrats in the U.S. Congress have held hearings with the CEOs of social media companies pressuring them to do more to censor content. Banish the troglodytes. Then we will have social cohesion. Then life will go back to normal. Fake news. Harm reduction model. Information pollution. Information disorder. They have all sorts of Orwellian phrases to justify censorship. Meanwhile, they peddle their own fantasy that Russia was responsible for the election of Donald Trump. It is a stunning inability to be remotely self-reflective or self-critical, and it is ominous as we move deeper and deeper into a state of political and social dysfunction.
What were my sins? I did not, like my former employer, The New York Times, sell you the lie of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, peddle conspiracy theories about Donald Trump being a Russian asset, put out a ten-part podcast called the Caliphate that was a hoax, or tell you that the contents on Hunter Biden’s laptop was “disinformation.” I did not prophesize that Joe Biden was the next FDR or that Hillary Clinton was going to win the election.
This censorship is about supporting what, as I.F Stone reminded us, governments always do – lie. Challenge the official lie, as I often did, and you will soon become a nonperson on digital media. Julian Assange and Edward Snowden exposed the truth about the criminal inner workings of power. Look where they are now. This censorship is one step removed from Joseph Stalin’s airbrushing of nonpersons such as Leon Trotsky out of official photographs. It is a destruction of our collective memory. It removes the efforts to examine our reality in ways the ruling class does not appreciate. The goal is to foster historical amnesia. If we don’t know what happened in the past, we cannot make sense of the present.
“The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen,” Hannah Arendt warned. “What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie—a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days—but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”
I am not alone. YouTube regularly removes or demonetizes channels, which happened to Progressive Soapbox, without warning, usually by arguing that the content contained videos that violated YouTube’s amorphous community guidelines. Status Coup, which filmed the January 6 storming of the Capital, was suspended from YouTube for “advancing the false claims of election fraud.” My video content, by the way, primarily consisted of book covers, quotes from passages of books and author photos, but it got disappeared anyway.
The deplatforming of voices like mine, already blocked by commercial media and marginalized with algorithms, is coupled with the pernicious campaign to funnel people back into the arms of the establishment media such as CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. In the US, as Dorthy Parker once said about Katharine Hepburn’s emotional range as an actress, any policy discussion ranges from A to B. Step outside those lines and you are an outcast. This is the reason Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald and I are on Substack.
The Ukraine war, which I denounced as a “criminal war of aggression” when it began in the column “War is the Greatest Evil” on ScheerPost, is a sterling example. Any effort to put it into historical context, to suggest that the betrayal of agreements by the West with Moscow, which I covered as a reporter in Eastern Europe during the collapse of the Soviet Union, along with the expansion of NATO might have baited Russia into the conflict, is dismissed. Nuance. Complexity. Ambiguity. Historical context. Self-criticism. All are dismissed.
My show, dedicated primarily to authors and their books, should have been, if we had a functioning system of public broadcasting, on PBS or NPR. But public broadcasting is as captive to corporations and the wealthy as the commercial media, indeed PBS and NPR run commercials in the guise of sponsorship acknowledgements. The last show on public broadcasting that examined power was Moyers & Company. Once Bill Moyers went off the air in 2015, no one took his place.
A few decades ago, you could hear independent voices on public broadcasting, including Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Howard Zinn, Ralph Nader, Angela Davis, James Baldwin, and Noam Chomsky. No more. A few decades ago, there were a variety of alternative weeklies and magazines. A few decades ago, we still had a press that, however flawed, had not rendered whole segments of the population, especially the poor and social critics, invisible. It is perhaps telling that our greatest investigative journalist, Sy Hersh, who exposed the massacre of 500 unarmed Vietnamese civilians by US soldiers at My Lai and the torture at Abu Ghraib, has trouble publishing in the United States. I would direct you to the interview I did with Sy about the decayed state of the American media, but it no longer exists on YouTube.
(chrishedges.substack.com)
John Redding’s name is not “Nels” (short for Nelson?).
Good list of questions for each — both — of the candidates.
Ukraine for the Ukraines.
THE DROUGHT – DOING NOTHING IS THE ONLY SURE WAY TO FAIL
by Jim Shields: “The state must get serious about immediately increasing water storage capacity.”
Then we have our Congressman Huffman who is an advocate for making matters worse, as very well described in Guinness McFadden’s editorial. Huffman’s position is unbelievably real, and based on a Neo-religious belief of “saving the planet”.
When the bus driver is intent on driving the bus off the cliff, some of those sitting in the front need to grab the wheel. This is currently not happening.
Enjoy your wet dream, George. Building more dams and diversions would not even postpone the inevitable, let alone slow its victory over us dumb monkeys, you know, the idiots who overbred, became high and mighty, and concluded that their plundering was doing the work of some nonexistent spiritual apparition.
Yessir, them “good ole daze” of dam building are long gone. Besides, every stream that could “reasonably” (in the eyes of ag tyoes and their pet politicians) be dammed is already dammed and has been for decades. Get used to it.
Mediocrates:
As to our current Board of Supervisors:
How many of these folks had jobs that paid better then their current salary as Supervisors prior to being elected?
How many of our Supervisors have demonstrated the ability to make sound financial judgments that resulted in the actual production of a usable and self sustaining (financially) product or service?
How many have the education or proven ability to comprehend the issues they are presented with daily as a Supervisor? [A lot of governmental employees have to take exams to prove basic competency]
Just asking.
Here are my unsolicited answers to the Editor’s questions. BTW, if he thinks debates will be rigged, why not have the AVA host a debate? And why does he rail against the County but dismisses someone who fights for better government as “combative”. Seems like he would welcome that trait on the BOS. Anyway, here goes
1. Are supervisors overpaid given the light demands on them? Yes. I would make the Board a working board.
2. Given that many line county employees also qualify for food stamps, will you introduce pay raises for them and pay freezes for management? Yes. Good leaders eat last.
3. Do you intend to end the pointless beef with the Sheriff? I would to be sure and never started it in the first place.
4. Do you approve spending large amounts of public tax money via the consent calendar? Heaven’s no!
5. What exactly did assistant county health director, Doc Doohan, do for her $100,000 contract? She copied and pasted the directives coming from Sacramento.
6. Why do you (and your colleagues) approve hiring expensive Frisco lawyers to handle routine personnel disputes when the county maintains a staff of 8-10 county-paid attorneys? I think the answer is they have no respect for taxpayer money.
7. Do you support State Senator McGuire’s Great Redwood Trail even though it will cost over $1 billion by their own estimates? No. Wrong priority for this time and place. Another bullet train fiasco?
8. Do you support a new County Courthouse, despite the significant unfunded impact on the affected local departments? No. The County is barely responsive to the public’s needs as it is.
9. Why did you support the CEO’s lie that John McCowen had stolen county property? Good question, but the answer may be that Ted is not the nice guy he appears to be.
10. What specifically have you done for the 5th District? Another good question as the County is barely functioning. We need economic development and government accountability. My own track record for the health care District is far better. https://www.facebook.com/johnredding4supervisor
Mr. Redding comes accross as being a smart and sensible guy. I have nothing good to say about Bow Tie Ted.
Marmon
Your non endorsement and Trumpian branding of “bow-tie” Ted is very much a big help for Ted.
The AVA may be on the mark in their criticisms of the BOS on some fronts, for all I know (which is little these days)…..but, I’m pretty sure they’re off base on The Great Redwood Trail project.
Mo Mulheren had a great flash of wit the other day in noting that she hasn’t read the AVA for 6 months and therefore doesn’t know how she’s doing at her job at the moment. I noticed that Ted seemed to call the AVA a tabloid the other day. The Major sure is a tough job performance judge (how fair and accurate he is, I don’t know) but I have to wonder how smooth governance can be in a county poor in human and monetary resources.
If we didn’t have Craig infusing Mendocino air with the maha-mantra, we would be in super-bad straights!
Trumpian? And why not inform yourself, and I’d like to see your answers to those questions, Mr. J.
He’d just go off on some flying saucer rant.
Hate to break it to you Stephen, but the wall of ridicule and denial is crumbling. And, this is now regarded as an actual issue. Thank you for encouraging, or inviting, my latest rant. You will see others, ie Congress, CNN, etc, taking up the ranting baton now……I can take a nap now!
Be sure to catch the 5 part CNN docuseries coming this summer!
I can’t figure out how to inform myself, with accuracy, re local governance issues. I do agree they hire too many consultants, that many consent calenders items should not be placed there, etc but how can I reliably determine if merging the financial agencies is wise, or if IT operations should remain autonomous in the Sheriff’s office, etc etc?? It occurs to me that perhaps The Major should have a shot at being the CEO, given how well informed he seems and with his past administrative experience. You guys, or John S, (can’t remember) say a bunch of seniors led by Kathy W on the Grand Jury get informed on issues there, but I don’t have the interest in participating that way. (The stress of a recent heart attack I guess.)
I am calling Marmon Trumpian in his ways. He is a loyal devotee of that treasonous criminal! I hope James continues to help Ted, lol. You guys are right, the demographics in the 5th make a Ted victory likely.
If anyone is really intereted (and I doubt many are), they could start by trying to read the board agendas and watching the Board meetings. We do, very carefully, and we do it with a certain amount of experience. Often they act as if their own history never happened. They also don’t read their own materials.
As for the financial consolidation, start with the fact that the Board decided to do it without even an attempt at analyzing it or planning for it. Have you noticed that there’s still no budget for the consolidated department that they ordered?
The Sheriff’s IT is reqiured to be independent of the rest of the County by law. If you know of any othe way to spin that, please advise.
The County doesn’t need me or any other single person to do basic things that all other government agencies do: Track budgets and actuals on a monthly basis, require departments to report on measurable activites, provide monthly reports on project status. For starters.
They also shouldn’t need any help to follow up on their own “directives” which mostly are put on a list and forgotten. (Some don’t even make the list.)
There are plenty of other things that need fixing and we try to point out how or why in our complaints and criticisms. (Wasting money on a strategic plan, paying $5 million for a $1 million house, unaccountably farming out legal work to expensive attorneys, sole source contracts for millions on the consent calendar, totally unjustified pay raises, etc.)
But if Official Mendo can’t even get the basics right — can’t even seem to bring them up as needing attention — then your or my opinion of them is irrelevant and they deserve to be stuck in the budget and legal holes they are continuing digging themselves into.
Don’t take my word, of course. Look at what they put out there (or don’t put out there) yourself. I don’t see the difficulty about “how” to inform yourself. Sounds like you just don’t want to. Fine, but don’t cast doubt on our coverage if you don’t want to look at what’s already there to be figured out.
I could be mistaken, but I thought I saw Supervisor McGourty in Raleys Ukiah at about 3:23pm today, seemingly slow and bewildered, shopping for portions of random meat.
Uncertain, I passed by who ever it was three times, my adrenalin starting to rise.
I said nothing because if I had, my blood might have started to pound, and I could be poised to squander perhaps dozens or hundreds of hours of my personal time, as I have done before, howling fruitless in the comment blog of the AVA to seemingly no demonstrable effect.
This guy I saw had a slight side lean to his stance, and looked like he had been sitting indoors all day.
It’s good the salary has been raised for sitting Supervisors, in it for the money.
Re-elected to a second term, with at least five years of County employment, a retired Supervisor would be eligible eventually for the County pension, and if personal resources are parlayed, perhaps eventually a time share townhouse in San Diego.
I got in the weeds of informing myself on the range of services provided by Redwood Community Services and learning the details there came to the general conclusion I already mentioned, that the people and monetary resources here are not anywhere near the level available elsewhere. Which naturally leads to incompetence, inaction, and being overwhelmed. They appear to do good within the natural limits and barriers they face, but looking at the range of activity in SF and San Jose for example, it seems like little is done in comparison in addressing conditions.
There’s no disputing by me of the info you present re the Sheriff’s IT services or the merging of the finance functions, I just am not motivated to get into the weeds there. The issues surrounding homelessness, mental health, substance detoxing, and foster care interest me more. Again, I came to realize that we are less up to the task of dealing with that here due to inherent conditions, not necessarily due to elected reps being absolutely incompetent (though without preexisting resources, tools, and awareness of action avenues). Look at the crisis of the lack of medical services as an example:. I learned most directly that they can’t treat heart attacks here! They take you out of county! (For stents and bypass, tho it looks like they do pacemakers here) Also, look at the horror going on with RCMS….that’s a major crisis scene that’s falling apart. The staff is overwhelmed, the patients angry and frustrated.
This is why I suggest you lighten up on MO and Ted.
RE: FATAL STABBING
Why is the Sheriff releasing a 2020 mugshot of Adelman? According to updated article regarding this alledged murder, Adelman received moderate injuries from the cops who took him down.
Ukiah Man Allegedly Stabbed Another to Death Due to ‘Prior Thefts of Property’, Says UPD
https://mendofever.com/2022/03/28/ukiah-man-allegedly-stabbed-another-to-death-due-to-prior-thefts-of-property-says-upd/
Marmon
“WHEN BIDEN, as usual having trouble reading off the teleprompter, went off-script to say what every non-Russian person in the world hopes — that Putin is removed, Biden’s handlers quickly went to Wolf Blitzer et al to say that’s not what Biden went.”
Pure nonsense. You definitely have had too many booster shots. “…not what Biden went.” That is hilarious, because it is meaningless.
As is your comment, Harv. I can’t grasp your meaning.
I’m not surprised.
ON BEING DISAPPEARED
Chris Hedges makes a most powerful argument against social media censorship in this piece. His citation of the archival loss of his recent years’ work is revealing, stunning in its sweep. There is, of course, the other side of this argument, and he notes why it exists. And there is no easily invoked formula that is right and just and best for America. Thanks, AVA, for this enlightening piece of journalism.
$60,000,000,000 and counting for a train to nowhere, $1,000,000,000 and counting for a trail to nowhere, yet not a penny or sense of urgency to build desalination plants along the coast despite the coming lack of life’s essential sustainability. What a fucked up state we live in.
And the county budget pours out through the consent calendar like grass through a goose. What a screwed up county we live in.
White House last week: “The President watched portions of Judge Jackson’s hearing yesterday and today”
Biden today: “I didn’t get a chance to see any of it, unfortunately”
Marmon
SPEAKING OF TRUMPIAN WORLD–CRIMES AND SUCH
“Trump Likely Committed Felony Obstruction, Federal Judge Rules”
“A federal judge ruled Monday that President Donald Trump ‘more likely than not’ attempted to illegally obstruct Congress as part of a criminal conspiracy when he tried to subvert the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021.
U.S. District Court Judge David Carter made the determination in a ruling that ordered 101 sensitive emails from Trump ally John Eastman be turned over to the House’s Jan. 6 select committee. Eastman used the email account of his former employer, Chapman University, to discuss political and legal strategy related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Carter said that the plan Eastman helped develop was obviously illegal and that Trump knew it at the time. ‘Based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021,’ Carter wrote.
The remarkable ruling may be the first in history in which a federal judge determined a president, while in office, appeared to commit a crime. The decision has no direct role in whether Trump will be charged criminally but could increase pressure on the Justice Department and its chief, Attorney General Merrick Garland, to conduct an aggressive investigation that could lead to such charges…”
Politico, 3/28/22
Chucky, Chucky, Chucky, Judge Carter is a far left Bill Clinton appointee. Trump has not been charged with a crime nor was he on trial. This was just a statement he made regarding Eastman’s refusal to turn over some emails. Like most deranged Democrats, he believes Trump is guilty no matter what. His mind has already been made up. I always laugh when you post shit you read on msn.
Marmon
Oh James, it is a sad day, but will have to give you the label that was so common here yesterday–you are “seriously deranged.” Hang in there, get some help, and maybe you can come back from the abyss….