AN EARTHQUAKE measuring 2.7 on the Richter Scale rattled the Ukiah Valley at precisely 11:29am Wednesday. The United States Geological Survey said the temblor was centered two miles east of Redwood Valley, 9 miles north northeast of Ukiah.
MENDOCINO COUNTY SHERIFF Tom Allman said last Wednesday that Sonoma County Sheriff's Department personnel will conduct an “internal investigation” of Mendo Undersheriff Randy Johnson whose family property near Potter Valley was raided two weeks ago by a federal task force that included DEA, IRS and FBI agents. During the raid on the Johnson place some 500 marijuana plants were confiscated. The property is an old resort converted to rental cabins. Johnson's father and his brother live on the premises. the Undersheriff next door to the raided property. There has been tension between federal authorities and Mendocino County officials for some time now. Mendocino County has been warned by the feds that any attempt by the County to license or otherwise profit from marijuana production and/or sales would expose them to prosecution.
MICHAEL McDONALD of Mendocino writes: “Bochy ball — I Crawford out of bed this mornin' feeling Pence-ive. I Romo'd over to my closet, slipped on my Sandovals, Sanchez'd up my boxers, tied the Belt on my robe, extracted a Tylenol from my Lopez dispenser, swallowed it with a sip of my double Mota latte and Posey'd on over to the mirror. “Bed head,” I muttered. Mijares was a mess. “Bumgarner!” I Huff-ed. I had a Giant Blanco Zito on my forehead. Affeldt-it and I Casilla-it. I wasn't sure if it was Righetti to pop, but I thought, I Cain do this, and as it Theriot'd open and Scutaro'd across the bathroom, I broke into a Vogelsong, quickly followed by some Arias. The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! I rubbed some Lincecum on it, and that thing was Pagan. To hell with the Nady-sayers. Don't Kontos out against the Tigers.”
FROM THE AVA on-line: “First Five, founded by the now disgraced ‘MeatHead’ dude from Archie Bunker ranks as the slickest liberal phony baloney ‘children’s’ scam ever devised.l In Humboldt they wine and dine and plead for funds while absolutely nothing goes tot he neediest. Solution: disband the endless county Commissioners (unelected) and give 100% of the cigarette tax to the children and families needing child care to work, health care premiums and stipends to play sports and attend camps…this is a solid gold plum for a very few lucky appointed commissioners in all 58 counties and the State level…"
FREDERICK ORLANDO, 55, of Magalia, Butte County, California, has pleaded guilty to the August robbery of Redwood Credit Union in Point Arena. According to Mendo District Attorney David Eyster, Orlando traveled from Magalia to Point Arena, entered the Credit Union with his son-in-law, brandished a handgun at bank tellers and customers, demanded money from the cash drawers, and then herded all the people to a back room.
THE TWO ROBBERS, one of whom shed flip-flops as they ran for their getaway vehicle at the Point Arena Theater, attempted to make their escape east on Fish Rock Road with the stolen money, about $50,000. However, the getaway car was boxed in on that rural, dirt road by sheriff's deputy Luis Espinoza coming in from the east and California Highway Patrol officer Terry Solomon pursuing from the west.
SHERIFF TOM ALLMAN told us that Orlando, a lifer and terminally ill, chose not to shoot it out with Espinoza when he saw the young deputy's wedding band glint in the sun. “Orlando said he didn't want to take a chance on harming a young guy with little kids at home,” Allman said. Espinoza lives in the Anderson Valley with his young wife and children.
ORLANDO has been held since August in the Mendocino County Jail with bail set at more than $1 million. His jury trial had been scheduled to begin on Nov. 26 but, instead, a sentencing hearing is now scheduled for Nov. 21. Eyster noted the sentencing of Orlando will only be a formality because Orlando, through Public Defender Linda Thompson, Mendocino County's Life Without Expediter, agreed to receive a stipulated state prison sentence of 45 years to life.
EYSTER prosecuted Orlando under California's Three Strikes laws because the defendant previously served time in a federal penitentiary for four separate bank robberies in Southern California. Orlando also served state prison time for a residential burglary conviction in the 1980s. “While Orlando targeted Point Arena because he believed it to be a sleepy, coastal town with few people around and even fewer law enforcement officers to interfere,” Eyster said, “he didn't appreciate the great cooperation and communication that exists on our South Coast between the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office, the California Highway Patrol, Fish and Game wardens, and Sonoma County's Sheriff's Office."
ACCORDING TO INVESTIGATORS, Orlando remains a suspect in other bank robberies, including at least one that involves a Forestville bank. It has also been reported that Orlando has confessed while in the Mendocino County Jail to being responsible for a 30-year-old unsolved murder in Southern California.
PUBLIC DEFENDER Linda Thompson appeared for Orlando, meaning the guy was triply doomed; first by his legal history; second by his botched Point Arena stick-up; third by Thompson, attorney of record for Mendo defendants on their way to prison for the rest of their lives. The prosecution of Orlando has been handled by Eyster and Assistant District Attorney Paul Sequeira.
THE THOUGHTFUL LETTER FROM Shawn Murray of Redwood Valley in this week's paper contains a couple of thoughts I disagree with, although I laughed at his comment that if three people get together in Mendocino County the third person is Sheriff Allman. But it's a good thing that the Sheriff is so widely accessible. Good police work, too, because it means he's hearing directly from all areas of Mendocino County all the time. And Allman will talk to anyone. But prior to Sheriff Craver, the first elected cop to realize that to get elected in this county you'd better at least pretend to listen to the libs because they're about half the population, Mendo's top cop had been pretty much invisible except to the most primitive sectors of the electorate. I didn't meet Sheriff Shea until I was in jail myself when Shea said, “Put the mop over there, Anderson.” I liked Sheriff Tuso but when we published stories he didn't like he would literally turn his back on me when I'd encounter him different places. I could almost hear Craver's teeth grinding when he had to address, for example, the late OTG Johnson, but Craver would hear out even the nutballs who, of course, were and are always eager for a pat on their seething little heads from authority. Craver was the first Sheriff to put together a vote that included all kinds of people, and he was elected.
AS FOR THE DA “selling misdemeanors,” I think it's clearly better to settle pot cases rather than try them, thus saving everyone money and time. If the feds would get off the County's back our general fund could be beefed up by licensing pot gardens, which was the motivating idea for the aborted zip-tie program.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: “Hurricane Sandy and all it portends this Monday morning is a nice distraction from all the other things un-winding, tottering, and fracturing in so many advanced nations. Promises of massive (and improbable) bailouts have kept the financial meltdown of Europe a few degrees below critical mass for a couple of months, but the thermometer is inching upward with the ominous Catalan regional election in Spain tipping well toward the secessionists, and Greece whirling around the economic drain, with all of its previous bail-out money merely yo-yoing back to the client banks of the “troika” that arranged the bail-outs, and countries like Italy, Portugal, and Ireland whistling past the graveyard beyond the news media's peripheral vision. And then there is China with its government transition hugger-mugger, its empty make-work cities, its crony banking system unaccountable to anyone, and its extremely modest reserves of its own oil to run the whole hastily constructed shootin' match. They have been working earnestly in plain sight — off the news media's radar screen — to construct a resource extraction empire in Africa, but then they will be stuck with the job of defending 12,000 mile supply lines. Good luck with that. Finally, there is the nauseating spectacle of the presidential election itself, with two creatures of corporate capture pretending to represent the interests of some hypothetical majority who wish to remain the slaves of WalMart and Goldman Sachs. If Hurricane Sandy causes such massive disruption as to interfere with the election, perhaps that will be a good thing — a sudden, unavoidable re-thinking of our ossified institutional customs, and a thrust into the emergent history of the future.” — Jim Kunstler
IT'S BEEN A TOUGH WEEK for Mendo law enforcement, men and women doing an impossible job at an impossible juncture of our ever more chaotic history. Several years ago a Fort Bragg friend of mine, a retired fisherman and not an easily intimidated person, told me that there was a new breed of street person roaming Fort Bragg. “They're younger and meaner and a lot more aggressive,” he said. A Fort Bragg Police officer confirmed the old fisherman's suspicions. “Yes, they are younger and they are a lot more aggressive. And we've got gangs, too.”
I VISIT UKIAH more often than I do Fort Bragg, and in Ukiah I see for myself that there are some pretty bad dudes on the prowl over there, especially along the railroad tracks and in and around the WalMart parking lot. And lots and lots are under the influence of substances that don't help with whatever residual social affections they still may have.
CASE IN POINT: The Fort Bragg Police were called out to the 1100 block of South Main last week to cool out three belligerent drunks who immediately chose to fight the cops rather than move along. In the ensuing melee an officer was injured, not seriously but badly enough to require medical attention. Instead of shuffling off with maybe a citation, police were forced to arrest Dylan Swartout, 41, Shon Foote, 40, and William Cady, 62, all of Fort Bragg, and one would think that Cady would be a little long in the fang to be fighting cops. Swartout took his resistance even farther. He said he was going to kill a cop and his family.
SWARTOUT was booked into the County Jail on suspicion of threats to a peace officer, battery on a peace officer and vandalism, Foote was booked on suspicion of resisting arrest and public intoxication, and Cady was booked on suspicion of public intoxication.
CASE IN POINT TWO: In Ukiah, Councilman Phil Baldwin has asked that the City Council find the money to hire more police. Justine Frederickson of the Ukiah Daily Journal quoted Ukiah Police Chief Dewey: “The transient population we're finding is much more violent than anything we've encountered in the past. They're really here because of the marijuana culture,” Dewey said, adding that they congregate near Ukiah Natural Foods, Safeway and Walmart, and the Sun House Park… “I'm now beginning to be worried about our officers' safety in a way I haven't been before… These transients aggressively panhandle, and when people feel threatened they give them money just so they'll go away… Many said they came here because they felt Ukiah had a lack of regulations and they could get services here they couldn't get elsewhere… If you come into this county and are indigent for any reason, you can go to Social Services and receive $200 a month for food… you used to actually get food stamps; today they give you an ATM card with $200 loaded on it. While the card can only be used for food products, people will sell those cards for $100, then buy booze or drugs.”
(WELL, KIND OF, CHIEF. Social Services is state and federally mandated to provide this minimal assistance, all of which, including food stamps, is not only limited in duration it comes with all kinds of reporting requirements. Mendo Social Services isn't doing anything illegal, anything that, say, Sonoma County or San Francisco isn't doing. The local welfare discussion always, of course, ignores that more and more people are superfluous to our contracting national economy, and that without at least a subsistence level of welfare there would be much more crime than there is. Which isn't to say that there aren't a lot of low down bums wandering around loaded who wouldn't work even if there was employment. But the very large majority of people in Mendocino County drawing food stamps are working, and of those drawing food stamps many are single women supporting children by themselves. Anyway, the food stamp program now keeps 47 million Americans, millions of them children from hunger, and the program is nearly as important to the welfare of the Mendo economy as the marijuana industry. Take both away and.......)
TUESDAY'S mail contained a colorful election mailer from Jared Huffman, our next Congressman. Weeping in absolute despair, I read the long list of Huffman's endorsers, a veritable Who's Who of the darkest political forces on the Northcoast: Dianne Feinstein; Mike Thompson; Gavin Newsom; Chesbro (of course); HumCo lib-labs from Estelle Fennell to Mark Lovelace; Jim Mastin (natch, always a sure guide on the perpetual path from bad to worse); and so on. There are photos of Huffman standing with a fat white guy in a commercial-size vegetable patch tended by Mexicans, we can be sure, and there's big pic of Huffman and his family, again reminding us that only career officeholders have an attractive wife and two kids. Prediction: Mendo, rural home of warm-fuzzy, goes for Huffman 95%.
PERTINENT OBSERVATION from the always pertinent Paul Craig Roberts: “God help them if Obama and Romney ever had to participate in a real debate about a real issue at the Oxford Union. They would be massacred. The ‘debates’ revealed that not only the candidates but also the entire country is completely tuned out to every real problem and dangerous development. For example, you would never know that US citizens can now be imprisoned and executed without due process. All that is required to terminate the liberty and life of an American citizen by his own government is an unaccountable decision somewhere in the executive branch. No doubt that Americans, if they think of this at all, believe that it will only happen to terrorists who deserve it. But as no evidence or due process is required, how would we know that it only happens to terrorists? Can we really trust a government that has started wars in seven countries on the basis of falsehoods? If the US government will lie about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in order to invade a country, why won’t it lie about who is a terrorist?”
A BOOK scheduled for publication in January would seem to substantiate Roberts’ concerns. According to the publisher’s description “The Terror Factor: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terror” is “a groundbreaking work of investigative journalism which shows how the FBI has, under the guise of engaging in counterterrorism since 9/11, built a network of more than 15,000 informants whose primary purpose is to infiltrate Muslim communities to create and facilitate phony terrorist plots so that the bureau can then claim victory in the War on Terror. An outgrowth of Trevor Aaronson's work as an investigative reporting fellow at the University of California, Berkeley — which culminated in an award-winning cover story in Mother Jones magazine — “The Terror Factory” reveals shocking information about the criminals, con men, and liars the FBI uses as paid informants, as well as documenting the extreme methods the FBI uses to ensnare Muslims in terrorist plots — which are in reality conceived and financed by the FBI. The book offers unprecedented detail into how the FBI has transformed from a reactive law enforcement agency to a proactive counterterrorism organization — including the story of an accused murderer who became one of the FBI's most prolific terrorism informants — and how so-called terrorism consultants and experts have made fortunes by exaggerating the threat of Islamic terrorism in the United States."
WHO IS THIS WOMAN? A reader convincingly writes that the “Pixie” we think is also Jacqueline Audet doesn't seem to be the Pixie from Boone, Wautaga County, North Carolina, daughter of Pamela Ward Audet, age 48 (dob 1964). “At www.Ancestry.com the only Jacqueline I could find who matched the approximate age of 22 is ‘Jacqueline Therese Audet’ dob 12 April 1991 at Los Angeles, CA. Maybe her booking record in Ukiah will show if the birthdate is a match, if the kid has been sober enough to remember it. Turns out Jaqueline Nicole Audet aka “Pixie” was booked with her date of birth as January 17, 1990. It's possible her parents might have been living in California at the time. Pamela Ward Audet may also be known as Pamela K. Audet. 1637 Little Laurel Rd., Boone, NC 28607-7487. Found a North Carolina divorce record showing a Pamela Audet divorced a Michael Audet on 21 February 1998 when the kid would have been almost seven.”
A FEMALE CALLER DEMANDED, a barely concealed accusation of dirty old man-ism in her voice, “What's with your obsession with that Goldilocks woman? Why don't you leave her alone?”
PUT IT THIS WAY: It's more about the rest of us than it is about her. Most of know that the political duopoly agrees with the Big Lie that there isn't money to get people off the streets who are unwilling or unable to help themselves. Used to be we found the money for the required state hospital system. A young person could not have committed public suicide. We think Ms. Audet is a dramatic example of a very young person committing public suicide. It shouldn't be tolerated.
MONDAY, WE HEARD that Pixie was headed for Boonville following her release from the Low Gap Hilton, although it's long past time for local judges to keep her inside for longer stretches during which she might have enough time to unpickle her brain. Ms. Audet, as previously reported, was picked up stone drunk on the Mendocino Headlands back on October 18 along with a Mr. Donald Jordan, age 49, Pixie's road dog. Ms. Audet, 22, is a drop-fall drunk. She was already sighted sauntering down Low Gap Road last Tuesday, Oct. 23 in the company of Mr. Jordan and a Mr. Lamont Jones, all three drop-fall dipsos. Pixie was probably separated from alcohol for all of four plus days, the length of her latest stay at Low Gap's mandatory drop-in center.
MS. AUDET AND MR. JORDAN, whom she refers to as “babe,” were soon rousted for illegal camping and trespassing last Sunday night in the Ukiah area, but were told to move along without being cited or arrested. Cops mostly don't want to haul chronic inebriants off to jail since it ties them up for an hour or so going through the booking process. The chronics only get arrested when they have to be arrested because there's no other option to their publicly offensive behavior. Of course if everyone guilty of publicly obnoxious behavior were arrested, our streets would be deserted.
OUR SOURCES say that Pixie and Mr. Jordan feel libeled by our reports of their various encounters with law enforcement and their periodic public sightings. They say they're planning to return to the Mendocino Coast by way of Boonville in order to pay the AVA a visit.
THE PHONE STARTS ringing about 5pm. “She's here! Pixie's in Boonville!” Three calls later confirm that our louche celebrity is indeed in town. I grab my tape recorder and head out the door, eager to at last talk to Goldie, er Pixie, face-to-face. A caller had said she and lover boy were on Mountain View Road. “I guess they're hitchhiking to Point Arena or some where. She's carrying a big brown bundle, he's got a back pack, and they've got a big dog, white with brown spots.” I drove up Mountain View. No Pixie and LB. I drove back down Mountain View. No sign!
TUESDAY MORNING a Boonville guy hustles through the door. “She's out in front of Lemons, right now!” With a cannibal-looking dude? I ask. “That's him, and that's her!” In 12 hours they'd managed to get from Boonville to Philo.
WE'RE DEEPLY GRATEFUL for the help we've received in finally amassing a complete collection of AVAs from the past 28 years (1984-2011). However, the University of Michigan still needs help completing their archive. If anyone has any of the following issues from 2007, please send them in so we can pass them along: Jan 31; Feb 4, 14, 21; and Mar 28 (all 2007)
KEVIN HOOVER has announced he will cease publication of the Arcata Eye on Feb. 14, 2014. Reached by phone this morning, Hoover said he has both personal and professional reasons for his decision. Personally he’d like more time to pursue other creative outlets, a luxury that his current workload simply doesn’t allow. “Doing this paper eats my life,” he said. And professionally he’s not satisfied with the product he’s been able to produce on a shoestring budget. “By and large people are pretty happy with what’s in the newspaper. I’m not,” he said. “It only has about five percent of the news I’d like to have in it. And really I’m just tired of doing things fast and shitty.” Hoover published the first edition of the Eye on October 22, 1996, shortly after the demise of the Arcata Union, for which Hoover was a reporter. In the nearly 15 years since the Eye has become a dependable source for community news, debate and humor, including Hoover’s droll musings on area crime (compiled in two books, The Police Log and The Police Log II: The Nimrod Imbroglios). Hoover said Arcata — and every community — needs a source of independent news, and he hopes to find others in the community willing to take over that task before he publishes the final issue of the Eye on his 60th birthday. “I don’t really feel like I’m doing an adequate job being the Fourth Estate,” he said. “I’m doing what I can, but this town really needs to make a long-term commitment to an independent news-gathering entity.” With that in mind, Hoover said he plans to visit each Arcata neighborhood this fall, asking residents what they want in a community newspaper and what each of them can contribute. “I’ve pretty much defined, over these last years, what an Arcata newspaper is,” Hoover said. “But I’m under no illusion that there aren’t people who can do it better — on all levels. They could run a business better, approach advertising better, manage people better, and they could probably write better stories in a lot of ways too.” He noted that the media landscape has gone through an epochal change in recent years with the proliferation of Facebook, smartphones and blogging. This multitude of “shiny objects” vying for the public’s attention make community newspapers, if anything, more important, Hoover said, because newspapers provide an independent perspective. “Every community needs one, and they’re the better for it,” he said.
RONALD WALTER OSSENBERG, 52, is the man shot to death Wednesday by a CHP officer near Upper Lake. According to Lake County District Attorney, Don Anderson, Ossenberg had a long criminal history. He'd just been released from the Orange County jail when he stole a 2010 Toyota Camry in Fullerton and drove north, eluding State Park police in San Luis Obispo County. But Ossenberg was soon identified as the man who grabbed a backpack from a woman on the Golden Gate Bridge before heading to Lake County. DA Anderson said Ossenberg had previously visited Lake County on vacation.
OSSENBERG was sitting in the stolen Camry along side Highway 29 when a female CHP officer stopped to ask Ossenberg if he needed help. She then asked him exit his car to determine if he was drunk or otherwise under the influence. As the officer, still not identified, was running a computer check on Ossenberg, he attacked her, choking her and throwing her to the ground where he tried to get her gun out of its holster.
A PASSERBY, also not yet identified, ran toward the struggling couple, partially drawing Ossenberg's attention, which allowed the officer to get full control of her gun and shoot Ossenberg in the chest, killing him.
ONE OF THE MOST AMUSING moments in Thursday night’s second game of the World Series came when Giants outfielder Gregor Blanco’s bunt down the third base line refused to roll foul as a crowd of befuddled Tigers gathered around it. Commentators of the more excitable type speculated that the Giants grounds crew, knowing the Giants have more people who can bunt than the Tigers, sculpted the third base line with just a teensy bit of tilt just for this possibility — the sports equivalent of Building 7 conspiracy thinking. After an agonizing few seconds of staring at the wiggling little sphere that refused to roll foul, dejected Tiger infielders realized the ball was going to stay fair by just a couple of inches, and the third base umpire gave it the big gestured shout, “Fair ball!” The ruling left the bases loaded with nobody out, after which Brandon Crawford grounded into a double play which scored Hunter Pence from third for what turned out to be the winning run. That night, the game of baseball came down to a circle of grown men staring at a baseball rolling along a narrow dirt path with millions of dollars in the balance.
SPEAKING OF BASEBALL, and who isn't this week? I hope you will indulge me while I force upon you the following comments. I have to admit that I doubted the Giants could get to the World Series after Melky went down (and he better get a full share of the World Series money!), and I admit I never have gotten used to Zito as a dependable starter, and I thought the Cards and the Reds both had our boys down and out. But here they are world champs and I'm all the way on the band wagon.
I WISH the cameras wouldn't linger on dugout guys spitting. Do we really need close-ups of untaught jocks drooling out those cringe-inducing, stalactite-length loogies? I played lots of baseball as a kid and I don't remember any ostentatious spitting, let alone the public testicle adjustments you now see on national television. I noticed that the Tiger's managers didn't spit and they didn't re-organize their balls, at least not while the cameras were on them.
THE FOX TELECASTS? Horrible. Interminable interviews with players while the game was on — Romo rambled on so long I began to suspect it was some kind of weird practical joke — and that Pee Wee Herman lookalike shed no light whatsoever as he periodically appeared down by the dugout. The whole show was obviously produced by someone with no understanding of or appreciation for the game. Joe Buck and Tim McCarver (who appears to be senile) were so bad I watched with the sound off. Tech wizards say there's a way of getting Miller, Flem, Krup and Kuip's audio off your computer in sync with the television picture, but that feat is way beyond this guy's techno-skills. Getting back to player interviews: They're boring because if the players happen to say anything interesting or, more dangerously, funny, it will be deliberately misconstrued as Ozzie Guillan's remark about Castro's longevity was deliberately miscontrued, and it was merely a statement of the obvious. (Castro has lasted a long time, hasn't he?) But it got Guillan fired when the gusanos rose up in Miami and instantly West Coast idiots like Murf and Mack, the Dumb and Dumber of sports world, were demanding Guillan's head. Bruce Bochy, they say, is very funny in private, but his interviews are soooooo excruciatingly boring that he could get a talk show on KZYX. But Bochy did get off this one when he was asked if he knew Romo's last pitch to Miguel Cabrerra was going to be a fastball: “I would have died.” The Giants are wonderful to watch, a beguiling collection of affecting personalities, too, as much as we can glean of their real selves from the sports commentariat. Myself, I'd pay my way in simply to watch Crawford play shortstop, and I'll be at the big victory parade Wednesday up Market Street, waving my orange Bank of America rally flag with everyone else in The City.
DISTINCTIONS: First, can we mention that phenomenon is singular and phenomena is the plural, like criterion and criteria. Even TV newspeople always get that wrong. Didn't such people used to be literate? Didn't people used to know that? Re medical meth, it's been around a long time. Diet pills, uppers. Literal meth (methamphetamine hydrochloride) is sold as Desoxyn by Abbott, Inc. It is pure liquid meth in a plastic matrix the size and shape of a pill. The drug is released in the body and the “pill” is excreted by the user. Or soaking the pills overnight in a little water renders the drug injectable. Try getting a prescription for that. — Jeff Costello
KZYX AUDIO THERAPIST Dr. Richard Miller's deal to buy the Redwood Health Club has fallen through, but his group, and others, remain interested in reviving the foreclosed Fort Bragg spa although it requires a large investment in repairs. RHC is listed for sale by Coast realtor Barry Cusick for $690,000. It lost quite a few members to the tax-supported Starr Center when it opened just down the street.
WHENEVER A BOOKSTORE closes, book people everywhere feel the pain. When Cheshire closed in Fort Bragg we felt the loss all the way to Boonville. A very nice store run by very nice people. We're sorry to see them go.
A THREE-MAN poaching ring has been suppressed by Fish and Game after a two month investigation. The trio of spotlighters killed deer, elk and wild boar for sale to private buyers throughout Northern California.
“OPERATION HIGH HOG,” as Fish and Game dubbed the investigation, began after repeated complaints by ranch owners in Colusa, Butte and Glenn counties that their properties were being plundered by poachers. Game wardens were never able to get to the outback ranches in time to catch the thieves, but property owners were able to supply license plate numbers of the suspects' vehicles. With that information, Fish and Game put the suspects under surveillance that included use of airplanes and soon led investigators to the sale of the game meat to a market in Sacramento County and to a network of private buyers. Seven search warrants were served Saturday at the buyers' homes, where wardens found the meat in freezers.
ARRESTED were Jason Martinez, 37, of Elk Grove; Bryan Carrion (sic), 46 of Colusa, and Gerald Martin, 36, of Pollock Pines.
FISH AND GAME said the men were all convicted felons with prior fish and game violations. Investigators found illegal snares at Carrion's home and 38 firearms in Martin's possession. The meat buyers were not arrested, but F&G will recommend that the district attorney also charge the buyers with violating fish and game laws.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: “American prosperity looks like a function of virtue and energy, but the geographic turn tells us that it's mostly a function of white people with guns owning a giant chunk of well-irrigated, very well-harbored real estate off the edge of the World Island, bordering a hot land on one side and a cold one on the other. Really, you can't miss. Our geographic truth enters our songs and sagas even if it evades our sermons: O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain; this land is my land, from the redwood forest to the gulf-stream waters. The geographic truth beneath our prosperity is as naturally sung by our bards as the olive oils and wine-dark sea at the heart of Greek culture were sung by theirs.” — Adam Gopnik, “The Renaissance of Geographic History”
WITH THE BUD in the barn and Home Invasion Season commencing, Mendo law enforcement, throughout the summer and fall months to last week, has averaged at least a pot bust a day, sometimes half a dozen or more a day, nicely functioning to keep prices at a lucrative average of $2,400 a pound.
HEAR! HEAR! From the AVA comment line: “First Five, founded by the now disgraced ‘MeatHead’ dude from Archie Bunker, ranks as the slickest liberal phony baloney ‘children’s’ scam ever devised. In Humboldt they wine and dine and plead for funds while absolutely nothing goes to the neediest. Solution: disband the endless county Commissioners (unelected) and give 100% of the cigarette tax to the children and families needing childcare to work, healthcare premiums and stipends to play sports and attend camps… This is a solid gold plum for a very few lucky appointed commissioners in all 58 counties and the State level.”
BID FOR THE BISCUIT! November 15. Have you heard the good news? Seabiscuit Heritage Foundation is pleased to announce Seabiscuit's restored stud barn is to be nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. Would you like to help? To support this and other ongoing historic preservation efforts at Ridgewood Ranch, the home and final resting place of the legendary Seabiscuit, we created this fun new way for you to participate. Check out our collection of fantastic prizes, from Seabiscuit-related memorabilia to unique experiences, lodging, and Seabiscuit-related works of art. Browse and bid from anywhere. Find bargains while supporting our mission to preserve and protect the cultural legacy of Ridgewood Ranch, a 5,000 acre ranch nestled in the oak and old growth Redwood-studded woodlands of Northern California. Thank you for your support! Seabiscuit Heritage Foundation www.seabiscuitheritage.org Bidding opens Thursday, November 15 at noon Pacific, and closes Sunday, November 25 at 9 PM Pacific. Register now as a bidder, and we'll send you a heads-up when the auction's about to open.
POINT ARENA High School juniors (Class of 2014) will have to retake the math portion of their early exit exams because allegations of cheating convinced administrators that “there may have been cheating and/or disallowed activity during the testing period,” according to a letter PAHS principal Warren Galletti and Superintendent Colleen Cross sent to parents last week. According to last Thursday’s Independent Coast Observer story by Chris McManus, quoting from the letter, “March 2012 scores on the Math portion have been invalidated and they will retest in early November.” The retest will be conducted with students sitting farther apart from one another, implying that the cheating may have been student to student while whatever adult was (or wasn't) in the room gazed distractedly out into the fog bank. But given the pathetically low standardized test math scores at Point Arena High School — only 12% of the class in question were scored at proficient or better at math in the latest available numbers compared to 52% statewide — it makes more sense that the teachers would cheat on the tests given the results.
MENDOCINO COAST FURNITUREMAKERS is hosting their fifth annual sale of custom-made gifts. The show is inspired by the Christmas bazaars held in Northern Europe. Families come in from the cold, have something good to eat and warm to drink, and purchase beautiful handmade gifts. Finely made things are a source of delight for adults and children, and the events offer children an introduction to traditional objects, made by a woodworker’s skillful hands, and to the people who craft them. The show includes sculpture and wood carvings, turned vessels, boxes of various kinds, toys big and small, practical household items and photography. Opening Reception: December 8, 2012, 5-8 pm Where: Mendocino Art Center, Nichols Gallery 45200 Little Lake Street, Mendocino, CA 95460 (707) 937-5818 Founded in 1997, the Mendocino Coast FurnitureMakers are dedicated to the preservation and evolution of the fine art of furniture making. They specialize in custom-designed, one of a kind pieces in both traditional and contemporary styles. Using the finest materials and proven hand techniques, they provide customers with furniture to enhance their home interiors. Contact information for individual craftspersons at: Mendocino Coast FurnitureMakers P.O. Box 2536 Mendocino, CA 95460 www.mendocinofurniture.com
UNINTENTIONAL HILARITY in last week's Beacon-Advocate's account of a rare public meeting of the Mendocino Coast Humane Society included this line: “MCHS holds long awaited pubic meeting, which would be an odd public meeting even by Mendo standards. Less amusing but perfectly conveying the low farce that always accompanies the Society's dictatorial president, Jerry Karabensh: "...... Kissock's comments alleged that a volunteer had been accused of stealing cats from the shelter. Lizette Rice later said deputies were called and came to her house looking for cats. Rice said the deputy told her she was 'hated' at the shelter; she called shelter staff liars. Once order was restored, Mary Desautel said while she appreciated MCHS, she sees the same type of arguments and fostering of personal agendas at county government meetings...."
COAST HUMANE SOCIETY affairs prompt strong feelings because this guy Jerry Karabensh is so extremely high-handed, deciding most issues by himself and automatically ratified by his hand-picked board of directors. How an upstanding person like Ms. Rice could be said to be 'hated' by anyone could only occur in the context of Karabensh's bizarre management of the organization.
ON THE SUBJECT of animals, if a drunk is soooooo drunk he or she has to be arrested, shouldn't their dogs be permanently confiscated and put up for adoption? If the cops walk into a house where mom and pop are passed out on the floor and the baby's diapers haven't been changed for a week, the baby is removed, sometimes, if he's lucky, permanently.
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